I may have to ditch Drupal )-:
Hi everyone (sad day for me)
I installed Drupal over a week ago on a 4 year old domain that gets thousands of unique visitors each day and is constantly busy. I spent day after day (and pulled many all-nighters) working to customize Drupal and chugging down cup after cup of coffee as I toiled away. The more I used it, the more I fell in live with it. Prior to installing Drupal, I had joined many other forums, installed quite a few other blogs and CMS's and done a TON of reading before I actually did this.
Today my heart was broken. I've promoted the heck out of Drupal on my site, tried to make it super user-friendly, added lots of eye-candy, fine tuned it to death and customized it into a fine-tuned work of art that I had become very proud of and yet my users would always register but never create a blog.
After this pattern repeated itself over and over again, I decided to personally contact these users to see why they hadn't followed through by creating their blog and to see if they were having some sort of problem with the software, etc.
I just heard back from several of them and so far they all tell me that the reason they never created a blog was because they had a difficult time understanding the software and how it functioned. They also said that it was confusing and not very intuitive.
I broke my back on this thing hoping people would be drawn to it like bees to honey but now it looks like I might have to replace Drupal with some simple-to use kiddie script where all you do is type in your name, say a few words and press the "go" button just so that people aren't confused.
To put it mildly, I feel like a little child who has just lost his puppy. Of course, I don't blame Drupal (I think it's fantastic software and you can't beat the price) and I don't blame my users (not everyone is a tech-savvy sys admin) but it looks like I'm either going to have to customize Drupal so that even a child can use it by stripping it down to bare bones and adding some Barney-the dinosaur theme or look elsewhere.
All that time and work down the drain. Any suggestions?.
- Steve
I've had a few (more than a
I've had a few (more than a few) down-trodden moments with Drupal. What I am slowly learning is that even if I can't figure it out, pretty much every input/output screen is themable. That being said; in theory if you apply solid usability principles to your site construction and theming - there is no reason you can't build that honey pot your audience seeks.
I'm not a pro @ Drupal by any stretch - I am having a hard time just getting simple functions to hook and understand the api, but I've made a couple of really well working sites...
Good luck!
Thanks for your helpful and
Thanks for your helpful and informative reply. I really appreciate it and I do agree with you but I guess I'm sort of thinking that a horse is still a horse no matter what color it is. The point being that no matter how I theme it, it's not going to change the functionally or usability of core features which (apparently) my users find confusing. This is a hurdle I'm not sure I can get around.
Incidentally, I'm using the Garland theme (modified using several MODS). If I could find a theme that uses lots of colorful icons and at least looks user-friendly, myspace-ish, then maybe I'd have half a chance because right now it's like trying to get a Windows user to use a Linux terminal and it's just not happening for me.
Any suggestions on a colorful, icon-ized, user-friendly, "I'll-hold-your-hand-while-you-use-this-thing" kind of theme out there for v6.2?
PS: I'm also using the EXCELLENT FckEditor w/all features enabled (tons of fun for me but again, probably confusing to my users - even though I've got a custom nav button linking to the help site).
Thanks again, Steve
If I were forced to make a
If I were forced to make a Theme suggestion, that I felt lent itself to user "friendlyness".
I'd recommend the Zen theme. Personally I found the "classic" theme to be
both administrator friendly - see; flexable, as well as sensibly laid out
and more intuitive where the user is concerned. Also, I'm not sure how attached you
are to v.6. But you might want to consider the fact that all the "features" (web2/Ajax) might
actually be overloading/overwhelming your users. Perhaps introducing them via
v.5, and then after they've become more/better aquainted, migrate them to v.6. Just a
thought.
Best wishes.
--Charlie
I'm with you. I love the
I'm with you. I love the better part of Drupal. But I must admit, it does need
to be beat a little harder with an "easy stick". Your comment concerns me a bit. I'm running
some 50 servers, 200 domains, with a customer base of roughly 50,000. I'm currently in the
process of developing a Drupal install that I intend to roll out to all 200 domains. I'd dearly
hate to think that all the time I've invested in Drupal is all for naught. I guess I should take your
experience as advice to insure that my final product has alot of "stupid buttons", and
hope for the best.
Thanks for sharing your experience. I hope the Drupal "dev's" are watching. ;)
--Charlie
I am a bit confused, if all
I am a bit confused, if all you are offering is the ability to create blog entries I have to wonder what people find confusing, Not to say it can't be but creating a blog is about a straight forward as you can get and pretty basic at that, I would be curious to know why or what is confusing.
I remember myself a while
I remember myself a while back thinking something maybe similar to Steven (or not). It was not about difficulty of writing a blog entry, it was that writing blog entries using the "create content" menu did not feel like writing a blog. So, if I want to give the bloggers the feeling of their own place, the first thing I do is rip out the whole "create content" menu and place its individual links in a kind of "section pages".
One of Drupal's strengths is how you can shift things around like this in several ways (with some work).
See, this is what I don't
See, this is what I don't understand either...
---> Click: "Create content".
---> Click: "Blog".
---> Type in some stuff.
I mean, just how difficult can this be?.
The only thing I can think of is that it's the FckEditor they find confusing. For the non computer-savvy, it might appear a wee bit intimidating. I mean...all those big, scary buttons just waiting to jump out at you and say "Booooo!!".
Perhaps it's just laziness (ie; people not wanting to take the time to learn how to use it, read the help manual over at the FckEditor website, etc). I really would hate to get rid of the editor though because who wants to just type black letters and numbers on a screen and besides, well, I just like it.
I looked at the zen themes for 6+ but either there were no screenshots, it was a theme-building engine or it was "based on zen". I finally found this gem...
http://drupal.org/project/pixture
(Not sure if it's icon-ized or not).
