Joomla to Drupal, can Drupal do this.......
Okay ive built a few tiny sites with joomla, ive never touched drupal but i hear that drupal pretty much puts joomla in the bin when it comes to community driven websites. heres what i need to do and here is how i would have done it in joomla, what i need to know is can i and HOW can i do it in drupal (module wise)
-main gallery of site
in joomla i use rsgallery2 to have a gallery for the whole site
1. users can upload images in batch via zip files
2. users can make new galleries and sub galleries and i can control how many from the back end
3.users ca delete their own images and galleries and edit them.
-main video section
in joomla i use hwdvideo share, like most joomla extensions that are actually useful it costs money to have its full functionality.
1·users can upload videos converted with ffmpeg
2.voting, commenting, sharing, embedding. downloading and integration with community builder costs money.
3.categorization (no batch functionality)
-main reviews section
jreviews costs money but its the only good reviews component
1.reviews laid out really nicely
2.images in the reviews layout
3.field customization
-profile page
community builder
too many things to actually list, users can do everything right up to customizing the actual profile page itself.
-groups
this is where joomla has failed
the groupjive component for community builder is so crap it nearly died a year ago, it looks rubbish , you have to use a bunch of hacks just for a group to have its own forum, gallery and a proper blog. moreover none of the other components work with groupjive such as the rsgallery2 gallery component which works with community builder. Groupjive is extremely poor.
-main mp3 galley
this doesent exist in joomla properly. basically there are like 30 mp3 extensions that all let you have one mp3 player with a playlist, so you cant search through it like an mp3 gallery or anything like that, and none support user uploads. (one does, but to its unsearchable playlist)
there is a general media extension i could hack a tiny bit to make work as an mp3 galley, but its for joomla 1.5, if i switch to 1.5 both community builder and groupjive will be rendered useless.
its because of this groupjive that im thinking of ditching joomla alltogether . ive heard a lot about drupal and ive been banging away at it for a few days now. and my goodness is it difficult. ive managed to get a gallery going and successfully convert a video with the ffmpeg wrapper and the other six modules i needed to get to make that work.
searching for modules is hard compared to joomla where most modules have live demos so you can see exactly what it does before you try it out (save a bunch of time).
what im asking for-
what im asking is for anyone willing to list a bunch of modules that can help me make a community site based around images, videos, reviews, articles, blogs, mp3's all at a general website level, as in open to all(like this forum) at a profile level (users videos , galleries blogs.... all on a profile page) and at a group level (a groups videos , galleries, blogs, forum.... all on a groups profile area).
you dont have to tell me how to actually use the modules, i'll figure that one out. i just wanna know if it can be done and which modules can do it.
Fanxs.
Can Drupal do something that
Can Drupal do something that Joomla can?
There is a general formula for this question:
Joomla + Your feature + roughly 285982 other features and options = Drupal ;)
As for HOW, you'll have to do your own research. Drupal can definitely handle the features you listed, but some of them (ex. uploading of images within a .zip) will likely require custom modules.
---
Yuriy Babenko
www.yubastudios.com
My Drupal tutorials: http://yubastudios.com/blog/tag/tutorials
Hopefully I can help a bit
Hopefully I can help a bit.
I had a look at rsgallery2. From the demo, it appears this can be done pretty easily using CCK, Views, Imagefield, and ImageCache (which is the usual basic formula actually for "a lot" of things in Drupal). Taxonomy module is ideal for categorization. Here's a video that shows how to make a gallery with the above modules (I believe it's a bit outdated and for Drupal 5, but definitely will get the idea across)... http://blip.tv/file/971610 ... there's also a written explanation (also a bit outdated... for Drupal 6 specific help with CCK and Views, check out the link in my signature).
You can actually also use the same basic "formula" with those modules (CCK, Views, Taxonomy) not just for images, but also videos and audio (of which there are a variety of choices, all of which support user uploads)... to name a few: FlashVideo, Media Mover, Asset... there's a lot more, I'll try to look some more up for you. Things like commenting, tagging (like Flickr, etc) are all built in.
I'm not sure about uploading zip files of images. You might be able to adapt this: http://drupal.org/project/image_import_zip or http://drupal.org/project/image_fupload (or go with Image module, which is ok but getting to be an outdated way of working with images in light of Imagefield/Imagecache). If you can wait (or help to speed it up), a note on image_fupload says "Also support CCK + ImageField (for D6) to upload multiple images, this will come next time". I don't know but the feature could already be in that 3.x-dev version.
