It would be great to see the module list improved
most popular 1 star 2 star 3 star
most useful
most downloaded
most recommended
also the mod categories are kind of vague to a newbie perhaps merge some add new ones, etc
re: mod versions, this is really confusing I often see too many versions, I really wish drupal would stick with just one official version and perhaps just one development version in the oven, but never more than 2.
a lot of mods are for older versions, rarely do I see a mod for the latest drupal version, this can be very confusing to a newbie especially.
I believe the current drupal is 5.3 what the "bleep" is 5.x-1.x-dev ? "english "bleep bleep" do you speak it :)) here's a better way
you got two drupal versions ok 3 if you really must 4.7 5.3 6.1 (beta)
mod list
5.3 -All mods in this list work with 5.3
4.7 - All mods in this list work with 4.7
6.1beta - all mods here are beta
I never know if a mod is going to work, really messes with the head the way these mods are presented.
I would use the wordpress extension plugin directory as a model to improve drupal, its really good tells you which ones are the most poplar what version, it basically gives any user a solid lead on which plugins they should be using and which ones to stay away from, its very clear and easy to follow. Allow me to repeat that "very clear and easy to follow".
Comments
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a search of drupal.org would have showed that this discussion has taken place multiple times.
Drupal modules written for version 5.x will never show 5.3. If a module was written for 5.x, it will work on all versions of 5.
a 5.x-dev version of a module is a development version. broken down it means, the module was written for Drupal 5 and is a developement release. Not all that confusing if common sense is applied. One can also read versioning documents found on d.o.
The way you learn if a module works is to simply install it on a test site. This is a best practice and avoids any accidental problems with your production environment.
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My posts & comments are usually dripping with sarcasm.
If you ask nicely I'll give you a towel : )
a search of drupal.org would
Perhaps but nothing came up in my search, I guess that's what counts eh ? the effort :) I didn't find anything, unless it's an unusual title I didn't think of. I usually am good about searching before posting and when I can't find anything remotely close to what I'm looking for I post.
Understood, but still confusing, its been my experience common sense doesn't have any part in coding at least not from a user perspective so that's why I brought it up. Common sense would say make it so a 4th grader can understand. I'll try to get it and live with the torment :)
A good example is when you come to the download page all you see are the modules and a download button, you don't see any versions unless you click on the module link or find out more. Most users are going to get overly excited and click the download button not knowing what version they are using. You got dev and beta versions listed under official releases, to me an official release is not a beta or dev, official means good as in good beer, so you can see how users can become very confused. My first time in the downloads I was stunned for a bit more like paralyzed.
Agreed, still there can be much time wasted in A. finding the module B. downloading the incorrect version C. testing it D. realizing the instructions were not complete or the module was the result of some HS students pet project who stopped working on it 2 years go and E. you have to do it all over again.
A directory of add-ons is the backbone of a good CMS I think, I don't believe its meant to be a testing lab where people have to test out to see if mods work. If the mod makers know their stuff and drupal it should be some fine mods they be adding to the list that simply work. Of course there should be some checks in place to make sure all new mods submitted are nothing but the finest.
I was really glad wordpress cleaned up its directory and produced one of the best on the internet. When I downloaded a plugin i knew very well what I was getting and that it was compatible with the latest release, it was encouraging and made all the difference. It would be nice to see drupal less intimidating, we can dream can't we.
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http://drupal.org/search/node/rating+modules
The first two threads on that search should provide enough information on what has happened, what is happening and what is going to happen. It will require somene to read both threads and follow the links in the threads to follow all discussions on that topic.
While I in part understand what you are saying about the downloads section, fact is common sense may not have any place in coding. Users aren't being asked to code, only sort and read on the downloads list.
with regards to the download link, you are getting the latest "release" not specifically stated, the latest stable release. some modules never see a version #. This has been changing over the course of the past few months with the release of the update status module. Obviousuly a new user coming in wouldn't know this.
I'd think you are in perfect position to write from a new users point of view. how to work with the downloads area. Submit it as a handbook page. The community of new & not-so-new users would no doubt applaud you for your effort.
A) you would have to find it in any CMS's repo
B) A -dev version is not an incorrect version and if the downloads page is sorted with the drop down, you only get your versions
C) Check the release date has the module been updated recently ? Check the issue query, is support being given ?
D) This can happen with any download from anywhere on the internet.
Modules SHOULD ALWAYS BE TESTED before being deployed on a production environment. Every mdoule cannot possibly be tested in every use case, or with every possible combination of modules installed. Module conflicts are avoided but they do happen.
_____________________________________________________________________
My posts & comments are usually dripping with sarcasm.
If you ask nicely I'll give you a towel : )
I am trying to decide
I am trying to decide whether to use Drupal, Joomla, or some other CMS for our
new church Web site.
From what I have read on several posts here, and from Drupal users on another
list, it is a very powerful CMS.