These two are...
http://drupal.org/project/contented7
http://drupal.org/project/internet_services
To the person who suggested ripping the "Create content" thingy out...I'm not sure how to create a section page but I'm thinking maybe categories (still don't know how to do that) or perhaps some MOD I can download (for 6) that will do the job?.
Thanks again for all the input...keep it rollin'...
- Steve
Maybe a short well written
Maybe a short well written users guide?
I have the same problem as you but I don't think it is Drupal, it's a lack of training, confidence or something on the users side.
"Create Content" is a step
"Create Content" is a step that doesn't need to be there. Add a button to "/node/add/blog" in a block on your site.
I am creating a site where I am going to encourage user submission of different content types (Places, Reviews, Bookmarks and Blog Entries). To do this, I have a "Add New XXX" link in my menus under each tab. When they mouse over the tab, they get the menu without having to click. When they get to a page with content and node teasers, it will have a brightly colored button that says "Add New XXXX".
Simple short words and bright colors will guide users where you want them. So try adding a new big button that says "Create Your Own Blog in 3 Easy Steps" Banner across the top. What are the steps?
1) Register
2) Create your first Blog Post
3) Customize your Blog.
This is doable in Drupal. Steps 2 and 3 are interchangeable but if they add content, they will want to customize it. If they customize first they may or may not want to add content.
The core system though is a little "user-unfriendly". Some things that I have found include:
- The registration system is a little archaic because it has to send you a password before you can do anything. Use the logintoboggan addon to get around this.
- Not much user oriented help. The FAQ addon can help you get around this.
- The default profile isn't fun. If you're trying to attract "fun" users then you need to change this. People are looking for things like Friends, Avatars, "Message Walls". There are addons for these.
- Probably most important, nodes and content are look like they were created by programmers. You need to add a designer's touch to them. Use templates to override nodes and customize the output to better suit your audience. The templates available in the project area are great starting points and give a variety of options but they all need work to be user friendly and cater to your specific audience. Any theme for any software package does really. I am starting my layout with the ArtistsC01 theme for Drupal 6. Little more complicated than others but it has 21 regions, 12 colors and some customizable features that keeps me out of the code just a bit longer.
Drupal still has some
I've been using Drupal for almost 4 years now. Drupal still has some simplification to do. I found I had to disable a few menu options at http://www.prewrittencontent.com
This is what I did
Step 1. Remove access to the navigation using the admin blocks
Step 2. Create your own very easy to use Blocks
Step 3. Add really large and cool buttons saying "Blog" "Comment" "Your Idea"
Step 4. Disable anything that is not needed and might confuse the users.
Step 5. Design your own frontpage
Marcel
PrewrittenContent.com
Drupal Themes
Writing Schedule
I can summarize Drupal with
I can summarize Drupal with one quote " If it were easy, everyone would do it." I'm glad everyone is not doing drupal, it's an amazing piece of software.
I liked some of Mpamphile's
I liked some of Mpamphile's suggestions. I just went into the FckEditor options and made the "basic" toolbar the default. I also gave users the option to customize the toolbar via their account settings so now they can type in all black text with the option to bold it (and other basic things) -or- they can soup it up and use a turbo-charged version.
As far as the icon thing...I know there are a few themes that allow you to add your own icons and I'd really like to add them to the menu and other places. Is there a way to do that with the Garland theme through the admin interface or do I have to drag out a copy of Notepad and spend the rest of the night coding and drinking diet coke?.
Also, what can I safely remove from my current user menu that the user will not be able to see (or be confused by) but will STILL be able to access (ie; through their account settings)?. Here's my spread at the moment...
* Blogs
o My blog
* Books
* Contact
* Forums
* Messenger
* My account
* Polls
* Search
* User list
* Create content
o Blog entry
o Book page
o Forum topic
o Page
o Poll
o Story
* Recent posts
* FckEditor User Guide
* Log out
Recent blog
(I'm using the "Nice Menus" MOD)
- Thanks again, Steve
If that is the menu a user
If that is the menu a user sees, I can see how it is confusing, first off you allow them to create blogs, book pages, forum topics, pages, polls and stories. That is going to be over whelming for a lot of people and some of the choice are going to look similar (how would they know when to add a book, page or story?) The rest provides a lot of choices with no guidance, an experienced user may find the menu useful, a new user may simply experience overload.
So what can you remove from the menu?, start by defining what purpose the site servers for the visitor and then determine how each menu applies to that purpose. Consider a landing page for the home page (I would use panels) that shows panes like "Recent Blogs", another maybe called "Connect with other users" that presents the "User List" and "Messenger" links by with titles that are more actions, "Find other users", "Talk to other users". In short break things down by functionality, use active titles for links and consider adding text to help users in their choice.
As Nevet said... a menu like
As Nevet said... a menu like that is much too overwhelming.
IMHO You only need
Add blog post
Logout or login
Recent content ( maybe )
As for FckEditor, it's also overwhelming to the uncommitted/uninitiated. I would give them no toolbar + limited filtered HTML.
Marcel
PrewrittenContent.com
Writing Schedule
Drupal Themes
simplification
Have you ever looked in your user profile settings on drupal.org? Have you turned on the extra blocks you can turn on there? They can lead you to some really cool tools. Now, imagine if those blocks were turned on for everyone when they first logged in. Drupal.org is already overwhelming as it is and we try and balance a diverse array of information available to new people coming in yet still be accessible to others. Frankly it's still overwhelming.
So, do you want them to start a blog? If that's the main focus, then give them just that. Make a block with two links called 'Getting Started' (or Welcome) and create blog entry.. Put it on top of the column. Make the first link to an article introducing the blog feature with examples.
