Drupal sites built without a true developer?

By lowkeynyc on 9 Jan 2009 at 15:45 UTC

I'm interested to see what kind of sites can be built with minimal custom development. Anyone know of any impressive ones? I think case studies on these type of sites would be very helpful to many people too.

Thanks.

Comments

How about :

patchak commented 10 January 2009 at 12:01

How about :

www.pro-velo-lausanne.ch
www.velocite.ch/10ans

my personal site also, done in something like 5 hours : www.vitrinesurleweb.com

Those are two sites I made last month, very quick dev, no custom modules, only pure cck and views.

Création de sites web
Actualité informatique en live

Only pure cck and view?

dawnpel commented 13 May 2009 at 07:55

Hello Patchak,
I am amazed by your website. It is just the look I'm striving for in my site. But I am mired in panels2, in patterns, in frontpage and all kinds of modules that I somehow can't get to work together.
Can you give me a specific workflow to getting cck and view to create the great round-cornered panels you have on your
http://www.vitrinesurleweb.com/
website?
Thanks in advance
dawnpel

_

WorldFallz commented 13 May 2009 at 14:06

I could be mistaken, but those look like the standard rounded corner panel style.

Yep, those are standart

patchak commented 13 May 2009 at 19:16

Yep, those are standart rounder corner mini panels...

Glad you really like the site, thanks!!

Ha ha! Mini Panels!

dawnpel commented 13 May 2009 at 20:07

So it wasn't just CCK and Views!
That's a great consolation. I thought I'd missed those rounded corners in CCK. Or were the Mini Panels set up as Constructed Content. If so, would you consider giving me a blow by blow description of how you set this up, or maybe just a little tip for the hopeful newbees puttering around Drupal and staring at all those shining Drupal components and not having a clue as to how to put that ENGINE together! (5 hours, eh?)
All the best,
Dawnpel

Here's another:

douglas.a.hatch commented 13 July 2009 at 14:22

I built this site in about 80 hours:

chunkybling.com

I started with a custom theme from topnotched themes, then customized a lot of the CSS. I have no PHP skills, so all functionality is off-the-shelf.

> minimal custom

-Anti- commented 10 January 2009 at 12:15

> minimal custom development

What does that mean exactly?
· Sites which use an unedited downloaded theme and several modules, but no custom scripts/php knowledge.
· Sites which which use drupal out of the box, with no theme or no modules added.

Re: minimal custom

lowkeynyc commented 12 January 2009 at 16:18

Sites which use an unedited downloaded theme and several modules, but no custom scripts/php knowledge.

my site i did on my own with

pete_dr commented 10 January 2009 at 16:06

http://zenimagery.com/

a theme, some modules and little design edits.

This website does not have

alexandreracine commented 13 January 2009 at 19:33

This website does not have any custom development at all.

http://www.salsamontreal.com

Alexandre Racine

www.alexandreracine.com - mon site perso
www.salsamontreal.com La référence salsa à Montréal

some css, only original

idflorin commented 25 January 2009 at 22:02

some css, only original modules, and few views here
jabulela and modern dandy

Check out Webmaster

JubW commented 14 February 2009 at 02:08

Check out Webmaster Critic

Web Hosting Coupons

you can check my sites.i am

secgeek commented 15 February 2009 at 09:52

you can check my sites.i am not a developers.specifically check http://newskicks.com and http://rentsellproperty.net
newskicks.com is an attempt to clone reddit,digg,propeller while rentsellproperty is an real estate site.

www.secgeeks.com
www.newskicks.com

MustwatchVideos.com

nmridul commented 18 April 2009 at 09:10

Check http://www.MustwatchVideos.com. I'm not a web developer. Created this with themes and modules available at drupal.

And here is another one - http://www.clipped.in

_

beautifulmind

he/him

Gujarati

Dubai

commented 18 April 2009 at 09:16

Hello there!!!
check http://scholarbeat.com
This is a site with no customization.

