By ethanhaun on

Hi, newbie here.

I design web sites using Dreamweaver, Photoshop, Flash, etc. All the sites I do are information, static sites for musicians and other artists, no shopping, no bloging, etc. So I don't really need to nor do I know how to write any server-side scripting. I charge my clients a small fee for site updating and maintenance. But increasingly, my clients want to update their sites themselves. Not b/c I charge them a lot but they just want the DIY convenience. In searching for a free CMS, I've found Drupal. However, I've been looking all day on the web but I still haven't find a straight answer to this question:

Can I use Drupal as a CMS and a CMS only. I don't want to build any site w/ the templates and stuffs. I don't want to be limited by using templates. I understand that u can tweak the templates but I don't want to do that b/c I am very comfortable and well verse w/ Dreamweaver. Not to mention that all the sites I have done b4 are using Dreamweaver from scratch and I don't want to have to re-do them.

So, is it possible? Like I said, I've searched up & down on the web and haven't got an answer. I read a lot of tutorials and all of them teach you how to build a site w/ Drupal. How about using Drupal to manage sites not built w/ Drupal?

This is my last hope here to find the answer I so desperately seek. Your assistance is greatly appreciated.

Ethan.

⋅ Categories: Drupal 5.x

Comments

conann’s picture

conann commented

Hey there

I think you are answering your own question here, Drupal and most if not all other CMS use a template system of some sort, so they can insert the content somewhere. Don't think of this as a limitation as there is little or no limitation on what you can do with the templates.

You have a choice either find clients who don't want to ad content to their sites or use templates ;)

Conánn

ethanhaun’s picture

ethanhaun commented

NO?!

Guess I need to do further searching for a free CMS that suits my need or else, learn how to code. I actually do appreciate the fact that one can modify the templates. It's a great feature but in my opinion it's not comparable to the "freehand" approach of building a site using a web authoring software such as Dreamweaver. I guess, it's just not the way my brain works. To me, it's like buying a prefab house and then spend time to remodel it to the way I want it. I'd rather to build the house the way I want it from the start.

Thank you for your reply. You've been very helpful. Cheers! :)

reevo’s picture

reevo commented

I think it depends entirely what you mean by 'using Drupal to manage sites'. What do you want Drupal to do, exactly?

For what it's worth, I'm currently working on a photography portfolio site that uses Drupal purely as a back-end CMS, the front-end will be 100% Flash. I'm doing a certain amount of coding to get the data into Flash dynamically, using XML feeds. Is that similar to what you mean by using Drupal as a CMS only?

gareth_w’s picture

gareth_w commented

Hand craft every page in dreamweaver, from scratch, with no reference to what has gone before? No, of course you don't. You use a page template, or CSS, etc, to assist you.

Yes, you do have more freedom to create each and every page in a specific format suited to it, but a user wanting to update that themselves would lose that luxury.

The actual code you need to put into a drupal template is minimal for a simple template (you can cut and paste 99% of it) and you should be able to pick it up in an hour or so, tops.

Good luck on finding a CMS that works without templates. I have tried almost all of them and the number that supported this feature, last time I looked, was zero.

Gareth

ethanhaun’s picture

ethanhaun commented

So, it is possible then?

Hi gareth_w,

No, I don't hand craft every page from scratch. Yes, I do create a template using CSS for the general style and layout for the pages within a site and build from there b/c most, if not all, of the pages within the same site will have the same general style and layout. But, no, I don't build a new site using templates b/c each new site I build is highly customize to a specific client. Am I making sense? Even if I do use templates to build sites, they are not the templates provided by Drupal and so, how, if it is possible, do I use Drupal to manage my sites which is not build using Drupal. The way Adobe Contribute works is what I am looking for but it won't work for me b/c it means that my clients will have to buy and install Contribute!

Hi reevo,

What you are working on now is exactly what I want Drupal to do. I will build a site entirely using Dreamweaver and/or Flash and all I want Drupal to do is to provide a easy way for my my clients (mostly musicians) to change some text, like to update the schedules of their gigs, or to swap some photos, like shots from a recent performance, etc., simple stuffs. They are not to mess w/ the design and functionality of the site, that will be my job and I charge for it.

So, reevo, how do you do it? Is there any tutorial out there that I can study?

Thanks

LiquidWeb’s picture

LiquidWeb commented

Using Drupal as a backend for Dynamic Flash site is possible. Yo can use Views and theme RSS output to use that XML data in your Flash site. So you need theming knowledge. Or if you plan to write your own code to get data from DB forget Drupal. Just design your Database and use one of those PHP generator programs.

reevo’s picture

reevo commented

At the moment I'm using my own PHP scripts to query the Drupal database and spit feeds out. Although I'm probably not using Drupal to its full capabilities by doing it this way - I'm sure there's a module or combination of modules that'd achieve the same result - I think I'm quite similar to you, in that I've always built everything myself from scratch. I've been a self-taught PHP developer for close to 10 years, so always favoured building my own CMS tools to using off-the-shelf packages, purely because I enjoyed the challenge and learning experience. However, it got to the point recently where I found myself writing the same code for the same functions over and over again, regardless of the end product, and this is where Drupal entered my life.

For me it was best to think of Drupal as a content management framework. It does come with its own themes and templates, and they are sufficient for most casual users, but if you want a completely bespoke front-end - as I do for this particular flash-based site, not to mention my employer's rather large HTML-based Drupal site - then you'll most likely have to get your hands dirty with creating your own themes and templates.

