I'm extremely new, and have just started inspecting Drupal. So go easy on me, if I'm asking a stupid question. Then again, some of the best questions are stupid ones . . .
Can you really make a top-rate site with Drupal? I was drawn to the program when I heard that The Onion uses it. But almost all of the other samples I see -- although functional enough -- are not nearly on the same level. Is this just a matter of graphic design and template design? Could you concievably run an impressive site like nytimes.com (or some other high-traffic portal) on Drupal?
That raises another issue -- if this free, open-source program is so great, how come more of the big boys aren't using it?
I'm a technical idiot, so feel free to correct me, if I'm on the wrong track. I'm just trying to get an idea of how far the program can take me.
Thanks for your thoughts!
Comments
Depends on "you"
You say, "Can you". Well, no one knows if _you_ can. Depends on your skills. If you're asking is it possible, then, yeah. There's a lot of people making really nice sites. Some of them are listed on http://drupal.org/handbook/drupal/gallery but there's more nice ones I've seen that aren't on there, yet, like http://new.savannahnow.com/ .
Michelle
Well...
How the Onion looks has a lot more to do with the ability of their designer(s) than Drupal, but this can be said of ANY web site. Probably the most helpful thing to say, though, is that Drupal has a lot of excellent, ready-made themes that can either be edited to taste (see http://themes.drupal.org). More importantly, though, Drupal has a well-designed and flexible theme engine at it's core, PHPTemplate, that makes it very simple to set the appearance of your site using CSS or create your own look from scratch. I won't even go into the add-ons that can be used to customize the layout and appearance -- those could fill another page by themselves.
Just using Drupal will not make anyone a brilliant designer, any more than owning a Stradavarius will make them a master violinist.
But it DOES make you the owner of a Stradavarius.
No you can't
If you use Drupal you are forever bound to be mediocre. You will never reach the levels of NASA or MTV UK. IBM will just laugh at you.
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Uhoh.
I've always been terribly afraid that NASA would laugh at me, too.
(for the sarcasm impaired, chx is referencing three major 'big players' that have rolled out major drupal sites, or are working with Drupal. ;)
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Thanks.
Thanks everyone for the comments. And thanks for the explanation of sarcasm. (Are NASA and MTV UK *really* using Drupal? Very cool.)
Anyway, as a new user, I probably lack the talent to build a Drupal site like these. I just wanted to know that it's within reach.
So perhaps a better question is -- where can you hire someone with these theme building skills? Anyone interested? Do we know who did new.savannahnow.com? (Which is very impressive.)
Any feedback welcome. I'm warming up to this program and I'd love to run with it.
yup
Check out http://appel.nasa.gov/ and http://www.mtv.co.uk/
Here are some notes on SavannahNow: http://drupal.org/node/71654
A lot of the best Drupal sites are done by "in-house" teams (The Onion, NASA, etc). But there are also a lot of excellent freelancers and companies that do great work. To get started, look at http://drupal.org/drupal-services
Theme building...
http://www.drupalancers.com/ is one place you could look, but if you really wanted a sweet looking template the thing you would do is hire a graphic designer who - 99.9% chance - will know NOTHING about proper coding let alone Drupal, and THEN hire someone to turn their design into a template. The chances of finding a top-top flight designer AND top-top flight developer in one is less likely than finding a needle in a haystack. However, if you do find that person, please let me know.
I'd have to hire them (assuming they would work for almost-free) or kill them. ;-)
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the question answers itself
If you ask yourself this question then the answer is "no".
If you depend on the tools you use to make top-rate stuff, you are on the wrong path. Okay, a carpenter with blunt knifes and a broken hammer will never be able to make that beautiful cupboard. But a good carpenter will never have let it come to blunt knifes and broken hammers either. That said, I have seen kids in Zimbabwe cut the most beautifull chairs with nothing more then a plastic kitchen knife in the same time.
My point is, it comes down to *you*, your skills and your team. Then, from there on you choose your tools. Which means you never ask yourself the question "can this tool make great stuff". Off course it can! As long as you, the one holding the tool, is good enough, you will manage to create great, top-rate sites.
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I agree with the comments
I agree with the comments above. It takes defenitely a bit of work and also some skills to make a drupal page that looks very different than the default installation. In fact it`s possible as you can see in the handbook gallery or the given examples above. Another good looking drupal sites are http://www.frightening.de (a large site about the videogame-genre "survival horror") and http://home.hinterhofdesign.de/ (a personal blog) , both are in german.
As drupal gets better and more popular the number of well done sites will grow. That`s for sure.