Library Talk

Monday, January 22, 2007

Drupal, Anyone?

Hello,

Is anyone using Drupal for either a blog or website?
Are you loving it? Learning curve?
I'm doing some freelance work, and I have a feeling that I will eventually be taking over the website responsibilities at my job (if I survive here that long), and I am interested in Drupal. Was just wondering what other librarian types thought.

Jessica

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posted by jess at 12:51 PM

12 Comments:

  • Hi Jessica, by joining the Drupal community you are in good hands, both from the point of view of the software, and the people that use and develop it.

    It has a pretty steep learning curve if you want to do very customised things, but "out of the box" it is usable in many ways without any hardcore geeky legwork.

    Good luck with your adventure - keep an eye on the drupal.org site, search it, check the forums - there's lots of answers out there for you! :)

    By Anonymous NikLP, at 7:30 AM  

  • AADL uses Drupal, so you might want to talk to John Blyberg. I believe SJCPL also uses it. You could ask skagirlie about that.

    I know about Drupal, but I don't have any first-hand experience with it.

    By Blogger Joshua M. Neff, at 11:40 AM  

  • Hi Jessica - I recently did some design work for a Drupal site (leptree.net) and found it to be a pretty good group solution. The learning curve is steep if you want to configure it in any unusual way, but if you have a programmer on your team that's not a problem. The community is growing, which bodes well for plugins and themes. Let us know if you decide to go for it!

    By Blogger Erica, at 10:58 AM  

  • Thanks for the comments, guys!

    Erica, I am so far from being a programmer it's not funny, and this project will be all about me, if it comes to fruition.

    I stumbled upon a site designed in Drupal quite a while ago, and just liked it. Figured I'd put Drupal on the list for ideas.

    By Blogger Jessica, at 1:30 PM  

  • Jessica,

    Ryan Deschsamps, the Other Librarian, has been talking up Joomla and is offering to let people take a peek in the inner workings of it and play around a bit.

    By Blogger Joshua M. Neff, at 2:13 PM  

  • We are considering it for an intranet / extranet & for generating webpage content (INFO KIOSK) to display on a plasma screen within our library at checkout stations, along with powerpoint slides & weather alerts. IBM did an excellent case study, but omitted Joomla, (used fractured Mambo - same thing) and rated Drupal above all others for quick development, longterm flexibility, & super support/groups, being Drupal's main advantages. UC Berkley is also using it extensively.

    By Anonymous Thad Guidry, at 12:12 PM  

  • Thanks for all of the comments.

    My library will eventually need to redo the webpage, and I will most likely be the one doing it. If I haven't quit, yet.

    I feel like I could spend an infinie amount of time playing with stuff and I think Drupal will be at the top of the list.

    By Blogger Jessica, at 12:56 PM  

  • I think both Joomla and Drupal are the standards these days.

    Joomla beat out Drupal in the Open Source CMS competition this year, but it was a very narrow win. I think it was just the look of the backend that helped Joomla win that time.

    In the end, I find Drupal a little easier to customize and Joomla a little easier to interface with but development is still very similar and php is the common thread.

    One important thing: I advocate not letting your CMS determine how your website looks. You should be able to make your website look however you want it to. The CMS should simply help facilitate that look. Put some work into making sure people can't tell your website is "drupal/joomla" based. This takes a learning curve, but it is worth it in the end.

    By Blogger Ryan Deschamps, at 1:43 PM  

  • Hi Ryan, thanks for stopping in!

    I will admit to be terrified of both Drupal and Joomla - to the point that I have not downloaded either yet....

    I am not a programmer. I have taught myself (X)HTML and CSS, and am pretty proficient in both at this point. I have used various and sundry blogging platforms. BUT, I know next to nothing about PHP and have never "programmed" anything except my vcr.

    If I end up taking over this project (our library's website), I will be the only one doing it - we do not have an actual tech department - and I won't have anyone to help - OMG, I'm freaking out!

    My thought is that I would like to do a website where the front page is a blog - so that news and updates are front and center - and work the "static" pages off of that.

    Maybe I'll get another job before this happens... ;)

    By Blogger Jessica, at 2:30 PM  

  • Seriously, Jessica -- we gotta do that Joomla tour sometime. No programming knowledge is (really) necessary to do a good-looking template -- you really just need to know what php looks like and then stick it in the spots of the (x)html where you want to see it to go.

    And I'm certainly no programmer myself. Like I always say: "I know just enough to be dangerous." :)

    By Blogger Ryan Deschamps, at 4:20 PM  

  • ryan-
    php looks like something?

    By Blogger Jessica, at 1:41 PM  

  • Yup! It sure does, but blogger won't even let me show you what php looks like in preset tags. bleh.

    let's just say a less than sign (diamond bracket) + ?PHP starts the PHP code and ? + a greater than sign (finish the diamond bracket) ends it.

    Move that stuff around in your html and you are going to move blocks of content around in your template (well, there's a bit more than that because some of the code is doing crazy things like outputting xml headers or keeping your documentation secure).

    There's a learning curve for sure, but once you have it, you have it.

    By Blogger Ryan Deschamps, at 1:57 PM  

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