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I am working in Drupal. My friend is a designer and he does not know Drupal. If he designs in the usual way and then I convert his traditional HTML into Drupal then will that work? Or does he have to know Drupal also?
One of you will need to learn at least the basics of Drupal theming; however, most any design can be adapted to be a Drupal theme. I've adapted plenty of basic HTML themes, WordPress themes, Joomla themes, and others into Drupal themes.
The more experimental or cutting edge the design, the more effort it will take to make it work with Drupal. For instance, Mega Menus are not easy to implement in Drupal because of the way Drupal's menu system works.
Apart from avoiding stuff like Flash, the designer doesn't need to know a lot about Drupal. I've taken numerous designs from non-Drupal designers, and they tend to fall into two categories.
HTML designs. These tend to be the easiest by just turning a bog standard HTML file into a tpl file and replacing the content with print statements for Drupal regions and other bits. There can be some work needed for thing actual content, but the basics can usually be done in a couple of hours.
Photoshop designs. In this case the designer knows little about web design, but knows how to draw pretty pictures. As long as the designer puts everything on separate layers, these can work well. I start with the Zen theme, slice up the Photoshop file, and insert the graphics and add colours to the CSS. Generally more work than 1, but I can usually produce a basic theme in about a day.
Of course, the less the designer knows about Drupal, the more expert the developer needs to be.
Totally not. I (as the Drupal developer) have worked with someone who had CSS/HTML chops like few others ( not just wrote books on it but actually knew what he is doing :) ) he gave me HTML and I made Drupal emit that HTML.
Drupal is very flexible. If the person implementing the theme is relatively acquainted with the Drupal theming system, the designer should not need to know a great deal about Drupal. The vast majority of designs can be implemented effectively with the Drupal theming system.
It is best if he works with a starter theme such as Zen http://drupal.org/project/zen
Zen is very easy to build with for designers, and they do not need to know much about Drupal to work with it. When they are finished, they will have a theme that works with any Drupal install.
In answer to your question then, the answer is no.
I think you should give him a short run-down so he understands how Drupal works, so he can assure his designs don't 'fight' with the undelying framework. But I don't think he needs to know how it's done step by step (it wouldn't hurt though, is my guess).
I'm new to Drupal, but I want to create an add-on. The add-on requires some sort of multi-page form with advanced jQuery (I already looked at the jQuery module).
The add-on requires details of the current logged in user and will also communicate with an external database.
I've been looking at tutorials concerning Module creation etc. But they mostly cover creation of simple forms, where as what I want to create is more of a plugin.
Multi page forms are a total drag. Pro Drupal Development, has a very good section on this topic, and I highly recommend that book if you are doing any Drupal development.
Online I found the following article pretty useful too (though I ultimately went with my own system).
http://www.nicklewis.org/using-chaos-tools-form-wizard-build-multistep-forms-drupal-6
There's a decent example here:
http://thedrupalblog.com/creating-multipage-form-using-forms-api
To make the most out of this, you're going to want to get pretty friendly with the Form API:
http://drupal.org/node/204270
Sadly Drupal.org seems to be missing a Drupal 6.x explanation (though plenty exist for 5.x and 4.7 oddly enough).
Multi step forms are complex by nature, but there are some methods to make it easier. I recommend that you have a look at the multistep form tools offered by the Ctools module. This blog post by Nick Lewis explains how you can use it.
I think you should think twice before going with javascript/jQuery to create your forms. Javascript is a great way to improve the user interface, but it can be easily manipulated because it's client side technology. You shouldn't rely on javascript alone for things like input validation, temporary storage of form values and controlling the flow between different steps of the form.
I feel odd saying this, but I don't think you want to use the Drupal Forms API.
The Forms API provides a lot of security features (unique token, rebuilds form after submit to compare to ensure correct form is processed, etc.) and allows other modules to modify your forms, but I think a lot of those features will get in the way of your jEditable form. Multi-page forms are not that challenging using the Forms API, but jEditable elements will be.
Your module could simply add a menu item with a page callback function that puts together your jEditable form for you. That is about as close to the world of a 'normal PHP' script as Drupal will let you get.
For about a year and a half I used Codeigniter to build my sites. Then a client begged me to build theirs in Wordpress. I soon found the joy of using a CMS (if Wordpress can be called that). So for about the last 8 months I have been using Wordpress as much as possible to buld my sites - I made the content fit the design.
Well, I began to grow very tired of the limitations of Wordpress - I needed more control and flexibility over my sites. So, I have recently started using Drupal 7 (not 6.x - I really like the admin panel).
