[support] Some questions re custom PHP pages in Drupal

[Donn]

Thanks for your feedback Walter,

I should have said that I have not yet used Drupal, but I get the impression 
that it has many ways to display elements and it's a matter of learning the 
way it does things.

To anyone on the list:

To further clarify: I would need to code a system that:
1.  Allows only logged-in users to access a custom 'content type'. i.e. prompt 
for login when not logged-in.
2. Have many 'pages' within that 'content type' that provide the back and 
forth flow of things like shopping systems.

On point 2, there are two approaches:
a) Many PHP files, each doing a certain thing: login.php, showproducts.php, 
basket.php, errors.php, etc. Where each one would hook-into Drupal's way of 
showing forms and theming.
b) One PHP file that handles all of that using a switch or if-then-else 
mechanism so that it shows various 'faces' according to the results of 
GET/POST/COOKIES and so forth.

What's the best approach?

I suppose I could create an iframe (ugh!) content-type the content of which is 
my own system served from some other directory entirely - That would mean 
minimal css to maintain the look, but leave the Drupal home website on all 
surrounding sides.

\d