I've made about 10 custom-made sites on Joomla! (including huge portals) and while I'm generally happy with that CMS, I'm now looking at Drupal because there are two very important things that Joomla! just can't do.
These two things are sub-categories & access control - which Drupal does beautifully (I guess this has been discussed many times already on this forum).
However, Drupal has some shortcomings, at least, there are some shortcomings that I can see after spending two full days playing with Drupal (I spent one day just examining the logic & layout of Drupal 5.4, and on the second day I wrote a simple template using the regular PHPTemplate engine).
Perhaps most importantly, Drupal (in my opinion) is sadly lacking a good menu system. While it's very easy to create a simple text menu or even a menu with buttons (changing background image at 'mouseover') with "nice menus" - I have found no menu module providing a beautiful "sliding-out" effect (like, for example, "transmenu" for Joomla!) or even a good dhtml menu.
In Joomla! it's possible to duplicate any menu effect seen on any site (excluding flash menus, of course, but even those, if desired, can be incorporated manually). Not on Drupal. Now - please correct me here if I'm wrong!
I could talk for a long time here comparing my impressions of Joomla! and Drupal, but first I would very much appreciate your advice on the Drupal menu system. Have I missed some module?
Comments
I think you just need to
I think you just need to look around the contrib modules more... There are some decent menu systems already, and with Drupal spreading like wildfire it will not be long before you get full featured menus that surpass Joomla.
Try Lucid Menu
Hi dima898,
try the module lucid menu.
Dirk
Been working with Drupal for
Been working with Drupal for couple weeks only.
One thing about menus, many people don't pay attention. It is important for menu to be available for SEO.
Personally, Flash and Javascript menus really are great for making an impression on users. Neither is read by crawling spiders.
The Menu system in Drupal does leave a lot to be desired. Also, it is hard to really get the flow of it beyond basic stuff.
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However... it does work and if you use taxonomy_menu mod, you can stack alot more levels onto your menus.
http://drupal.org/project/taxonomy_menu
http://www.nicklewis.org/a-taxonomy-menu-that-goes-to-11
http://drupal.org/handbook/modules/taxonomy_menu
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One thing is sure better using Drupal. There is a lot support information on almost all aspects of Drupal.
The cadre of training videos, and documents is very good.
Also, a google search on Drupal... with what you're looking for returns some good informative links.
Take a look at Taxonomy Menu
http://drupal.org/project/taxonomy_menu
http://drupal.org/handbook/modules/taxonomy_menu
http://www.nicklewis.org/a-taxonomy-menu-that-goes-to-11
Thank you very much for your
Thank you very much for your suggestions, I'm very pleased with the 'lucid menu' module and also with YUI Menu module. Taxonomy menu is also interesting, but as far as I understand, it's only for the Navigation menu? Anyway, now I have 'a good something' to work on, that you very much again.