Site configuration challenge: corporate brochure

That would be a really useful idea - save you reinventing the wheel every time you are faced with a problem - a bit like pattern design on a large scale.
I am currently in the position where one of these guides would be really useful - when I resolve the issues I am having I would be more that happy to contribute to this form of documentation.

I'm particularly interested to learn how people expect it do be done, before they attempt to do it, or before getting themselves familiar with Drupal. Like that, we can modify Drupal's workflow and interaction design to match people's initial expectation. So if you haven't used Drupal before or if you only started using Drupal recently, and you'd like to create a brochure site like the one outlined by sepeck (or even just an 'about'-page), how do you envision the workflow/process to be? What are your expectations? Try to write them down as accurate as possible.

Having just read the Bryght guide, the differences I would've done would be summed up as (I'm only 95% sure it would all work as I've described it hehe):

I would've used page node for the permanent static pages instead of book pages. Book pages would seem to have a bit too much interface baggage with them that is best saved for when you have a hierarchy of related nodes. These pages wouldn't have 'promote to front page' checked on them.

I would've used the front_page module for the home page - probably with the odd PHP snippet lifted from the Drupal handbook. The front page would have a slightly different look and feel / layout to it than the standard pages.

Using story for the more newsy time based content, I would've themed the node types differently. eg on pages I would remove a bunch of extra stuff like submitted by etc.

I'd create a url alias called news pointing at the node module, then created a link for it in the themes primary or secondary menu.

I'd also hide the navigation block, and manually create a menu bloxk for the navigation structure - probably using the menu on the fly stuff. I would still try to keep a mix of static hierarchy type navigation along with dynamic taxonomy listing style navigation as well. This would depend a bit on just how much content there was.

There'd probably still be some PHP tweaking to do in the themes to hide interface widgets based on user role or url etc.

Anyway, that was just some rough thoughts off the top of my head.

One thing that would be handy would be role based visibility rules for blocks.

Firstly, your idea is a great one. I would definately like to contribute.

However, I would say the problem with your first request is the type of website in your hypothesis. These "brochure" websites are almost NEVER successful. In fact, won't take money anymore to work on them. I feel too guilty when folks tell me they aren't getting the response they wanted.

The beauty of using Drupal for a small business website is that it does not have to be a brochure website. Any Tom, Dick or Harry can have a website that looks like one of the big boys.

Advanced Web Design

It's a great idea to set up these "Now what" challenges.
I think, after the basic set up of a brochure site, we should developp the concept and put some more configurations idea.
For my part, I would like to developp the idea of permissions to create private document repositories by groups of peoples (sales, executive...)

Then if people skilled in CSS can post some explanation of creating a theme or modifying one, it should be great.
Fleximax is a good first approach at theming. Also I saw a good tutorial about building a template for mambo, maybe this kind of tutorial can inspire us to unleash the power of phpTemplate and Drupal.

About page

I would create a static page (page.module) and link it into the main menu using the theme system options. (The theme system options are hard to find. It's problematic for new users.)

Contact us form

I would use the contact module in HEAD. If I were using Drupal 4.6, I'd write my own using the "PHP code" input format in combination with a static page (page.module). I would link it in the main navigation system using the theme system options.

A Products (or services page)

I would use a static page and write XHTML by hand. To upload screenshots, whitepapers or other product related documentation, I would use the upload module.

A simple front page with two paragraphs about your company and contact information plus a sidebar with links on the right or left which link to headlines from your five latest news articles.

For the front page I would use a static page (page.module). To create two columns, I'd select the "Full HTML" input format and use CSS to create two columns. For the news article block, I would use a contributed module that shows all nodes in my 'news' term. (I would wonder why such block isn't part of core.)

A news page with news articles about press releases, events and news.

For the press releases I would either use static pages (page.module) or stories (story.module) depending on how I want both to be styled (eg. author information, publication date). For the events, I might consider using the event.module. I would categorize them using one or more taxonomy terms.

First, I will add a taxonomy vocabulary, then terms under it, For example, Home, Services, About. Can add Demos, Case Studies, ...etc. if needed

Second, I disable the post info (author/date/time) on the page type, but enable it for story.

Third, go to the theme configuration and add primary and/or secondary links with Home, About, Services, Products, Contact or whatever else you want.

An About Page

Just do a node/add/page and write whatever the client feels should go in the About page.

A Contact Us Form

For this, I use the feedback module. It is suitable where all the emails should go to one person. Otherwise, use the contact module in 4.6 or later.

A Products (or services page)

I use the book module here. The nice thing is that I get:

- an overview page with all products or services
- a Previous/Next links to other products
- a block on the sidebar to show all the products

A simple front page with two paragraphs about your company and contact information

Again, I use a node/add/page

a sidebar with links on the right or left which link to headlines from your five latest news articles

This is a custom PHP snippet that scans nodes a certain term with limit 5, and orders by most recent change date.

A news page with news articles about press releases, events and news.

This will be a taxonomy term. Use node/add/story to add what you want there. This way the news is dated.

I use all of the above techniques in my sites linked to from my signature below.

--
Drupal development and customization: 2bits.com
Personal: Baheyeldin.com

With an emphasis on keeping it simple.

1. Do the base install.
2. Enable the page and book module.
3. Install and enable the webform module.
4. Possibly, install and enable the article module.

The "About" page and the front page will both be single static pages.

The "contact" page will be a webform (I have yet to experiment with the content module in head -- it's on my to do list).

The products/services page can be created in several ways, depending on the range of services. One way would be to create a series of pages outlining the products/services offered, and then to link these pages together in a book hierarchy. This would allow additional services to be added as the organization expanded. Alternatively, (and this is more, as sepeck says, Drupal 201 or 301) I would explore some of the options offered by the ecommerce module.