Regards.

Regards.
🪷 Beautifulmind

I just created this one

end user commented 21 April 2009 at 00:41

I just created this one http://www.mysteryminds.ca for my gf's daughter and her friends although I still need to do a couple of things and they need to obviously get more content in there. I slightly modified the ClearBlue theme and used off the shelf modules but nothing custom. Took about a day to create it.

Can I ask what module(s)

-Anti- commented 21 April 2009 at 07:56

Can I ask what module(s) you're using for the gallery?

_

WorldFallz commented 21 April 2009 at 17:24

Looks like http://drupal.org/project/gallerix.

Yes its Gallerix which has

end user commented 21 April 2009 at 17:42

Yes its Gallerix which has the cleanest layout so far although you can't comment on the nodes. I also like Acid Free but it has some bugs and not much support atm. I tried album photos but the album navigation and layout is quite confusing. Also Node Gallery looks promising once it gets some more features and views support.

_

WorldFallz commented 21 April 2009 at 19:08

I've looked at all those modules also, lol.

One interesting thing I stumbled upon recently is the swftools module's support for simpleviewer. In the current dev version, you can setup multivalue cck imagefields to automatically show in the teaser and/or node as a simpleviewer gallery. Looks very promising.

that's one issue i have with

pete_dr commented 7 May 2009 at 15:46

that's one issue i have with drupal, all the gallery modules are lame lol ..... i'm using dfgallery, sucks you can't link to a node but looks nice :)

two months' work:

kding commented 22 April 2009 at 01:28

two months' work: http://heducation.net. still do not know how to ...

Yeah, that's good work. I'll

dman commented 7 May 2009 at 12:54

Yeah, that's good work.
I'll point that one out next time my designers try to keep adding drop-shadows and stuff. Stick with using the tools to do what they do well, and don't get hung up on making it strange and you can get a long way!
Looks like a really usable site!

_{.dan. is the New Zealand Drupal Developer working on Government Web Standards}

bit difficult to answer...

dhana_space1 commented 8 May 2009 at 17:11

this questions is bit difficult to answer...
bcoz, It is all based on your skill in drupal and in web technology.
If you are having good experience in other CMS, then it is easy for you to play with drupal and you can create simple websites in few hours.
even if you are having good experience in drupal, creating website is just a matter of few hours. but again it depends.
Quality work always takes bit more time.

---

It is all based on your skill in drupal

dawnpel commented 13 May 2009 at 20:17

I think this is exactly true.
Drupal looks so very promising and I've already learnt a great deal about its capabilities, but somehow I can't cross the threshold into putting it all together in a nice simple website arranged in panels with orderly block sporting pic and text teasers, leading to nice pages with text and pictures.
I know I have the tools, I know where I want to go with them, but somehow, I can't find the right combination, or the right order of steps to get there. So the pictures keep appearing not just in the teaser but by themselves as well, and the pics and text take up the whole screen instead of just a segment, and there's no way I can figure out how to place various elements in an orderly fashion across the page, though seemingly that should be a simple enough CSS manouevre.
Is it just experience and as I continue working at it I'll get there, or do you see something I'm doing wrong and can suggest a shortcut?
All the best,
Dawnpel

I am totally with you guys,

kding commented 14 May 2009 at 02:08

I am totally with you guys, from a newbie's perspective. I think that is why it is called Content Management. In my website, I have self-posted posts in blog, book, story, page, image, video, weblinks, content types; then I have RSS feeds from regular RSS feeds, flickr, youtube, and twitter; then I have to think how to let ordinal users post text, image, weblink, video, etc; then you have to define what can be accessed by whom. It grows up into a large project. When things are organized the way that is convenient to web masters you found it isn't so user friendly and inviting. Oh, boy. I used Joomla before drupal. Different story.

