Hi,
I just wanted to post my viewpoints (again). I've done it randomly in a couple of places, but I thought I'd post it here in agregrate. First, I want to say Drupal has been very fun to work with, and I really like the concept.
Now, on to my complaints...
As cool as the open source community is, it's still kind of hard for a newbie like myself to navigate. It's very obvious from looking at the site and the content that this is a site written, desgined by and for insiders. Not that that is easy to avoid, in any case. I came to Drupal by the suggestion of a friend's friend. I have little knowledge of programming besides what I learned nearly 10 years ago when was, at one point, a CS major in college and the little HTML / ASP / XML I've picked up over the years. I consider myself rather computer & web savy. I quickly found the file to download / install. During the install, I found out I needed a database. Went to MySQL - mucked around there for a while. Contacted my webservice provider to get MySQL service, asked them for advice on random issues, and finally, finally got Drupal installed. That was very exciting. After I got it installed, it was a fast process to start downloading, installing modules, and start customizing everything (via the options in admin). This was all done around day 2.
When I ran into snags, my first instinct was the Handbook. I posted a couple of questions there in the appropriate handbook sectiosn, but they never got touched. Next step was searched the forums. But, as many of you are aware, that's not always helpful - since it seems the majority of posts I dug up were older than the current version. I posted a couple of questions in random sections, that I thought were relevant, but I guess were not b/c they, again, never got answered. Then, I figured out that "view pending bug reports" and "view pending feature requests" were under the modules. That was a big step in the right direction. I eventually learned how to use the forums correctly. I started really reading the forums for information, and most of my how to knowledge came from reading someone else's post on a different random subject. They linked to nodes which linked to nodes which... eventually got me the knowledge I need for some problem. Now, I just found out about the module developer's guide and Theme developer's guide.
Granted, I've only been working with Drupal for ~10days or so, but it's stilll been an unnecessarily frustrating process. I've been spending the several days trying to get my site more user friendly by modifying the way information is displayed. It's been a slow going process because till just now, I didn't know I didn't have to part of some "in" crowd / CVS community / well knowledged programmer to understand what I was seeing in the files. There is lots of information on this site, but it's not very end-user accessible. I think this is because this is a site by developers and written with the developer in mind. We newbies are just that, new-babies when it comes to Drupal & the Drupal.org site. There's so much text that I don't know what to focus on. The headlines are titles somehow not always informative. I don't know how to help change it, although I would like to... after I finish my project.
Comments
I agree with you.
I'm trying to understand drupal since friday and I haven't slept much since then. This means 4 days, 4 nights and a pile of used coffeecups in the kitchen sink. I have tested a whole bunch of modules just to find out they do not solve my problems.
Most frustrating is the taxonomy-system. I understand what this system tries to do, but without a lot of custom PHP-Code in Snippets and Blocks I can't achieve my design-goals. The taxonomy-system is to much blog-centric.
I fear the final page can only be updated by myself because my setup is much to complicated for average joe user.
I avoided learning Typo3 because I thougt it would be too much work. Now I found out Drupal has a similar learning-curve, too.
Knowing what you know now...
And having experienced what you've experienced...
How would you suggest we make these types of things easier to find/understand for new users like yourself? What kinds of "Boy, if only they'd had ______!" can you think of?
Pointing out flaws is well and good, but even better is pointing out specific things that can be improved, and how. :) And the time to do it is now, because eventually you will hit your "Drupal AH-HA! moment (tm)" and after that it's really hard to see it from that "outsider" perspective anymore. :\
some rough ideas on improvements
1) maintain the posts by aggregating/tagging them with a matching drupal release tag/number (in this way, old posts valid for the 3.0 or 4.5 releases will be kept separate by the ones relating to 4.6, etc.).
2) improving the documentation for each module especially providing several examples of use and, eventually, code snippets, again by tagging such example by several point of views: module name, function (what the module does), features (goals they achieve), etc.
3) preparing few working examples (almost full fledged sites) to achieve specific goals largely documented in terms of setttings, templates and code hacks (rather than a static pdf manual, for example) to be quickly studied by newbies and used to show the power of drupal; in other words some sort of "reference sites" live (that can be downloaded).
--luigi
I totally agree on your 3
I totally agree on your 3 suggestions, good job!
Visit GameBGS.com for all your gaming needs.
