Do I need to learn PHP?

[directjj]

Do I need to learn PHP in order to use and customize SugarCRM ?

When would I use PHP and when would I use Studio?

Thanks.

[kpit]

You do not need to Learn PHP to use SugarCRM only to cusomize it yourself.

[y2chuck]

It depends on how much customization you want. If you just want to add some custom fields and other simple things, no you shouldn't need to learn PHP.

If your going to want to make larger customizations (like re-arrange sub-panels, build modules etc) you probably should learn PHP.

I didn't know PHP at all when I started with Sugar and just learned bits over time and it greatly reduces frustration by knowing how to navigate through code.

[directjj]

Thanks,

I have read about 40 Pages of Teach Yourself PHP in 24 hours.

>>It is VERY easy to customize Sugar using Studio for simple stuff like layout changes and custom fields (text, dropdowns etc). You can even have Sugar audit custom fields to keep track of who changed what and when.

Are you a professional programmer?

[y2chuck]

no, web designer and project manager. I've built ASP scripts (submission forms and simple stuff), but I'm not a programmer.

[lambertr]

It really, really, really helps.
Sometimes even the concept of a "simple change" isn't that simple and you'll have to get into the code a bit to really get an understanding of what is going on.

Moving and positioning items on the pages requires you go into the HTML templates in the modules directories most of the time. With just a little tweaking of the associated PHP code, you can do some fairly interersing stuff (which will generally break on the next release ), but once you start down the road to doing modifications, you can find out how to make the changes ito more permanent patches to be applied to new updates.

Of course by mucking around in the code, you do run the risk of blowing something up, but hey, that's why we all run development sites.