Have additional blocks set to 'optional'. Mention at the very end of the Welcome article how to turn them on later.
Always start with a plan and when possible a test site. Test sites aren't just for code, but for feedback before roll outs.
-Steven Peck
---------
Test site, always start with a test site.
Drupal Best Practices Guide -|- Black Mountain
I think I can summarize a
I think I can summarize a definitive answer in one acronym:
KISS -
Keep It Simple Stupid.
Sorry, I couldn't resist. :)
But, IMHD I think it says it better than anything else. Don't you?
--Charlie
less is more . . . much, much more
hi all,
I'm no Drupal expert, but slowly getting there!
This is quite an important topic for anyone with a web site, and in all honesty its got nothing to do with Drupal at all. The same problem crops up again and again, even on simple static sites
The temptation is that because a system CAN do something, we feel its essential that we DO it!
I've had much experience of this
A friend of mine has a Phd in marketing and advises companies how to sell things via all forms of advertising, including the web
He recently advised an electronics company who couldn't figure out why web sales were low. Their site was crammed with information on the home page, but when my friends family were asked to look at the site they all said the same thing . . . they couldn't tell what the company were selling at all, information overload took over!
The plan was simple. Write no new content but take away 80% of what was there. Use lots of white space to draw a visitors eyes to what you want them to do or buy. Create highly visible buttons for 'buy now' or 'more info' links, and take away EVERYTHING that isn't totally essential
He gave me one golden nugget that i've never forgotten . . . he said "remember that people are generally lazy and don't want to have to search hard. create every site as though the least intelligient person in the world will visit, and make sure they instantly know WHAT you sell and HOW to buy it"
In your case, you're trying to sell them the idea of writing something (sell in the descriptive sense!) and creating a blog. Make it so easy that you think its ridiculous, then ask a non IT friend to log in without help to create something. Don't help them but watch . . . where do they look? Can they find the great big clicky buttons that say 'click here to write a blog'?
If not, the site will fail for this aspect of its purpose
What about the electronics site?
Less content equalled a 600% increase in sales
My involvement?
Well, i wrote the site in the first place. I learned the biggest lesson in web design from someone who wouldn't know html if it hit him in the face
I still make the same mistakes, but i try to catch myself in the act
For you . . . ONE link to create content thats impossible to miss. ONE content type unless users are VERY savvy indeed. Design it as though its for the dumbest person in the world who cant be bothered to look too hard for anything
Best of luck but please dont give up on Drupal. Its just too good to miss out on!
Oh, one more thing. A human trait is to assume that everyone else thinks like we do. YOU know where the links are on your site and how it all works . . . the bad news is that YOU are the WORST person in the world to test your sites usability!
If a non IT savvy user cant use a site, that is totally 100% the site designers fault, not the users. Once again, i'm guilty as charged and constantly have to re think designs to get around this
The advice from those above is superb. Simple wins everytime
Biggy
Very interesting and
Very interesting and enlightening thread this has turned out to be. So much good advice and suggestions here that it's difficult to know where to begin so I'll just suffice it to say that last night I stayed up until around 2:00AM working on making my Drupal install as user-friendly and as much of a "hand-holding" experience as I possibly could. I wanted both the geeky-fied and the "DOH!!" crowd to be able to easily use it and ENJOY using it.
First, I got to work on the FckEditor. I had EVERYTHING enabled by default (all the toys, gadgets and eye-candy) so right away I set the "basic" tool-bar as the default and allowed authenticated users to enable or change various features in their user settings. They could start out typing plain black text on a white background initially but as they became more comfortable and familiar with how everything worked, they could begin to unlock more and more features - and at their own pace and learning ability. In fact, I made many features user-activated (rather than default).
Next, I put the menu on a major diet and changed all of the menu names to ones that even a child could immediately recognize and understand. I also installed the jquery tool-tips mod and edited the CSS (for visibility) and added custom descriptions to all of the menu items. I deactivated a number of modules too (book, page, story...the list goes on).
I then completely re-wrote the intro and included a short but informative tutorial. Lastly, I posted an announcement for all to see.
When it was all said and done, I COLLAPSED into bed and the next day spent hours doing a complete backup up everything, burned a DVD and then kicked back hoping to take a break and watch a movie or something. This is when I get an email from one of my users who informs me that he "saw the new and improved blog" and "still found it confusing". Then, he goes on to say that he guesses he just doesn't "understand the idea of blogging or how it works".
That's when I pretty much threw my arms up into the air. Really though, I had to laugh because I think I'm taking this way to seriously. A blog is supposed to be fun. Some people blog and some don't. This person apparently falls into the "don't" category. I know I've personally done everything I can possibly do to make it as user-friendly so now I just have to resign myself to sitting back and waiting to see what happens next.
Just thought I'd update. Again, tons of great ideas here...bookmarked.
- Steve
Wow...
It sounds like you really went out of your way for them. If they don't get blogging in general, that's a toughie. I mean, it's basically an online journal... Not too complex.
Good for you for sticking with Drupal, though. :)
Michelle
--------------------------------------
See my Drupal articles and tutorials or come check out life in the Coulee Region.
I had a hard time explaining
I had a hard time explaining the usefulness Blogs and RSS at work, until I showed these videos. It's a start.
Put these Youtube videos on your website:
Blogs in Plain English
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NN2I1pWXjXI
RSS in Plain English
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0klgLsSxGsU
Also sounds like you need some rest. Take some time off to relax this weekend.
We all need to refresh and recharge. Especially me...
Marcel
PrewrittenContent.com - Sell your existing articles, tutorials
Drupal Themes
Writing Schedule - set a writing schedule and sell your writing services
They say that it takes hard
They say that it takes hard work to make something look simple and straightforward, and that complicated is actually raw or muddled.
