20 Drupal Website Building RecipesIts always exciting to see how others are using drupal and creating websites, which are scalable, fast andstate of art. I usually learn a lot by reading the webite building case studies or recipes. Drupal being acommunity , information is shared. I have collected some 20 recipes which I liked and sharing here for myreaders. I am sure you will learn a lot from this. You can also contact the respective webmasters to getmore details.

1. Large and scalable drupal website.This is a case study about a large website Tween tribune. Its a large website with 5 million views permonth and must scale even more.Tweentribune.com

Optimize database queries and modulesUse Memcache for all database cache.Sessions which are typically stored in database in Drupal were also stored in memcache.Boost module to serve html content for anonymous usersUsing Lighttpd to serve static files like css, js, images.APC as the PHP accelerator was used.Using Linux shell, Munin and Nagios for monitoring.

Check the page to see how they implemented the solutions .

Tween Tribune Case study and Website building recipe .

2. Educational and social networking site on Drupal 6

Iheartadoption.org website has a social support networking feature where Users can create a profile,make status updates, create blog posts and photo albums, chat with other users, and make new friends.Because this section of the site is accessible only to birth parents, our users can talk openly about theirexperiences with each other. Using Drupal social communication tools, our counselors are able to engagewith their clients in real-time in a non-intrusive way. Other Features

On-line chat support: Users can chat with our licensed social workers to get answers to all theiradoption questions, all without leaving their browser.Facebook integration: Adoptive families can encourage their friends and families to spread the wordby liking their profile.Due date calculator: Pregnant women can get an estimate of their due date using our calculatorwidget.Counselor workflow: Our social workers can monitor the progress of their clients from accountcreation to publishing their profile, providing feedback along the way.

Read the website Recipe to see what modules were used and how the site was built.

3.Small Business website in DrupalThis website is a site for a small entrance doors dealer. The user could change the order of thenodes on the most pages with drag & drop. There is a slideshow on the front page, for theimplementation of the slider I wrote a little helper module. The site is build up on a complete nowtheme which is responsive.

Checkout the recipe and modules used

4.Ecommerce website using Drupal commerce

A professional network of nearly 33,000 residential real estate professionals from across theUnited States and around the globe. CRS provides agents with the tools, resources and strategiesthey need to help them guide buyers and sellers through the residential sales process. Essentialcomponents of this project include the ability to handle a wide variety of members, onlinelearning, e-commerce and geospatial search. Although most of this functionality was definedduring the planning phase, some components were added later. The flexibility of the Drupalplatform was therefore intrinsic to the success of the project. The website's target audiencesranges from current CRS Designees and potential CRS members to consumers looking for a CRScertified realtor.

Click here to see the details

Another ecommerce website using Drupal commerce module

Under.me is the online apparel store and fashion line of Bar Refaeli, one of the world's top modelsUnder.me sells great looking casual underwear of outstanding quality and design, at an affordableprice. The website was built and designed to reflect these values. The partners behind the venturewere focused on building a slick shopping experience. They were never short of ideas when itcame to marketing and building additional features, so they looked for an infrastructure that couldscale with their imagination

Click here to view the details

5.Twitter like website using DrupalDrupals Microblog module enables microblogging on Drupal sites using it. Users can publishmicroblog updates, follow and be followed by other users, and reply to other users' microblogupdates. Module also provides "public timeline" page as well as followers and following pages,and a block of "recent microblog updates." It does not (currently) provide an API for acceptingmicroblog updates from third party clients, nor does it attempt to push status updates to thirdparty sites - the focus is on microblogging within the community of users on the site.

6.File storage website like box.net or dropbox

Drupal has contributed module Media Mover. Media Mover allows you to take uploaded files andcopy them over to Amazon S3, which is a highly-scalable data storage system. Using this asstarting point you can create a file storage website using Drupal

7.Youtube Clone using drupalDrupal has a contributed module called FlashVideo

8.Friendfeed or tumblr CloneYou can create such websites using the Activity Stream module. Activity Stream builds alifestream, a "River of You", by aggregating all your social activities in one place. Whether it'sbookmarks on Del.icio.us, posts from Twitter or your blog, edits to wikis or enjoyed music andmovies, anything you create can be gathered into one easy-to-read stream. Every item becomes afull Drupal node, allowing them to be searched, promoted, commented upon, and managed justlike any other piece of content within Drupal.

9. "Ask the Expert" or Advice Column

Either you may want to creat"Ask the Expert" feature where the users could submit questions andan expert could give advice. There were a few things we really wanted to make this work well.

The expert had to be notified when a question was posted.The answered questions needed to be available in a Q&A format.There should be no administrator overhead in the process.The process had be governed by appropriate permissions.We wanted a customizable header for the question page.

We preferred a ready-made solution to creating our own module.It had to allow unanswered questions.It had to be extensible to more than one expert.

10. Create a simple "Yahoo Answers" no code, no modules required

If you want *anybody* to answer *any question* and create an open community like YahooAnswers then you can go through this recipe. This recipe does not require any code modificationsand its simple to implement. This recipe is for people who are very new to Drupal and by creatingsuch a website you will actually learn about Drupal.

