Hi,
I'm another one of the newbies. I am a web DESIGNER fluent in xHTML and CSS. However, I know absolutely NO PHP or MySQL. I'm interested in being able to create websites with some of the most common dynamic functionalities such as the following:
- Creating Blogs
- Creating Users / Roles
- Forums
- User Generated Content
- Comments
- e-Comerce
My question is whether or not its reasonable to expect to be able to do these things with NO knowledge of DBMSs or PHP by way of Drupal. I mean does Drupal make creating dynamic sites less time consuming for those who already know programming or does it make creating dynamic sites POSSIBLE for those with NO programming knowledge.
Like I said, I'm not looking to re-invent the function(), if you will. I'm just looking to add some of the most commonly employed database driven functionalities.
Let me know your thoughts,
Fernando
Comments
sort of kind of maybe depends
How's that?
So, installing Drupal will automatically give you blogs, user accounts, roles, forums. Users will be able to generate content as you have posting in the forums here. Comments are a built in part of Drupal as well and they can be enabled for pretty much any content type (some exceptions, user experience will vary, not valid in .....)
eCommerce, there are two ecommerce approaches. The eCommerce suite of modules, you won't be using those. They are very much a kit for custom solutions. You will want to look at Ubercart, a more end user oriented solution. I have not used it, but hear good things and it has it's own active community.
Now, what you've listed is available in core in a basic level. whether that basic level is sufficient you will need to figure out for yourself. There are contributed modules that allow you to extend the basic functionality of your site. These can be found in the download section. Quality and functionality varies but there are quite a bit to choose from.
An important concept is that many of these modules extend functionality of Drupal core so it bears repeating. As a non-coder and new person, you are of course at the mercy of the module maintainer to update it and such and maintainers response will vary as well but this is true in any open source project.
Two important ones are CCK (Content Construction Kit) and Views. They will both make your life easier. Other features will depend on your goals and your user community.
Drupal has a learning curve. It really does. Please be prepared for it. There are a wealth of resources in the handbooks to help with this but the volume of resources can be overwhelming and they may be using terminology that obscures it for you. There is also drupal dojo which has videos. These are done by volunteers with various resources so quality varies but the information is generally good.
So, your real question
It depends on your expectations. The simple answer is yes, depending on you. This is not rocket science. I have been successfully using Drupal for several years with a minimal knowledge of php (enough for some basic theming and my css skills are what really hold me back)
For an idea on theming, see here first for a basic run through, then see this webcast and download.
Oh, you will want to start with Drupal 5. There are spiffy features in Drupal 6, but it's just released and many modules you will rely on have not been fully updated for it. While the Drupal API is not backward compatible, the data is. Drupal.org has been successfully updated for more then seven years and my site for more then three.
So, download it, go through the getting started guide and get it installed. If that is not detailed enough, then look at the tutorials where there is a more detailed guide. Play with it and see if it clicks for you.
Best of luck and remember to have fun,
-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
Wow Thanks
Wow that was really helpful. The kind of post that makes me want to comment on somebody else's post and really help them.
So, if I understand correctly, to use the core mods. I won't need any programming knowledge. But dabbling in contributed mods requires some prog. knowledge to the extent that the mods. require some code tweaking beyond the usual "checking of the box".
By the way, does one need PHP knowledge to customize a theme to achieve a very precise appearance? I have a zelous designer that is very particular about his designs and if I cant make my drupal sites look JUST like his comps, I'll never hear the end.
Let me know,
Thanks for your time
Fernando
...
Almost. The vast majority of contributed modules are just drop in and configure through the /admin interface.
Some good overall stuff here
specific to the modules here
Take a look at my first tutorial on theming, it's short and to the point. For some elements you may want to look at stuff in / with php. The videocast covers that very well. So it really will sort of depend on what the look you are trying to achieve is. That said, there are a lot of snippets and random levels of help available here on the forums :)
-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
Not a dealbreaker!
My situation is similar to yours, and I've found Drupal to be relatively easy to work with, and I only know enough PHP and MySQL to make myself dangerous. Certainly a knowledge of PHP will unlock doors to advanced theming and module creation and so forth, but it's not 100% necessary to get a site up and running with the sorts of features you've outlined above.
Thanks so much
Thanks so much for your help. Your comments are very encouraging and helpful
drupal 6 issues
It's worth noting that many many modules do not have currently stable / fully functioning drupal 6 versions. I'd strongly advise anyone who doesn't have the skills / interest to get into module development to stick with drupal 5 for the time being.
I'm now on my 4th drupal 6 site which i have had to stop developing and go back to 5 with because of unsupported module features (ok so the choice of d6 for me was wrong in the first place and could of been avoided with better planing) but I'm keen to use the latest stuff where possible, but with drupal if you want to do more than a very basic site and you don't have the time / skills / money to contribute to fixing module bugs then your much better off in drupal 5 which is fairly complete and offers much more functionality than is available in 6.
I find it a little bit strange that the core drupal developers have raced on to drupal7 without any consideration of the actual users of drupal. it would be much more helpful to concentrate on getting the major modules up to drupal6 before starting on D7.
But yes the short answer is drupal is a great system for people with few php/mysql skills to build complex database driven websites. Learning php and mysql will no doubt help you with drupal sites but it is not a prerequisite to use the drupal system.
I find it a little bit
This seems to be a common misunderstanding. There is no amorphous group of "core drupal developers"-- everyone who contributes is essentially a core developer. Even I have had a miniscule patch committed to core. Moreover, although many of the more active core contributors also have one or more contributed modules they maintain, one has very little to do with the other. The 'core developers' do not upgrade contributed modules en mass. Usually maintainers work on this, but not always. More often then not it's someone who needs a particular module for a particular project that drives the update process.
And just about anyone can jump start the process by running a module through coder and/or deadwood-- i'm pretty sure once a semi functional patch is submitted, the process goes much faster.
If no one has the 'interest', then modules don't get updated, period. There is no magical group of developers going through contributed modules updating them one by one or deciding when enough of a quorum exists to proceed with core development.
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"Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime." - Lao Tzu
"God helps those who help themselves." - Ben Franklin
"Search is your best friend." - Worldfallz
Drupal 5 vs 6
We are a small web company in Brisbane Australia, and we have only just moved from Drupal 5 to 6 as the standard version as of Dec, 2008.
This move was made after getting image, cck, views, and wysiwyg stable in a Drupal 6 environment. We are lucky in that we can help port modules if required, or that we can create our own to mimic unavailable Drupal 6 modules.
When deciding which version to use, look at what your requirements are and see if these are meet with Drupal 6. If you go with D5, you will be 1 1/2 years behind from the word go, and you will get less and less support from the community, particularity when D7 is released.
Alan Davison
www.caignwebs.com.au
Alan Davison
I've found that almost all
I've found that almost all modules can be used without actually editing the database or PHP manually.
BUT.... much of the documentation on Drupal is NOT really written for the casual user. I believe the documentation is usually written by the module developer themselves and then not peer-edited at all. At least, that is how that it seems. They often think it's easily understandable, but it really isn't. Besides that, documentation is spread out on the project pages, readme files, help files, forums, issue queues, reviews on Drupalmodules.com, etc.
BTW, if I could edit the documentation, I would, as I have tried out about 200 of the Drupal modules already and I'm a translator so I figure I should also be able to translate techie-talk into language understandable to the end user.
As an end-user, Joomla was a lot easier to understand and there are other CMS's that are even easier... but ultimately Drupal proved to be the most flexible and powerful for my purposes.