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By travisdu on
Is drupal a CMS with a "small m" or a "big M"?
I give kudos to Adrian for trying to push forward a simpler conception of the template system, as a simpler system will lead to more templates.
But one thing that it seems never gets discussed about creating presentation in Drupal (or gets ignored) is how flexible the placement of content should be.
Drupal is not alone in this, as many cms's have taken this route. For the life of me I dont know why but they have.
Most cms's out of the box should not really be called cms's they should more aptly be called CSS's (Content Storage Systems), as they are much more likely to easily allow you to store your data in every concievalble heirarchy than they are likely to allow you to display/manage it with equal flexibility.
Why is it that most cms's have decided that chrono display of posts on the front page is good design or even usefull for the majority of users?
Why even have posts with authors, for most sites this has nothing to do with the management or placement of content.
Looking at the web at large I would say that the default display of most cms's out of the box mirrors the style of only maybe 1% of the pages on the internet if that. Most poeple simply dont build blogs or news scrolls.
The net is mostly populated with pages on a specific static subject or selling a specific static product. So why make the default of a CMS something that most people dont want to build?
Dont get me wrong, Im not saying that chrono and blogs arent useful, Its just not my idea of flexible.
From looking at the forums of the major cms's this is a commonly ignored request. My basic feeling from reading many of the posts is that when someone goes looking for a cms they arent automatically thinking community.
They think generally like this...
I have some content.
I want some of it to appear on all pages. (menues, ads)
I want some of to appear on only some pages. (pictures, etc)
I want the most freedom possible about HOW and WHERE it appears on the page.
I want to be able to set some defaults that give structure to HOW and WHERE content is displayed in MOST cases.
I want to be able to override those defaults without coding.
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What the above basically invisions is a grid for each page. A grid as in old school grid paper. And the content fits in each box. IN ANY BOX.
You are free to create a default grid, but those defaults can be overriden for each page created. So a brocure site, and a community site, and a sales letter, and a blank page with one picture in the upper left hand corner (for that matter) can all exist and be accounted for in the same site and cms.
Thats what people want.
And yet most cms's tell you exactly how and where and in what order even you will be ALLOWED to place your content.
This is CmS with a small m.
Beyond getting people to read and take place in this poll I didnt mean to single out Drupal, as as I said its not alone, so without further ado here is the question I put to the community...
POLL: Would you like to see more inherent ability in Drupal to allow for flexible placement in time and space of content within each created page?
Please respond with a vote of YES or NO, with any comments after. Thanks. :)
Comments
No
I'm actually quite satisfied with the flexibility on offer at the moment.
It came as a surprise to me how easy it is to configure drupal the way I want... I use the interlaced theme (css suits inadepts such as me)and even with very little experience on website creation I've managed to construct a site that is both functional and stylish- with the kind help of the theme dev and his nifty preset .css. (thanks!) Drupal structure not only suits my project (an intranet-in-web solution for a Europe-wide NGO), but it's basic features actually offer additional benefits for our operation.
With drupal, I can decide which nodes are placed where, on what pages the nodes appear, what content appears on the front page etc... with no or very little "hacking" at all. And .css is a very comfortable way to fix how it all looks.
I don't know about the other Cm/Ms's... to be honest, this drupal project seemed the only serious one at the time I was choosing the system.
Sunny days,
Jon / Nisi Masa Europe
Yes, but theming vs management.
Yes, I would like to see that, but I do not think the 'management' aspect of Drupal is bad or inferior. You seem to be focusing on visual layout only, which is not so much managing, but rather theming.
The difference is IMO whether you manage content for your website or manage content through your website.
For example, Drupal has a very powerful taxonomy system to categorize and to browse content.
Still, when Adrian's the new template system is finished (not for 4.5 I'm afraid), you will have more control over pages, without having to sacrifice any of the existing Drupal features.
yes - right on target!
this will be wonderful
i hope it is possible too.
Yes but
Yes - I would sure like more flexibility in the presentation layer - out of the box. Drupal does limit your freedom somewhat in this respect.
But: It seems like you confuse content management with presentation. Drupal is very strong in managing content - as content. That is Drupal has strong categorization and strong integration across types of content, and even cross site - by way of syndication. There is publishing, revision etc.
Drupal has a vary strong understanding of content - as content - and NOT as pages. Content Management in my book is not just about managing presentation of "pages". Pages are build - on the fly - from content which populates a design template, based on knowledge of subject and context. That is what Drupal does.
That is Content Management.
Dropping in from Langemarks Cafe.
No
Actually, flexinode and theming with CSS meets most of what you wish.
--
Drupal development: making the world better, one patch at a time. | A bedroom without a teddy is like a face without a smile.
well put
very, very true...flexinode's flexibility is often overlooked.
--There are no Kangaroos in Austria--
Just to clarify...
"With drupal, I can decide which nodes are placed where, on what pages the nodes appear, what content appears on the front page etc..."
Just to clarify, Im not talking about node management as this is an area where Drupal is very strong.
What Im talking about is the ability to organize and structure the display of content on the node itself. Or in the case of the home page nodes within a node.
The ability to move blocks of content around on a node and customize the display on a per node basis. Also with an eye toward its structure in time in relation to new content added (does it move on the page or is it static).
The flexiblity that Strayhand's module would have gone along way to providing, but who didnt receive much help with, is the type im trying to highlight.