The news page could be created in one of several ways: static pages, via the article module, or (assuming that the articles/news stories were posted as pages on the site) through a PHP snippet that collected news articles and displayed teasers and links to the full text.

For this site, I would probably not create any taxonomy terms, with the possible exception of a "news" term for any news posts to be collected on the news page.

On a side note, one thing that might be helpful as a next step in this discussion could be preconfigured releases that accompanied the tutorials. This would allow a newcomer or someone unfamiliar to Drupal to install the site created according to the terms of the tutorial, and through examining the settings, gain a greater understanding of exactly what the instructions created.

Cheers,

bonobo

-------
http://www.funnymonkey.com
Tools for Teachers

sepeck, this is fun!

An About Page

I think there is an agreement that a simple 'page' node will do. (all core)

A Contact Us Form

I'd write a form by hand into a 'page' node, PHP type, and use form_mail (contrib) to get it posted.

A Products (or services page)

Depends. For a quick site, flexinode (contrib), for a well-written site, custom node module. I often use upload (core) and inline (contrib) modules, too. This would let me define special searchs. For navigation I prefer taxonomy_menu (contrib, customization may be needed) but backporting menu otf from HEAD is not hard at all and could be useful for smaller sites.

A simple front page with two paragraphs about your company and contact information plus a sidebar with links on the right or left which link to headlines from your five latest news articles

Headlines: custom PHP block. If the frontpage is so simple, a 'page' node will do, again.

A news page with news articles about press releases, events and news.

taxonomy/term/tid
--
Read my developer blog on Drupal4hu.

Some of these steps might require that core modules are enabled, don't remember if they are default or not. Just some short notes:

• I would use HEAD to get the contact module that's in core, (it's nice not to need contrib modules)
• Disable user login block
• Create a page for the front page and set it as default front page
  
• Create a vocabulary for the story content type with the terms press releases, events and news
• Create pages for the about page and products page with content and appropriate path aliases
• Set story (used for news etc) to publish to front page by default and the opposite for page (if that's not default settings). Here I would also hide or show author information etc.
• Use the /node page as the news page to list press releases, events and news
  
• Create primary links to the different sections
• Add a block with a php-snippet that lists the 5 most recent news (stories) and set it as only show on front page
  

...I might also

• Enable caching
  
• Create url alias for log-in page and node page (used for the news page)
  
• Add a new language to be able to translate and improve help messages. Eg. rename story to news.
• Change the choosen template's stylesheet (actually I _would_ do that)

Since they are CC licensed, steal :-) what you need !

I'm a web site developer and I'm trying to set up a system where instead of building and maintaining a static HTML site, I build the site in Drupal and then hand it over to the "site owner" to manage. The manager would be a CEO, sales manager, marketing manager or receptionist depending on the size/type of the company.

I must admit, I'm finding Drupal's interface and usability to be a real problem. I myself can work out how to do everything, but I am not at all confident that the site owner would be able to maintain the site in the long run.

I have a big list of gripes/suggestions/problems with Drupal usability. Should I post them in this thread or is there a better place to discuss this sort of thing?

It's interesting reading these posts to see how other people would go about this task. FWIW, the way I'd go about this is:

I would have the following core modules enabled:

menu (used for all site navigation at the moment, more below)
page (used for all "static" site pages)
path (enable search engine friendly URLs)
story (only used for news items)

Third party modules:

menu_otf with the jjeff patch
This is a key element and will allow my site managers to have some hope of managing the navigation panel. If I can ensure all pages are added to the navigation as they are created then hopefully managers won't need to go into the menu admin section at all.

attachment
filemanager
Needed to allow downloadable catalog.pdf type content. The built-in upload module does not allow comments to be added to describe files, and was therefore unsuitable for my application.

feedback by Khalid
I would hope to use the contact form from CVS HEAD once 4.7.0 is released.

Having to write a PHP snippet for the 5 News Items listing seems to be a bit of an oversight in Drupal development :) There needs to be a standard block that includes this feature.

I agree with a lot of the recommendations here. I also think it can be good to mention the locale module as an option since it is invaluable for tweaking the language that Drupal supplies for a specfic context.

And maybe I'm off track, but I would add a note to any Drupal 101 site configuration text for the site builder to keep a minimalist approach in terms of enabling Drupal modules and features. So many newbies like to turn their sites into a Yahoo-style portal. Since Drupal provides so much, they try to do too much, rather than merely providing the pages and services that users need. Sometimes I think this is also because they are unsure what to do, which is another justification for why thse configuration guides are sorely needed and could be helpful for explaining up front why these basic approaches are best practices. They help one to build a very user-friendly designed site.

Last, let's assume that many people needing this help text might not do much more than select a theme, load a logo, and then, if any, minor CSS tweaking. I can't think of anything off the top of my head, but I wonder what advice we would give people about choosing an appropriate theme to work with?

I think that this is a great idea, but the truth of the matter is that we are trying to beat an example out of a bunch of different people who, more than likely, had no idea in the beginning of how to use Drupal when they first were using it - and could tend to have some bad habits tossed in there.

Now don't get me wrong, I like the idea of a collaborative effort to come up with fresh ideas and such. The only problem I have with Drupal, at the moment, is that the "drupal.org" site is sexy, and full of wonderful stuff - but all we new users can do, is look blankly at it - wondering how all the fiddly bits work behind the scenes.

Then we download the clean fresh version of Drupal, install it, feel ecstatic at how quick and painless the installation was, hoping that this is a sign of things to come, but then we are faced with the hyper-techno-abstract terminology and architecture (albeit very necessary) and get that blank stare again.

My plea is simple, and I doubt that it would take much time for any of the Drupal Masters(tm) to complete:
Make an example site based on the "drupal.org" site.