But then again, what do I know? As Poul Anderson said, "I have yet to see any problem, however complicated, which, when you looked at it in the right way, did not become still more complicated."
Great thread!
Great thread, and great responses. I've really hit the same issues. I wrote my own documentation for clients (link in sig), and still face the problem that it's too much to read, or too "difficult". There's truth in that, as I wrote general documentation for a wide range of would-be admins (as opposed to just limited "how to blog" instructions), but I can commiserate with those who report that even simple blogging instructions get hit with "too difficult".
How to best serve non-techie users? So far, the good comments I'll be taking away from this thread include:
1. Clear away as many extra features, blocks, fields, and other distractions as possible
2. Make a simple "how-to" page (keep it as short as possible)
3. Place big, clear buttons for a few key items (like the how-to page, and "Create Blog Entry")
4. Use "fun" and "friendly" design where possible (includes design simplicity and attractiveness, making menu items easy to understand, etc.)
The details for doing all those may be Drupal-specific, but the issues are universal. It's an ongoing struggle... On the other hand, one of the nice things about Drupal is that its overwhelming complexity includes an overwhelming number of potential ways and tools to simplify things for the non-techie user. : ) Thanks to the OP for starting this useful thread, and best of luck in getting those reluctant users in line!
--------
Easy Drupal Admin Manual, Drupal questions, other stuff for the newbie: http://www.drupalace.com
I just created a menu link
I just created a menu link for that video and embedded it into my intro as well (excellent, thanks!!). I also re-wrote parts of my intro.
One thing I really (I mean REALLY) want to do is add an icon beside each of the menu items. This would make the site look much more colorful and user-friendly. Is there some special Drupal code format I have to use when editing each menu entry from the admin control panel or does this have to be hard-coded in?. Is there a 6x module for this?. If it does have to be hard-coded in (hopefully not) then I'm assuming the file to edit is page.tpl.php but where exactly do I add the HTML/CSS code?.
Last question...where can I find more video tutorials (not admin stuff for me but for my users)?.
Again, great and useful info here - many thanks :)
- Steve
I'd check out the Iconify
I'd check out the Iconify and Iconizer. A quick search also found this: Add an icon to menu links.
That should get you pointed in the right direction.
HTH!
Dave
Great links (they both look
Great links (they both look good). Just a question though...both seem to only add icons to the admin section (from what I read). Is there a 6x module that adds icons (or allows you to add them) to the user sections or can these two modules already do that?.
- Steve
The third link contains
The third link contains information on how to add links to the navigation (and other, I think) menus by adding an ID attribute to the <li> tag, which you can then stylize using your theme's style.css file. From what I understand about your question, that's about what you're looking for, just not in module form. You'd stick the php code in your theme's template.php file.
Dave
I've installed iconizer for
I've installed iconizer for 6x, enabled it, set permissions, etc and I'm just getting "?" icons in the admin section. All of the icons are present (just not showing). I noticed a "PNG Transparency Fix" in the modules section...is this what I need to install before the icons will display or am I missing something here?. I'm really trying to avoid editing the code directly if at all possible and the code snippet I saw appeared to be for 5x. According to what I read about Iconizer, your supposed to be able to add icons to other parts of the site besides the admin center.
Thanks, Steve
One thing I really (I mean
Assuming Primary & Secondary menus are enabled. You could use a
variation of the following (adjust to your needs).
#primary #secondary ul {list-style:none;display:inline}#primary #secondary ul li {line-height:27px;padding:0;background:url(images/your-chosen-icon) top left no-repeat;text-align:right;} /* assumes a 24px x 24px image so as to better center in the 27px line-height */
#primary #secondary li a {padding:1px 3px 1px 25px;} /* combined with the text-align above, ensures the text is cleared away from your icon */
This is simply a basic concept, given that I have no idea how your "theming" is done.
But this should get you very close to what you're hoping to accomplish. :)
Best wishes.
--Charlie
subcsribing
subscribing
Ok, I just overwrote the
Ok, I just overwrote the Iconizer admin _icons folder with the package that can be downloaded separately (due to GPL issues) and suddenly my admin icons appeared (ie; no more "?" icons).
My only issue at the moment is what code I can add to each of the Menu Link Titles in Administer>Site Building>Menus>Navigation>(Menu Items/Edit/Menu link title) that will cause an icon to appear next to each menu item. I've tried the IMG, DIV and SPAN tags, I've tried CSS, etc but nothing seems to work.
UPDATE: Also tried the Iconify module. Icons didn't display and even if they did, there's still no way to add them to the menu. Also, I didn't see any way to configure this module in the admin section, set permissions, etc.
UPDATE 2#: I just tried a few themes that add tiny icons to the "comment", "login", etc links but still nothing that adds icons to the menu. I wonder if there is a way to add those tiny icons to Garland?.
Any ideas?
- Thanks, Steve
Use the theme Luke! IMNSHO
Use the theme Luke!
IMNSHO using a module is not a good idea.
Why? Because it forces you to do it their way - not yours.
Simply put; it removes flexibility. Or, your presentation abilities. Use the CSS provided
by your theme. The W3C has already gone to great lengths to make presentation opportunities
near limitless. Why not take advantage of the work they've already done, so you don't have to? :)
Really. If you're stumped at all, there are literally millions of examples only a google away. :)
If you were to perform a search in your themes CSS file for the keywords #primary, or #secondary.
You'd find the right area to add, or modify it to allow the style I provided for you a couple of posts
up from this one. What you're attempting to accomplish is really easy/elementary - really. :)
Best wishes.
--Charlie
P.S. If you really get stuck. Post your CSS, and I'll amend/append as needed for you.
To Charlie...
To Charlie...
