By ladycentaur on

I'm very pleased that CivicSpace has updated information about the situation with their work and the solutions available to non-profits now that CivicSpace has changed.

Even though I started off posting here by getting my rant on about no downloads...if this page is correct and this solution works, then I am content with the explanation here:

http://www.civicspacelabs.org/civicspace

Thank you to whoever updated the information. I do hope that the installation issues have been addressed in Drupal 5.0 with CiviCRM and that any configuration issues are explained somewhere in terminology that can be easily followed by the average user, because what they have up at CiviCRM really is impossible to use unless you really don't need it.

Thank you for taking action with the page...much appreciated. I would have posted that on the other thread but the mean man locked it. :D

Comments

lobo’s picture

lobo commented

Yes, installing CiviCRM is complex. Hence the need for a service like CivicSpace on demand where you are up and running with Drupal 4.7 and CiviCRM 1.5 pre-installed and working

Our wiki is editable so feel free to add/change the installation instructions that an be easily followed by the average user. We are happy to support you on our civicrm-dev mailing list at http://lists.civicrm.org/. As an open source project contributions are valuable and accepted

regards

lobo

ladycentaur’s picture

ladycentaur commented

Well, I haven't been able to get CiviCRM installed on top of Drupal...and I spent 3 days ALL day trying. That's why I've been grumbling about the instructions. The problem with them is that unless you don't need to use them you just can't make heads or tails from them. I honestly tried as best I could (and I've installed numerous php programs for years) and I couldn't follow those instructions at all. First off, most of the instructions are geared toward people who are comfortable and knowledgeable using command line. Those isntructions being mixed in with phpmyadmin instructions cause confusion because most people who want to use CiviCRM don't even know how to get to the command line, let alone use it. That's the first issue with the instructions. The second issue is that whoever wrote them seems to have forgotten that they were writing them for people who don't write code and need very clear, specific and simple step by step instructions. On top of that, you just can't tell exactly where you have to edit the php files because there isn't sample text written in red to help you find it. If you don't write code you have no clue what the code means, so you can't tell the difference between what is code and what is an "example" of what you write somewhere else.

Any script that does not have a web based installer really must have red (or another bright color) text at the EXACT location where they have to enter information listing what goes there.

As for me editting it...not a chance...I would have to be able to understand it to be able to edit it and after 3 days of fighting with it I decided to pitch a fit until I got a copy of the last CivicSpace release.

As for the hosted CivicSpace option...I will never use that in a million years. I am building a site for a non-profit as a volunteer. I'm not paying for it. I was one of the original usability testers back when CivicSpace was a brand new mailing list called hackers for dean.

It's too bad CiviCRM couldn't steer towards becoming a stand alone CMS by building a module system that allows for news, a forum, blogs, etc. I'm thinking it would probably make CiviCRM so much more usable if instead of trying to isntall it on top of other scripts, the other features were built on top of CiviCRM...just a thought.