> then I have to think how to

-Anti- commented 14 May 2009 at 11:24

> then I have to think how to let ordinal users post text, image, weblink, video, etc;
> then you have to define what can be accessed by whom. It grows up into a large project

Absolutely. Getting a site running for one admin is a totally different ball game to creating a site that normal users can easily post media uploaded or linked media. The easier you want the site to be for your users, the exponentially more difficult it is to make, and the more complex it becomes. I spent 2 or 3 hours a day for two months looking at ways to make it easy for users to add video/flash media. Each method got me 80% there, but none worked well enough or were simple enough to implement live. Eventually had to give up so I could carry on with other things. I'll have to revisit the issue once the rest of the site is finished.

I've got 30 modules installed, nearly all simply provide basic functionality or are workarounds to bugs/issues/flaws in core or other modules. The complexity of their settings, and their interaction/reliance boggles my mind. Changing one setting usually means a cascade of other settings need to also be changed. Sometimes it takes me 10 minutes just to remember why I installed a particular module; which bug it fixes and why I set it up in a particular way. If I was the only person using the site, I'd only need about 5 modules.

True.

dman commented 14 May 2009 at 12:35

Your story there illustrates the difference between
- building a vehicle that you could successfully get in and drive around a track
- vs -
- creating a car for the general public that anyone could drive without lessons and guarantee that they would never crash or take a wrong turn

The second task is not just harder - it is much harder.

Automated braindead media conversion is a challenge. Just like designing a car that will never have an accident, you either have to educate the user a bit, or build huge work-arounds to make it 'easy'.

I favor education myself, but one day someone will eventually build a crash-proof car or a one-click video conversion site for idiots and make $$$
Oh yeah, right, YouTube already did that. They earned that money!
So it goes...

_{.dan. is the New Zealand Drupal Developer working on Government Web Standards}

I didn't even know CSS or any PHP a few months ago

LuisCypher commented 13 May 2009 at 16:36

I started it as sort of an experiment, with no previous experience I bought some webspace and set myself the goal of making a productive and hopefuly useful site within 6 months. After a few setbacks I am almost there.... I think. I have had the site up on Drupal for just over a week so it still needs to be optimized

I started out using Joomla, but realized I had made a mistake in the basic site design so I scrapped it before it got too big and remade it with Drupal.
anyway its here.
http://www.notascoolasitseems.com

If you are interested in the developement and progress of the site there iis a menu item at the top with the site blog.

This is my

manop commented 14 May 2009 at 02:50

This is my site:

http://stylelurf.com (pretty slow though, the server is in Thailand)

I'm not sure how you define "true developer." If you mean people with no-knowledgeable of PHP. I could say that I currently am. I worked with HTML + CSS before I getting to know Drupal. I have several modules installed with customized theme as well. There are about 3-4 spots of customized PHP though which I got helps from the Drupal.org forum here.

This site makes me spend about two weeks to understand Views and Taxonomy. They were kind of complicate to understand at first.

Nice Site Manop!

shyful commented 15 May 2009 at 10:37

Nice site you have there Manop, love the layout and yes, the loading is fast. You said you customised the theme, what is the base theme in use there?

BTW, my stock drupal site : www.workshop2u.com , 1 night job in my quest to save the world from bad mechanics :P .

Best regards

Manop, what module did you use for the Carousel

droople commented 17 May 2009 at 13:55

The carousel at the bottom is quiet cool.

Do you mind sharing the module, views & css behind that?

Thank you

Views carousel

manop commented 22 May 2009 at 04:42

Sorry for the late reply, the semester just finished here.

Currently I am writing my site cookbook too but they are in Thai language in my blog. I plan to write those here as well.

For the Carousel, I use Views carousel. It was pretty confused when I first used. It did not show what I really needed. Then I edited the CSS in the module, it worked perfect.

Really nice

LuisCypher commented 14 May 2009 at 03:20

_{Sorry this was meant to be a reply to manop above, clicked the wrong link.}

Thats really good , It wasn't slow for me . It loaded realy quickly, before I even had a chance to change tabs.