Im hoping people will put in there vote on this poll so that there is a record of how people feel about it and it doesnt get brushed aside with a "oh why dont you just hide the author and post date with the theme" comment. There is a reason there are so few themes.
The ability to place content on eace node and determine its treatment in time, is huge. It allows people to build sites that dont all look the same. AS 95% OF ALL CMS's SITES DO NOW, due to cookie cutter preformatting decisions that end up making most cms driven sites look like blogs or glorified newspapers.
Break open the box.
Drupal vs Mambo
I have played a bit with Mambo and I have recently discovered Drupal (mainly because of an article on the mambo community about CMS load performances). I am now waiting for 4.5 to give it a go and see how it is to use and administer.
While I understand Mambo fairly, I do not yet have a good grasp of Drupal. Has anybody done any comparison between both?
Drupal vs. Mambo should not be posted in Poll.
This comment seems to be in the wrong spot, could someone please move it to its own post.
Thanks,
Travis U.
P.S. So far the vote is 3 yes votes and 2 no votes. Anyone else care to give an opinion?
Thanks for the clarification
I see your point, messing around with the theme itself is atm beyond me, as with many other users... but I believe improvements are already on the way. Meanwhile I find it a welcome self-learning challenge to examine the .themes and find out what I can do with them.
However, I don't think the difficulty of customisation is the only reason why most CMS sites have the same general layout - it's a very logical and natural way of publishing "community information". There are also reasons why most of the newspapers look the same...
Would I have started from scratch, I'd still have wanted the content organised the way it is now. People have different needs, of course, and making drupal even more customisable is desirable if it doesn't happen on the expense of usability.
Sunny days,
Jon / Nisi Masa Europe
Part of the strength and prob
Part of the strength and problem of Drupal is that it doesn't just have 'a' theme. It has theme engine's. phpTemplate and xTemplate are two different ways to organize the display of information. It is this flexibility that presents the problem for non-coders. It also allows for some really interesting sites.
For instance some mentioned in this thread
http://drupal.org/node/view/7443
cited often: http://www.terminus1525.ca/
and I really like this one
http://www.ericscouten.com/
The inital learning curve can be steep, but the potential outcome is worth it. At least that's my opinion.
-Steven Peck
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Test site, always start with a test site.
Drupal Best Practices Guide
One guarded yes and one no?
If I had to judge the above two posts I would say thats one guarded Yes vote and one No vote.
The Poll so far is sizing up to be running fairly even. Not what I had expected but I accept it.
I agree that this scrolling blog style does lend it self fairly well to a community site, but I think I must also add that this site serves a dual purpose, part of which is not served well I think.
This site is visited by a large contingent of people who are not part of the community and dont really know where to start when they hit the home page.
To get back on topic with my post...
Wouldnt it be nice if it was possible to easily place content relative to helping or selling or marketing Drupal as a "product" to those people right on the home page and not having it scroll off the page. Or would allow for blocks to be put into the middle column. Or would allow for node snippets to be placed statically whereever you wanted them, not just in the mission statement spot.
I think it would be nice. What do you think? Yes or No to the Poll?
Looks like a draw basically...
Thanks everyone for taking part in the Poll. Looks to be a draw.
If the post came off as a bit negative, chalk it up to frustration.
Im not a coder and the lack of gui driven flexibility and lack of
templates can be frustrating.
That being said, I think Drupal is a great piece of code and moving
in a really nice direction.
Sincerely,
Travis U.
Presentation and content are not the same
As other also pointed out, drupal is very strong when it comes to Managing Content. I am sure that taxonomy, user to content linking, various taxonomy browsers, etceteras, make drupal a CMS that can proudly use the big M.
But if you take presentation into account here, there is a problem.
In drupal all content is presented as a blurb. one can markup the whole article, or nothing. Immense treads over the simple fact that a teaser cannot be styled different from the content prove the fact that drupal has some big shortcomings here. This is one example, and I am sure others can think of more ("i want images in my blog", being one).
Enter Flexinode. Flexinode, will up to certain limits do all you point out as not possible above. It allows you to style content, create loads of different style that can be presented in loads of defferent ways on loads of different places. I beleive that flexinode together with taxonomy make Drupal a CMS with a bright shiny and big M.
[Ber | webschuur.com]
YES!!!
Content Management should include the management of the content placement on a particular page.
As well as management of meta data for each page such as
titletags, URLs,linktags, andmetatags.Yes is CmS! Yes is CMS!
Yes is my vote. Drupal can do with improvement on flexibility. My opinion is that Content management in Drupal is very powerful especially with taxonomy and flexinode, etc. But content management in CMSs does not end with managing it in the database, but rather the content is being managed for eventual presentation.
Travis talks about flexible presentation without needing to code; I agree with him. Drupal is powerful and flexible in concept, design and operation for managing and displaying content, BUT you would need to do some code manipulation.
Most users of Drupal love it for its power and flexibility, but then it can still use some improvement in this area of flexible layout and display of content.
I would imagine that drupal's popularity would increase phenominally with this type of flexible presentation added because more users without coding experience or skills would then jump on board.
However, most of the people who have the skills to create modules for this flexible arrangement of content for display may not really need it, as they are properly satisfied with coding to achieve any kind of presentation they desire.
It now remains for those who feel it is needed to try and do it for the good of others; yes 'others', because (I think) that by the time they had finished, they too would probably not need it anymore.
Thats just my thots on it, but my vote remains a YES for more flexibility. (And this does not imply that drupal has failings in any way)