Great suggestions
I agree with my fellow newbies.
I just installed Drupal yesterday, so the worst is still ahead of me. I'm an experienced Nucleus user, but Drupal obviously has an entirely different logic.
I see terms like "blocks", "nodes", "taxonomy" and have no idea how they fit into the system. A page that explains the logic of the overall system, the basic architecture, would probably help.
What does what? How are the different elements connected? Where should I start?
This article gives some idea how Drupal is different from other CMS, but it's not from a practical perspective.
A FAQ and glossary would probably help as well. Or does this site already have them somewhere?
So far I'm a little disappointed by the forum. I posted some questions about using Drupal for a social network here, but received no real answers so far. I know Drupal for social networks has been discussed and that the module Organic Groups has something to do with it, but it's all insider stuff behind the scenes. I have to scour for clues.
good suggestions that others agree with
The Drupal document team members would like to implement version information on all handbook pages, improve the module documentation, and provide more best practice/case study style documentation. There just aren't enough people involved in documentation writing at the moment to get these things happening. So join the documentation list and encourage others to do the same :-)
These are three good points
Some ways of figuring things out in the meantime:
1. Look at the date of the posts -- unfortunately, many people asking questions do not specify the version of Drupal they are running. 4.6 came out in April, 2005, and 4.5 came out in Oct, 2004. By using these dates as rough guides, you can get an approximate idea of what questions apply to what versions. While this is less than ideal, it can help as a starting point for choosing what posts are most relevant.
RE 2: we can all help with this. If there is a module that you have used that has documentation that has been less than helpful, make some editing suggestions, and submit these suggestions to the module maintainer. This way, the documentation can be improved. And, even if your suggestions don't make it into the instructions that accompany the module, your post (and your instructions) will still be available on the site to help out the next guy.
RE 3: Some folks have started to do this. Ber Kessels has plans to release a DrupalCom in 4.7, and I have released a site configured for educational use.
So, keep thinking about ways to help improve things, and, more importantly, find the ways that you can help.
Cheers,
bonobo
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http://www.funnymonkey.com
Tools for Teachers
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http://www.funnymonkey.com
I thought I'd chime in here
I thought I'd chime in here with my experiences and suggestions. Like the first two posters in this thread, I've spent countless hours circling the beast that is Drupal, getting tantalizingly closer to having my Drupal AH-HA! moment as I detailed in a post yesterday but I still not quite there yet. In general, I have found people here to be friendly and helpful up to a point, but I think that there is a ways to go in terms of making Drupal more accessible to non-initiates.
Like most of us, I frequent a number of discussion boards that relate to matters technical (whether how to use Final Cut Pro or how to hack your Tivo) and I have found that in most communities there is usually someone who selflessly spends the time to trawl the forums, sift through the collective wisdom, and create a "read this first!" sticky thread at the top of a topic. As we all know, most questions have been asked and answered before, and oftentimes, those with the greatest technical knowledge are least disposed to answer something that they consider old hat. A better way of managing the collective knowledge of all of us who are not currently furiously working on modifications to our custom module or the core would go a long way towards alleviating frustration. I'm certainly willing to contribute what I've gleaned, once things crystalize a bit more for me.
Barn
http://www.rockeggs.tv
The Live Performance Video Archive
Here's a suggestion (in another post of mine)
http://drupal.org/node/32867#comment-58240
Basically, it's a go look here for advanced beginners.
Someone who has edit previledges should go through the Handbook, take a look at old comments and edit out / incorporate / update comments that are posted there. Like - look here for more info. A lot of those are really old, and I'm sure have been answered by now.
I sure dont know much about Drupal...
I sure dont know much about drupal, but I am an experienced programmer, mercenary at this point really. Drupal seems very flexible, and flexible usually means complex. All this is well and good. The information is there, it just needs to be torn out.
So , to try to contribute a bit, the search needs to be ordered by date. That's it. Not versions of drupal necessarily. because the versions come out along a linear time track .. all that would be needed is to type your query into search, and not stray too far from the first page... and you would get recent posts about your questions.
As for the last post , about programmers and engineers designing cars... well said! The best designer is always the most important person in this industry... the user. Users of drupal seem to be saying some common things relating to the ease of acclimatization.
