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By asdfghjklñ on
I'm thinking about Drupal for a school website. We've got a traditional CMS running very well (e107... I love it), but I really want to try to improve the community aspects of the site, and to make it more student/teacher orientated, and to see if they can make it grow rather than me doing all the development.
From what I've read so far, I think I could use:
- pages, for the brochure info about the school + monthly bulletin +
- admin blog, set up as a 'news section'
- multi-user blogs, for each teacher; to inform or start a class discussion (students responding by comments).
- forums, for student-led discussion; perhaps a forum for each year group, or a forum per subject.
- group blogging, for class-wide or school-wide discussion.
- wiki for class-wide collaborative projects; making topical pages of information.
- stories, for teachers to post teaching articles, examples of children's work, and a class diary kind-of-thing.
But I have questions!
1/
Why do none of the input boxes have a bbcode bar? Is the choice either nothing or a wysiwyg editor? If so, do the editors work well enough for children (and teachers) to use? Is TinyMCE better than the other one? Is the script they write very bloated? Would it be possible for users to copy/paste simple word docs into these editors? Is it easy to upload, use and manage images and files using them?
2/
Do I understand correctly that each member has their own upload folder for images and attachments? I like the concept of that very much, but how does having a thousand folders affect the server performance?
3/
Related to Q2, what happens when 60 children leave each year and I delete their accounts - do all their posts, contributions and uploads get deleted too? If so, how will that affect the threading of discussions?
4/
I just watched a video at blip.tv. Whilst editing the Garland theme, the guy had a colour wheel displayed, and was changing the theme in real time. I can't replicate that in my own installation. Was it some kind of Mac voodoo? It was pretty damn cool.
5/
How does multi-language work? I don't mean just changing the interface; I mean authoring two versions of selected content. For instance, the 'page' module will be used for about fifty brochure pages which need to be in English and Spanish. Users need to be able to switch between the page versions using a drop-down selector or flag icon. If I was reading about the school facilities in English, clicking the language selector should take me to the same page in Spanish.
6/
The theme files look horrendously complicated. Do I need to know php, or can noobs usually work it out and then copy/paste stuff to change themes? Is there a set bunch of 'core' css elements, or is each theme different?
7/
I would definitely need a categorised downloads section for hundreds of pdf files. Does one exist? If so, does it have good management tools for the downloads, as they are constantly being updated and outdated?
8/
Are there 'normal' plugins for this beast? Like gallery, calendar, upcoming events, helpdesk, links directory, etc?
I downloaded DrupalEd, but I think I'd rather start from scratch rather than be locked into that theme and organisation. Plus I feel like if I don't set it up myself, I won't learn or understand the system as much.
Thanks for your time answering these queries.
Comments
can't edit?
Hmmm... well here's the first problem I've noticed.
The first post isn't editable? That's a bit strange!
Anyway, just to say that I figured out Q4 - the colour wheel.
It was the download method setting.
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editing of nodes is not permissable on drupal.org. This allows the context of comments to remain relevant to the Original Post. This of course does not have to be the case on a site you build with Drupal.
As a side note: comments can be edited until someone responds to a comment you've made. Hence your inability now, to edit the comment above.
on your questions:
1) There is no core editor. There are a few different types of editors, including a bbcode editor in the downloads area. Test them on a test site to find the one that will best suit your needs.
2) your assessment is incorrect from core. All files uploaded go into the core /files/ folder.
3) yes, if you remove the node that holds the upload, the upload is also removed. if you remove the user and not the content, the content remains.
4) you've answered
5) multilanguge shoudl work the way you seem to expect it to. Test on a test site the features provided. For Drupal 5 there are at least two methods with two different modules. i18n and localization. Drupal 6 will have multilanguage built into core. However Drupal 6 is not ready for production use and there is no release date set.
6) There is a themeing section in the handbook as well as a plethora of viodeocasts on the subject. This information can be found by clicking on the handbooks link at the top of drupal.org. You do not need to know php to create or manipulate themes. you need to know HTML and CSS and have time and patience on your side to learn the PHPTemplate themeing system. The only PHP you need to know is already in the file. If you delete the variable, like $content, then your content will not show.
7) investigate the webfm.module in the downloads area and test it on a test site to see if it will suit your needs
8) yes, investigate the downloads area using the downloads tab at the top of drupal.org
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My posts & comments are usually dripping with sarcasm.
If you ask nicely I'll give you a towel : )
something else now
> 2) your assessment is incorrect from core. All files uploaded go into the core /files/ folder.
