By fire007 on

Hi,

I am thinking about using drupal, because of:
* the stories I heard
* the great amount of extensions
* the large community
* the professional image

Now my questions are:
* Is the real interface the same as on opensourcecms.com? I ask this because I am not very flattered by this interface and also it confuses me. It says "my blog" somewhere, I thought this was a CMS??? Now I am using phpwcms which is much smaller but has a far better interface. Maybe I can change the interface? Maybe this is an old version? Are there interface improvement extensions or something like that?
* Does drupal use template language like {content} instead of <?echo $content?> ??
* does drupal have SEO friendly urls?
* Is drupal not the same as joomla, like having a large community (including many extensions) but depressing technology (like bad php code, bad interface etc...). Is there a core developers team?
* Is it easy to make extensions for someone who is mainly occupied with graphics design but has some php knowledge?
* Does drupal have different content types, like:
WYSIWYG HTML
images - list of images
bullet list
link & email
multimedia - like MP3, QuickTime, RealMedia, Flash
file list
newsletter
search - full text search
sitemap
guestbook
* does drupal have diferent template parts, like:
automatic menu creation

Pfuhh, many questions, maybe you will answer ;) ...

Regards,
fire007

Comments

vm’s picture

vm commented

the UI is lacking in some areas. in fact its quite simple.

ideally you have complete control over the content. if you dont want a blog, or users to be able to blog you shut that module off in the admin area.

as far as the options that you are asking for they are all in the modules area and will accomplish all that you ask for.

i would highly suggest, setting up a demo forum on your webserver, or local machine and taking drupal for a test run. Yes there is a learning curve with drupal, but this can be overcome and once overcome a world of possibilities opens, rather then a world of frustration.

bart@drupal.energybulletin.org’s picture

bart@drupal.energybulletin.org commented

The variety and nature of your questions leads me to suggest that a good first step would be general research and locating sources of information for yourself.

I wish I could show the links that I've collected over the last month, fire007 - about 120 links to great articles, examples, etc. All online, all free. Just start Googling and you'll soon find all the information you want.

Alternately, click around drupal.org . There was a post, maybe by sepeck, suggesting some readings, but I can't find it at the moment.

If you're serious, I'd suggest buying the two books on Drupal to move up the learning curve much more quickly. The books are by David Mercer and Robert Douglass
(See http://drupal.org/node/66199 for a discussion on the books.)

Drupal, it's quite an adventure....

calebgilbert’s picture

calebgilbert commented

which is significantly different/more customize than the stock drupal install that exists at opensourcecms.com. In fact, I just updated it today with some really big ui updates.

You can check it out here.

Drupal is a CMS, which means you can use it for blogs as well as a 'normal' websites.

The seo is thru the roof, btw. Seen it firsthand.

=====
Bloggyland.com - Custom install w/ 25 xtra modules, hosting, and support - online demo
Custom development - HigherVisibilityWebsites.com

prokopton’s picture

prokopton commented

politicalphysics,

I've been experimenting with Drupal for the last 10 days and I find it to be very versatile and powerful. Once I stopped asking myself, "Why does it do this that way and not this way (the way I was used to with other CMSs)." Things really made sense. Yes, there is a high learning curve.

I was wondering on your demo site, what theme are you using and where did you find it? It looks nice.

Thank-you.

calebgilbert’s picture

calebgilbert commented

it's called Gunmetal and I'm actually planning to post it for the rest of the Drupal community to use at some point. You're welcome to use it if you want to (by copy and pasting from the "theme editor" for instance).

=====
Bloggyland.com - Custom install w/ 25 xtra modules, hosting, and support - online demo

fire007’s picture

fire007 commented

Your interface sure looks better than the one on opensourcecms.com. I presume you can define which menu entries should be shown and which not? Are there sprankling drupal sites listed on css sites i.e., like css beauty?

calebgilbert’s picture

calebgilbert commented

..it's taken me several hundred hours to get it that way, to be sure.