I have been struggling through drupal myself , trying to find out how to do simple things ( or trying to find out what simple things are called , so i can then re-read the 30 posts with the solutions) , and i feel that this thread has brought up some good points.
To summarize:
I'll figure out drupal, it was made by humans, not gods, and as such, it is only unkown, not unknowable.
That warm fuzzy feeling of a supportive community leads to fantastic documentation ( PHP itself is an excellent example -- the early days of the language the mailing list support was almost always, patient, gracious, and understanding. People then felt they owed something and wrote many tutuorials, hung out on the list even after becoming wizards , etc) .
Just one user's opinon .. Still like the product and i still have faith that i will work for me, so wtf *shrugs* i guess i gotta suffer.. ;)
better than me ...
I've been trying to figure it out for over 2 months, so it has been just as frustrating. I don't think there are enough examples of the different modules. I must say that I've been spoiled with the ease of joomla, but for now, it lacks the community features that drupal has.
It was easy to understand blocks, modules, themes, administer, but that's it. When you have taxonomy, node, story, mixed in with modules that are called, article, distant parent, flexinode, Node Relativity, Taxonomy assoc, Taxonomy Defaults, etc. (you get the idea), things start to get very confusing for a new user. That's just my experience.
Many of us beginners look for ease of use to start from and hopefully grow. Again, beginners should not be expected to know php like coders. It's a lot easier for those who know php to fix and customize. *sigh*
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Drupal hosting - $60 off coupon: OCTCODE
Some answers
First, thanks for your comments. We'll see what we can do about them. In case you hadn't found it yet, we have a documentation team mailling list you are welcome to join and help out. While you are new is an excellent time to do this.
I just looked in tracker and every new forum topic you created had an answer before this post :). I know because I provided the answer in one case. I looked at some of the forum posts you made comments in and they were not areas I knew the answer when I saw the question originally.
As to posting in the Handbook, comments are on for commenting on the documentation, not support questions. Kind of like the php manual so that explains that. The handbook is not in general visited like the forum is for asking support questions. This is mentioned in the 'About Drupal documentation' section of the handbook index with the title of 'Commenting on the handbook pages
Some of it is learning the vocabulary of the new product you have chosen to learn 'Welcome to the community'. I would like to mention now, there is no 'in crowd'. Some people participate more than others, but there really isn't one despoite what some folks may post in frustration. :)
Did it not occur to you to click on the Support link on top and read the page there? If not, is there another way to draw attention to that link and the third item down on the page? Organizing information is difficult.
So, specifics
Adding tagging is under discussion, but not sure where we are on this or if it is the way you are thinking. Durpal CVS (4.7) added free tagging to it's capabilities recently. There is stuff that needs to be done before turning something like that on. (like testing). Also how will it be implemented and such. Not sure if it is the infrastructure or docs list the archives will be on, feel free to join in. I have ben thinking we need versioning info attached to a forum post lately, but do not want to see yet another forum bin created, so maybe this is the solution.
Have you seen this section yet? http://drupal.org/handbook/modules All the core modules are documented, many with examples. Many additional contributed modules are also documented. Documenting additional contributed modules really relies on people adding handbook pages after they have written something. More volunteers welcome :).
Sweet, I got this going just in time then. :) This is the start of such a targetted section. I don't have any plans to do full fledged sites down to snippets because I think those custimizations belong on the specific section they are in already, but someone else is certainly welcome to write something.
As part of that, we're porting over what Bryght configuration stuff already exists in our copious spare time to a configuration section.
I should mention that after two years of Drupal use, I still do not know php. I don't really intend to learn more than I absolutly have to to make phpTemplate work for me either which doesn;t appear to be much. I have been meaning to write a 'How to use Drupal.org article', I guess I need to move it up on my list of things to do.
As to building reference sites... well, see that takes time to and their are so many ways to build a Drupal site, that I think the configuration guides are a better 'maintainable' way to go. Again, someone else is welcome to do it if they have the time and energy.
-sp
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Test site, always start with a test site.
Drupal Best Practices Guide -|- Black Mountain
-Steven Peck
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Test site, always start with a test site.