After working with Drupal now for a little under two months - I have begun to feel like I'm using Stone Age Tools to build Space Age equipment.
So my question is: does Drupal get any better? Do you really have to use Views to display your content? Asking for help on the forums is just a shake better than asking a wall. I feel like to do anything requires a module. Why? Is one better off sticking to a framework?
"After working with Drupal now for a little under two months - I have begun to feel like I'm using Stone Age Tools to build Space Age equipment."
Well, my intiial reaction is that this is what you're going to feel like you're doing when you're working with Drupal 7, which isn't out of alpha yet. A good number of the folks who maintain modules haven't started upgrading to 7 yet, and that means that you're missing out on one of the great features of Drupal, which is it's wide and deep space of premade modules.
Try 6.
Do you need to use views to display all content? No, not at all. You can go in, create a new module, and write the sql and presentation that you want. Or you can find a module that will display things for you. Or, depending, you might be able to get the effect you want just by adjusting the theme you're using.
(As a side note, using an admin theme really pretties up the Drupal experience. I'm fond of rootcandy, although Rubik is nice too. Problem with Rubik is that it's not on drupal.org.)
The strength of Drupal is that by using modules, you don't have to re-write code that someone else has written - you can instead take that code and modify it (with hooks) to do what you want. This means you don't have to write an authentication/autherization system again - it's there in core. You don't need to write up openid handlers - it's in core. You don't need to write code to integrate with twitter directly - there's a module that contains an api that helps out. You don't have to write an xmlrpc server from scratch - you can use the services module.
You don't need to write a website from scratch. Instead, you can start with Drupal, add most of the functionality you need, and then spend your time making it fit what your client wants.
Firstly, you can install the Admin module to pretty up Drupal 6 admin. You don't have to use 7. 7 is still in alpha, by the way. Garland sucks, but, Garland is just a theme- its not 'the' admin itself. The Drupal admin can take the form of any Drupal theme, which is useful in its own right, depending on the use-case.
In Drupal, you can create content types clicking through the interface in Drupal 6 or 7. As far as I can see in WP3, you have to script it. A few clicks vs scripting, the choice for me is not hard there. The first way is a lot more efficient, and a task you can hand off to a non coder to get done.
You don't HAVE to use Views to display content.
You -can- use Views to make the display of content easier, by telling Drupal to gather data and provide a Page, Block, or Feed to display . This lets you create specific sections of content for areas of the site. Otherwise, you would have to create a node, and hijack its template, run a direct sql query yourself AND write the pager functions just to show something easy like the latest 10 "Press Releases" content type. Then, if someone added a new field to that content type, you have to update all that SQL code and display code. Views makes your life easier in that respect. In minutes you can flesh out site sections and arrange content in a myriad of ways. In Wordpress, this method of arranging content without functionality of Views is/was a modern nightmare and a reason I do not want to use it at all unless its a blog and nothing more.
The Drupal Support Forum is tricky. Not all modules are as active as say, Views or Pathauto (being two of the most popular modules). However, SO is also at your disposal. I answer a lot of Drupal questions here. The trick to the Forum there is you have to ask it in the right spot. True, sometimes you may have to wait a few days to get an answer, then again no one -owes- you an answer for a free product. Thats the nature of open source.
Every developer has their favorite modules to use with Drupal, and more often than not, its the same 20 or so modules. It depends on what you are doing, what you are trying to implement. It's not that 'everything needs a module' its that Drupal is such a vanilla install because Drupal does not want to assume your purpose nor overwhelm with options. The UX is something they are trying to improve anyway, and popular modules are making their way into core.
Well, I began to grow very tired of
the limitations of Wordpress - I
needed more control and flexibility
over my sites. So... I have recently
started using Drupal 7
Why not go back to CI? Drupal certainly has it's strengths, but I don't think Drupal will give you any more "control and flexibility" than Wordpress.
If the standard modules/plugins, themes/templates, from WP, Drupal, or Joomla, fill your needs, then using a CMS can be a lot faster than building a site from scratch. But, if those CMSs do not fill your needs, you could find yourself "fighting the framework" and never really getting what you want.
You're just coming out from WordPress, which has great support and is relatively easy to extend to overcome what you call its limitations, if you know basic PHP, HTML, CSS & JavaScript. Every framework has its own potential/limitations.
As a user of WordPress my humble opinion is that you should have stayed with it.
As of you last question, It depends, to stick with one and only one framework has its advantages and disadvantages, the best of all is that you get to know it very well and eventually learn how to extended it. The bad part is that very often frameworks lose popularity and you are left to you own without an active user community and support.
Regards.
