[development] Implementing without nodes

[Victor Kane]

Feijó,

It sounds like a fair question.

One can start building from scratch, or one can use a framework to leverage
reuse.

So when you are trying to leverage a framework, you gain only by re-using
it, that is, using it.

Drupal differs from other CMS's in that it allows the non-programmer to
create arbitrary content items (business objects) with arbitrary fields:
nodes. The business objects are persisted for you.

If you are working with pure CRUD functions in php, then perhaps you should
think twice about using a framework, with its huge productivity and
trade-offs in favor of non-programming prototyping.

But Drupal is so flexible that it does have an answer for you: you can make
forms with the FormAPI, set callbacks with hook_menu, even leverage the
Drupal validation and submit support, etc. See Chapter 10 of Pro Drupal
Development (
http://www.amazon.com/Pro-Drupal-Development-John-VanDyk/dp/1590597559) for
some examples.

So even though you might feel more at home with something like the Cake
framework for what you are describing, you could leverage Drupal forms and
persistence and even the upcoming Drupal 6 database schema api ... all
without using nodes.

Victor Kane
http://awebfactory.com.ar

On Dec 18, 2007 9:45 PM, Feijó Legendas <patrao at legendas.feijo.info> wrote:

> I'm trying to figure out how to implement several modules, that do not use
> nodes at all
>
> I need to set lots of forms, this forms are used to edit, insert or search
> my tables
>
> I'm having dificulty controling the data flow of my forms.  What hooks I
> use? I try hook_form, but any code I set there isnt executed.
>
> Every site about hook_form, uses node! Can I do that without nodes?
>
>
> TIA
>
> Feijó
>
>
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