Where are All Drupal Sample Sites with Configurations?

As you point out, it is easy for anyone to see all the options and fool with all the settings in Drupal. Getting access to a Drupal admin panel is not the point. I have access to my own already. Hurray! So what!

This is like some learning to code PHP looking at a PHP reference manual and saying “all these functions are great and all, but I would love to see some example source code that shows how these things can be used together.” Some people would say “you have access to all those function yourself. Write any code you like and look at the results”. Other would say “there are millions of web sites that are written in PHP. Just go browse any one of those sites and see the results.” But neither one of these approaches lets the aspiring new PHP developer see example source code for working sites. He doesn’t just want to see the results, he wants to see how they were implemented. And he doesn’t want to see the implementation for a trivial “Hello World” program. He wants to see the implementation of a real application that does something useful.

Of course, for PHP there is tons of example source code. Drupal itself is a great example of an open source project that lets everyone see how it was built.

But where is the example of a how to implement something using Drupal? Do any of these examples exposing the implementation so we can see how they were made?

For example: On Drupal.org, how was the download Download Modules page built? http://drupal.org/project/Modules What type of node is used to store each of the modules listed here. Are those nodes built with cck? Is it a custom mode? Is it a customization of a standard module? Which module? Does it use the views module to list all the downloadable items? How is the Filter by version implemented?

In other words, if I wanted to build a similar list, how I go about it?

I could ask dozens of specific questions about how this particular Drupal site was constructed. But the real point is just to see an example of all the components working together. Get a basic idea of when it is best to used different content types versus using the same content types with different taxonomy settings.

I am not suggesting that someone’s live site have the administration control left wide open. I am suggesting that it would be useful to have a backup copy of the site that has the admin settings visible even if they are not modifiable. Or it would be great to have something like the demo sites that reinstall themselves every 2 hours but make one that has something more then a trivial “hello worlds” program. Anyone can see a default install. I want to see an install that does something non-trivial.