Oops, I hadn't seen that code you posted (I think we were posting at the same time and it ended up a few posts above my last one and out of my immediate view).
I think that's a really good idea but I have several custom links in my main menu and I also read that some of the menu links use the same bits of code so I'm not sure it's possible to add a unique icon to each one. More likely (from what I read) the possibility exists that the same icon would show up on several different links in the main menu rather than each menu item having it's own unique icon (which is what I'm trying to accomplish here).
Also, which file do I need to edit and in which folder?. I've already edited the page.tpl.php one but only to add a banner, etc).
Thanks again for your offer to help with the editing. I might just take you up on that! :)
UPDATE: In themes/garland/ there are actually a number of CSS files. I did a search for "#primary" in just about all of them and was unable to find anything like that. I also wanted to mention that I'm using the Nice Menus MOD (not sure what affect this is going to have on any changes I make to the CSS or other files).
- Steve
I'm using the Nice Menus MOD
Ahhh... Now that makes a world of difference. I toyed with that same mod. I
also did some re-writing of it in an attempt to make it . I used this
module because I like the fast and easy access it provides to the longer unordered lists. But strangely
When I exposed users to it, they indicated that they didn't care for it as well a unordered
list menu. So I ditched it ASAP. :)
I'll have another look at it to refresh my memory, and get back to with some possible options you
might use for it. BTW I guess it would be helpful to know which Theme you have chosen. As it
would make it immensely easier than guessing what to suggest. :)
--Charlie
QUOTE from my above
QUOTE from my last post...
UPDATE: In themes/garland/ there are actually a number of CSS files. I did a search for "#primary" in just about all of them and was unable to find anything like that. I also wanted to mention that I'm using the Nice Menus MOD (not sure what affect this is going to have on any changes I make to the CSS or other files).
UNQUOTE
I just want to add that I tried one of the iconized themes ("Tapestry") and while it added icons to nearly everything, the "Nice Menus" suddenly appeared way up at the top and other page elements ended up where they were not supposed to be. I also tried the "imagemenu" MOD and tried the DHTML Menu MOD in my fruitless search for a way to iconize Drupal.
Even if I am able to iconize the menu, I still need to find some way of iconizing the entire site and with most of the themes here not having been updated to 6x, this could present a problem.
- Steve
most of the themes here not
Just another good reason to use CSS - not . CSS could care less what version of anything you use, it just keeps working. Beginning to see my point? :)
BTW shall I assume Garland is the theme you're using?
--Charlie
Charlie
Charlie
I got your "point" a long time ago but as I stated earlier, I am still unable to locate the #primary code you mentioned and I still have no idea which CSS file to edit in (again) the Garland theme I am currently using. It would help a lot to know *which* file to edit before I embark on this endeavor which I am finding more and more frustrating as the initial excitement wanes and I begin to realize the limitations I am faced with.
I eliminated the "NiceMenus" MOD because, well, it wasn't playing very nicely with the Tapestry theme I just re-installed and I still haven't even been able to get that particular theme working to my liking no matter what I do. It's a good thing I did a DB backup last night and saved the folder contents I guess.
No offense to Drupal (I really DO think it's a brilliant work of art) but before I got involved with all of this, I had installed b2evolution which I liked even more except for the fact that it doesn't support multi-blogging to the extent that a person can just sign up and immediately create a blog - the admin must first *approve* their permission to blog which completely killed the whole thing for me and which is why I am now using (or *trying* to use) Drupal.
You people are great...Drupal is great. I'm just beginning to have doubts as to whether this is going to work out for me and I really DO want it to.
Anyway, for whatever it's worth...
- Steve
=-=
If you are using garland and have changed the color scheme, garland puts the .css file in the files folder.
also if you have css aggregation turned on, you want to turn it off before you start messing with css files or your changes won't be shown.
_____________________________________________________________________
My posts & comments are usually dripping with sarcasm.
If you ask nicely I'll give you a towel : )
No, I haven't changed the
No, I haven't changed the color scheme and I have css aggregation turned off.
=-=
Search for Primary Navigation & Secondary Navigation to find the areas of suggestion.
Those searchs should pick up the comments in style.css of garland
_____________________________________________________________________
My posts & comments are usually dripping with sarcasm.
If you ask nicely I'll give you a towel : )
VeryMistunderstood... 1) I
VeryMistunderstood...
1) I already tried that (in style.css) and was unable to located "primary" or "secondary".
2) Even if I could change these it would simply add the same icon to ALL of the menu items (I want to add a DIFFERENT icon to EACH menu item).
3) This still won't help me with adding site-wide icons to all of the various places in the GARLAND theme (which I have ALWAYS used except when I tried out the other one)
- Steve
I eliminated the "NiceMenus"
OK can we make up our mind here? you just got done telling me that you were using the Garland
theme. So which is it; the Garland theme, or the Tapestry theme. I do
need to know - really. :)
Keep in mind, this is going to be a somewhat long for you.
Take a deep breath, then let's forge ahead. Shall we?
--Charlie
Ok, lets recap here
Ok, lets recap here Sparky...
I indicated to you (three times) that I was using the Garland theme (even though you asked twice after I had already mentioned this to you) but then, after still not receiving a reply to several questions based on YOUR earlier suggestions, I decided I would try out the Tapestry theme. So I *was* using the Garland theme at the time I indicated to you that I was using that theme.
I was at one time, fully fluent in both HTML and CSS (level 1 and 2) and even wrote a tutorial (including 30+ different CSS widgets) which won an award from ZDNet (Ziff-Davis) back when it was still around and frankly, I find your posts more condescending and patronizing than I do helpful so perhaps this communication needs to end and/or I need to look elsewhere for a CMS solution unless the tone changes here pretty quick.