I wrote a further question elaborating on this point, but then found a module which allows users to have their own folder (named automatically using their user id), which has a size limit set and filetypes. It plugins into TinyMCE, so that they can only navigate/add/delete in their folder. I think there is another module which allows images and files to be attached to posts too.
However, I'd like to ramble about something else that I don't understand.
The more I use this Drupal 'forum', the more I realise is completely sucks - it has no features at all. Is there a conceptual reason for this? I mean, for the last ten years traditional websites have been centred around very powerful forums like phpbb and SMF. Drupal seems to be going against the grain of that? Every new user here must be asking themselves why, if Drupal is so powerful, doesn't it have a decent forum system?
I am correct to suggest that from Drupal's conceptual perspective, users should instead be subscribing to blogs and groups, which then get aggregated into the user's own 'individualised content', as opposed to actively navigating to different sections of the site?
I don't understand why drupal.org does not have any of this stuff (bbcode editor, attachments, etc) available in the forum and comments on this site - shouldn't this forum at least have the bbcode module installed, so potential users could see that it isn't completely featureless? Everything's all just TEXT, and I don't understand WHY?! Why isn't Drupal.org showcasing the amazing community abilites of the software?
I obviously still don't 'get' Drupal. The features of a traditional website are completely missing from core and from this website, and even the traditional type of modules I've seen so far seem be quite 'bare-bones' in themselves. So I'm currently asking myself, what does Drupal offer which replaces the traditional features of a website? There must be something that I'm missing? Something deep and mysterious?
Thanks for your continuing support in answering my 'questions' (rambling).
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You add features too it, the forums are like any other content type or node in drupal. If you add the attachments.module to Drupal you have attachments in forum posts. if you add an image.module to drupal you have images in forum posts. Drupal did not set out to be "yet another" PHP based forum script. It set out to be a CMF/CMS which is it. Drupal is not forum centric. You also have the option to integrate a 3rd party forum in it like Joomla does with the SMF forum script. The problem that occurs with this solution is simple. Your search is not integrated.
You can set up sections (categories) using the method of taxonomy. Feeds are just feeds. If a user wants to subscrive through a feed reader then can do so. more on categorization here: Taxonomy: A way to organize your content
What you see as features, not every will see as features. Drupal.org is a support website. Drupal developers strive to keep core small but flexible and powerful with which you can "plugin" any idea that you want to expand on. Thats what contributed modules are for. Not everyone want's an editor for every site they build, nor attachments, nor images. Attachments and images take up valuable resources and DB space, the user base here at Drupal.org is nearing 200K users, imagine how many files would be created by those users ? Drupal.org runs Drupal core + a few contributed modules. This allows developers to deploy the next version and gives it a firm test bed for the code. How does Drupal then showcase it's abilities you ask?
Drupal is a CMF/CMS with which you can build most any dynamic website. What can drupal become ? check out teamsugar.com, mtv.co.uk , theonion.com, musicbox.sonybmg.com, observer.com, harvardscience.harvard.edu, imamuseum.org. The sites mentioned here are just a few that use Drupal.
Again, Drupal and its contributed modules are flexible and powerful. That being said, what you see as barbones is a framework with which you can theme most any way you want to. They problem I see here, is you've come to Drupal with a set of expectations. With Drupal your expectations should be left at the door. Drupal should be viewed with an open mind and an imagination. Only then can you begin to "expect" from Drupal. Because it is then that you will see the Drupal is open to most any adventure you want to take with it.
If you are wanting something that you can just install, throw a few colors at and call it yours? Drupal most likely isn't for you.
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My posts & comments are usually dripping with sarcasm.
If you ask nicely I'll give you a towel : )
Thanks for the very detailed
Thanks for the very detailed answer. Much appreciated.
I think I do have the motivation to try and build a website with Drupal. However, never before have I come across CMS software whereby after 36 hours of non-stop reading, I still don't know if the software can produce what I need (within my current skill set and timescale).
With traditional CMS, you just look in the backend for the different sections (forums, download, shoutbox, pages, articles, news) and then start adding content after playing with it for a bit. At somepoint you stop to theme it a bit. At somepoint you install additional plugins like a chatroom or whatever. It may take months to build a site, but at least from the start you actually can tell what it can and can't do and more-or-less how to go about it.
With Drupal the answer seems to be 'yes, it can probably do that but you need to install this, this, this, and this, and you may need to write some php to tie it all together'. Considering the amount of work that it will take to create a school website, that is quite a gamble! Especially as I would have to continue to develop the existing one while I was learning how to reproduce it in Drupal.
But anyway, thank you for answering my queries above. I shall carry on reading, and start a new thread with further questions.
Cheers.