11. Create a video hosting site like YouTube

A simple recipe showing how to create a video hosting website using Drupal . This recipe usesFlashVideo module but you can use other modules also like Video, Media Mover, FlashVideo

12. Create an image gallery using CCK and Views

Traditional way to create an image gallery using drupal. The modules used here are all verycommon and it will help you in long run if you use these modules, since as drupal gets update tonewer versions, these modules are most likely to be ported first. Uses

CCKViewsViews Bonus PackImagefieldImage CacheThickbox But you can even use lightbox 2 as its betterCustom pagers.

13. Howto: Node-based galleries with CCK and Views

Most Drupal-based Gallery solutions use Taxonomy to build sets of images; the resulting galleriesare Taxonomy pages that can be easily maintained and expanded, but are not available to thenode system: They can't be referenced from other nodes through a CCK node reference field, theycan't be tagged, they don't accept comments and so on. Thus in many cases a node based photogallery would be preferrable - if it would exist.

As usual, Drupal can solve this problem with a set of core and contributed modules. This Howto isa transcript of the screencast Photo galleries with Views Attach by Jeff Eaton, where Jeffdemonstrates how to to create node-based galleries with CCK and Views. In the end, this is one ofthe most advanced approach to publish images with Drupal, so there are tons of reasons toeducate the Drupal community about this approach.

14. Simple Contest Website

This recipe shows how to use Simple Contest module which provides basic functionality to run acontest based Drupal website.The main features includes are

Multiple contestsContest schedulesAutomatic or manual winner selectionIntegration with Userpoints, UC Coupons, UC Gift Certificates modules to give winners a compliment& more...

15. How to create a Single Blog using Drupal -

There's currently some debate in the Drupal community as to whether you should do this by usingthe Story Content Type or enable Drupal core's Blog Module which uses a Blog Content Type. For abasic site with a single blog the Blog Module can seem like overkill as it accommodates multipleblogs on a single site. However, if you elect to go without the Blog Module it can be a mystery howto display new Stories under a new blog section. In this article, I'll show you how to set up yourDrupal 6 site with a new front page and a section for a single blog.

Also check 20 must have modules when creating a Drupal Blog

16. Create image hosting site

Creating an image hosting site is much easier with Drupal. You can include Twitter sign in, Twitterpost, image slideshows and many of the functionality of a standard photo sharing site just by usingDrupal core and some contributed modules.

17. Create an Article Directory using Drupal18. Drupal Church Recipes (Audio Podcast)

This is a podcast , so its not a real recipe, but you can listen to it to get ideas. Mentions thefollowing modules .Views,CCK,,Calendar,Signup, Content Profile , Simplefeed, Filefield Podcast,SWF Tools, Filefield, Get ID3 , SWF Tools Screencase , Off Site Video Screencase , Organic Groups ,Simplenews , Ubercart, Image, Imagecache, Imagefield, Webform, Node Invite, HTMLbox,BUEditor, IMCE, FCKEditor, TinyMCE

19. Weekly Printing magazine via Crowd Sourcing

The main functionality of this website was a) Article creation and submission b) enable voting forarticles via social media until the submission deadline and c) distribution of the E-Paper edition tosubscribers. The website was built in two sprints each lasting two weeks. The site was initially notintended to have a responsive design but the fluid nature of using an agile project managementmethodology allowed the implementation of this fourth requirement in the second sprint. Clickhere to see the full details

20. Creating the Student Blog in Drupal using CloningFor students who are disorganized (that is, students whose backpacks resemble tumbleweed), the blog canalso be an organizational tool. Most importantly, though, blogs create a record of student work that can beaccessed at any time. As such, blogs provide a convenient window into both process (how students work)and product (the end results of student work). In this article by Bill Fitzgerald, we will see how to create astudent blog. Blogging in Drupal encompasses a range of learning activities. When incorporated into acourse as a regular part of the coursework, blogs provide an incredibly powerful means of tracking student

growth

Read this recipe to get the details

21. Classfieds Ads website using Drupal

With Classfieds Ads module this should be a piece of cake. Classified Ads provides a simple system to runa classified ads service on Drupal. With this module, users can create their free Classified Ads in the styleof craigslist. Classified Ads may belong to one or more categories (e.g. "For Sale", "Want to Buy"), definedas taxonomy terms. Classified Ads lists are completely sortable and customizable, with or without Views.Automatic warning notifications inform users about the status of their ads: half-life, expiring soon,expired, impending purge, purged, ... Some features

Renewable expired ads during the 'grace period'Simple taxonomy-based browsingAd expiration depending on category selectionPer-user classified ads lists custom lists totally sortableLength-limited body text with live counter of charactersCCK, Context, Token, Panels and Views support. Check the project page below to see how you canuse additional modules to further enhance the functionality of your website

http://drupal.org/project/ed_classified

22. Hotel Booking website using Drupal and Ubercart If you want to create a hotel booking website you can use Ubercart module and http://drupal.org/project/uc_hotel module. The uc_hotel module is a hotel booking system for Drupal andUbercart. It does not manage individual rooms, but rather lets you create room types, and set how many ofeach type are available for specific dates on the calendar. Each room type can be assigned a different rate,or be based off a single master rate and have a modifier applied to adjust that rate by a certain amount.You can vary the rate based on the number of adult and child occupants. The module also features an add-ons and upgrades sub module that allows you to bundle other date-based upgrades with the booking suchas tennis lessons or spa treatments.

I would recommend this for small websites , if you are going for larger websites, then you may need tocustomize the module or even build it from scratch

http://drupal.org/project/uc_hotel

Also checkout the MERCI module http://drupal.org/project/merci