mydesign and query to external db from admin_site

Monday 25 January 2010 6:52:32 am

Hi guys!
I'm new to ezpublish and I'm playing with it.
I found it is very powerfull and flexible,but it's a little bit hard to use and to make it fit my needs.
This is my project:
I'd like to write an extension (hopefully) to manage several users' book collection.
I should write data on an external db and of course I have to use my own design.
1st problem: the design
At the moment I installed the plain_site contents and I wrote my tpl files in ezroot/design/plain_site. But, should I make an extension for that too? I mean 1 extension for the design and the other one for functionalities?
2nd problem: the external db.
I was able to make a public site_access query an external db to fetch and to store data, by jumping from the default db to the external, but at the moment I have no idea on how to use the admin side to interact with the external db. Any advice? Maybe I have to write my own admin_page in my extension to insert books?
Thank you in advance
Any suggestion about the design of the app will be very appreciated as well!