Had a look at jreviews...
It looks like there's nothing there Drupal cannot do. Much of it is built into Drupal already (user submitted content, commenting, access control, customizable templates, editor vs user roles, RSS feeds, etc), and a few things like CCK, Views, etc can take on most of the rest (custom fields, listings, RSS feeds per list/category, etc). For ratings/voting, Drupal has a variety of options to choose from - a personal favorite for me is Voting API + Fivestar module. A good module for users adding things to their "favorites" is Flag module. Drupal is already very solid for SEO, but add on PathAuto module and Global Redirect module to make it even better. Check out modr8 module for content moderation, or there are a variety of more advanced workflow modules if you need them. As with galleries, Imagefield + Imagecache for images on the reviews are ideal.
For groups, Drupal shines here. Check out Organic Groups module. To see it in action: http://groups.drupal.org ... http://teamsugar.com .... http://www.mothersclick.com
Drupal user profiles can also be quite powerful and extensible (see the last two mentioned sites, or a variety of others). You can stick with the built-in Profile module, or go with something like Bio module (D5) or Content Profile (D6) to have a special node ("piece of content") made for every user, thus giving the power of Drupal's node system and theming over to your user profiles. There's also Advanced Profile Kit module to help automatically draw in features from a variety of other modules to make user profiles more full-featured with less effort... not sure if that one is D6 yet.
I agree it can be a bit hard to understand which modules to choose in Drupal since there are not usually demos. I strongly encourage you to setup a quick copy of WAMP or MAMP (depending on your OS) and install Drupal on it as a quick "sandbox" where you can download modules and install them like crazy, just to give them a spin with no worries. Put Demo module on there and you'll be able to revert any major mishaps. On your drupal.org account, make sure you turn on the "Search Downloads" block, which makes it easier to quickly search the modules. On the plus side for Drupal modules compared to Joomla, all Drupal projects are hosted "here" on drupal.org, all are open source GPL, and there is a clear process in place for people being able to take over any module that gets abandoned - few if any Drupal modules cost money. There is a security team on drupal.org that is constantly going through finding insecure things in modules and updating everyone with security bulletins. There's also the Update Status functionality in Drupal which tells you when ANY module is out of date and links you directly to the update and info about it. Drupal modules also try "very" hard to work together with each other. So when you install one module, often other modules can make use of it and vice-versa.
Anyhow, hope this helps. I probably missed some things... might think of them later and add another post, or feel free to just point out areas that were left unclear.
-- David
absolutecross.com
[new guide/lesson in progress: Creating a CCK and Views powered Drupal site - feedback welcome]
Forgot to mention...
Forgot to mention... the gallery lesson video I mentioned uses Thickbox module. Personally I prefer Lightbox2 module (similar, but a bit slicker looking and has more configurable options).
I installed RSGallery2 on my local "sandbox" copy of Joomla 1.5... it has some pretty good options, and brings everything together into that single UI. Drupal can do everything I see here and more, however due to its modular/flexible/reusable nature, it is not quite as simple (but worth the trouble for what you end up with). Fortunately you can pretty much follow that video and that should take you pretty far. I wrote about a different approach to categorizing galleries here (rather than Taxonomy): http://drupal.org/node/308910
Check out: http://drupal.org/project/slideshow_creator
http://drupal.org/project/views_slideshow (also very good, but D5 only for now)
I wanted to try out jReviews, but couldn't... the "trial" source code is encoded and can't run on my server unless paid for. Yuk ;)
Coming from Joomla, you might like a few modules like these:
http://drupal.org/project/controlpanel
http://drupal.org/project/admin_menu (this is a must-have for me)
One thing I noticed in Joomla modules is there seems to be a lot of duplication of functionality between components. For instance your gallery section handles its own comments using the comment system built into the gallery component. Reviews have their own "different" comments... etc etc. Could end up making for a confusing experience for users (whereas Drupal handles things like that in core, so the user experience is consistent and there's no need to duplicate). Also with theming in Drupal... if you can theme one kind of Content Type, you can theme every kind; if you can theme one View, you can theme any View, etc.
-- David
absolutecross.com
[new guide/lesson in progress: Creating a CCK and Views powered Drupal site - feedback welcome]
Thanks a bunch
Surley Keyz is an angel.
ive already got a "sandbox" installation of joomla and have mangaged to do things like convert video n stuff but i was really stuck with cck and stuff. Thanks a bunch.
