By matt4 on

I want to create a site (community really) that incorporates forums.

A place where contributors with special permissions can add/edit articles. The site will be knowledgebase based :)
Users need to be able to add comments and such.

I'm very new to drupal. Never worked with it before. Just want to use something different to joomla and I hear drupal is powerful too.
It seems like a very steep learning curve. I have next to no design skills so I'll need to have a designer on board.

How easy is it to administer too?

Thanks,

⋅ Categories: Drupal 6.x

Comments

mradcliffe’s picture

mradcliffe
he/him
Primary language English
commented

If you're coming from Joomla, then you need to realize that one of the key powers of Drupal is that it's integrated front end and "back end". Meaning your entire site has the same look through and through. This can be confusing to Joomla, Wordpress, etc... users who are used to a "back end" administrative look.

What you want to do is outline your content into different "types" with various features and data attached to the content. For instance, an article type could be categorized or tagged (taxonomy terms). It might also have extra fields such as links, images, files, etc... It also could hold revision data, and you might want to view a "diff" of that revision data. In this way you can break out functionality from content, and find modules such as CCK and taxonomy to do what you want.

Just grab a copy of Drupal and install it on a local server following the installation instructions, and start looking at CCK and taxonomy. Another module you'll want to look at is advanced_forum unless you want your forums to look and behave like the ones seen here on drupal.org.

shyamala’s picture

shyamala commented

Yes Drupal is excellent for a Knowledge Repository. Drupal is infact a working example of a Knowledge Repository. To see and experience it in action check out the Drupal Forums and The Handbook Pages. These pages not only provide you with information, but also let you collaborate!

As regards to Drupal Configuration, this is pretty simple. But Drupal theming would require a steep learning curve. There is huge database of Contributed themes that you may wish to pick from to have you site started.

Some beginner references:
Get Started Page
Drupal Contributed Modules

Shyamala
http://www.unimitysolutions.com

matt4’s picture

matt4 commented

Thank you folks.

It is a learning curve for me but I'll be going over the documentation you have both provided.

Thank you very much :)