- Steve
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The garland theme question keeps coming up because there are consistent references to the tapestry theme too. I too was confused on whether you were sitting on garland at the time of comment or tapesty.
Each comment you post tends to ask a question then clouds the question with ramblings which makes it inherinetly hard to follow in some cases.
:shrugging shoulders:
_____________________________________________________________________
My posts & comments are usually dripping with sarcasm.
If you ask nicely I'll give you a towel : )
It's sad that this thread has degraded
It's sad that this thread has degraded as much as it has. I do have an impressive resume (thanks) but I also don't know everything and so I decided to come here and ask a simple question for which no one here seems to have the answer to.
=-=
http://drupal.org/node/256002#comment-838406 answers the question about where primary and secondary can be found in the garland theme.
_____________________________________________________________________
My posts & comments are usually dripping with sarcasm.
If you ask nicely I'll give you a towel : )
Sorry, but I haven't been
Sorry, but I haven't been following your other postings in this thread. So I missed a couple of your posts.
condescending?! Get over it. I have no such thoughts, or motivations. Fact is, I simply empathize with you here, because I shared many of the same frustrations I
recognize you're having. Nothing more. Further, I currently manage 50 servers, and 200 domains. With
a total of 50,000 customers. All of this leaves me precious little time for extra-curricular activities.
As you might imagine.
So, if you're still with me. I'll take the time to feed you any info you require/desire in order to make
this endevour as quick and painless as possible.
lemme know.
--Charlie
Unfortunately, it's
Unfortunately, it's sometimes difficult to ascertain motives behind a wall of black and white text and as a result, misunderstandings can (and do) often arise. A few of your posts seemed (to me) to have condescending undertones, however, if I misjudged you than I am also man enough to apologize...are you?
Like you, I am also a big-wig on the hosting scene, a sys admin, Linux guru, programmer, artist and I wear a lot of other hats with 5 different businesses and important board meetings to travel around to on my privately-owned lear jet (that is when I'm not sailing or playing tennis in my gated country club community) so I really don't have much time to devote to Drupal (as I'm sure you can imagine) but I thought that if I could get some clear and concise answers to very simple questions here that I might just give it a try.
And I'm still waiting...
- Steve
No hard feelings. I simply
No hard feelings. I simply wanted to keep it simple. This does not imply you are
simple. I meerly keep in mind that by posting in these forums, I am not simply posting
to the individual I am replying to. I am also writing to anyone who chooses to read the
post. I also have zero feelings about anything/body I communicate with in these
forums. Not that I don't want to. It's just that my primary motivation is to answer
questions in the most effective way I know how. This discussion is (as you already stated) is text
driven. I have no reconing of the tone of your voice to make any judgment call. So
I do not. It's way too much work to continuously try and .
So I won't. May I suggest that you shouldn't either? A kind gesture, nothing more.
Really, lets not bog this thread down with politics. There are already way too many
forums for that anyway.
Agreed? :)
--Chuck out...
Perhaps your game is
Perhaps your game is politics but I was merely attempting to get what should be a very simple question answered which is what I assumed this forum was for (please correct me if I'm mistaken). Whether intended or not (I can't read minds - yet), a few of your posts (without personally knowing you) came across as somewhat patronizing and condescending. This offended me and I responded in kind. If in fact, this was not the case then allow me to suggest that we drop the subject and move on to more productive things and save the bantering for another day.
That said, I appreciate that you are trying to help others here - even if you really don't care about the people you are helping (ie; "zero feelings") but as I have said and will say once more, I installed Drupal NOT as a tech challenge but because I wanted a quick and simple solution for my users. In other words, I'm looking at Drupal from an end-user perspective and not that of a developer (I no longer have much time for that sort of thing and have grown rusty over the years - ie; I haven't a clue how to write a single line of PHP code).
Anyway, there you have it.
As I realize there are
As I realize there are others that are looking for the same solution.
Here's the . :)
First off. A few things to consider;
your intended goal - emphasis on simple
layout and presentation is not as simple.
time at the W3C org website if you don't
meyerweb, A list apart, and of course, W3C org. There are, of course others.
about it's inner workings
Now then, if those prerequisites don't look too daunting. Let's move ahead. :)
In an effort to answer the specific question regarding the addition of (images)
to ordered, or unordered list items in a menu. There are a couple of things you'll need to
to do to accomplish this. 1 we'll need to add classes to our menu items
( list items - <li> ). A simple horizontal example:
#primary #secondary,#primary #secondary ul {display:inline;list-style:none;}
#primary #secondary ul li {padding:0;background-color:#000;height:27px;text-align:right;}
#primary #secondary ul li.icon {background:images/icon.gif center left no-repeat;}
/* take careful note of the addition of the .icon class appended to the li above */
#primary #secondary ul li a {display:block;padding:1px 3px 1px 25px;color:#ddd;text-decoration:none;}
#primary #secondary ul li a:hover {color:#fff;text-decoration:none;}
#primary #secondary ul li a:focus,#primary #secondary ul li a.active {background:#d00;}
/* take note of the pseudo classes :focus, and .active above. These will keep the active (clicked) link colored with a red background. So your users won't get lost. :) */
I'll get right back with part II - .
But I have to get a couple of tasks done - I do have to work for a living. :)
To anyone who chooses to take this as anything more than a simple .
Let that be your loss. My only motivation is to help prevent others from experiencing
the same frustrations I did.
'nuff said.
--Charlie
I agree with charlie
I agree with charlie
Avoid modules and use the theme for the menu
Or create a block with html or php turned on.