What I am also discovering is that it may be way overkill and may require way
more up-front time to meet the need. Using hardcoded HTML I can create a
site in a day, here I read that it may take weeks to merely understand the app.
Is there any plan to provide a turn-key package of commonly used elements
that one may acquire and immediately begin using or is the assumption that
those using Drupal are code-geeks and have lots of time for the project?
Much as I'd love to invest in learning a sophisticated CMS both for the challenge
and the development power I just do not have the time.
WDYT? doc
...
You might be interested in http://groups.drupal.org/churches
Michelle
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See my Drupal articles and tutorials or come check out life in the Coulee Region.
My Experience
doc,
My experience is that the current code base (version 5) is substantially easier to set up and maintain than earlier versions. Installation of a basic website is pretty easy. You do have to set up the back end database, which takes a little more knowledge than, say, running an exe file to fully install a local application. Many hosting outfits have web-based mechanisms to create the appropriate database (usually MySQL), and tell you what the connection settings are.
Once you have the basic database infrastructure in place, the actual drupal install consists of ftp-ing the files to your web server, pointing a browser to the site, and filling in the form to let drupal know how to connect to your database. After that simple routine, you have a simple database-driven website that has most popular features (blogging, forums, comments, static pages) already built-in. You have several site-wide themes you can apply to change the overall look and feel, some of which have a great deal of flexibility built right in.
Drupal can be daunting—I'll be the first to admit that. But I think that a day or two of concerted effort can get you most of the way through the worst of it. And while you can hard-code the site in a day, you're stuck with hand editing any future changes to your site. Drupal gives you the ability to maintain a truly dynamic website.
If you want to test it out in a quasi-public way, you can set up a test site in a sub-directory of your web root (e.g., "/mytestbed/"), using a separate MySQL database (most hosts give you a few databases anyway, and drupal all lives in one database). Then give it a test run. Personally, I think you'll find drupal to be very useable.
David
drupal modules list crashed my computer!
i was just about to make a new post with the above topic. i in fact have recently complained about the unorganised modules list. but i suspect developers, forum gurus and those who are already familiar with drupal and have influence to do something about this have no need to trawl through the modules list, and dont care, unlike us new users, so the situation remains unchanged.
i just clicked the list by names tab on the modules list and discovered that it doesnt link, as i logically assumed, to an alphabetised directory (click "A" for modules with names beginning with "A") but dumped the full list of 1000+plus modules into IE, which promptly crashed, and froze the computer which responded only to a forced reboot.
again i restate, as a new user, that for software which boasts about its skills at classifiying, taxonomising, terming, whatever, for goodness sake, could somebody make the modules list more useful? subdivide the thing.
see http://extensions.joomla.org/. i assume drupal can handle a simple directory structure like that?
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Always be nice to people on the way up; because you'll meet the same people on the way down.
Wilson Mizner (1876 - 1933)
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"i suspect developers, forum gurus and those who are already familiar with drupal and have influence to do something about this have no need to trawl through the modules list, and dont care"
Your suspicions are incorrect. We do care but it is not a simple problem.
Michelle
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See my Drupal articles and tutorials or come check out life in the Coulee Region.
thank you for responding
thank you for responding michelle. perhaps "dont consider this a priority" may be more accurate than "dont care". and i suppose in the grand drupal scheme of things it may not in fact be a major priority.
but i am curious as to what makes this not a simple problem. (in my mind, build a page with the 26 letters of the alphabet, then link each letter to one of 26 pages; and/or divide each module category into several subcategories and build a directory page with links.) understand that i am actually curious, and not being sarcastic.
why is this not simple? does drupal have an actual weakness in this area?
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Always be nice to people on the way up; because you'll meet the same people on the way down.
Wilson Mizner (1876 - 1933)
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I don't know how technically difficult this is, but it's not wanted by lots of people because then you can't easily search modules with your browser. The modules are already broken up by category for people who want it broken up. What is the best way to handle it? We don't know, yet, and that's part of the problem.
I don't know how high a priority that page is but consider that the project module, which runs that page, is a huge module maintained by just a few people who are very overworked as it is. Finding a solution to the problem isn't as simple as slapping a pager on it.
Michelle
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See my Drupal articles and tutorials or come check out life in the Coulee Region.
ahahh! thanks michelle for
ahahh! thanks michelle for mentioning the 'project' module. didnt know about it. it seems alphabetization was mentioned 46weeks ago. see:
http://drupal.org/node/116170
doesnt sound like it was a priority then. oh well. what can i do? i'd like to volunteer to do the suggestions i made, but being new, dont think it'll happen. so i'll keep trawling. sad.
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Always be nice to people on the way up; because you'll meet the same people on the way down.
Wilson Mizner (1876 - 1933)
Patches
Anyone can submit patches to the project module. Perhaps you can write a patch that creates a page for an alphabetically paged module list. I can't speak for the project maintainers on whether they would accept it or not but, if you really want one, that's the way to go.
