I need to create a blog for my student organization at my university, and we have access to a folder on the school's AFS system. We would like to install a CMS such as WordPress or Drupal and then interface with that via a blogging client to streamline updating the website. We can My only experience with any CMS is developing an Android app that connects to a Drupal powered blog, so I'm familiar with some of its features.
Any thoughts on the best way to go about creating this blog?
Drupal has 2 core modules that can help you with this, Blog and Blog API. Using both of these modules, you will be able to update blogs on your Drupal site through a blogging client.
Another Drupal user has created a video about blogging with Drupal's Blog and Blog API which you can see HERE.
"Best" is always super subjective.
If what you want is a standard, robust blog functionality quickly with minimal learning curve, you want Word Press. If what you want is a flexible, robust blog functionality with room to scale out and add more functionality over time you might want to make the larger and slower investment of going with Drupal.
Speaking as a Drupal Developer myself, I would reach for Drupal because I favor building with future flexibility in mind, but then I've already defeated the learning curve.
Related
Our company is aiming to build an eLearning Website, we are a team of developers and our boss is suggesting using WordPress for it. We are experienced in building web apps using Codeigniter and Laravel.
I already know that we can build any type of web app using WordPress, but my questions is that is it appropriate using WordPress for building it, in terms of ease in teamwork, time, customization, easiness or anything else which you may suggest compared to usign Codeigniter or Laravel?
Yes definitely Wordpress would be a great platform to work in. Since it has extended its wings from a normal CMS to ecommerce, social networking and much more to come.
And about developing the eLearning site yes it would be definitely magnificent to develop it in wordpress as there could be some plugins for it or else you can develop one with ease.
Benefits of Working in Wordpress:
Large number of community members around to help you.
Your website will be most search engine friendly with it.
Really takes less time to develop any application because most of things are in built and you can also modify them to match your requirements.
Installation and migration is effortless.
It absolutely is suitable. There's several advantages:
Prototype can be developed in a number of days
Great for SEO since it's also a blogging platform. You won't have to code SEO friendly CMS by hand.
Possible to have a website front end that can compliment the webapp front end
JSON API is already done for you.
Lots of people are proficient with wordpress so it's not difficult to find staff further down the track
It can use a responsive design straight out the box
The JSON API can work with HTML5 mobile app API's like cordova and jquerymobile and onsen.
If a e-com website is running on Drupal + Ubercart does it makes sense to migrate it to a e-com suited platform like Opencart or Magento ?
Making e-com related changes to Ubercart are very combursome .. things like a customized checkout or a backend management is quite difficult..
Can any one with experience in both Drupal + Ubercart to a platform like OpenCart or Magento help ?
All ecommerce requires a backend of some sort.
The latest Drupal Commerce Kickstart 2.0 is aiming to be very easy to use - more so that drupal itself. and it has some really nice features.
http://drupal.org/project/commerce_kickstart
I would suggest you wait a week or two before using in earnest - they are improving on it very quickly in time for a big event next week.
If Ubercart is difficult for you, then Magento will be far more difficult.
Magento is booming in eCommerce market but it requires lots of resources and very good skill to make/customize things. If you are ready for big challenges, you should migrate your site to Magento. Considering future of Magento, it's very safe.
I would definitely move away from Drupal eCommerce it is not built entirely for eCommerce and never will be. Both Magento and Opencart would be better options because both communities around them are entirely focused on eCommerce. Magento is much better if you can find a good magento developer to customize it for you but Opencart is easier to use.
If you are serious about your eCommerce site than Magento is the best solution available but will come at a higher up front cost than Opencart. However if you need a lot of advanced customization than it will actually be easier and cheaper to build in Magento down the road because advanced customization can become more difficult in Opencart because it is not built for enterprise level customization, whereas Magento is. Magento may become easier to do things like selling at different prices to different customers (wholesale) so it really depends on the features you will need in the future.
I would say that it makes sense to migrate from drupal to Opencart. Drupal is a CMS offering some plugins for eCommerce (and each have certain drawbacks or bugs that need to be fixed) Opencart is a platform developed for ecommerce purposes.
If compared to Magento, Opencart is also open source, functional, with large community, supports multiple languages and currencies, and what's more - allows multistore management as Magento.
On the other side - Opencart is lightweight, easier in administration, has more available documentation, and doesn't require much modifications, so you can literally start immediately.
I would like to know if there is some Drupal module or a WordPress plugin that enables the creation of a ushahidi type website (Ushahidi is a non-profit software company that develops free and open source software for information collection, visualization and interactive mapping.)
I am asking this to know if one can use the feautres that ushahidi is offering, while also leveraging all of the other plugins/modules created in these more mature platforms.
Thanks.
The Managing News Drupal distribution might be helpful.
There are tons of Drupal tutorials out there - theming, modules, database interaction, taxonomy, etc. etc. Most that I find are extremely in-depth, but none give a big-picture, site-level overview.
Are there any good tutorials (videos and/or text-based) that show the creation of a simple website, with a simple administrative section? Not ridiculous reams of configuration, or complex, arcane modules...just a simple website with basic pages (i.e. about us, people, news, etc.) that are admin-configurable, and that doesn't look like the default Drupal install.
Obviously to be an effective Drupal dev, I would need to learn these ins and outs, and I certainly plan to. What I need right now though is enough of an overview to give a presentation on Drupal in several days to non-technical people on how we can use Drupal to architect their website. I've already purchased Pro Drupal 7 Development, and have perused the Drupal API docs and tutorials on their website, but these are all too micro - where's the macro?
Thanks.
Maybe the book Using Drupal is a good start for you. It's less about "How does this dark corner of the API work?" but more about tasks you need to accomplish when building a certain type of site (a blog, a wiki, an online store...).
To get you started....
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WmRW7FALA88
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IT_TZEQEm5c
Creating a Content Type
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ElXXz9-bxJc
I have worked on websites before and always hand coded in each. But as the size of the website grew, it really became difficult to manage them. Our is a college fest website which has a number of online games (like online trading, woodstock , forex and several online quizzes ) . This year we are thinking of migrating to Drupal for this website. Would it be a good choice ?
Drupal will do a fine job of managing users and associated information about users. It will create a framework that you can leverage to integrate your games into the system.
However, the games themselves will likely need to be translated into using the Drupal API, which isn't trivial. Drupal's learning curve can be steep, particularly if you have your own style of doing things.
Having said that, Drupal is extremely flexible and is more aptly called a Web Framework than a Content Management System.
I suggest you create a test version of your site on a local install and see how it feels to try and integrate one of your existing games into the Drupal framework. You'll know quickly if you like it or not.
Drupal is flexible enough to be used for any kind of website, but it's primary focus is around content-centric social networking or community sites. It works great for content pages, blog posts, products, etc. If you are building more of an "application" (ie, a web email client, web-based games, etc),you will have more work to do, to work to customize it.