I'm not talking about EVERY feature - just some of them - like a simple menu to some content, a news listing (http://drupal.org/news), and an example layout using taxonomy.

The thing is, that 95% of people will learn by example. Right now, there are lots of snippets of "howto's" all over the drupal site, but no example populated database.

I don't want to offend anyone here. I am just frustrated about learning another CMS. Seems like the learning curve for pretty much every CMS worth using is near vertical.

Thanks for all the help, though. I'm still struggling through this. I'll help out where I can.

I tried to identify a number of usability problems based on the comments in this thread.

Creating a static brochure site with Drupal is extremely relevant; not only because some people create static Drupal sites, but mainly because even the most dynamic Drupal site has static content (eg. almost every site has an about page, a contact form, etc).

Problem #1: people find it hard to integrate pages in the navigation structure. No one mentioned they were using core's menu module to setup a site's navigation structure. Strange? Maybe. Either way, it begs the question: do we need to improve the menu module?

Problem #2: many people use the book.module to create structure. The book.module is a logical choice if and only if you know Drupal. If you're new to Drupal, creating structure using the book module is not exactly logical. The underlying problem is that people need a way to link pages and to create structure. Simply renaming the book.module to outline.module or structure.module and dropping the book node type might come a long way for new users, and might help focus development efforts.

Problem #3: many people use the menu on the fly module (menu_otf) to add pages to the navigation menu. The good news is that Drupal 4.7 will have menu_otf functionality built in.

Problem #4: you have to go to the theme system options, to add a page to the main navgation menu. For new people, this is (i) not logical because creating links has nothing to do with the look and feel of your site, and (ii) the options are nearly impossible to find. The solution is to integrate this with the menu system, so you can link pages in the main navigation menu using the menu on the fly module. I pushed Adrian to work on this, but we never managed to complete that work. I'm convinced this is an important change; we need someone to pick up this work.

Problem #5: some people want to disable the author information and submission date. I see two problems with this: (i) you can't disable them on a per-node basis so people are forced to use two different node types, and (ii) the configuration option to disable this information is almost impossible to find. To fix (i), I suggest creating per node options to control some of the visibility settings. The settings would be available in a collapsible form element on the node submission page. Example toggles include (but are not limited to): display author name, display publication date, display taxonomy terms, display user picture, display 'read more'-link, etc.

Problem #6: quite some people use the front page module. I've never used the front page module but I'd like to know how it is different from a static page? The key difference I see is that you ca have a different front page for anonymous users. If that is the only key difference, why aren't people using static pages? Something is wrong here, and I'd like to figure out what.

If you want to work with us, to get some of these issues fixed. Please join the developer mailing list. Thanks.

I've tried hard not to look at other peoples' submissions more than I possibly could help it so it wouldn't "taint" my "relative Drupal newbie" perspective, so apologies if this overlaps some things that others have already said. I'm also basing this on Drupal 4.6.x.

How I oringally would've expected this to work back a couple months ago:

1. Use page content types for static pages (About, Products (Services))
2. Use the contact module for a "Contact Us" form
3. For navigation, input all the links manually into the primary/secondary links fields in the theme configuration screen.
4. For news, I would use the story content type.
5. For the front page, I planned to make a story promoted to front page and with the "Sticky" attribute set.

How I would do this now:

1. About/Products (Services): I still would use the page content type, but I would first go to administer >> content >> configure >> content types and set both page and story's default options to not "Promoted to front page."

   It was bizarre to me that page types in particular were not like this by default, because by their very definition they are separate pages. And it's also still bizarre to me (unless I've missed an option somewhere in which case please let me know! :)) that there is not a way to configure "default" options for *all* node types ("I don't want anything promoted to the front page..."), which can then be overridden by individual page types ("...except for stories."). I've worked on a site recently with 10 or so flexinode types plus some other nodes, and doing this same step for each one was incredibly tedious.

   Finally, the message...

   The trimmed version of your post shows what your post looks like when promoted to the main page or when exported for syndication. You can insert the delimiter "

   " (without the quotes) to fine-tune where your post gets split.

   ...for pages (or any other non-promoted-to-the-front-page content) totally tripped me up. Users will never see a trimmed version of this, because it's a page! This messed me up in the book module as well.

2. Contact Us: Contact module did not do what I expected--rather than enabling a contact us form like Drupal's Contact Form, it instead allowed individual users to have people contact them. This has now been addressed in Drupal HEAD, so hopefully this won't trip anyone else up once 4.7 is released. I would now use the Feedback module on 4.6.x for this functionality.
3. Navigation: Having now played with the menu module some, I would use this instead for the links as it's less error prone than typing HTML in yourself (or worse, having a client try and do it!). I would go to administer >> menus, create a new menu called "SiteName Navigation" and add menu items for each link. Then I would go to administer >> blocks, disable the default Navigation menu, and enable mine instead.

   UNLESS... I needed to add links in the navigation menu to off-site content, such as http://www.drupal.org/. It's very peculiar to me that this does not work (again, unless I've missed a setting somewhere). It seems like it should be possible to check for the URL beginning with http: or https: (or possibly just containing a : in general?) and NOT interpret that as a Drupal path.

4. News: This one presented a real challenge for me. I had thought there would be a path along the lines of node/story to view all story types (like /flexinode/list/2) , but there wasn't. I also expected there would be a "show latest X whatevers" block included by default, but again there wasn't.

   For this one I actually had to "cheat" and look at Bryght's guide to see how they did it--having to look at contrib modules (article module) and taxonomy for this functionality didn't even cross my mind. In my defense, I am pretty doped up on cold medication at the moment, though. ;)

5. Front page: Hey, something that actually worked as I'd planned! ;) Only other thing here was I had to disable user comments to keep the comment link from showing up. The only other thing is it would have been nice to be able to turn off that "Submitted by X, date" thing off (I think you can do this by editing your theme, but I didn't want to go through all that trouble :P).

