My book review website has been in html for over 12 years. I've been using Dreamweaver about 10 years or so create the pages. Each book review has its own page. There are multiple menu page configurations to help the visitor find the type of book or title or author wanted. I'd like to have a blog comment section added at the end of each book review page, and perhaps the ability for a visitor to create a new book review page w admin consent. I downloaded the latest Drupal version, 6.17, to do some testing.
The conversion of the menu type pages (i.e. The Classics menu page: http://www.jandysbooks.com/tablecontents/gfclassics.html) looks to be daunting. I've tried creating pages with mini-panels and blocks, but realize that get unwieldy quickly. In my dreams I'd like to make the book titles appear only when the author's name is clicked on or rolled over.
The book review pages will be fairly easy - although from all the different html import modules I've seen, it seems my best choice is just to recreate new pages for each rather than trying to import them.
Also, I have organizational abilities in my html files that I can't see in Drupal. I really don't want lists of 1200 pages in my Content Management screen.
I started Drupal with the Drupal for Dummies book, so I got an idea of how it works. I've been poking around the different modules to see if any of them help me, but most don't have enough instructions for a newbie like me to know how to use them once they're installed, let alone getting to work in my test site.
So is it worth converting my old site? If not, is there any way to combine the comment function at the end of my review pages - either html coding or mixing html pages and drupal pages?
Thanks for suggestions and help.
Comments
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Believe it or not I don't think it would be that difficult a conversion. It seems daunting because you're new to drupal and drupal seems daunting all on its own, lol.
You've already got the structure-- I would recreate that with drupal's taxonomy module, use fivestar for ratings, and imagefield / imagecache for the images. There's also lots of modules you can use that would help with taxonomy:
http://drupal.org/project/vocabindex
http://drupal.org/project/index
http://drupal.org/project/taxonomy_treemenu
http://drupal.org/project/taxonomy_vtn
But you could also probably do what you want with http://drupal.org/project/views -- the grandaddy of all listing modules.
And if you could export your site to csv, you could easily import the basics with http://drupal.org/project/node_import which would save you lots of tedious time.
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First, thanks for the hope. I
First, thanks for the hope. I kept going in and out of taxonomies, but I guess I need to start to the beginning of that section of the manual. I know I've downloaded at least one taxonomy module, the views module, and looked at the node-import module. Now where do I find documentation for the modules that are added? Also in the Drupal manuals?
ModuleInfo
ModuleInfo is a module that is of great help when you need information on a module. http://drupal.org/project/moduleinfo
There are quite a few videos that are of great help in the beginning, http://gotdrupal.com/ is one of the best places to start.
These 2 were of great help.
http://gotdrupal.com/videos/drupal-views-tutorial
(You should also look at cck module.)
http://gotdrupal.com/videos/understanding-drupal-content-types-cck
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The first place to look for documentation is on the project page (if it's there, there will be a 'read documentation' link), then the tarball (look for a 'readme.txt' file), and finally check the issue queue for people asking howto or document type questions. Unfortunately, with open source the documentation can often be lacking. If all else fails, you can post to the module's issue queue or on the forums.
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Thanks
I've been reading through the taxonomy documentation on Drupal. I had read the early part that I already understood. It takes a while to get down to practical applications for using it. Presumably as I continue, this will solve my organization problem with the stories. Once I get a better handle on that, then I'll have to figure out how to best recreate my internal links pages.
And yes, Drupal is daunting.
SimpleHTMLDOM
I used SimpeHTMLDom to import three HTML sites into one Drupal site. http://simplehtmldom.sourceforge.net/index.htm there is also a Drupal module (http://drupal.org/project/simplehtmldom) however I never used that.
I wrote a php script which bootstrapped Drupal and put all the various parts of a HTML page into various Drupal (+CCK) node fields using node_save() (http://api.drupal.org/api/function/node_save/6). The script parsed 800 html pages and created in the region of 12000 new nodes (organised using node relation into issues).
The result is here http://www.balancingact-africa.com , we were able to add the archives going back years. However this is not really a "newbie" task but a possible approach if it is not possible to use node import as previously mentioned.
Before Transfer to Html Need weblink Help
First I need to get a handle on weblinks and/or Web Links. The documentation manual (http://drupal.org/book/export/html/273907) starts with steps for creating them and using them, but then says it's different in v. 6x. I can create a web link, but haven't figured out how create a page of links as the manual says I can do. I've hunted through the forum and read some of the Get Started manuals, checked out other web sites (like Nancy's Cookbook) but am missing a fundamental piece. Where do I find something that will make this clear to me?
Some of your conversion suggestions look like they may work, but I don't want to convert basic pages until I can get my link pages to work (i.e. http://www.jandysbooks.com/tablecontents/au-ma-mc.html). I think once I've done that, I can then get a handle on the menus, then (hopefully) should be ready to start converting.
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I've not used weblinks and I'm not sure where that doc link is from, but have you seen the docs linked from the project page: http://drupal.org/node/273907? They are labeled as d6 as well as d5.
Based on that page, you shouldn't need to create a page of links-- it's already provided at /weblinks and can be aliased to whatever you like. There's also good docs for configuration and styling.
If you still have questions after reviewing that documentation you can always post an issue to the module's issue queue-- nancy's an excellent maintainer and will likely respond fairly soon.
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Helpful tips
Hello, I too am rebuilding my site from html and another cms to drupal. I actually learned how to do the basic things in drupal through work (took a month to get the basics down, but 2 more months to understand more advanced stuff on views). Even now I'm still learning new things from drupal modules.
As I take a look at your current site, I don't think it's that hard to migrate your data to drupal. For example, that table of contents can be done using taxonomies and views together.
Taxonomies are for categories and views is how to display those taxonomies to link to the node (content page itself).
You also have to create new content type (maybe call it Book Reviews) and include cck fields (Author, Category, Image Upload) .
Yes, it will take time to understand how to put things together, but once you get the basics down and have a working content type displaying the things you want, in the long run, it will be easier to manage your site.
I can't believe that you created a content driven site with pure html. That's a lot of work. CMS especially Drupal, once set up properly, can automate things any way you want. All you need is add Book Title, Author, Category, upload image, content of review and you're done.
Extra modules you need to download are:
CCK (create custom fields),
Content Taxonomy (to be used by CCK to categorize reviews),
Image Fupload, Imagecache (both needed to upload images and resize automatically),
CKEditor (to have a wysiwyg editor),
Views (Display pages/nodes the way you want it to),
Hierarchical Select (useful for cck field with lots of categories, breaks it down to dropdowns)
As an example of what you can do with drupal, you can take a look at My Demo Site. It's a demo site so not everything is there yet. Been working on this for a week or so. Click on any of the dropdown menu to see more.
Hopefully this will help liven you up to convert your site to drupal.
Goldlilys Media
I'll Keep Working On It
Unfortunately my long term sick leave has ended, so my learning time has decreased for a while as I return to work full time. I'll put my head into Views to go with the Taxonomy I've been learning. I'm sure that I need to understand Weblink, too, but still haven't found the documentation.
I'll check the Content Taxonomy as well, since I'd love to be able to organize this site behind the scenes. There's a lot of pages I'll have to deal with.
Thanks again. I'll probably be back adding to this thread within another week or two.