By dkitchen on

Please excuse my ignorance. I’m a novice who wants to get started (again). Several years ago, I could easily navigate my way around FrontPage and knew a decent amount of HTML coding. But as time went by, I needed web design less and less. Today, I do update our company’s current Joomla-based site but that’s about it. Until now.

We need to redesign our site, add in some new features and really take advantage of web 2.0. (Right now, it’s mostly just a brochure-style site.) I want to learn a CMS (with the possibility of going on to design CMS-based sites for other nonprofits in my area which they would then update content on their own). In addition to the normal stuff, below is a list of things I’d really like to incorporate into our new site:
• “Connect with Facebook” / Sign Up with Facebook
• Post video via YouTube, Facebook, Vimeo, etc. directly on the site
• Ability to post Twitter tweets, Facebook status updates/postings, etc. automatically
• Unique registrations/log-ins which allow various users to see specific content and gain access to restricted areas (for example, members of the board of directors could access board minutes and other files but the area would not be accessible to anyone else)
• RSS reader/display (ability to pull in the first paragraph or so from our weekly blog onto our homepage with a link to the rest of the blog)
• RSS feed (so others can add our site to their RSS reader)
• Easy FLASH animation additions
• Photo management system(s)
• Incorporate many if not most Google tools and apps (especially Google search and Google Analytics)
• A way to post mobile-based versions of the site
• Additional social networking and web 2.0/3.0 aspects as they become relevant to our work

Based on this (and all the other things that you know but I don’t yet know to ask about), is Drupal the best CMS for me to learn? And if so, is it decently easy to learn and are there affordable (free) online trainings?

I'm trying to read up on Joomla and Drupal, but thought it might be easiest to go straight to the source and ask the experts.

Thanks in advance,
David

Comments

semperos’s picture

semperos commented

You'll find experts and novices who will answer this question; I don't claim to be an expert. I spent a similar time investigating various CMS's when I started, and I chose Drupal. Having spent no time in the Joomla community, I can't speak to it, so here's my biased answer :)

  • Drupal has a powerful core system of content and user management which is easily extended (and has been by over 5,000 contributed modules that you can download for free here on Drupal.org).
  • Drupal doesn't look back; every new release of Drupal comes with significant improvements over previous releases
  • Drupal's community is extremely active and has attracted extraordinarily bright and talented developers who contribute to the project. If you want to talk to folks directly, join us on Freenode's #drupal or #drupal-support IRC channels, or make your way to a local Drupal meet-up, camp or conference.
  • There are plenty of free blogs, podcasts and screencasts online that help explain basic and more advanced features of Drupal.
  • Mission-critical sites are being built with Drupal every day, for commercial businesses, non-profits, government organizations, celebrities, scientific publications, and the list goes on...
  • You can do everything you asked in your list with core Drupal, free contributed modules and some customization on your own.

Drupal, together with the appropriate contributed modules (you should ask for help to find what works best), provides "reasonable defaults" for practically any functionality you'd like; if you want something to behave or look different, Drupal gives you the tools to do so. I've heard from former Joomla-folks that they were fine with Joomla until they wanted to do XYZ, and then they were stuck. Drupal is highly flexible.

All that said, Drupal does have a learning curve. First, you should learn the terminology; words like blocks, nodes, taxonomy, regions, hooks, etc. will get thrown around and often prove confusing in the beginning (but are helpful after you've mastered them for their specificity in Drupal-speak). Secondly, Drupal is a framework to build with as much as it is a product to use "out-of-the-box"; if you want to learn how to customize it, it will require some dedication of time and effort.

Hope you stick around! I'm glad I did.

vm’s picture

vm commented

keep in mind that what you were used to doing in frontpage with static HTML pages is ancient history. While that HTML knowledge will indeed help websites CMS / CMF's of todays day and age use XHTML (mix of php and HTML) and CSS for styling.

Welcome to web 2.0

dkitchen’s picture

dkitchen commented

Yeah, it's been a while since I've done anything but simple updates. I know I'm basically starting over (with some old knowledge). That's the main reason I want to make the right CMS decision.

dkitchen’s picture

dkitchen commented

Has Google thought about their own CMS? Just wondering...they seem to be taking over the world everywhere else. ;-)

dkitchen’s picture

dkitchen commented

One other related question. Whatever we use, we're going to need to train staff, etc. do to updates (mostly text but possibly some images).

Joomla was easy to learn and teach others to use this. Is it also easy with Drupal?

I'm leaning heavy towards Drupal, just wanted to make sure. (From what I've read, the learning curve is higher with Drupal, but functional is better once you learn it.)

Thanks,
dk

vm’s picture

vm commented

not much different than joomla when it comes to editing content. Joomla though ships with an editor, With drupal to use an editor you have to download one and install as a module.

You can test drupal front and backend here: http://php.opensourcecms.com/scripts/details.php?scriptid=191&name=Drupal

It is drupal 6.15 and allows you to play with everything that drupal contains out of the box.

richardo’s picture

richardo commented

For me I am looking into the user friendly option and how easy I can maintain the site for running.

Of course I am looking into option to turn my existing wordpress site to drupal powered site.