Other:

1. If the person I was making this for was not comfortable hand-writing HTML (which they probably wouldn't be), I would also install the TinyMCE module to help them with that.

Anyway, sorry about the length, but hopefully some of those comments were helpful. I'm going to read everyone else's responses now and read about all the cool features I'm still missing out on. ;)

• Book module
• Feedback module (which I modified to reduce the number of settings available)
• Flexinode (I used this for an events & news section)
• Pathauto (really exellent)
• Menu (I found this really confusing as links would often appear when they shouldn't)
• statistics
• upload
• simplenews
• excerpt
• I created a "custom settings module" which allowed the client to edit simple options
• Using phptemplate I created a switch in my theme to display different content on the front page (I found the front page module too restricting)

After training my client a couple of days ago here were some issues which quickly became apparent:

• Uploading files was very confusing for them as they were never sure if a file had definitely been uploaded
• Simplenews (they expected to see "create newsletter" in the settings area)
• Excerpt - They kept forgetting about this field because it was at the bottom of the page
• They were confused because each node type looks the same when you edit it.

And problems I had setting up the site:

• Found the node names to be confusing (Book, Article Story etc.) and kept wanting to change them
• Creating a simple admin area for a single site admin (the current admin area is way too complicated). I ended up with:
  - Create content (page, news, event)
  - Site settings (AdminEmail, Title, Header, MainMenu, Footer)
  - Stats (Referrers, TopPages, RecentHits)
  - Logout

><>tomskii
><>www.mutinyarts.co.uk

So what do I do for a small business website?

I like to use the taxonomy system because it allows for growth. It's also easy for the user. Upon creating a page, the user can simply select a term from a drop down box and then, as if by magic, their article appears in a menu system!

News Page and Home Page: The default "node" is already designed as a news page. Leave it where it is. Create a page or story "with two paragraphs about your company and contact information" and promote it to the front page and sticky it there. News will then follow in an orderly fashion.

Contact Us: Use webform to create a form and stick the link in the primary links. Or wait for Drupal 4.7 and the site-wide contact form.

About Us: Create a static page and hide it. Forget about it. I don't care for these pages, but you could put it in the primary links if you wanted to.

Products/Services: This part should in no way be "a page". Create a taxonomy-based menu that splits essential elements of your products/services. Create several pages and select the related terms. Sticky the company's product/service description to the top of the appropriate lists. Then add articles: explaining the product/service, how some news affects the product/service, why your product/service is different, better, cooler, cheaper, etc.

The use of path is necessary. A lot of folks balk at "node/#" in the URL. Turn of "submitted by" for all nodes since this won't be relevant on a "static" website. Hide the user login block since it's not required either. I would enable the statistic module and the associated "most viewed" blocks. Throw in a poll to add "a little something" to the sidebar(s). I also recommend google sitemap , nodewords (the cvs rocks the house!) and emailpage.

Advanced Web Design

I'm going at this without having really read the other proposals, so as to come at it fresh. I skimmed a bit of the discussion, though, so first I'd say this:

The idea of having a CMS to do a brochure site is that the client can change the content easily. Even a simple brochure site goes through periodic updates, and not just from press releases. Prices change, contact info changes, who's in the company changes, and so all of these changes can happen much more easily than with strictly html. That is why I think it's worth the extra work maintaining the code security, etc.

1. The Pages

• An About Page -- This would be created using page node type. I would remove the author info from node-page.tpl.php and put a time stamp visible in full body only, to note the update date. Some people fear placing a date on content, but I think it's important to know how fresh the info is. The client would have to be reminded to manually update the date on the node when she/he edits the node, and I would recommend making versions.
• A Contact Us Form -- I would use webform for this, and create a custom form that allows for business-specific queries.
• A Products (or services page) -- This would be created using page node type. If there are offerings in subcategories, I would consider using outline to create books, or using the book module itself. Alternately, one could use taxonomy to create the structures. If it's a visually appealing array of items, I'd also urge an image gallery, and set up the image assistant to link to the image nodes. This can prove helpful in other content types.
• A simple front page with two paragraphs about your company and contact information -- This would be a page node type, and the only node "promoted" and "sticky" (why, explained below).
• plus a sidebar with links on the right or left which link to headlines from your five latest news articles -- This would be a custom php snippet in a block.
• A news page with news articles about press releases, events and news -- This would actually be a story node type with php snippets to show the most recent relevant items, drawn by taxonomy. The individual items -- events, press releases -- would be flagged by taxonomy, and accessible from links on this anchored page.

• Image and Image Assist -- These would be used for products and for staff portraits. The nodes themselves would have detailed descriptions/bios, while the pages into which the images are inserted can have more general info. This makes for easy updates of this kind of content. Image assist would be configured to link to the relevant image node. node-image.tpl.php would be customized as node-page and node-flexinode-x to show just the date.
• Flexinode -- For events, and for press releases. The flexinode for press releases would be pre-formatted with the "For Immediate Release" etc. Press releases will have their own tag, and the RSS feed for that taxonomy will be linked on the front page. The module also would be used for events, obviously. Both would share a taxonomy that puts them into the news page php snippet.
• Taxonomy theme -- This would enable each page to have its own unique and complementary look. Before this module was available, I used custom theming on different node types, but this module would allow for entire color shifts.
• Taxonomy image -- Sometimes it can be very helpful to have a nice graphic show up in association with a topic. A product line could have its logo on all its pages, for example.
• Pathauto -- I would use the regular path to define the anchored pages, but the press releases and events would benefit from automatic descriptive addresses.
• Simplenews -- Because email lists are still the popular way for a lot of people to keep up with your site and business. This would have a block on the front page.
• Nodewords -- Keyword metatags are losing significance, but they're not irrelevant yet.
• TinyMCE -- Depending upon the client's comfort with html, I would consider adding a wysiwyg text editor.
• Glossary -- If there's a lot of jargon on the site, the glossary module could be very useful to have on-site background info without cluttering the site with footnotes or TMI for knowledgeable visitors.

