By cel4145 on

As part of an effort of the Drupal doc team to improve the Drupal handbook, puregin has been restructuring the About Drupal section so that it can later be it's own book within drupal.org (the goal is to restructure the handbook into multiple books). Below, I've sketched out a potential outline for the book that in large part makes use of existing book pages while restructuring the "About Drupal" section to make it easier to navigate and better target potential Drupal newbies. After the structure, I've listed some of the rhetorical strategies for this outline.

The main "About Drupal" page would include the currently existing text and then be followed by the following page structure.

  • The many faces of Drupal
    [Include revised/streamlined current "Typical Drupal application" text here so that readers will move onto other sections]
    • Gallery [Useful as eye candy; minimal text; explanations in next section. Should include links to Drupal downloads themes page so non web-designers can see the range of default options. Bryan has already created a sample page.]
    • Case Studies ["Site implementations" or "Implementations" might be a better title]
      [should include drupal.org as a case study for project management]
      • Sites that use Drupal
        [Could be in "The community" -> "Users" section. Also, maybe a better title, something like "The Drupal network"]
    • Rolling your own [How about "Drupal is the best alternative" or something similar for this section and include not only why not roll your own, but also why Drupal is better than other CMS's (Mambo, PostNuke, Plone). Keep it simple, though, remembering the audience here is more general. Also, some general observations of why Drupal beats out the competition is better than trying to create (and keep updated) effective, in depth reviews.Some simple statements like "Drupal requires less resources than Plone...Is more secure than Mambo...etc."]
  • Features and technical information
    • Features 1
    • Features 2
    • ...
    • Features x
    • Downloads
    • System Requirements
    • Version 4.6 roadmap
    • More information
      [points to "Installation and customization" and "Configuration and customization" books]
  • The community
    • Mission
      • Principles
      • Usability goals
    • History
      • Druplicon
    • Users
      • Sites that use Drupal
        [Could be in "The many faces of Drupal"-> "Case studies" section.]
    • Development
      • Drupal core
      • Contributions
      • More information
        [points to "Developingfor Drupal" book]
    • Support
      • Documentation: the Drupal handbooks
      • Forums
      • Mailing lists
    • Consulting services and hosting
      • Consulting services
      • Hosting
    • Presentations and articles
    • Donating to Drupal

Rhetorical strategy:

By providing three main categories, it should allow us to more quickly guide interested visitors to the section most relevant to them.

The many faces of Drupal section

  • targets the main goal of anyone interersted in Drupal: to have a web or intranet site
  • will be revised to show what can be built with Drupal.
  • uses the power of examples created by the Drupal community to push it's message
  • is the main general marketing device
  • stresses the variety of sites that administrators can create.
  • helps those that are just curious about Drupal, but are not interested in creating/installing a Drupal site, to learn about Drupal.
  • demonstrates to web designers and site administrators the power of Drupal theming (through the gallery page).
  • allows a more general, non technical audience to see quickly if Drupal might do what they want it to do (i.e., administrative decision maker who will have an IT person review Drupal more carefully; a resource for Drupal consultants to point potential clients to)
  • will be the obvious place for a general audience to start learning about Drupal
  • should be careful to avoid too much technical language except maybe in the "Rolling your own system" section.

Features and technical information

  • is very prominently placed as the 2nd of only three items, making it easy for those that want technical information to go straight there and avoid the first, more general marketing section (good for developers and people already familiar with example Drupal sites and other CMS's).
  • can be geared towards a more technical audience (some sections more than others).
  • functions as a simple reference text for those just getting started with Drupal.

The community

  • is left to the third slot as the average person will be concerned first about what Drupal is and how it works before moving onto making a decision on using Drupal based on the commnunity.
  • is still prominently placed since it's one of only three top tier links
  • can be a place for some general community guidelines/policies (such as the mission statement, assuming that the mission statement is developed by and approved by the larger community outside of the doc team)