All of the popular CMS products (I'd maybe add Expression Engine to the mix) are great for 80% of what you want to accomplish and a huge pain to handle the other 20%.
That's just the nature of the beast.
On the plus side, it's OS so there's lots of people hacking away at it just like you which opens up the potential for someone else already having invented the wheel.
And with bulky enterprise CM solutions like SharePoint I find that you have to reverse the equation to 20/80 (ugh!).
If you're discouraged with Drupal and prefer to stick with WP, WordPress has many thousands of plugins, including ones that can overcome the limitations you're running into and make WP behave more like a normal CMS.
Just do a Google search for "top Wordpress CMS plugins." There's a lot of articles out there that can recommend ways to get WP to do exactly what you want.
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I'm trying to write out a list of key Drupal competencies, mainly so I can confirm what I know, don't know and don't know I don't know. (Thanks D. Rumsfeld for that quote!)
I think some of these are really broad, for instance there's quite a difference between making a functional theme and creating a theme with good SEO, load times and so on, but I'm hoping you could assume that a half decent web developer would look after that anyway.
Just interested to see what people here feel is also important. I've edited the suggestions so far into this list.
Languages
PHP
MYSQL
Query
Drupal Skills
Research and install modules to meet project requirements
Configure the basic modules and core settings to get a site running
Drush command line tool
Create a custom Theme from scratch which validates with good HTML/CSS.
Able to customise forms, core, themes without altering core files but by using template.php or custom modules.
Can make forms from scratch using the API - with validation and posting back to the DB/email
Can create custom modules from scratch utilising core hooks and module hooks.
Be involved with the community, understand the naming conventions, CVS system and ideally have submitted some code or revisions.
Modules
It's not easy to make a must know module list, as not only is the modules you use very dependent on the site, but also how you use them. However the following are widely used:
Views
Know how to make basic views and blocks.
Know how to make more complex views with relationships and terms.
Know how to use hook_views_query_alter, to make complex queries.
Know how to use hook_views_default_views, to create specific views.
CCK
Know how to setup content - what field types to use.
Know how to create your own field_formatters - the foundation for theming CCK fields.
Hooks
The most important hooks to learn, to create a basic module are probably:
hook_form_alter() - change forms without changing code.
hook_menu()
hook_theme()
hook_nodeapi() - almost anything regarding nodes
hook_schema() - create tables
hook_install() / hook_uninstall() - create tables and clean up.
hook_perm() - when you need special access control.
hook_init() - things to want always to happen.
hook_user() - if you need to tap into user actions or modify the user object.
I good understanding of client-server architecture, how servers and browsers works. And knowledge of php and mysql, templates engines. And of course, you should also read Drupal documentations.
Able to create a custom Theme from scratch which validates with good HTML/CSS and also pays attention to usability and accessibility. (Whilst still looking kick-ass).
You usually don't want to create themes from scratch but from a starter theme like Zen instead.
For Drupal you will need:
PHP, it's a PHP framework, so to really understand and use it, you need to understand PHP.
SQL, the list of SQL serves that Drupal can use is growing, but you will need to understand * SQL, relational database and how to setup some basic architecture.
Javascript (and jQuery). Drupal uses the jQuery js library, so it will be a lot easier if you not only, know how yo use javascript, but also understand how to use jQuery and some of it concepts.
The hook system and how you can alter Drupal core and modules implementing hooks.
The naming convention for hooks, theme functions etc.
Modules
It's not easy to make a must know module list, as not only is the modules you use very dependent on the site, but also how you use them. The two top modules in Drupal is.
Views
Know how to make basic views and blocks.
Know how to make more complex views with relationships and terms.
Know how to use hook_views_query_alter, to make complex queries.
Know how to use hook_views_default_views, to create specific views.
CCK
Know how to setup content - what field types to use.
Know how to create your own field_formatters - the foundation for theming CCK fields.
Another module that I find very powerfull once mastered is Panels. It allows you to do a lot of complex and difficult things with very little and simple code. There is a lot of hooks you need to learn, and not much documentation. But once you understand Panels, you find that you time has been well spent.
Hooks
The most important hooks to learn, to create a basic module is probably:
hook_form_alter() - change forms without changing code.
hook_menu()
hook_theme()
hook_nodeapi() - almost anything regarding nodes
hook_schema() - create tables
hook_install() / hook_uninstall() - create tables and clean up.
hook_perm() - when you need special access control.
hook_init() - things to want always to happen.
hook_user() - if you need to tap into user actions or modify the user object.
You don't need to use all of these hooks all of the time, but they are some of the most used ones.