• Main navigation -- I would put this in the header, saving the sidebar (using only one, most likely) for the dynamically updated info.
• Nodes -- I would leave the default node.tpl.php alone, and use customized node templates for the content, leaving the most flexibility down the line for expansion.
• Blogs -- Even if blogging is not in the cards in the short term, I always urge clients to consider business blogging as a way of offering more personalized publicity and a better sense of who's in this company and what they're about. Blogs could be added simply by enabling permissions and adding a link in the navigation, with a complementary theme to be added.
• Promotion -- It's amazing what a dynamic front page can do for SEO. I would encourage the client to consider promoting the news-flagged nodes to the front page (and thus falling under the sticky), with say 3-4 nodes displayed per page. Teasers would be short. But front-page changes with new content is valued by search engines, so if net-based promotion is important, I would urge this.
• Strategy -- Many people who want a brochure site don't really grok what (I hate to use this term, but in absence of a better alternative for now...) "Web 2.0" sites can do for them. So part of building the site is educating them on what they can do in the future. A client that gets more out of their website than they expected is a happy client, and that's a good thing.

Overall there would be about 5 themes to create, to give each page its own look (via taxonomy theme). This way the site can expand without requiring rebuilding from the ground up.

This is an interesting exercise. I welcome comments on these ideas.

Laura
===
pingVision • scattered sunshine

Hello Webdesigners, PHP-Developers and Drupal-Experts!

As a newbie to many (php, cms and drupal) I started from scratch with v4.6.3. at first of this month:

First I looked around in themes and I deceide to use bluemarine

I enabled nearly everything in modules except aggregators, blogapi, drupal-logins, path and ping

Then I filled in all fields in Adminster->Settings to see what´s happening

Next step was changing the favicon.ico to give the site an identity

Then I carefully created one page for infos about the "sensenmann" with a big banner etc :)

I deceide to have my own "Information-Block" with links to nodes, on the left side being ALWAYS visible under the icon and above normal navigation

Then changing the theme for providing some meta tags

Then creating first categoriers, forums etc ... finetuning and playing around, adding modules for images and so on ... getting first problems ... ;-)

An About Page is one of the pages in the left Infoblock and the Impressum Page shows all data nessesary to contact me if wanted.
More Products and Services Pages will follow in future.

I know I have a swiss knife where I only use one blade at this time - but it works fine for me AND NOW i can spend time to understand the more complex mechanisms like taxonomie etc....

To Dries:
#1 yes, that´s why I use my own block
#5 would be fine

To webchick:
- I use a block too above the normal navigation. so the user has my infoblock as an anchor but the rest of functionality is still present ...

Robert

http://www.sensenmann-bremen.de/

Lot of comments here. To many to read in detail. The community seems to be too involved with structure and form. A business wants to do one thing more than anthing else, create more sales.

Do not create a new scheme based on theoritical desires, people want substance, not flash. I love my basic Drupal site with it's non-themed template. The server (not the module) stats says it works.

Focus on how to deliver fresh content quickly and easily first and foremost. Images and new events/products are what gets the visitors attention and keeps them coming back. A newsletter for non rss with an easy sign-up for e-mail would be nice. (Sniffing around the modules to download for this as I type.) Ours is set up as a subdomain with two independant blogs that funnel into the front page as a collector. We feature a large collection of independent rss feeds and blogs to attract visitors. If while there and they like our products, they can refer to the main site to get more information. There is not even an e-mail address on the Drupal site. Just a referall to the main site.

Because the site is allways ranking somewhere for something, along with the main site, we enjoy a steady sold out status. But Drupal while it delivers, makes one work hard to learn it. That is your biggest challenge.

Try to be me, your average computer idiot that wants to promote one's business. You have comon sense enough to understand the opportunity with Drupal, however the learning curve is daunting. But you want to have pride in doing things yourself. Drupal can do it. Make it easier.

Any outlines or pre-configurations should not just concentrate on front page looks, but rather offering new and changing relevant content for the visitor to see (engines to index) and hopefully bring them back for more because the experiance was good, navagation not a problem, finding solutions easy.

Our site is used as a news portal/traffic generator. In an effort to get our vendors more involved, I am putting in a on-line (vendor only) price list at the same site. That way they (retailers) have to visit the site and of course see sales of various cabinetry by other vendors as a motivation factor. But the site is not set up as a sales site, just a portal of information and if you like what you see by us, well you can figure it out. Seems to work.

Make it simple and dynamic. Keep static in the "static" areas and all else live and dynamic. Maximise Drupal's strengths, ie; taxonomy, flexibility, parsing feeds, new content and clean.

You can visit our site; http://briaquaticcabinets.com/bri_news as an example of how Drupal can be used succesfully for a business. While I am sure there are better ways of diong it, this works for me. I will be converting the main site to a Drupal platform once this project is finished. All my friends/associates who have sites in the same industry (we all know each others stats) are constantly blown away by Drupal's performance in rapid search engine indexing. I am kinda glad they are to lazy to tackle Drupal, so do not make it too easy!

Due to time limitations I have put my drupalCOM distro on hold, for a little while.
however, I am currently talking with a client and my college about reviving it.