I wish my site loaded that quick, I am still trying to optimize it, looking into CSS sprites just now.
That is the only drawback I have found with Drupal at the moment. Speed.
In my case I would say its my hosting and the database queries. Can you combine Db queries from a page like you can with css and other objects?

Anyway good work !!
Looking at the above sites I have a long way to go, at the moment its quantity over quality at notascoolasitseems.

Nice thread

profjk commented 22 May 2009 at 05:39

It's a nice thread going. Hope more people will share their site info.

Simple celebrities site

idflorin commented 25 May 2009 at 07:48

I ported my my simple celebrities blog from wp to drupal and looks like this now : American Girls.
I don't use any custom modules.
The theme is based on basic http://drupal.org/project/basic.

Slightly broken in Firefox

shyful commented 2 July 2009 at 05:13

Nice and clean site you have there (high traffic too , :) ). Showing up perfect in Opera but slightly broken in Firefox.
Thanks for sharing.

Created this site in a couple

wouter_wk commented 28 May 2009 at 09:02

Created this site in a couple of weeks:
http://www.bigtop.nl/

\
What do you think?

Regards,
Wouter
http://fc-wk.mybrute.com

I have a not so wonderful

kiwibytes commented 29 May 2009 at 19:17

I have a not so wonderful site, but I love its design and its a complete dynamic site with customized content fields and content is displayed using 'Views'. Also I never did any coding work on it, just used modules as they were out of the box. My site is:

http://acheapwebdesign.com

Ecumenical Missionaries

flabat commented 31 May 2009 at 06:17

http://ecumenicalmissionaries.com

No custom code, slighted modified Marinelli theme

intresting....

khanz commented 2 July 2009 at 05:20

subscribing

------------
Volvo, Video, Velcro. (I came, I saw, I stuck around.)

www.indiaref.net - no custom development yet

iref-cmgr commented 10 July 2009 at 01:48

All done using cck, views, and panels. I'm thinking of adding the rounded corner boxes (using panels). My idea is the same, take it as far as possible without using custom stuff. Let's see how it goes. If you like it let me know.

http://www.indiaref.net

(edit: added link in body)

DesignBump.com

designbump commented 10 July 2009 at 00:33

I built DesignBump.com without any outside help. I am about as self taught as they come. Once you get into the thick of it Drupal is incredibly flexible and easy to manage. And, on the plus side, almost anything you could ever want done has already been submitted in the form of one module or another.

Best,

John

my own sites...

leenyx commented 21 July 2009 at 19:38

we have a few d5 sites:

www.jasonmanford.com
www.danwarb.co.uk
www.silverboxfilms.co.uk
www.jmpheating.com

and also some d6 sites:

www.greensolarsolutions.co.uk
www.yachtparty.co.uk
www.thebrightonbeachhotel.co.uk
www.rjmotor.co.uk
www.artistresidence.co.uk

All the websites use CCK, Views, Pathauto, Imagecache, Imagefield and Filefield, and some other modules. Mostly CSS and XHTML modifications but a few PHP lines from the forums were needed in some cases.

The average time for this sites (simple websites?) was 15 to 20 hours, plus planning, getting the content from the clients, cross browser testing, etc... rounds up to around 40 hours to get them up and running.

Pretty good! Thanks for

dman commented 21 July 2009 at 20:46

Pretty good! Thanks for sharing.
I like the way you've been able to get good, individual results without doing anything overly tricky.
Choosing and using a few available modules, like the jquery tooltips or slideshow has just lifted the sites enough to make them special.

_{.dan. is the New Zealand Drupal Developer working on Government Web Standards}

Great examples here!

curagea commented 23 July 2009 at 17:40

Great examples here! Currently researching different frameworks for my portfolio site and any future web projects I may have. Will have to get back into Drupal design at some point.