With php you can decide who sees what
Marcel
PrewrittenContent.com
Drupal Themes
Writing Schedule
Subscribed :)
Subscribed :)
subscribing
subscribing
My posts to Charlie and
My posts to Charlie and Verymisunderstood are ending up all over the place. I can now see why my poor users would find this (otherwise really nice) software somewhat confusing. Honestly, I'm really feeling conflicted right now. Drupal is the only software that "kind of does" what I want it to do but I didn't install it because I wanted to have to manually tweak the code every time I wanted to add a particular feature. I wanted a quick and easy solution for my users. The recent tone of this conversation has also put me off a bit and soured me toward using it and yet I can't think of anything else that will allow TRUE multi-blogging.
- Steve
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drupal.org chooses threaded discussions. Your site doesn't have to be threaded it can be flat. There are settings for this.
I personally prefer threaded so I understand which comments refer to what where as with flat comments , comment 50 could be a follow up comment to comment 2. but is 48 comments away.
_____________________________________________________________________
My posts & comments are usually dripping with sarcasm.
If you ask nicely I'll give you a towel : )
Ok, thanks for that
Ok, thanks for that Verymisunderstood.
I've been all over the map looking for alternatives to Drupal and there are none that do what Drupal can do (with a little tweaking perhaps). I guess I'll just forget about the fancy menu icons for now, put everything back the way it was and move on to other things.
In spite of everything, I still think this has been an interesting thread and I have learned a lot from it. Thanks for all the helpful tips, hints and suggestions but it's time for this old man to call it a day.
- Steve
Well, everything is back to
Well, everything is back to the way I had it set up before now (sigh of relief). I looked all over but was unable to find any options that would allow me to choose between threaded or flat discussions. Would you mind pointing me in the right direction please?.
- Thanks, Steve
What the...????
What the...????
This is really strange. I'm wondering why all these people are not replying to my posts, sitting here, waiting and suddenly I scroll up and see tons of 'em. It looks like the way this forum works is that you just find a post from someone, hit "reply" and then respond and if 10 other people post afterwards, your original post just gets sort of jumbled in somewhere while your still waiting at the bottom wondering why no one is responding. I guess I'm used to another format. I'm still very new to Drupal so I imagine it will take time to learn.
NOTE: Charlie/Verymisunderstood...I responded (if you can find it).
- Steve
The setting you were looking
The setting you were looking for is in Administer -> Content management -> Content types (admin/content/node-type). You can select and edit a content type, so, the settings can be different for some content types.
Here is a handy trick for going straight to the first new comment inside our non-chronological tangle of comments: In the list of comments in your tracker page, don't click on the title but on the red "new" indication.
Judging by some parts of this discussion, I think this is a good place to say that Drupal is not the best choice for doing your work quickly and painlessly and getting over with it. Most other CMSs are more or less streamlined and targeted to some kind of applications, which they may handle very well. Drupal out of the box does several things in a more or less satisfactory way, but it shines when you put-in some work to assemble things which are practically impossible with another CMS. Many people here don't use Drupal exclusively -- it is only one of their tools and they use it when they need it.
I noticed that this discussion became really long and popular in a very short time. It is a precious one, not for its content itself but for alerting the developers to the need of many people for usability improvement. There have been similar heated, even ugly discussions about other topics in the past (for example about the forum module, about image/file handling, or about user profiles) but eventually good things come out of them.
I think you summed it up
First, thank you for your help.
I think you summed it up very nicely. I was thinking about this last night as I was laying in bed. Drupal is probably the most powerful CMS out there but all of it's many features come in plain vanilla. If you are a PHP programmer with lots of time to kill then you basically have an excellent "skeleton" to work with and mold into whatever you want it to be. As you pretty much stated however, if your looking for a quick and painless solution, Drupal is not the way to go.
This morning I went to various "feature comparison" sites and even looked at Joomla (again) and got pretty excited because Joomla has a LOT of eye-candy and looks about as colorful and user-friendly as it gets. Then, I discovered that it doesn't have HALF the capability that Drupal has so once again I am kind of "stuck" with Drupal whether I like it or not and if I want to use it to create a nice, user-friendly site with big colorful icons and a hand-held experience for my end-users then I have TONS of work ahead of me.
Drupal is definitely not user-friendly out of the box. It is nothing like Blogger where the user is basically baby-sitted throughout the experience. I agree with all who say that Drupal needs to be iconized and have greater usability but I'm sure that many of the geeks, tweakers and code-munchers out there would disagree.
Anyway, I noticed that noone replied to my "I just wanted to say..." thread so I guess I'm getting the "cold shoulder" because I dared to express my dissatisfaction yesterday. Perhaps the Developers should start listening to those of us who want a fully-iconized, user-friendly platform that doesn't require a masters degree in computer science just to add some basic feature but as someone here pointed out, noone is forcing me to use Drupal.
I digress...
- Steve
Often times developers and
Often times developers and people who have worked with a system for a long time lose sight of the system's complexity. It does appear that they are trying to make the software more "newcomer" friendly and lower the learning curve. The theming changes and the use of different technologies in Drupal 6 show this. It still has a ways to go but I think it is getting there. Personally, I can't bring myself to using Drupal 5. Too much of a learning curve, even if it has a ton of extra modules that could be useful.
The thing is, if I just
The thing is, if I just wanted a personal blog to showcase my hobby, political views, talk about my favorite sports team, etc, I'd head on over to WordPress with my cyberheels smoking but you can't have multiple authors and multiple blogs using a single installation of WordPress. I like the WYSIWYG editor too and just about everything else about it. Nucleus supports multiple authors/multiple blogs but lacks the eye candy and I found navigation very confusing and had to spend 20 minutes on the demo just trying to find some place to "create a blog". No decent built-in WYSIWYG editor either. Joomla is pure eye-candy and has a trillion different features but lacks multi-blog capabilities. WordPressMU doesn't look very mature but I read that it uses 95-99% of WordPress's codebase and that all of the WordPress themes and mods work on it. It was not immediately clear WHICH version of WordPress it was based on. Then you've got all the other blogwares/CMS's in various stages of development floating around out there - a hodgepodge of various features (or lack thereof). It's difficult to find everything all rolled up into one CMS or blog package.