The plan is to re-release drupalCOM 1.0 on the 4.7 codebase.

DrupalCOM is a distro that is preconfigured for all those brochure sites.

Want to help? drop me a line on my drupal.org contact form. I will announce this project soon.

Bèr
---
if you dont like the choices being made for you, you should start making your own.
---
[Bèr Kessels | Drupal services www.webschuur.com]

wow, this thread is great. some good ideas here. its also good to see that there's a patch in the making to get primary_links functionality into core. a v useful module for corporate style sites imho.

I recently did this site using Drupal: http://v-teches.com

The key modules I used were:

Sections
This module was great for theming different areas. I have three separate themes for Front, Interior, Admin. To me, the Sections module was more intuitive and flexible than the Front Page module.

Flexinode
Flexinode really helped me to get the interior pages looking exactly as I had laid it out in my design.

Sidecontent
I found Sidecontent to be useful because my client would be able to edit any content within the "edit" portion of the page. It is much easier to explain that to most people than to have them configure/reconfigure a block to place on certain pages.

TinyMCE
I haven't tried other WYSIWYG editors yet, but this one works well.

The ones I recommend the most are Sections and Flexinode. They worked great (not without issues, but I learned some new things).

I have recently done this for:
http://www.okcomputer.co.nz

This is my first Drupal site and I tried to do this without editing any code in the core modules and without having to write any custom modules. I ended up editing the blog module to create a custom news module and a minor edit of user.module (see below). Otherwise, I managed to achieve what I wanted with some php snippets in page.tpl.php in the theme, including the addition of a script to parse the url to create custom breadcrumb navigation.

To do: add enquiry form to contact page.

Here are some excerpts from my documentation:

Version:
Drupal 4.6.3, 2005-08-15

Added modules:
2005-11-15 mail
2005-10-04 img_assist
2005-09-26 profile
2005-09-25 menu_otf
2005-09-25 taxonomy_hide
2005-09-24 taxonomy_menu
2005-09-18 simplenews
2005-09-18 image
2005-09-17 taxonomy_access

Removed modules:
2005-09-18 forums.module
2005-09-18 drupal.module

Issues:
Access control needs to be checked after adding new categories - taxonomy_access seems to remove access for everyone to uncategorised nodes.

-------------------------------------------------------------
2005-11-18
Copying your test site to a live site

Created new database
copied test database to live one using:
http://drupal.org/creating-drupal-test-sites

The especially important files to keep track of are robots.txt, settings.php, and .htaccess.

2005-11-17

Imported users from csv file using user_import.php
Added new column in user table for ID from OK Computer database

2005-11-15

Edited blog.module - changed database table from "profile_values" to "news_values", and created a new matching table in the database.
Had to do this because I couldn't hide the profile from clients when editing their account.
edited left sidebar block:

global $user;
if ($user->uid) {
  $result = db_query("SELECT value FROM {news_values} WHERE fid=2 and uid=$user->uid");
  $record = db_fetch_object($result);
if ($menu = theme_menu_tree()) {
   print "<p class="user_name">Welcome ".$user->name."</p>\n";
   if ($record->value != '') {
      print "<p>Your news category: ".$record->value."</p>\n";
   }
   print "<div class=\"menu\"><ul>
   <li class=\"leaf\">
   <a href=\"clients/information\">Client information</a>
   </li>
   <ul></div>\n";
   $menu = "<div class=\"menu\">". $menu . "</div>";
   return $menu;
}
}
else {return;}

Added mail module
edited mail.module - added trim function to get rid of extra white space on line 263
added '%uid' => $uid->uid

Added Invitations to user profiles for RSVP to invitations

2005-11-14

added client menu to left sidebar block:

global $user;
if ($user->uid) {
  $result = db_query("SELECT value FROM {profile_values} WHERE fid=2 and uid=$user->uid");
  $record = db_fetch_object($result);
if ($menu = theme_menu_tree()) {
   print "<p><strong>Welcome ".$user->name."</strong></p>\n";
   if ($record->value != '') {
      print "<p>Your news category: ".$record->value."</p>\n";
   }
   print "<div class=\"menu\"><ul>
   <li class=\"leaf\">
   <a href=\"clients/information\">Client information</a>
   </li>
   <ul></div>\n";
   $menu = "<div class=\"menu\">". $menu . "</div>";
   return $menu;
}
}
else {return;}

2005-10-04

Added img_assist module and configured.

Uploaded website to dev.okcomputer.co.nz
backed up local database and uploaded to web server . Note phpMyAdmin didn't work. Need to use another method for this.
Edited sites/default/settings.php and themes/okc_theme/page.tpl.php for server.
Also needed to edit .htaccess line:
RewriteBase ...
Changed permissions for files directory to 700

Added Thomas, Howard and Christina as users, and added their news categories. Updated the news menu to match.
Changed access control to disallow search for everyone (put this back later when search is configured)

Added new "single line text field" in settings/profiles called "News Category". Used this to set the category in the file modules/blog.module (see line 12)
Also edited the navigation block for the left sidebar (untitled) to show this category:

global $user;
if ($user->uid) {
  $result = db_query("SELECT value FROM {profile_values} WHERE fid=2 and uid=$user->uid");
  $record = db_fetch_object($result);
if ($menu = theme_menu_tree()) {
   print "<p><strong>Welcome ".$user->name."</strong></p>\n";
  if ($record->value != '') {
     print "<p>Your news category: ".$record->value."</p>\n";
  }
   $menu = "<div class=\"menu\">". $menu . "</div>";
   return $menu;
}
}
else {return;}

2005-10-03
Updated page.tpl.php and added node.tpl.php to allow different css for home page teasers.

