Hello All,
Decently new to the Drupal system, Joomla! has been my CMS of choice for quite some time now. Recently a friend directed me here (along with quite a few reviews I read). I am in the process of building a new organization based website with Joomla!, but after going over a lot of the content here, I believe I would like to switch to Drupal.
I have a decent frame-work of how Drupal works (Have it installed on a /play on my current website so I have been basically self educating myself, and I can usually sit down and learn a newer system in several days (and be decently proficient).
As of current, I am working with.
Joomla! 1.5.15
UddleIM for Private Messaging
Kunea Forums
This set up is pretty sub-par to me, I find the system pretty weak, and not at all visually appealing (there are some paid extensions that might improve this, but I am simply not enjoying working with it).
I have browsed the forums and I am certain Drupal can fit my needs, and after I saw this http://www.betternetworker.com/ I'm simply inspired. (Granted that site did take quite some time and has a few hacks). I have seen similar sites built with Joomla, but none that were that professional.
I am looking into the Community Building documentation here on the site at http://drupal.org/node/206724, but since Modules are changing and new ones are being added all the time, I would like to hear from the Community as to what they would use. I would also heavily enjoy your thoughts on using Drupal for Community Websites.
The site will contain all your normal community features, such as user profiles, friends lists, private messaging, and forums. However we plan to branch out into file downloads and similar content, is there a module that will record for each user the files they have downloaded?
The sites focus is to deliver Educational Materials, so if anyone has something to add that might be generally helpful in that area please do let me know.
Also, on this page http://drupal.org/node/206724 should those modules be installed in that particular order?
Alright, back to my corner.
Thanks
Devon
Comments
Welcome :)
First off, that list is just the section of the handbook where modules are listed that have documentation in the handbook. Many modules only have the README.txt that comes with them and aren't listed there. You can find the list of modules for D6 in the community category of the downloads page here:
http://drupal.org/project/modules?filters=tid%3A56%20drupal_core%3A87&so...
There are over 5K Drupal modules (total, not just community ones) so finding the right ones can be daunting. I have a list in progress of ones I recommend here: http://shellsn.com/node/613 . Unfortunately, it looks like I lost recent updates when I reset the demo site and forgot to include that in the snapshot. :( So it's a bit out of date, but may still help. I'll try to remember to update that soon.
There are tons of blog posts and articles on Drupal and social networking out there. Make sure you research off drupal.org as well to catch those. One example site I happen to like (it's not mine) is http://drupalsn.com .
I don't have an answer to your question on the file downloads, sorry.
Good luck with your site!
Michelle