Drupal Best Practices Guide
Tried a search again
I know you said that the answers to many if not all of my posts were in the forum. I tried to do a search again for all of my new posts for general stuff, even if they were under "issue" or whatever, and I still couldn't find the answers. OK, so I only went back about 4 pages. Still, I read the posts that seemed similar, and I found a couple of posts similiar in nature to this one (even though I didn't do a search for this one). I understand the material is out there. I'm probably not typing in the right search terms. So maybe I should try Google... I don't know, I might. It does just seem odd to me, tho. In any case, I think "How to use Drupal.org for Dummies" would be a wonderful addition to the handbook. We could have "Drupal.org for dummies" "FAQ - Where do I find..."
I understand now that commenting on the Handbook is not what we're supposed to do when we have questions, but how is a newbie supposed to know that? It looks like it's appropriate initially. Yes, we're supposed to read the manual, but... come on, who really does read the entire thing? Especially when a lot of it seems too easy or not relevent. I skim a lot and skip around. That's the beauty of the web, even if it's annoying to those who have been around a while.
Looking back at other posts, I think know I feel the same way as most of them. I don't know where to find knowledge, I can't seem to search effectively, and the info I do find is often not adequate. I'm a newbie - I needed it laid out simply, thoroughly, and with lots of examples.
Thinking of math... 1+1 = 2. You have 1 apple, and you get 1 apple. How many do you have now? You have 1 orange, and someone give you another, how many do you have now? 1 and 1 is 2, or 1+1=2.
So it doesn't need to that thorough, but I think I've made my point.
Also, I don't know why, but somehow it's hard for me to find information on this site. The information is too buried, or it just not laid out well or something. I'm not really sure. Somehow it's just hard to find stuff.
It's not just you. We know
It's not just you. We know this. We've made great strides in the handbook. You should have seen this two years ago.
I am serious though, you want to improve things... Good. Join the Drupal-docs list. Glance through the archives. Chat about it. You'll hook into the logic of the site's organization in a few weeks and then it will be hard to leverage your fresh eye.
-sp
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Test site, always start with a test site.
Drupal Best Practices Guide -|- Black Mountain
-Steven Peck
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Test site, always start with a test site.
Drupal Best Practices Guide
if you want 1+1=2 try those
~ Drupal -seems- is for mathematicians by mathematicians, unfortunatly at this time .
Abrtraction of mathematic can turn to apples and oranges but it may take time. Meanwhile you can not easly eat an abstraction when you are hungry. :)
If you want eat apples and oranges try those CMS demo's below and see if they are suitable for your purposes.
They seem have better solutions for ordinary end user in terms of User Interface logic. Drupal is different 'beast'. You can still make a contribution from end user point of view to Drupal when and if 'the beast tamed' you can move on to Drupal.
http://demo.opensourcecms.com/websitebaker/admin/start/index.php
http://demo.opensourcecms.com/lucidcms/index.php?command=panel
http://demo.opensourcecms.com/plume/manager/login.php
for all demo's above
Username- admin
Password- demo
~ ps: all those CMS's above has their own limitations and problems of course
First experiences with Drupal
This post expresses more eloquently and convincing the point I was trying to make:
That URL is of course dead...
This post (The #1 problem with Drupal.org) is interesting as well.
In response to ica: I don't want an ordinary CMS because they don't have the social networking capabilities I'm looking for. I've used Nucleus for the last couple of years. It's a great system, but it seems to have reached the end of the line. I'm looking for a system that's ready for the next wave of requirements.
Or is Drupal just another blog, only more difficult?
So please lets tame this beast.
try this link
http://drupal.org/cck-status
cck is complex so it needs some groundwork preperation.
Drupal is not a blog. It is a CMS that has blogging capabilities. If it were a blog, then it would be simpler and various preconcieved notions would be a help, not a hinderence in setting it up.
Try following one of the recipies in the Corporate Brochere discussion on the front page for setting up your site. That will give you a good start on how things can work.
-sp
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Test site, always start with a test site.
Drupal Best Practices Guide -|- Black Mountain
-Steven Peck
---------
Test site, always start with a test site.
Drupal Best Practices Guide
Newbies arent looking for a blog or brochure
Thanks, but I'm not looking for a blog or a corporate brochure. I've used Nucleus CMS for the last couple of years and am now looking for social networking functionality Nucleus doesn't have - and I still haven't found any real answers about Drupal as a social networking platform...
Newbies aren't asking for Drupal to be dumbed down. They're looking for the bigger picture, the architecture explained in general terms, a FAQ, a glossary, a knowledge base, better forum search capabilities, a quicker way to get a grip on the basic concepts, the "mental model" needed to approach Drupal ...