- Steve
Actually...
I saw it but didn't have time to reply. Don't assume we're ignoring you. A lot of us are just very busy.
Also, don't assume you're the first person to ask for a hand holding Drupal or that no one is working on it. Not only is no one forcing you to use Drupal, no one is forcing to sit back and wait while someone else makes it better rather then digging in and helping.
I started out being sympathetic to you and your frustrations, but your attitude has become extremely off putting.
Michelle
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See my Drupal articles and tutorials or come check out life in the Coulee Region.
If my attitude is that
If my attitude is that "offputting" to you, then I suggest you stop reading my posts as noone is "forcing" you to read them just like noone is forcing me to use Drupal (which I have already acknowledged). Incidentally, I am not a PHP programmer so I have no choice but to "wait around". As an aside, I find your attitude a little off-putting as well (ie; were you actually trying to BE HELPFUL or did you just decide you wanted to get your jabs in under the guise of "helping" me?).
- Steve
...
You complained that no one was answering your post. I explained why. You complained that Drupal wasn't user friendly enough. I gave you a link to the usability group. But I see you're going to hide behind the old "don't know PHP" excuse like so many before you. I suspect you don't actually want help / to help. You just want to complain. So I'm going to take your advice and stop reading your post.
Michelle
--------------------------------------
See my Drupal articles and tutorials or come check out life in the Coulee Region.
Your childish attempt at an
Your childish attempt at an "argument" makes no sense. You see, I really don't know PHP so it's not an "excuse" at all and far from "hiding" from anything, I'm right here...actively refuting your claim that I'm "hiding and really don't want help" and for the record, the only thing you really did to "help" me was to provide a link that does nothing more than state the obvious...that there are people who are actively working on Drupal to improve usability. So what script DOESN'T have an an active group of developers behind it?.
This must be a really embarrassing "DUH" moment for you, huh?.
- Steve
About helping out, there are
About helping out, there are some handbook pages starting at http://drupal.org/node/10259 which sum up the current thinking on this subject. For the not-very-technical fellow, for example, there is patch-testing, there is documentation (very important for summing up what functionality is available and for realizing what is missing) and perhaps a few other things.
Of course this is more complicated if you are mostly interested in a specific area, but generally the only limiting factors are time and money.
Steve, I don't think it is
Steve, I don't think it is the cold shoulder just nothing more to say maybe.
I am in your camp - Drupal seems powerful yet there always seems to be a gotcha. I think what is happening is we are all beginning to look for social and community solutions and Drupal came out of the CMS paradigm.
CMS is only a small part of what we need now, for most of us the days of creating content portals is gone. If Drupal doesn't get that then it will be gone too only to be replaced by a Drupal for communities type thing.
One of my main concerns is speed - out of the box Drupal ought to be lightening fast - it isn't. What good is any software that can slow to a crawl and no one has a real handle on why.
Lets not forget when you are learning - enable a module, then remember to check permissions, then goto site configuration, then check the blocks and the menu etc
All that said I keep plugging away on Drupal and of course still keep my eyes open for other enabling solutions - Kickapps (written in Java) is very good for building communities but you then have to keep your data on their servers and there is cost involved if you want to serve your own adv. Free if you allow them to serve adv.
IMO Drupal at its core must begin to enable and serve the social networking thing and allow the CMS to become one of the things it does well at the core and not the only thing.
Drupal isn't for the faint
Drupal isn't for the faint of heart, its a serious tool for building serious websites and can be customized in any possible way that is needed, but you need to know php to do this. For larger websites its actually more suited to a team of maybe 2 or 3 developers working to customize things exactly the way they are needed. There is nothing better out there for building websites, sure there are easier cms's to deal with, like Joomla but you can do more with Drupal. An example of a Drupal site I built is: http://telecommutereview.com you can see that it looks and feels nothing like a typical Drupal site, so I'm not sure I understand when you say you can't customize it the way you want.
If Drupal is making you
If Drupal is making you unhappy, maybe it's time to
1. pay for customization of a cms
2. keep looking for a better cms
Marcel
PrewrittenContent.com
Drupal Themes
Writing Schedule
Some people have nothing
Some people have nothing better to do than to pick a fight online. LOL.
As for your problem, its not unusual. Some people prefer myspace over facebook because facebook "looks childish and has no features" lol
Movable Type might be
Movable Type might be something for you.
Commercial version:
http://www.movabletype.com/
Open Source version:
http://www.movabletype.org/
Edit:
Whichever cms you will try to customize a layout and architecture for you will run into setbacks.
Edit 2:
Just read your other post. Very polite.
Wordpress has a awesome
Wordpress is loaded with themes (more than drupal)
Look for the revolution themes
Marcel
PrewrittenContent.com
Drupal Themes
Writing Schedule
Someone fight with me
Come on, smack me silly! I want to create a tricycle for people to ride, but I want it to have all the power and features of a state-of-the-art electric passenger train. So I started with a passenger train and I was gonna strip it down, but then I noticed it has all these electronic parts and stuff that has NOTHING to do with pedaling a bike! It's like I have to learn ELECTRONICS? So forgive me but I'm feeling a little let down right now. WHY ON EARTH can't someone make a tricycle that is a passenger train?!?!? WHAT is so flippin' HARD TO UNDERSTAND about my request?
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Interactive Worlds and Immersive Obsessions
http://www.asifproductions.com