2005-09-29
Changed the default front page from node/1 back to node, so that the latest news items will show. Changed node/1 so that it appears on the home page (sticky - to the top)
Added url alias for node/1 to "/"
Added str_replace() on page.tpl.php to remove link to "home"
added css styles for content on home page.

2005-09-28
Re-named primary link to "blogs" to "news".
Changed all url aliases from "blog/..." to "news/..."
Added new alias "blog" to "news"
Changed name of menu "blogs" to "news"
Changed "news" block configuration to only show on news, news/* and pages

Edited page.tpl.php to replace "blog" with "news" as necessary.

2005-09-26
function drupal_access_denied()
Edited this function in includes/common.inc
line 225
Returns a different "access denied" message to users that are logged in:
Access denied.
If you are a client, please log in first
Enabled blogs
All blog pages were hidden from all users except super-administrator.
Changed visibility=1 in "blocks" table in database.

Added new menu - blogs, and added this as a block.
Replaced "portfolio" in primary menu with "blogs"

Added profile module to enable custom settings for clients and okc staff.

2005-09-25
Added taxonomy_hide because the public pages don't need links to taxonomy terms.
Added menu_otf module to make it easier to add pages to menus. (esp public pages)
Customised page.tpl.php to use the path variables returned by path_vars.php to set the active link in the primary menu.

Removed taxonomy_menu - better to generate menus with menu and menu_otf modules:
Create menu in "menu". Create a block with this name and restrict the menu to certain pages based on url. e.g. clients/support.
taxonomy_access takes care of blocking the public, so also have to make sure that the pages created for clients go in the correct category.

2005-09-24
Added taxonomy_menu module

Designed page.tpl.php for okc_theme and style.css to go with it.
Added custom breadcrumb code to page.tpl.php and added path_vars class to new custom directory.

2005-09-19
Removed drupal module

2005-09-18
Removed forums - these will only be needed for staff, and can be on a separate site like staff.okcomputer.co.nz

Removed update.php
http://drupal.org/node/22283
Rename or remove update.php from the root of your Drupal directory unless you are actually updating your site. There are protections for it in the update script, but why take a chance.

Added simplenews module
Note - to set permissions you need to change both:
administer=>access control, simple news module
administer=>access control=>category permissions=>edit

Added image module. remember to:
chmod 700 files/images and chmod 700 files/pictures

2005-09-17
Added taxonomy_access module and used this to hide client-only content from all anonymous users.

Added a new block to the left sidebar (which has no title), and disabled the drupal navigation block.
This means that the main navigation menu is hidden unless the user is logged in:

global $user;
if ($user->uid) {
if ($menu = theme_menu_tree()) {
   print 'Welcome '.$user->name."\n";
   $menu = "<div class=\"menu\">". $menu . "</div>";
   return $menu;
}
}
else {return;}

http://drupal.org/node/27247
http://drupal.org/node/12445

2009-09-16
Added forums (enabled module)
Added client, OK Computer staff as roles (access control)

2005-08-23
Edited user.module
replaced 2 instances of "User login" with "Client login"

As a new Drupal user moving 3 sites to Drupal this discussion has been very helpful. I created notes from the site construction info and thought others might find them useful. I'd still recommend reading the responses, there called notes for a reason :-)

General Configuration Comments

• Change Page node defaults to NOT promote to Front Page
• Change Page node defaults to disable comments
• Turn off Login block
• Create an "Admin" navigation block for maintainers
• Turn on HTML Area

The About Page

• Use a Page node to create a static page
• Component page of a Book module
• Page designated About page in taxonomy module

The Contact Us Form

• 4.7 Contact Module/4.6 Contact module from Head
• Feedback Module
• Write something by hand
• Create a page with form_mail
• Create a custom block and use a php snippet
• Webforms
• Survey module

A Products (or services page)

• Use Page module to create a static page per product with Menu module to create navigation
• Use Book module
• Use Upload module for adding pictures
• Use Static Page for summary page with Flexinode for Products
• Use Attachment module to allow downloadable content
• Taxonomy based content pages/menu with description nodes stickied to top of page

The Front Page

• Front Page module
• Use a Page node to create a static page
• Stories published to Front Page
• Use a vocabulary for story type
• Leave with default: node, promote a couple stories to Front Page and make sticky
• Use Sections module to create page type for Front

The News Page

• Use Story nodes
• Static story pages with Taxonomy
• Taxonomy based content pages/menu with description nodes stickied to top of page
• Event module if required
• Create a Page node with php snippet to display news stories
• Use /node page
• Article module with Taxonomy
• Flexinode page to allow customizing, e.g. Add "For Immediate Release" to news pages

Extras

• Block with top 5 pages
• Block with most recent news

Helper Modules

• Menu-On-The-Fly (pre 4.7)
• TinyMCE
• Path
• Excerpt
• Path-Auto
• Nodewords
• Taxonomy Theme
• Taxonomy Image

Expanding the Site

• User access
• Glossary (if appropriate to content)
• Simplenews
• Blogs
• Photo Gallery

Navigation & Module Choice

• Strategy is tied into site navigation.
• Primary links for horizontal navigation
• Primary links may require hand coding, depending on theme
• Book modules give navigation links automatically
• Menu module for static pages/php snippet pages/taxonomy pages
• Taxonomy menu modules for automatic navigation, but pages then require taxonomy

Hello everyone I'm new here and sepeck pointed out this page for me so in return I have compiled "the best"

http://trac.maetico.com/wiki/drupalBrochure

sorry about doing it offsite but I don't know how to make a table in here :)

Good post, have read it a few times so i'm just keeping track of it. --Ryan

I want to thank everyone for all their thoughtful posts so that the code ignorant like myself can benefit. I want to create a basic brochure site for a new small sideline business of mine and had no idea where to start. the forums at opensourcecms was very helpful and directed my attention to Drupal. My webhost uses fantastico so installation will be a snap and with these handy guides i will be up and running without knowing a single lick of HTML, PHP, XTML or whatever other magic Drupal relies on.