Great list so far! Some others for consideration:
Ability to use Drush to update or setup a site
Strong understanding of good best practices configuration for performance, security and SEO of a Drupal site (think launch checklists)
Having submitted a module to Drupal.org (however simple) or submitted a patch (the process of getting a CVS account and getting your first code in is instructive to the community and to standards)
You don't need SEO skills for templates, drupal usually helps with SEO alot. Ofcourse a developer who will slice a design must know that all headings must be done with h1,h2,h3,h4 tags. that's really basic one. everything all is up to drupal..
as for my opinion to be a drupal "developer", you need some very basic skills in PHP. Because drupal is really written without object-oriented programing, and without DESIGN PATTERNS, so these are two things is really makes you a programmer.. without them it just [sorry for this word] bullshit not a programming.
I think anybody can install drupal or wordpress or some cms-made-simple, systems if you have at least once connected to ftp in your life... to develop plugins for them is a requires basic skills of php. Ofcourse if you'll find skillfull developer then he will know oop basic, and will write plugins with OOP and that code will be really NiCE! =)
Being able to edit existing functionality (core or module) without touching the core or module and knowing whether to put it in template or a custom module.
As we anything web related these days, you really must have a good understanding of the HTTP protocol. You also need a good understanding of JavaScript, the DOM, CSS and HTML5. Knowing a bit of jQuery is not enough for a developer, you need to understand what your are doing with the DOM, HTML5 APIs and CSS in order to build features and behaviours into the browser. You also need to understand the Drupal JavaScript APIs, both on the server side (hook_library(), #attached, etc.) and the client side (Drupal.behaviors, etc.)
You also need to known the various APIs of Drupal. The Form API is not the only one. You need to understand the Menu system (page, access, title and delivery callbacks, how to pass parameters to them, etc.), the Queue API for asynchronous operations, Batch API for long running operations, Entities and Field APIs for user editable structured data, Theme API and Render Arrays for anything presentation, Cache API, Schema and Database APIs, File API, Cache API and the Localization API.
I would like to know how feasible is Joomla or Drupal towards a website development which has around 80 web pages? I'm a part time website designer who does a bit of server end development as well using PHP and Python/Django. However, i have never attempted developing a website of this scale. There is a lot of static content on this website and some user interactions using JS/JQuery. The only PHP used would be in contact forms. Rest would be only HTML/CSS/JS. As there is lot of text information to be coded into the web pages i would like to know how Joomla or Drupal would help me?
When you use Content Management Systems, you don't need to use code to make content, that is what the CMS is for. If your site is purely static content with a contact form, Drupal might not be the best choice unless.
You already know Drupal.
You want to learn how to make sites with Drupal.
Drupal is very powerful, it's extremely flexible and a great framework. But it comes with a cost, it's more difficult to learn. If you just want to make a site with 80 or more pages and a contact form, you will most likely be better of with Wordpress. It's more simple and userfriendly. It's not a great development framework like Drupal, but if you only need a contact form and content, you wont need a development framework anyways.
If you're not used to using a CMS, both of these options will be quite a culture shock. In my experience, Joomla is slightly easier to learn than Drupal, but each are a LOT more work than hand-coding a bunch of pages.
Who will be updating the content, if at all? This should be a major factor in choosing a CMS, especially for a small, relatively static site. If the answer is "you" or "one person who can be trained" then you might want to think about keeping it hand-coded (making use of SSI or similar, where appropriate).
Alternatively, if you want a lightweight CMS, take a look at something like kirby or perch, both of which are excellent CMSs for small sites, with relatively low learning curves.
Drupal is pretty powerfull when it comes to content management content management. 80 pages is really nothing. You can sort everything easily with built in Taxonomy-module(used for categorys, tagging, ...) and even create own displays with the Views module. Because of CCK, you can make as many different content types you want, with all kinds of input options(wysiwig text, select lists, checkboxes, files, ...). For the contact form you just use the built in one or use the Webform-module.
I dout you'll have to do any coding for this, but beware, drupal is quite big and you might take some time to understand how it works and how to install. Once done however, it's all very smooth :)
Haven't worked with Joomla yet, can't help you there, but you might wanna google "drupal vs joomla" or similiar, there's plenty of articles. From what I've read, Drupal can do more, but Joomla' easier to learn.
It totaly depends on what functionality you want to have. If you are interested in multimedia or more complex functionality then Joomla is a better option. Thus when it comes to build up a complex and robust website full of features and functionality, you should go with Drupal. Go through this blog to get clear information: http://hirejoomlaprogrammer.blogspot.in/2012/07/joomla-drupal-or-wordpress-which-cms-to.html