guidance for a product site

Hi,
I am currently developing a site for an industrial products manufacturer, with the following main features:

1. SWF embed and rotation on the homepage and some inside pages (to display timeline movies etc.)
2. Feedback form
3. Product descriptions - The products are divided into categories (or better "tagged?"...since they may belong to multiple categories) and the main page of every category displays a short excerpt of the product description in a 2 column "grid view" with a more>> link. On clicking on it, the product page with a product image on the right side is displayed.

- Products
--- Category1 Grid view
----- Product detail page
----- Product detail page
----- Product detail page
--- Category2 Grid view
----- Product detail page
----- Product detail page
----- Product detail page
.
.
.
.

Similarly, there is another section called "solutions" which will have a similar structure, but will use a template different from that of products.

Can anybody guide me on how to achieve this? This is akin to Wordpress excerpts for posts of certain category displayed in a 2 column grid, but for products. One important thing is multiple categories possible for each product. There are about 50-60 products and 10-15 solutions. No online selling is involved, only display.

I initially tried (and am trying) to use Drupal on client insistence, but struggle to template it properly, so turning to MODx. I know MODx only superficially (never built live sites - only experimented on my local server with it) and am impressed by the capabilities, so my next hope is MODx...
Thanks
icubyx

Oh and another hurdle is the time-crunch, having wasted much time in getting it up and running with Drupal. :’(
Any help is much appreciated
- icubyx

1. SWF - Have a look at SWFObject or JQuery (as mentioned elsewhere by dev_cw)

SWFObject - http://modxcms.com/SWFObject-1815.html - I’m not sure it can do the cycles

jquery cycle plugin - http://www.malsup.com/jquery/cycle/ - will definitely do cycles but for images - AM NOT sure about SWF

2. Feedback form - Have a look at eform snippet

http://modxcms.com/eForm-1003.html - download
http://wiki.modxcms.com/index.php/EForm - wiki
http://modxcms.com/forums/index.php?topic=7521 - support forum

3. Product descriptions

Have you had a look at Ditto? I believe it can do this.

Probably the approach to take is to create containers that will act as categories for your products. Create documents, category 1, category 2, etc, and specify these as containers. You would then create the product documents (children) that will have the product category documents as their parents.

You can place your Ditto calls on the main page of every category. Using Ditto, you will get nice product listings that are highly customizable (using templates). Sorry cannot provide more info, just pointing out stuff you can start with/think of

4. "Solutions" section - you can use a different template for this. Or, you can have the same template but use different CSS style sheet to to change how it will look

Have a look at Ditto here:
http://ditto.modxcms.com/index.php

You can also use ajaxsearch to facilitate product search

You can use TVs to create tags for your products. In this way, products can belong to multiple categories

Sorry if am not very clear. Explore the forums and the above to see if you can find more info. If I come across more info, or specific examples I’ll post them here.

Cheers

/k

Hi Kongondo,
These are very helpful pointers. I will surely look into these.
One thing I notice is that a query for help on the modx forums seldom goes without helpful replies, which is very different from Drupal or Wordpress forums. Of course the WP universe will usually have some solution already up there if you really search hard, but on Drupal, nada...
Way to go!
- icubyx