Thanks a bunch!!!

I have been searching for a tool that will provide me lots of goodies out of the box. I am building a charity website (I am the founder and everything else for the time being). The launch date is mid-May 2008. After installing and uninstalling lots of open source tools I settled for Drupal 6.1. I have struggled at the beginning but getting better as I read more and try out more (it’s been only a week I have started working with Drupal). I have created my own theme etc. Now I am checking all the available modules to see what I could with them or how I fit them to my needs. Here is my plan so far.

Functionality --> Module --> link
Static pages

Information Programme (set of scientific info pages) --> Book module
Research Programme (set of research info pages) --> Book Module
Get involved (set of volunteer, donation etc. pages) --> Page module
About Us --> Page Module --> Secondary links shown at footer
Contact Us --> Webform module --> Secondary links shown at footer
Site Policy (set of pages) --> Book Module or simple Page Module--> Secondary links shown at footer
Homepage --> Page Module (later custom)
News page --> Story Module
CAPTCHA --> on Registration and Contact us pages only

Community pages
Forum --> Forum Module
Blog --> Blog Module
FQA --> FAQ Module
Ask the Expert --> Ask the Expert Module

----------------------------------------
I am a newbie, please be gentle with me...

1. I disabled the Login block but anyone who know the url to login page (http://www.example.com/user) or register page (http://www.example.com/user/register) can login or register. How I can block access to these pages?

2. Other problem. Despite I have Login block disabled, and some access rules I found a new user registered. In Recent log entries I found following entries:

Type	locale
Date	Thursday, April 17, 2008 - 10:03
User	Anonymous
Location	http://www.example.ro/user/register
Referrer	http://www.example.ro/user/register
Message	Parsed JavaScript file modules/user/user.js.
Severity	notice
Hostname	87.195.37.120
Operations	

Type	user
Date	Thursday, April 17, 2008 - 10:03
User	Anonymous
Location	http://www.example.ro/user/register
Referrer	http://www.example.ro/user/register
Message	New user: xlJfEDxCiPIShUWT (poster123@mail333.com).
Severity	notice
Hostname	88.208.233.228
Operations	edit

How is possible?

Hi, all. This is really "an exciting novel" , I discovered this Post after many of you (I guess) know some posting about
the points mentioned in:

http://drupal.org/node/31896#comment-55463
http://drupal.org/node/31896#comment-55388

in this Thread. My dear Dries, Dan, Sepek and the others who I'm not the pleasure to have meet here on Drupal.org before. I really ask myself, just someone like me is going to read over this amazing post about plans to get some

1. About page
2. A simple front page with ....
3. etc. etc. etc.

and if you can take just a quick look at this: http://drupal.org/node/279206

where I just intentioned to help Visitors and Newbies to not narrowing around looking for solutions !!!

and after have tried to focus a few months ago this type of discussion in a groups.drupal.org
group with the result of:

Your Group entry entitled "Documentation Task Force" has been denied by
our content moderator. Our group guidelines are posted at
http://groups.drupal.org/node/add/og [11]. The content has been deleted
from our site.

...and after .Dan was so kindly to help me out of my a bit dramatical frustration ...
(Thanks .Dan I will never forget how much patience you dedicated me in http://drupal.org/node/268264)

So my simply request is to know if someone could make a final statement on the facts discussed
in this very very long posting.

That would be really very kind of You.

Note: This is not a complain but just the wish to see that some good Ideas and Suggestions and Hints
can find there way to realization. And I'm sure it will and I will do my best to contribute.

Kind Regards to ALL
Cheers

Oh I forgot to Thank Robert Whiting for have found this POST throughout ---> This ;
that was really a pleasure to see and read and see that Beginners can have instinctively very good INPUTS;
even if those will narrow fro a while ....(here on Drupal.org, but not only ....)

@wolfflow ;-)

_{If you look at word and nouns you do not clearly understand take a look at Common Terminology, Feel free to propose missing Terms}

OK , I will try to list some of the statements I found interesting:

if there was a "button" in the installation process "Brochure Site" - and then a wizard-like guide to edit the content of the 5 pages. Then Drupal might actually be a good viable solution.

from: http://drupal.org/node/31896#comment-55566

Ok so I would do :

An About Page
I would use page module (core)

from : http://drupal.org/node/31896#comment-55502

It could also be useful for people who are interested in learning a portion of what Drupal can do.

from: http://drupal.org/node/31896#comment-55490

go to the theme configuration and add primary and/or secondary links with Home, About, Services, Products, Contact or whatever else you want.

from : http://drupal.org/node/31896#comment-55468

Well this will sure not be very interesting if I continue....
Ok Just a last thing: How I did solve temporarily this GAP:

If you take a look at http://www.adaccs.at you will found out that this page is not DRUPAL
but an extract of the Frontpage code of internal subdomains frontpages.

This is just the Hint of a Beginners who wanted a simple page that looked like Drupal Garland layout
and give some coherent design to the overall Site project task.

Cheers.

This is a fantastic initiative! Providing 'Now what' articles will be incredibly beneficial for those new to Drupal and CMS in general. Your idea of showcasing different strategies and module uses to achieve a 'Corporate Brochure' type site is a great way to foster creativity and knowledge sharing within the community. This approach not only highlights the versatility of Drupal but also strengthens the spirit of Open Source collaboration. Looking forward to seeing the diverse solutions and learning from them!

By the way, I also specialize in SEO on Fiverr to boost your online presence. Check out my gigs for more, and feel free to recommend me to others!