You might be best starting with one of the default Drupal themes. Make a copy, rip it apart and see what does what. I've found that Drupal does come with quite a high learning curve, but it's such a powerful framework, it's definitely worth it.

rakisisesindekibalik said above: "Or if you plan to write your own code to get data from DB forget Drupal. Just design your Database and use one of those PHP generator programs", but I'd actually disagree with him. Even if you plan to use completely bespoke scripts to get the data our of your DB - as I am, and do frequently - Drupal still serves as an excellent back-end CMS to get the data into the DB in the first place.

Anyway, http://drupal.org/theme-guide is the place to start for HTML stuff. For XML feeds to flash, I'd take a look at some of the XML/RSS modules already available - I'm convinced that my way isn't the best way, but it does show it's at least doable :)

sepeck’s picture

sepeck commented

You can mock up themes in any of the tools you are traditionally used to. For a 'brief' over view check out: http://www.blkmtn.org/Quick-and-dirty-OSWD-theme-to-Drupal . For a more extensive follow up on the power of Drupal's template system. : http://drupaldojo.com/lesson/theming-like-a-pro In Drupal 6 it is even easier, but a lot of the contributed modules you need are not yet released.

I know I have seen lessons around for how to take a mockup and convert to a live site theme in other places as well.

Do not underestimate the power of giving your clients 'control' over their content. In addition, if you take the time to learn to port your designs into Drupal, you now have an additional market for your skills and services. The Drupal community currently has a shortage of available, known themers who are actually skilled and familiar with Drupal theming.

-Steven Peck
---------
Test site, always start with a test site.
Drupal Best Practices Guide -|- Black Mountain

-Steven Peck
---------
Test site, always start with a test site.
Drupal Best Practices Guide

ethanhaun’s picture

ethanhaun commented

I think I've got it now.

So, basically I have 4 choices:

1) Learn how to script my own CMS
2) Build a site using existing Drupal thems and then modify them to fit my designs
3) Learn How to theme my own custom Drupal themes
4) Port my own site design into Drupal

Thank you all for the replies. Look like I have a lot of learning to do. :)

techguy10’s picture

techguy10 commented

I've used Dreamweaver in the past to make a customized Drupal template so its possible, I'm sure there are pages on it if you search Google. I've stopped using Dreamweaver altogether, however so I can't remember exactly what I did. There's never really a reason to start from scratch (if you're inexperienced) when making a new theme, just take one thats already been made and edit it to suit your needs, this way you learn the structure as you go along, its just an exercise in frustration to try to start from scratch if you don't have a lot of experience with it.

LiquidWeb’s picture

LiquidWeb commented

From my experience I can advice you to learn "Theming Drupal". At the begining you may think "what the hell all these" but by the time you will learn how things are working. I have been working on Drupal not more than 2 months and now I am able to create my themes from scratch. Only thing you should remember is there s no drupal learning curve there are steps and people are tend to think its imposible to learn Drupal but after first step you will see its not as hard as thought.
http://www.amazon.com/Pro-Drupal-Development-John-VanDyk/dp/1590597559 get this book it will help you alot.
PS: If you built your theme with CSS its just minutes to port your existing theme to drupal.

dman’s picture

dman commented

Your solution lies somewhere in between.
Drupal (or most) CMS-building requires you to start thinking about page-building quite differently than you are used to from wysiwyg-editors and HTML code.

Your pages are now constructed from frameworks built of content areas within what is only nominally an HTML page. Which then gets 'themed' by a different set of processes altogether.

As you say, you sort of use a template already ... but it's a copy & paste style of templating. CMS's use a persistant, uptatable, re-themable form of presentation. Flat files are no longer the flavour (although I still like them for archival reasons)

HOWEVER
You can, if you feel nervous, make your own theme that contains nothing more than a flat HTML page (replace page.tpl.php with your hard-coded version) with hard-coded paths including only a echo $content in the middle of it.
You'd need to enable the 'admin theme' option before doing so, but it's possible.

But all of the juicy drupal add-ons each require you to come over to the Drupal template convention of allowing space for ... edit tabs, feedback messages, block regions ... then user-managed menus and other features.
You are justified in avoiding the cool Content management and Views features for now if you still think of your pages as a solid lump of HTML. But the sooner you think of pages as data objects and not text streams the better.

There's nothing wrong with taking it slow and starting with a stripped-down page template for learning. But part of the learning process will be that you have disabled the thousand other features that folk are talking about when they describe how to use Drupal. Just this week there have been like 6 messages asking how to do things ... which were obvious to most (drupal-theme) users but were invisible to them because their naive 'theme' had failed to display the available edit tabs.

As a non-Drupal alternative, I thought Dreamweaver for a couple of versions has supported a 'contenteditable' sort of templating system. You design, then tag cells or divs as being updatable without unlocking, then lock the rest and use a form of templating. It requires your users to use Dreamweaver I guess - or even an interface to it (I'm sure someone has built a 3rd party versin) but that's an option.
Not a good option, as the tidal wave over the last 1/2 dozen years has been towards CMS, but it may be what you are looking for.

.dan.
How to troubleshoot Drupal | http://www.coders.co.nz/

.dan. is the New Zealand Drupal Developer working on Government Web Standards