Thread

Quick heads up, as this is my first post (yeah!), please bear with me if my questions/comments aren’t exactly clear…

I’m a newbie when it comes to ExpressionEngine (obviously), but have been mulling around the forums and the EE Help chat for a little while now. I need help with determining how to structure/setup my EE site: Drink it Here (http://www.drinkithere.com).

The concept is relatively simple. Drink it Here will provide daily drink specials and events (both recurring and scheduled…think “Trivia Night” and concerts) for a particular set of cities, for everyday of the week. As a quick reference for a visual setup, see: http://www.lawrence.com/drinkspecials/. The whole draw with Drink it Here ties to the fact that it’s quick to browse, easy to follow, and free to use.

- Should the channels be setup around the days of the week, with the businesses being entries inside?

- Should the channels be setup around the businesses, with the days of the week being entries inside?

- How can I ensure that the setup is scalable and future-proof when and if I continue to expand?

- Besides Matrix are there any add-ons right off hand that would seem to fit the mold of this idea?

This has been a pet project of mine for quite a while, but it wasn’t until recently that it has turned into a serious venture. Any help, suggestions, etc are extremely appreciated! I’ve searched and search for a CMS that would do the trick, and I’m honestly excited to let EE handle it. I’d be happy to post my working comps if it would help paint a better picture.

Thanks in advance…cheers!

Are you in for a world of pain/joy/frustration… I’d be thinking of your data as objects, so…

Channel: Businesses - Name, Address, Phone, Website, Email, Neighbourhood
Channel: Events - Business (Playa Field linked to Business Channel), Date, Detail, Special or Event (category or custom field)

That’s all I’ve got for the moment !

Welcome to the ExpressionEngine forums, Maxlind!

We’re glad to welcome you to the community, and appreciate your business.

Since you’re new to the EE forums, have you seen EEWiki:// How to Post a Support Request?

Thanks for the assist, Cheif.

One thing you’ll learn early on Maxlind, is that there are multiple ways to achieve the same goal. Is this going to be a site you maintain yourself, or something you hand off to a client? What makes the most sense to you?

How are you going to display the content? Is the enduser going to be looking for something to do on a Wednesday, or are they just wanting to see content based on a city/location?

Down the line, are you going to want to use the MSM based on the city?

Thanks for the quick feedback! Sounds like I should have put this in the CodeShare forum…I’m slowly figuring all this out 😊. I’ll be using EE 2.1.3. In addition to this post, I’ve reached out to Pixel and Tonic for assistance/advice.

The content is going to be maintained internally, but I may choose to have the option for users/businesses to register to update content on their own. There are multiple scenarios like this where the hope is to eventually rely on users/businesses to provide content in various ways.

I was hoping to avoid MSM if possible. My initial thought was to set it up like this:
Channels - Cities
Channel Entries - Businesses in those cities (using Matrix for each day of the week)
> Inside the Matrix:
  - Day of the week
  - Drink special icon (dropdown selection)
  - Drink special
  - Recurring event icon (dropdown selection)
  - Recurring event

Mainly I just worry that I’m going to start the whole process one way, only to find out that I should have done it differently (although, maybe this is the case for quite a few EE users).

Again, any and all advice is greatly appreciated!

Mainly I just worry that I’m going to start the whole process one way, only to find out that I should have done it differently (although, maybe this is the case for quite a few EE users).

Been there, done that. You learn over time better ways of working on things, and you’ll fine tune how you do things. I’ve been working with EE and its predecessor pMachine since 2002 - and I still find better ways of doing things.

Tell you what, let’s chat a bit about working on a local site for testing things out, and how to use the Agile Theme to familiarize yourself with EE in general. Have you looked for help on any of Ryan Irelan’s sites or http://train-ee.com ? I have http://eebeginners.com and http://eehowto.com as brain dumps for things I want to remember and use for support issues.

Under ordinary circumstances, these kinds of questions would be more on topic in the CodeShare forum, but I can defer moving this there until you get a bit more advice. Sound good?

Are you on a Mac or a PC? When I say create a local install, do you know how to do that? (Trying to gauge your level of experience.)

I’ve actually been referencing both the Mijingo screencasts (http://mijingo.com/products/screencasts/learning-expressionengine-2-complete-series/) and the Train-ee book, Building an ExpressionEngine 2 Site - Small Business (http://www.train-ee.com/courseware/books/)

I’m on a Mac, and setup a local install with MAMP from directions/advice I found here: http://ellislab.com/forums/viewthread/170567/. Although, I’m still getting used to MAMP and it’s directory structure, so if there’s a good tutorial/article on using it please pass it on. With that install, I’ve been following along with the Train-ee book (not quite done, probably halfway through).

There are a lot of things that are slowly but surely becoming familiar. I feel like diving into a local install that runs more or less my idea is where I need to be…or do you think I should follow the entire book to become more familiar with EE itself?

maxlind,

There are a lot of things that are slowly but surely becoming familiar. I feel like diving into a local install that runs more or less my idea is where I need to be…or do you think I should follow the entire book to become more familiar with EE itself?

One of the benefits of MAMP is that you are not limited to one site. You can create many sites with many different instances of EE installed.

I would suggest creating a second site and installing EE in this directory with the Agile theme installed. That will give you a fully installed EE site you can learn from its structure etc.

There is a lightbulb moment in your learning curve. You will get there, just bear with it.