Michelle
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See my Drupal articles and tutorials or come check out life in the Coulee Region.
Your suspicions are
Things are as simple as the developer wants to make them, there's no such thing as "it can't be done" it can be done and has been done with other setups and yes its as simple as one wants to make it. Creating a user friendly module list would not be so difficult a task, or perhaps is it just too complicated in that the drupal doesn't have the capability to rearrange the list in a more orderly fashion.
Drupal has a pattern of being complicated by design, no doubt this is a reflection of the drupal creator and developers. The only ones who will tell you it's not complicated are developers thus the newbie is left out in the cold and forced to find their way. There's someone charging $800-$1500+ to learn how to use drupal (insane, I know). Perhaps there in lies a clue maybe they want it to be hard so they can sell how-to's to stupidnoobies.
These kinds of simple things would go along way in making drupal a lot less complicated. I can think of at least 5-10 things that would make drupal so much better but it would appear the drupal team prefers a more technically oriented CMS rather than a purely simple solution. This is consistent with many developer mindsets.
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There are more people thinking about things to make drupal better then coding them and there in lies the problem. More people wanting and not enough people Doing.
Now if some of the wanters would turn around and become doer's and create a patch for the project module to do what they wanted it to do, then maybe something better would come of it. But of course most of the wanters are "busy" or have too many other "projects" to take care of. As if developers of drupal are sitting around naked, eating cheetos while watching a sitcom on TV.
From what I've been reading, the project module developers have other priorities with getting the issues query working correctly with "real" comments and views allow mainatiners the ability to better track their issues.
Because you want, you see it as a higher priority then others may.
_____________________________________________________________________
My posts & comments are usually dripping with sarcasm.
If you ask nicely I'll give you a towel : )
...
I never said it can't be done. I said it's not a simple issue. If you break the page up by letter, you piss off the people who want to search it with their browser. My preference would be to leave the full page as is but add another field for short description so the page is significantly smaller. Since I can't code that, I put my time into it by editing each project and shortening the teaser. Unfortunatley, the page is expanding too fast for me to keep up but I did try. So the first issue is to find a solution that pleases the majority of the people. The second is coding it. Neither of these are simple.
The good news is that it isn't necessary to go to that page often. If you know the category of module you are looking for, go to the page where it's broken down by category. If you know the name of the module, you can often get lucky simply going to http://drupal.org/project/NAME which is what I use the most. Another alternative, which I just found out about recently, is to search like "http://drupal.org/search/node/type%3Aproject_project+views". Since there are ways around this problem, it is not as high a priority as other issues. That's just the way it is. There are only so many hours in a day.
As to Drupal being complicated "by design", that's ridiculous. Drupal is complicated because it is complex and powerful. Making it simple to use as well is extremely difficult. None the less, it is taken very seriously by the devlopers and is being worked on with every Drupal release.
Michelle
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See my Drupal articles and tutorials or come check out life in the Coulee Region.
michelle i understand the
michelle
i understand the difficulty, and was trying to let it slide, but really, the page 'crashed my computer'!! i mean if a page is so bloated as to stop my OS dead in its tracks, really, isnt it time to do something about it? how about a mix of both situations: a link for "LIST ALL" in addition to shorter sections by alphabet? all drupal's customers/clients be satisfied then.
and can the categories at all be further sub-categorized? like subdividing the 'administration' category (there are 162 modules to page through in this group!) into Data Conversion, Database Management, File Management, etc.
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Always be nice to people on the way up; because you'll meet the same people on the way down.
Wilson Mizner (1876 - 1933)
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This is the first I've ever heard of that page crashing an OS. If this was a widespread problem it would be a top discussion.
I accessed that page on a dial up connection using a PC with XP Home and IE 6 as a browser and the page didn't crash the OS or the browser for that matter. This makes me wonder what exact the specs are on the machine that this page allegedly "crashed".
Doc my suggestion is to setup a test site, including the project module and its releated necessities and begin to build what you invision. It is only then that you may realize it isn't going to be as easy as throwing sub categories at it and getting them to "show" the way you invision.
_____________________________________________________________________
My posts & comments are usually dripping with sarcasm.
If you ask nicely I'll give you a towel : )
Size + node loads
Part of the problem is the size. At over 2.2MB (according to Opera) it's not exactly a small page. I was trying to cut that down by editing the project descriptions and adding breaks in but projects are being added at an unreal pace and I can't keep up.
The other problem is that, IIRC, dww said there's a node load done on every project. That's a heck of a lot of queries. I wonder if that page can be cached even for logged in users somehow? Between that and getting the page size down, that would help.
Michelle
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See my Drupal articles and tutorials or come check out life in the Coulee Region.
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odd, extensions.joomla.org reminds me of http://drupal.org/project/Modules where the modules are sorted by category.
_____________________________________________________________________
My posts & comments are usually dripping with sarcasm.
If you ask nicely I'll give you a towel : )