Hello!
It's being two days as I'm looking for a CMS. After seeing many I came to conclusion that Drupal and Geeklog are the best. I discovered a new name Plone in the forums, going to see what is it. Anyway, here are my suggestions. I didn't install and tried Drupal, so sorry if these features are available, I made my conclusions from the documentation and from the look of other sites using Drupal that I saw.
I. Suggestions.
1. I would like two options in the Blog. One option is to leave a comment to which only a certain group can answer. The second option is to leave a comment in the message board for all to answer. I would like the comments to go into the main message board where other than the Blog itself topics are discussed. I would like both types of comment to go into one category and section, yet, at the same time I want one to be able to choose which type of comments does one wants to see.
2. I would like to be able to use PHPBB as I believe, that many dedicated to one thing are bound to do something much better then many trying to do many things.
3. I would like a possibility to post a link to Blogs authors' profiles and to choose which one is shown by default both with the picture.
4. I need to generate a different HTML code for each item of the navigation menu based on its order. I need a way to know that certain item corresponds to the currently viewed page. I need to be able to switch items elements between two HTML codes for the rest.
I'm not familiar with the PHP. If you can write the code, please write it for me for the 1.2.3.4.
II. Ways to make the Drupal more popular.
Based on my own impression, I seriously believe that Drupal is either the best or can become it. Yet, another CMS are much more popular. I believe this things can improve the situation.
1. Make things visible. Make a link to Drupal Source forge and to the projects in development on every page.
2. Make a set of Templates that include all possible features of Drupal base installation. It easier to delete or to copy and paste then to write something by yourself.
3. Make thumbnails and large screenshots for every template in the templates repository.
4. Make a list of all the features of everything available in the Drupal base installation. It's very important because now you don't know what is it, you only rely on the site look and a few words.
5. Think about redesigning the site. Look at the Mambo site. Red colors are much better then blue, they worm. You look at the Drupal site and you see something official, something what is done by advanced for advanced, something what is not easy to use.
6. Documentation, documentation, documentation. To create it, make a FAQ Collaborative Project and let all answer any questions. Edit it sometimes and steadily an awesome documentation will emerge. That is like you can find help in the forums, only that this way the answers remain and are organized.
7. Think about a new name. I'm serious, the current name attracts only after you've seeing what it can do. The name shall leave a foundation for perception. Something like Mumbo, Typo 3 are cool names. Even something like Drupal 4 would be better. You just add a number and perception changes.
Sincerely,
Colonel Bill
Comments
One of the things I think
One of the things I think you may be a little misguided on is the type of project this is...
Drupal is, imho, an open-source CMS toolkit that is remarkably easy to implement. I think you're classifying it as a commercial CMS. I believe once you understand the delicate difference between the two, you'll have a better idea of whether or not it's right for you.
Cheers,
Kieran
Can you explain the
Can you explain the difference to me? Other than the licence fees...
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I.4 should be easy
If I read correctly, your suggestion number 4 shouldn't be difficult to implement in a theme; override the function responsible for theming the navigation menu to output alternating class attributes. Drupal already tells you which menu item corresponds to the current page using the 'active' class - the default CSS file already highlights that menu item in black (as opposed to the blue shades used for other menu items) - perhaps the theme you are using doesn't take advantage of this?
phpBB integration has been discussed many times before; use the search function for a selection of topics on it.
Asking for someone to implement functionality for you is perhaps expecting too much; it's not inconceivable that someone will see your suggestion and think 'that's a good idea, I'll do that', but if that's going to happen, it'll happen anyway. If you want a piece of functionality that nobody else seems really bothered by, consider hiring a Drupal consultant (some are listed at http://drupal.org/services) - they will probably be happy to discuss implementation of any feature you desire, for the right price.
On the subject of templates (I presume you mean themes), the default theme, bluemarine, should support all features in the Drupal core.
I think the blue looks fine. ;) My Drupal site at http://www.wolfpuppy.org.uk/ is primarily blue (a custom theme that I'm still working on, derived from box_grey). I like Drupal as a name, too. Stylistic opinions are all very well, but phrasing them as a problem that needs to be improved seems a little much. The fact that people are more excited by big-number releases of things is not a reason to make big-number releases, btw - an incremental version numbering scheme makes it far clearer which releases are compatible with each other to various degrees. This is why Red Hat Linux made it up to version 9.0, and Debian is only just coming up to releasing 3.1 ;)
I wasn't quite sure what you meant by some of your feature suggestions.. could you explain 1 and 3 better? Your language is not very clear; if it were clearer, you would perhaps get some suggestions on how to implement them.
"Red colors are much better
"Red colors are much better then blue, they worm."
Gah. I can't remember the last red site I saw that I liked. I use blue as well - it's a soft colour that looks professional, goes with almost everything and is exceptionally easy on the eye. If there's a problem with the site, it's that it doesn't immediately head out to impress with style, but rather get straight into the stuff that most people are here to read.
I have a website. It's very blue indeed.