Lastly what drupal version do you recommend. 4 5 or 6, because not all modules are written for each one
Haha thanks
Haha thanks, just doin' what I can :) Just wait until you witness the amazing Drupal-helping-skills of people like webchick haha ;) (she's the tireless champion who's responsible for Drupal 7 right now, and so much more in the past too). Us Drupal folk are a enthusiastic bunch :D
At this point, go with version 6 all the way (up to about 2 or so months ago I would have said version 5 for the type of site you're doing, but modules for 6 are evening out now). The new version of Views for Drupal 6 is beyond worth it. There are definitely still some modules that aren't upgraded for 6 (though not very many that I need, and I'm making a multimedia social networking site). Once you learn to harness CCK and Views, your reliance on specialized modules begins to dramatically decrease. It's wise to pare down the modules you "rely" on as much as possible and use CCK/Views whenever you can, as those tools are here to stay (for instance, there are a lot of modules I "like" to use on a site, some of which might not be upgraded to D6 yet, but I could, if forced to, do without them for a time if it came to the point of upgrading to the next version of Drupal if/when the version I'm using is about to become unsupported... in other words they are, when possible, modules that might augment the functionality or usability of the site, but are not so ingrained into my site's core functionality that I'd be up a creek if they went the way of the DoDo bird haha). Also since many of my websites are ultimately a "business" to me, I'm prepared, if necessary, to put in some funds to get things upgraded if it ever came down to it (if I was a good programmer, I'd do it myself, but I'm not haha).
What I do is make a table in my text editor, in which I list all the modules for a site. I have columns for if it's upgraded to Drupal 6, and if so what state is it in (full release, alpha, beta, dev, patch, etc). I also have a column where I check off the one's that I absolutely must have to even "think" of releasing the site, and if they're all available, then I get started (and even if not, then I can always start on the theming or other parts of the site while I wait or help speed things up by testing patches if possible). And I also check off those that I feel I could add onto the site a bit later if necessary... if the module's in that column (and really not too many are at this point) then I'm generally ok with moving forward with the site without them, planning to tack them on later when available.
You definitely don't want to use version 4, since it is no longer supported and doesn't receive further security patches (Drupal is highly progressive in its releases, at least for now, since they are serious about moving forward with what can be done with the system... it may slow down eventually, but for now it's a new version every 1 to 1.5 years). Only the 2 latest major releases are supported (which right now is 5 and 6). Due to a complete ground-up reworking of CCK and Views for Drupal 6 (and consequently most of the modules that rely on them), the version 6 cycle is likely to be longer than usual, so Drupal 5 will still be supported for probably around another year or so - so if you really need D5 and have no other option, then it's "ok". If you are capable of going with 6 though, I recommend it.
-- David
absolutecross.com
[new guide/lesson in progress: Creating a CCK and Views powered Drupal site - feedback welcome]
Gonna go with 6
Ive been using drupal 6 now on my local host and ive practically completed building the site, (functionality wise no theme wise)
Your a life-saver, joomla really REALLY sucks next to drupal when you want to build a community site. Next i need to learn how to theme in drupal, so i can convert the many beautiful joomla themes to drupal.
your blip.tv tutorials have been bookmarked, and the bookmarks have been backed up.
Acidfree Albums
You probably already found a solution to uploading images in a zip file, but if you haven't, I'm pretty sure Acidfree Albums (drupal module) supports that. The downside is there is no acidfree release yet for drupal 6. FWIW.
Personally (and to each his
Personally (and to each his own) I would avoid acidfree. I have been watching it for updates for "years" now and it doesn't look promising that it will be up to date in the near future or that it will remain up to date if/when it is eventually released for current Drupal versions. Not the developer's fault of course (as he says, he has a job), but I'd just warn against relying on modules that are less likely to be updated. acidfree module also follows the more outdated paradigm in Drupal module development of having a more "all in one" approach rather than a "building blocks" approach; building blocks offer numerous advantages so far as customization and flexibility and unified reusable functionality between a wide variety of modules, although with the downside of requiring some extra work and understanding in order to pull everything together. Evidently acidfree is more modular in the 5 dev version, though relies on "other" all in one modules such as Image and Video module which are gradually being phased out in favor of more flexible field-based approaches.
Anyhow, just my 2 cents :)
-- David
absolutecross.com
[new guide/lesson in progress: Creating a CCK and Views powered Drupal site - feedback welcome]