By Fidelis on

I want to select a CMS for an association. I'm not a programmer and I have a full-time job, I can get by modifying blog templates if I need to; but I'm really looking for a CMS that I can learn on my own, in my free time, without the need to know how to do programming, etc..

The context is explained here:

http://imbok.blogspot.com/2006/03/using-siteground-as-web-20-playground....

From the little research I have made, I hesitate between the CivicSpace distribution of Drupal (http://drupal.org/node/26622) and Joomla.

Can I have your comments and suggestions on:

  • How much effort does it take for someone to learn Drupal (the CivicSpace distribution) if no previous CMS experience and no programming skills? Is it realistic that I can learn on my own Drupal, enough to deploy a reasonably good web site?
  • Any recommended readings / tutorials? (i have already ordered this book: http://www.robshouse.net/drupal-book)

Advice welcome...

Thanks!

patrick cormier
http://imbok.blogspot.com/

Comments

laura s’s picture

laura s commented

Disclosure: I speak as someone who never quite understood the Mambo admin thing. It seemed brittle. I had a helluva time trying to find mods etc. that would add functionality.

CivicSpace is very complex, but you do not need to know programming. It has an installer that walks you through some basic questions, then preconfigures your site in a very general way. You can still enable other modules, and you will certainly need to set up the site with taxonomy etc. But it's learning how to fly CivicSpace, not how to build it.

Since it costs nothing, why not give it a try?

Laura

PS - Drupal alone will require more hands-on work in terms of installation. Something to consider....

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victorkane’s picture

victorkane commented

Hi there,

The other day I was meditating on Civic Space for a current project, and came across the "Dave's $0.02 blog" at http://www.digitalraindrop.com/Drupal , where there is a very user friendsly discussion on CMS in general, Drupal and Civic Space, and an extremely user friendly tutorial on installing Civic Space.

I would say that once you get Civic Space installed (and Dave's tutorial at explains all the pitfalls and shows step by step how to use the automated Civic Space installation script, see http://www.digitalraindrop.com/Installing-CivicSpace ), you should be able to build your site without any programming.

I would say this path would be better for you than Joomla.

inglés
http://awebfactory.com.ar

Victor Kane
http://awebfactory.com

Fidelis’s picture

Fidelis commented

Thanks Laura, Inglés,

Very useful pointers - especially the online posts by Dave, I have started reading them. If there are other resources out there (online or print) about CivicSpace, I'll take them! ;-)

Cheers

patrick

Dave Chakrabarti’s picture

Dave Chakrabarti commented

Wow...nice to see someone's reading my site. My referrer logs showed 25 visitors to my site from this page, so I was wondering if someone had discovered me online.

My organization chose Drupal / CivicSpace precisely because we'd like to set up a series of community technology sites which could be administered by someone who's not a programmer. I wouldn't call myself a programmer, but I do know a fair amount of scripting and database-related stuff, and that definitely helped, but it *is* possible to install and manage Drupal or CivicSpace without knowing a thing about code whatsoever. You'll learn a thing or two about how webservers work along the way, but you'd have to learn that no matter what you used, if you want to have an online presence.

It's a lot easier than it sounds. Most hosts are using Direct Admin or Cpanel, and both of them give you a nice graphical interface to accomplish common tasks. For example, if you need to create a new email account, you'll see an icon that says something like "manage email accounts" and then that'll take you to a page where you can create a new account, password, etc. Very easy to learn. I taught myself most of this a few years ago, so I'm speaking from experience.

And the benefits of using such a flexible CMS architecture are immense...you'll begin to appreciate them more as you get more into Drupal, trust me.

Glad my writing is proving useful.

Dave.

Fidelis’s picture

Fidelis commented

Thanks Dave,

This is funny - you were writing your reply while I was reading you on your site (!)

My host is using C-Panel, see my post on topic with screenshots:

http://imbok.blogspot.com/2006/03/using-siteground-as-web-20-playground....

Your writing (http://www.digitalraindrop.com/Installing-CivicSpace) is exactly at the right level for me. It gives confidence to give it a try. I will wait for the book though - I need to do more reading before I attempt it.

I'm interested in Drupal + CivicSpace for the following two reasons:

  • To install a CMS in the root directory (www.gov20.info) of a new private association I will soon launch ("Government 2.0 Think Tank" - G2TT). For now, I'm only using a password-protected subdomain (wiki.gov20.info) in which association projects, typically reports written collaboratively, will be developed - I have chosen MediaWiki;
  • Longer term, part of the scope of the first project managed by G2TT will be to evaluate how Free and Open Source Software and Technologies can improve government operations, online collaboration spaces, etc.

The only other point that somewhat worries me is how difficult will it be to achieve a "good look". I have visited several sites listed at http://top.drupalsites.net/ and I can easily see that Drupal allows for ample customization of the look & feel. Do you have any general comments about this aspect? I understand how Drupal, as a good CMS, separates content and look; but at this point, I'm not worried about content and figuring out the site taxonomy; I'm curious about what it takes to develop a good looking site with Drupal + CivicSpace...

Thanks again Dave for taking the time to write your "howto" posts"!

patrick

Dave Chakrabarti’s picture

Dave Chakrabarti commented

Drupal is extremely flexible in its system for changing the look and feel of the site. The system refers to templates as "themes" ...with the further complexity that themes are based on theme engines. So, for example, I can install the phptemplate theme engine and then make use of any theme that is based on that engine. You can have multiple engines installed, and an unlimited number of themes.

If you can find a theme (check this site) that you like based on the screenshots, go ahead and install it and see how it looks on your site. If you're more or less happy with it, you're in a good position...all that remains is a little CSS editing to get things looking right.

At that stage, you'll have to know some code. Knowing your way around HTML and CSS, and possibly PHP, will help you when you're trying to change the look of a Drupal site beyond what's available in the themes. For example, if I use the "Leaf" theme but decide I want my text to be a different color, I can make the change easily by changing one line in the CSS file in the theme. Not too hard, and a great way to learn CSS, if you ask me.

On the other hand, if you've found a theme that more or less works for you (my site's currently using an almost stock "Connections" theme) then you may be just fine for the time being. You can always make minor changes later, as you learn CSS (or find someone who does), but for the most part the site already looks the way you want it to, and visitors aren't greeted with the boring blue and gray default drupal look.

I started some documentation on customizing drupal which might help you. At some point, I may write documentation on how to develop a new theme from scratch, but that's more than I have time for right now. Nick Lewis is also working on a great new theme for Drupal 4.7, which may inspire me to write documentation on modifying and customizing based on his framework.

I strongly recommend starting with phpTemplate as a theme engine and learning based on that...it'll also give you some practice in uploading addons for drupal, since the process for adding a drupal theme is similar to the process used for adding most modules (though some modules will require a database script, which adds an extra step).

Good luck, and congratulations on your choice...I'm sure Drupal / CivicSpace will serve your needs quite well. You may want to look at the CitizenSpeak module, CivicSpace's CivicCRM functionality, and Google Maps integration for ideas meaningful to politically-oriented site. I'm thinking constituent mapping (with automatically generated map points), CRM, mailing lists, community forums / mailing list integration, group and individual blogging, etc. You may also get much more involved with Drupal, and build asterisk-based VOIP solutions, integrated web-to-fax campaigns, or similar features, though these will generally take much more technical know-how and work.

Take care,

Dave.