BTW, this thread is a dramatic example of where the complete absence of the correct "mental model" for Drupal leads to. At least I know Drupal has a different logic than old fashioned html websites, but I wouldn't be able to explain that logic either...
I understand that, but my
I understand that, but my suggestion was to look at one way to use Drupal. Using Drupal for social networking has been discussed before, but is not one of my interests. Perhaps you could contact the developers who attended this to see if anything came of it.
New folks are asking for very explicit guidence to installing and configuring Drupal. The 'Corporate Brochure' challange was my idea to get configuration guides started. People new to CMS's in general are not necessarily skilled web developers used to complex sites such as a 'social network' site. That's a tad bit advanced to people migrating over to a CMS from a static html site. To be honest, a social networking site is mroe advanced then my needs as well.
Drupal is very simple with some powerful tools. That very nature allows for great complexity. It is a blank slate with little to no hint once installed. Many people come to Drupal with pre-conceived notions of how things should work and think they can figure it out in a few days by skipping the fundamentals and I agree, when you lack some of the vocabularly you have great difficulty in figuring out what to look up and how to effectively ask questions. My brochere site is a very focused start to providing that information in a concrete manner. My idea, is to get them up and running, then the more advanced users
If you don't know what a CMS is, you are better off hitting wikipedia for a more general explanation.
So, terminology and glossary, knowledge base, a better search is complex and comes through more community involvement. As to advanced architecture, that requires a lot of reading. :)
If you see a need from your perspective that others from theirs do not, I will say the things I always say. We are more then happy (estatic) when people add to the handbook because that is what the community is about. Trying to help others. I do understand what you are saying they are missing, I'm just not sure how to address it and personally not likely to get to it soon with trying to get all the other stuff done. :)
-sp
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Test site, always start with a test site.
Drupal Best Practices Guide -|- Black Mountain
-Steven Peck
---------
Test site, always start with a test site.
Drupal Best Practices Guide
If cars designed by engineers...
Seems this analogy fits to cases like Drupal or others
If cars designed by engineers (Coders, developers), drivers and commuters could find difficult to drive and sit comfortably. Thats why you need industrial car designers (User Interface designers) to maximise and look from a person's point of view as much as possible.
Its true verso versa, a car could not move if its engineered by industrial car designer.
And do not forget the 'end user' feedback.. in the and cars made for them not for the engineers to drive around. :)
Oh so true
True, newbie online here and its been 3 weeks straight and still I'm going in circles on how to configure Drupal. Still can't find if there is a guide for ultra n00bs. Going to make one when I get some wisdom and understanding in using Drupal.
Salutations,
Patrick Grey
I have set up a couple guides
While they are designed to address the needs of educators, they can also be used to learn Drupal.
Both of these links lead to documentation explaining how to configure drupal sites. From the guides, you can also download pre-configured sites, and these sites come with all documentation.
The guide for the blog based site gives a pretty complete overview of how to use content types, role based access control, and taxonomy. The forum based site comes with taxonomy access control configured and ready to use.
http://www.funnymonkey.com/blog-based-site -- for the blog based site
http://www.funnymonkey.com/configured-site -- for the forum based site
I hope this helps.
Cheers,
bonobo
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http://www.funnymonkey.com
Tools for Teachers
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http://www.funnymonkey.com
Flawed analogy
The car analogy is one of the worst I've seen used with usability. Car usability sucks; just think of the expense and hours you've put in learning how to drive; Even though almost everyone has already been exposed to certain elements in its user interface before (eg. a steering wheel, as a toddler). Granted, automatic transmission makes it somewhat easier.
This does make for an interesting observation though: after all these lessons driving becomes second nature and very hard to think of the naive experience. This might also happen to experienced drupal users: one can't relate to the naive user anymore...
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Tips for posting to the forums
I thought it was a good
I thought it was a good analogy. Actually, one of the main complaints I've gotten has been that people don't understand how to do anything on my site. My significant other, complains regularly that he hates using my site because he has problems posting to the site. I want to make it easier and more intuitive, but... haven't figured it out yet. It's easy for me, but obviously I've already stopped being a complete newbie by now. I'm thinking a template would do the trick, but I haven't figured it out yet.
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