The thing that becomes obvious once you've used Drupal long enough is that not only can you define menu entries in whichever way you desire - you can display ANYTHING however you desire - but every once in a while you might be the person who gets to figure out how to do it. Such flexibility and freedom can be good...and bad! (so many things to do, so little time!)

Am not sure what you mean about the last question there (css beauty). There are certainly some high profile Drupal sites around if that is what you mean...

=====
Bloggyland.com - Custom install w/ 25 xtra modules, hosting, and support - online demo

fire007’s picture

fire007 commented

Great!, so I can build my own drupal backend with my own logo and stuff?? I always build my websites 100% css, so I can do that with drupal too? You say several hundreds of hours to design your own backend, that counts for a skilled designer too?

calebgilbert’s picture

calebgilbert commented

template and stuff using css - well, certainly.

If you know css like the back of your hand that will help you - a lot - but then you have an important decision to make - phptemplate or xtemplate. xtemplate is xhtml and/or css and phptemplate - well, the name says it all. A lot of people who are developers/programmers here are snobs about the phptemplate and look down on anything "less", but I actually used the xtemplate because it is a far cry easier to maker, edit, etc - especially for "end users" and such whom I'm trying to market to.

I'm a "skilled designer" (graphic design/front end web design NOT a programmer) of 10 years of experience - and yes it took me forever. :-)

A lot of the stuff you can download here - a) doesn't work exactly how you want it to, b) doesn't work at all, or c) works somewhere in-between a and b.

=====
Bloggyland.com - Custom install w/ 25 xtra modules, hosting, and support - online demo

calebgilbert’s picture

calebgilbert commented

that's hundreds of hours to create a fully custom install of Drupal - not just create one theme. That's not quite so bad. ;-)

=====
Bloggyland.com - Custom install w/ 25 xtra modules, hosting, and support - online demo

calebgilbert’s picture

calebgilbert commented

Just figured out that I had munged my tinymce settings and that it hasn't been showing up when you're logged in until now. Fyi, if you had want to see that.

=====
Bloggyland.com - Custom install w/ 25 xtra modules, hosting, and support - online demo

hbahl’s picture

hbahl commented

Hi there,

I'm new to Drupal. I wanna know how can design my own logo using Drupal.

Thanks,

elv’s picture

elv commented

Before I discovered Drupal I was interested in phpWCMS. I even built a website with it (unfortunately it's a private website so I can't show it).
First, these CMS are two very different beasts. phpWCMS is a more "regular" CMS, with a page tree and things you'll find in other CMS, and the admin looks a bit like Typo3. In fact phpWCMS claims to be a kind of "Typo3 lite" so it's no wonder :)
I have not been enthusiastic about the developement process. My main problems were :
- phpWCMS is Oliver Georgi's baby, and he won't delegate anything. So the development is slow, and the current offering is really not ready for prime time IMHO.
- customising the html output was a pain. There are ways to override the standard output, but it's buried in bunches of config files. So it's difficult to create, and even more difficult when you fight against css bugs ans have to look in a dozen files.
- no frontend for the permission system! Had to write it myself...
In the end, I decided I would not use it again. At least until v2 is out, which could be in a century or two ;)

I'll try to answer your questions, keeping in mind you're used to phpWCMS (note I'm still a bit new to Drupal) :

* the interface can be whatever you want it to be. You can simply download and install existing themes (check the downloads area), or if you know a bit of HTML/CSS/PHP you can create your own. I'm a webdesigner, not a developer, but creating my own first theme seemed fairly easy.

* by default Drupal uses PHPTemplate, which is basically HTML and PHP code. So there is a template system, but no "template language" to learn. Any html output can be overriden and replaced by your own code, with template files.

