Kirby for a member directory?

Kirby 2 Solved ✅
1

Hi,

I´m planning to use Kirby for the website of an international organization.

This website will contain the usual content like a news section, information about the organization etc. But it will also contain a directory of the approx. 350 members of this organization.

The information about every member will include his name, a portrait photo, contact info and a short “About Me” text.

The organization is hierarchically structured as follows

Country Group A
  Local Area Group 1
    Member 1
    Member 2
    ...
  Local Area Group 2
    Member 1
    Member 2
    ...
  ...
Country Group B
  Local Area Group 1
    Member 1
    Member 2
    ...
  ...
...

I ask myself a few questions about this project an if it is feasible, to build this website/directory with Kirby. These are my questions and I would be very grateful for any feedback:

1st question: Kirby or database?
Should I use Kirby for this directory or should I use a database

2nd question: Users or pages?
If I use Kirby, should I build the directory with users and custom fields or should I build the directory with one page for every user?

3rd question: Directory structure?
If I use pages, should they all live in one directory or should I simulate the hierarchical organization with a matching directory structure? I plan to implement “overview pages”, that show all members on country and local area level. Would this be easier with a matching directory structure?

Many thanks in advance

Thomas

2

For 350 pages, you don’t need a database. Check out this post, for example: Server response time

If you simulate the hierarchical organization, it has the advantage, that you don’t need to filter a complete folder and don’t need to implement the fields to filter by. So if there is no reason not to use that structure, go with it, I’d suggest.

Users or pages: If you don’t need a login for those user, no need to create users and you have more freedom to organize the members.

3

Hi Sonja,

thanks a lot for your quick answers.

If you allow, one more questions:

It will be no problem to implement the fields to filter by – Country and Local Area Group – I have them available anyway in the database the member data still live in.

The site will have a “members only” area, therefore I will probably need users to let the members login into this area. It is planned, that the members should have the ability to update/edit their contact data, “About Me” text, etc. As these users will be non-panel users, I will have to build forms and a controller, to let them access and edit their user data in this “members only” area. Is this possible?

4

Yes, you can create users without panel access, see the docs on roles and control everything with your own forms and controllers. It would be easier to use the Kirby user functionality for this, but you might as well create users from custom pages.