marketplace for volunteers

[Vadim]

Vadim: Next Task - to create on-line service for people who search for volunteering and organizations who try to find volunteers. I guess that this task is not very original and rather close to a "a job application site", which I saw in your notes about Fabrik here http://extensions.joomla.org/extensi...YWJyaWsiO30=

So, my first question is: what should I learn in your tutorial to be prepared to realize such project?

And second question - Few years ago I realized such service in Access, is it possible to convert it in Fabrik and how?

cheesegrits There's not really any way of converting an Access based project automatically. You could use it as a starting point, if you wanted to import the data and tables as CSV. But it would probably be easier to just start again.

What version of J! and Fabrik are you using?

Your question is very popular here, so it is easy to add answers as my signature, check it.
If I should start from beginning, please, answer at my first question:
what should I learn in your tutorial to be prepared to realize such project?Maybe you have link to realized projects "a job application site" on Fabrik, which you mentioned in your advertising? or it was just an advertising?

 

[rob]

Have you read:
http://fabrikar.com/forums/index.php?wiki/design-strategy/

This is how I approach every new project I do:

Work out exactly what you want to achieve! That sounds obvious but it really isn't. Pencil and paper only! Work out who will be using your application and what tasks they will have to achieve.

Then describe each of those requirements in terms of objects and relationships (see the wiki article for what I mean by objects and relationships)

This will give you the database structure for your application. At this point I either have a sketch or diagram of the database tables and their relationships.

Take a break . Go sit in a park, think about things a little. I often find this really important to get some perspective on the project.

Come back Review the list of who will be using the app and the tasks they have to do, does your database design match these? Did you sit in the park make you realise that userY also has to do taskX? If so revisit your database design and alter it.

Iterate over the design process as long as needed until you feel confident with what you have, and that any future requirements can be incorporated into your current database design

At this point I tend to sketch out (yup pencil and paper still!) all the pages that I am going to implement. Agaiin this may raise questions about your database design, as you realize that userX needs to do taskY. Don't hesitate to revise things now, later on it becomes more complex to do so.

Then go through all the tutorials you feel are relevant to your design.

Now you can start building in Fabrik. I tend to build out each of my lists without any joins or anything complicated. I also start to add in some test data at this point, its important to realistic data here, as if can often show up layout issues, that you might not see otherwise.

If you get stuck with a specific idea or feature don't hesitate to ask in the forum.

re access to mysql I saw this page which might be useful:
http://www.kitebird.com/articles/access-migrate.html#TOC_4

-Rob

 

[Vadim]

Thank you! It was interesting and read with a pleasure. At the same time it looks like there are no links to job applications services on fabrik to share, ye? Well, I'll try to design it later, I'll come back to this topic.

 

[Tessa]

Hi Vadim,

Looks like this project is possible. I like to begin my projects with a database flowchart, using Microsoft Visio. It allows you to create a relational database table and see where all your foreign keys are, and what values all your primary keys are. It is much easier to get through Fabrik with this design layout. And knowing all the data types for each field. Is this going to be integers only? A field? Drop down?

Do you understand the concept of Database Normalization?

You have to be very careful when designing this.

Good luck!

I would suggest creating a test site and just starting it and test out everything and get familiar with the extension.

Or you can continue to put 7 posts of yours for every 10 posts on the forum, making it unfair for others.... your choice.

Good luck and I know you will do great on your project!!

 

[Vadim]

Thank you for your comments Tessa! I'm in a process of "collecting knowledge" before I start, so your recommendations are in time. If anybody else can share with smth useful for such project, you are welcomed!

 

[Tessa]

Thank you for your comments Tessa! I'm in a process of "collecting knowledge" before I start, so your recommendations are in time. If anybody else can share with smth useful for such project, you are welcomed!

You are welcome. I've been in your situation before and grown a long ways since I started with Fabrik, I think about 6 months ago.

Once you understand the basics and the concept of how it works, it gets very easy to build an application for your site.

Just don't expect all your questions to get answered when the only people that work on the forums are the ones spending all hours of the night and day working on fixing bugs and extending Fabrik, as well as creating new plugins per user requests. It is hard to keep up with forum questions while doing all this other work.

But they do a great job keeping the forum up to date and clean, for people who don't take advantage of it.

 

[Vadim]

Tessa, I'm very impressed by your progress during just 6 months! I started to use Fabrik about 2 years ago, and now have needs to deep my knowledge, which are much less than yours.