By K-Otto on

Hi everybody,

Let's cut to the chase:

What are some of the most common new user questions (technical and otherwise)? I'm trying to put together a Top 20 list.

Here's what I have so far:

    What is Drupal?
    Why use Drupal?
    What is a module?
    What is the Drupal Forum?
    What are some examples of sites that use Drupal?

Let me also note that I'm a newbie myself. Any help would be appreciated. Thanks!

⋅ Categories: Drupal 5.x

Comments

vm’s picture

vm commented

I don't find any of those as being in the top 20, except for maybe..... maybe ....... examples of Drupal sites, and even that one would be cutting it close to being in the top 20. If you want to create a list of this nature, just scan the forums one page at a time and look for similar questions in the titles.

coreyp_1’s picture

coreyp_1 commented

From New Users? How about: HELP! I TOOK MY SITE OFFLINE AND NOW I CAN'T LOGIN!

- Corey

vm’s picture

vm commented

good point! at that stage you can just use this as reference for the top new users questions , pick from any of these Troubleshooting FAQ

apsivam’s picture

apsivam commented

OR may be "I removed login block how can I login now?"
--
Cheers,
Sivanandhan, P. (a.k.a. apsivam)

matt_harrold’s picture

matt_harrold commented

1. Which folder do I FTP my old pages to?

Quite a few clients have asked this question, demonstrating a total lack of understanding of what Drupal does.

When I start to explain that it is better to create new pages within Drupal, they think Drupal is limited.

Only when they hear the whole story do they fully appreciate how primitive a static html page is, and how powerful Drupal is.

2. Why is Drupal so slow?

This is another question I see often, and one I ask myself sometimes! I've found that if a Drupal site is hosted on a decent machine, normal caching is turned on, css is aggregated, and the PHP accelerator works, I can get "close" to static page performance.

Clients (and hosting providers!) need an understanding of the difference between static and dynamic, and the various factors that affect performance of their site.

Both of these questions centre on the concept of static versus dynamic websites.

modul’s picture

modul commented

It's a bit scary that "Why is Drupal so slow?" ranks among the top-20 questions. I don't know if it does rank among them, but I would be willing to believe so. Whether or not Drupal is hosted on a decent machine and whether or not the PHP accelerator works, are two things which the average site owner cannot influence. Caching and CSS aggregation are definitely worthwhile, but I have the feeling that it is still the heavy demands which Drupal exerts on the server which cause the speed problem. I used to run a Joomla site on the same server on which I am now running Drupal, and although I still prefer Drupal for its more professional "skeleton", I also feel that Joomla was a clear winner as far as speed is concerned.

In another (long) thread, the Drupal Gods ask what would be the most important improvements expected by the users in Drupal 6. For me, the answer is simple: on places 1 up to 500 I would put Speed, Speed, and Speed. After that, fill in your own desiderata.

shaunak’s picture

shaunak commented

Q> "I promoted a page to "front page" and made it sticky still other nodes/stories/pages show up on the home page. I want just that page/story to show up."

A> Administer > Site configuration > "scroll down"> default front page > point to the node

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
A little sincerity is a dangerous thing, and a great deal of it is absolutely fatal.
Oscar Wilde

modul’s picture

modul commented

Drupal itself is more or less reasonably sort of somehow here and there a little bit documented. The recent book by Van Dyk c.s. has given me a sigh of relief. But still, it ought to have been part of the Drupal package itself, imho. What is the point in writing highly versatile, highly complex code, and then throwing it into the world without a good, thorough, well written documentation? It's like Boeing "publishing" a new plane without a shred of documentation.

Now, as I said, Drupal itself is slowly being sort of documented, but when you look at the majority of the modules, jeeeezz... Very often it's not even clear What they do, not to mention How you should go about implementing them. There are modules available which literally state: "Documentation follows". This is so tiring, so not done... Hence, no doubt one of the top-20 questions would be: "Where is the manual? What does it do? Why was this programmed?"