* URLs are friendly out of the box, with or without "clean URLs" (Apache rewriting)

* Content types work in a totally different way than phpWCMS. In phpWCMS or Typo 3 you create "pages" and add blocks inside, this is not the case here. You'll need to adapt a bit :)
I think all the "content types" you listed can be done, most of the time with additional modules (see the modules list in the downloads area)

Compared to phpWCMS, I'd say Drupal is by far more flexible, but it may not be obvious at the beginning because it's so different. Anyway try to hack around, and see if it fits you, as it is not the ultimate solution for everyone. I know some developers who use and love Typo3, and they just don't get it with Drupal :)

On other topics I'm not sure I can give an adequate answer. Try to browse the Handbooks (in the top menu), I'm pretty sure anything you want to know is already there!

fire007’s picture

fire007 commented

Thanks for the explanation. But according to what I have seen so far, drupal is not as accessible as phpwcms and stuff is accessible (like the content parts) but then it takes a lot of effort.
So what were your primary reasons to switch to drupal?

mariner’s picture

mariner commented

Me thinks it's good to be a total noob to the CMS world for once, lol. In the sense that I don't have anything to compare the different flavors to or come we preconceived ideas of how Drupal should work (or any other CMS for that matter). I looked at Joomla, nah. Way over my head at this point! Looked into Drupal and was putting stuff together right away. Granted i was using the default theme but figuring things out was not too difficult. And I have no prior experience!

I would reccommend the book "Drupal" by David Mercer though. http://www.packtpub.com/books it's $26.99USD for the ebook and immediate download. Walks through the whole shebang from installation on in very clear non technical writing.

Thanks for reading,
Mariner

elv’s picture

elv commented

So what were your primary reasons to switch to drupal?
- custom content types (initially with Flexinode module, now with CCK. You could think a content system like in Typo3 would replace the need for custom content types with specific fields, but in my experience it's far easier for end users to just fill in a few fields than to learn how to handle "content blocks" and wysiwyg editors.
- internationalization of content (with i18n module). I'm french and most websites here are at least in french and english.
- evolution, and evolution speed. Even though at the moment Dries Buytaert alone leads Drupal's path, he's very open to other's ideas. And there is a whole team of developers, so things can change fast! On the other hand a project like phpWCMS is really one man and one vision.
- flexibility. It may sound strange, but with most CMS you're tied to the "page tree" model. Just an example, say you build a site which presents audio products, you could have a simple tree hierarchy : mp3, speakers, ipod accessories... But then your client wants to be able to list products by brand, by storage technology (HD, flash memory, DVD...), or even by color. How does this fit in a tree? This is typically a job for Drupal's taxonomies/categories.

So far I'm glad I went beyond my first impressions and stuck with Drupal. It's not that hard! But then again, it's may not be the right tool for everyone :)

bart@drupal.energybulletin.org’s picture

bart@drupal.energybulletin.org commented

I'm new to the Content Management Systems, but had worked around computers, software and the Web for 20 years. I try to find tools/systems that are deep and flexible -- that repay the effort that one puts into learning them.

Often the best tools have a steep learning curve and are not flashy. I think of UNIX, HTML and CSS. And Photoshop - no one claims that Photoshop is a cinch to learn.

From the very beginning, I sensed that Drupal was a quality tool. Dries and the other developers seem more concerned with doing the "right thing" than with marketing and flash. They think long term, and are willing to make the sacrifices now that will have a big payoff later on.

With Drupal, you can learn how all the parts fit together; and then build the kind of system that YOU want. Drupal doesn't spoon feed you; it's a system that encourages you to learn and to grow.

Bart

prokopton’s picture

prokopton commented

I've used Geeklog, phpBB with mx-portal and I've tried Joomla. The following is my metaphor for CMSs and spaghetti sauce.

Drupal as a spaghetti sauce. It takes time, it can be messy at times, it requires that you know a bit about ingredients, sauces and spices. You need to experiment with different mixes and have to do most of everything yourself.

Other CMSs (Mambo, Joomla for example) as spaghetti sauce. They're quick, easy to make (stick in Microwave), you don't have to know how to measure ingredients or learn how to make sauces. The instructions are very easy.

In the end, the Drupal spaghetti sauce tastes fabulous, you're satisfied, and most importantly, you get what you want. Then you start thinking, how did I get by with buying off the shelf spaghetti sauce all that time?

Are you winning to take the time to make your own spaghetti sauce to get what you want? It's an investment of time.