By DanielMD on

Hello I am a joomla user I am not unhappy, but i would like to know if drupal is a better fit for my needs:

I need to easily create templates (this is very easy to do in joomla, i have read that in drupal it is harder, does drupal use any templating system like Smarty or patTemplate?) If not can you direct me to an example tutorial for creatign a template.

I also need some good community tools: I need forum (would like to have SMF integration do not know if this exists in drupal?) what forums exist, integrated wiki, and software repository/rating and issue tracker... also would be nice to use the CVS system that you guys have here to look inside of modules... how does one do that? I would like something like this:
http://haysoft.com/main/component/option,com_facileforms/Itemid,51/ff_na...

but with the adition of a module/bloc for submiting issues and links to CVS source.

I would like a similar system to the one that is being used here for users
this kind of structure:
* create content
o book page
o forum topic
o project
o issue
* my account
* issues
* my projects
* recent posts
* news aggregator
* log out

Is really what i am looking for

Also are there any wysiwyg editors for the forums?

I would also like to know a bit more on how drupal works so i can evaluate it.

Thanks for reading this :)

Comments

Uwe Hermann’s picture

Uwe Hermann commented

http://drupal.org/handbooks

--
hermann-uwe.de | crazy-hacks.org | unmaintained-free-software.org

DanielMD’s picture

DanielMD commented

Hi i am readign the documentation, but i just want some quick anwsers from teh community

slayerment’s picture

slayerment commented

Custom templates are pretty easy to do in Drupal depending on your web skills. I would recommend the PHPTemplate engine. It is the way to go if you want full control over all aspects of your site.

You can not directly hook up SMF, PHPBB, or VB to Drupal without pretty good programming knowledge. The current Drupal forum is good, however, if you want to enhance it you are going to need some programming knowledge again. It is possible to set up a WYSIWYG editor though.

I would highly recommend Drupal if you have knowledge of developing websites from scratch. If you do not have web knowledge it sounds like Joomla is more targetted towards your needs.

I have used both and choose Drupal over Joomla for any site no matter what. Drupal gives the best control, is great for SE, is fully scalable and just plain better. But it fully depends on your needs and based on what you want it looks like you should stick to Joomla.

Good luck!

DanielMD’s picture

DanielMD commented

I do have experience in php, xhtml and Css and doing sites from scratch :)

About the forum integration, what i really would need is a simple wrapper module, the databases would be seperated... the same for the wiki all i would need is a way to wrap the dokuwiki wiki... I would like to know how the CVS interface works, and if there are any ratings and issue tracking modules.

Looking at drupal and joomla I can see that they are very different one is very specific (joomla has specific components for almoust everithing but you need to tweak allot) and one is very generic (drupal looks like a much more flexible system, but you have to almost always build wht you want from generic parts).

I have found the module directory hard to navigate, isn't there a more categorized view/filter, something allont the extensions.joomla.org page?

Arto’s picture

Arto commented

Daniel,

Since you have a technical background, you may find useful this article I wrote last August, when switching from Joomla to Drupal:
http://bendiken.net/2006/02/08/drupal-vs-mambo

I was the guy who originally wrote the Alias Manager / OpenSEF stuff for Mambo, so SEO concerns play a prominent role in the article. As for the other material, it may be a little out of date, but I don't think the Joomla guys can have fixed their fundamental architectural problems quite yet, so the article might still be instructive.

--
Arto Bendiken - currently working on static page caching for Drupal 4.7.

peter_n’s picture

peter_n commented

Have to recommend Drupal over Joomla - mainly because iof its flexibility, search engine friendliness and the modules integrate better.

I've done some template customisation and found it is not that hard especially if you know some CSS. Its best just to modify an existing template. I don't think its very different to Joomla in this regard.

One of the killer features for me is the flexinode module. It basically allows you to create any kind of database driven content.

Cheers,

Peter

----------------------------------
neish.net | botanicalartistry.com

DanielMD’s picture

DanielMD commented

Hi i am an experienced xhtml and css programmer, and also have experience with php, so the technical side will not be a major problem.

What about a community site, have you buils a community suite with drupal, how long does it take to get the hang of drupal, to undertand all the concepts, design goals and make the system do what you what instead...

for instance it took me a week to understand joomla and do some components, mambots, modules... how long did it take you to understand drupal?

Thanks for the replies

Muslim guy’s picture

Muslim guy commented

CivicCRM is a nice distribution that has a lot of out-of-box modules that Drupal does not include in 4.6.5.

Otherwise, Drupal is fine.

You will have to get acquianted with Drupal's powerful features that makes it unique:

1. The Taxonomy - categories

2. The path alias - URL aliasing is included. For Mambo/Joomla, to have the SEF working is such a pain.

3. Drupal will help your site gets top ranking without your much effort! If you dont believe us, you can see our site statistic at
http://muslimin.org/Islam/admin/logs/referrers

Having mentioned the SEO / Google friendliness as well as Yahoo, MSN. dogpile.com etc that makes you drool over Drupal :) now lets start working on your Drupal site shall we?

________________________________________________________________________________
Internet for ISLAM, get to know Islam and Muslims :) May Allah brings you to the Straight Path
http://muslimin.org/Islam
----------------------------