Getting Frustrated With Drupal

[doudou 0]

I haven’t made any progress on Drupal since I installed Xampp. I guess one of the challenges is that there are so little templates out there for Drupal (php driven). And writing one is more challenging than I thought. I have the xhtml part down, and I know some basic php, so why is putting both together so hard? Should I general some more contents for my website before I go crazy with design? But then there is the whole taxonomy model. Would I mess everything up if I don’t categorize everything up front? Anyways, just getting very frustrated with Drupal. I am sure a lot of people get to this stage, and hopefully I will see an out soon.

[Markymark2 0]

Ive installed Joomla this week and had a lot of fun playing with it..it seems a lot easier than Drupal...I would suggest you give it a go...theres millions of templates out there as well as modules mambots and plug ins to do just about anything really easly...

[doudou 0]

Thanks for the suggestion. If I can’t get past this, I might give it a try. One of the reason I chose Drupal over Joomla is that Drupal offers control over what different users have access to. You can categorize your users and allow them different privileges.

[Markymark2 0]

Ofc Joomla has this feature also ...the ability to create different access via user accounts is what a CMS is about

[unimatrix 0]

I moved to Xoops from Drupel. Drupel is designed to be more programmer friendly, but has some bass ackwards ways of doing thing, like how you add new content to the menu. Joombla/Mamba has a lot more features and is designed for power hungry sites with a lot of users and content posters. I only deploy that CMS on large sites, however there are a lot of modules and templates for Joombla/Mamba.Personally I like Xoops. A lot of templates, most every module I need, easy to use and install new modules into the system. Xoops is not as powerful as Joombla, but it gets the job done nicely. http://www.transfigurationchurch.org/ is one site I created based on Xoops and they love it.

[SP Rao 0]

I moved to Xoops from Drupel. Drupel is designed to be more programmer friendly, but has some bass ackwards ways of doing thing, like how you add new content to the menu.

I'm a novice in the field of content management systems. I too am getting frustrated with Drupal. The same problem quoted above I'm facing. Placing menu items has become a real trouble for me.

Any place where I can get more info about Xoops? Let's say a sort of comparison kinda stuff. I just checked Xoops site. It does sound exciting. How about the bandwidth utilization and spped?
Edited September 16, 2006 by SP Rao (see edit history)

[Vyoma 0]

Yes, I belive it can get a bit frustrating at using Drupal as opposed to other content manangement systems for one particular reason. The design philosophy is a bit different in Drupal.

 

In Drupal, a module does not necessarily mean having a complete setup plugged into your site. It just means that it would provide one feature - that is all. I have used the other CMS a bit, and I saw that they were really great at providing out of the box solutions. You need a shoutbox? Just enable, and it will appear somewhere on the page - some even let you control where you want it.

 

Drupal, on the other hand is more of a framework (now that I have started to understand it) than a out of the box solution. If one needs something specific out of it, it needs to be tailored and customized. Now, one may ask, why the hell would some one go for such a pain in the *** (pardon me there) setup just to get a website administration/content management setup. Well, such do-only-one-thing-but-do-it-best design philosophy would help in continued support to be provided for the code base.

 

Say, you have a feature X being used in feature Y and Z? If the feature X needs to be upgraded, then you just need to edit that module code. If this particular code happened to be coded into Y and Z itself, then for that upgrade of feature, one would need to edit the code of module Y and module Z. Viewing it in terms of just 3 modules might seem trivial, but a live CMS contains numerous features, that need to work in tandem.

 

The Drupal creators did not want to restrict any kind of customizations, and that I think is the reason for this hard to master code base. But I think, it is possible to do almost anything with Drupal, and customize it to your needs. And when the Drupal upgrades to a newer version, one need not worry much about porting it, because of the framework being designed the way it is.

 

Now, let us get to specific problems.

 

doudou, could you be a little specific as to exactly what you want to do with the template? (You want to display 'ABC' at 'DEF' block, or something like that?) And also, I did not get the your doubt on Taxonomy module. Here again, could you be a little more specific about your doubt? But as far as I understand, here is what I have to say: Do not worry much about Taxonomy module. Just let it be there and let the content get created or you put them (a handful of them). You can use the Taxonomy module to create any further Categories you want, and assign to the content. (Remember, all contents are induvidual nodes in Drupal). If I have not clarified your doubt, please ask again, with few more details.

 

Ah SP Rao, my friend. Which menu items are you talking about? The primary and secondary menu items (that comes on the top bar in the default theme) or the ones that appear along with the navigation links (left or right depending on the theme, again)?

[doudou 0]

I had no idea that Joomla let’s you define roles to users and assign privileges accordingly. I definitely have to check that out.

 

To be honest, I just wanted a new look for my site. Creating a new template from scratch is no small task and I guess I haven’t really taken the time to sit down and really go at it. It’s just the templates out there currently are not what I wanted. I’ve not really had any problems with menu items or any of the modules. I just need to hang in there and take thing one at a time. Although I’ve complained a lot about Drupal, I am not one to give up easily. Thanks for everyone’s support.

[SP Rao 0]

Well Vyoma, I was talking about the primary links. I never wanted all the primary links on the top right corner. So I contemplated on putting them all in the center. (Makes mote sense and things look pretty neat that way) So I chose a layout which places the primary links on the center of the page. Now, I don't want to have logout at the center of the window. I prefer it to be on the top right corner. At the same time I want all my other primary links at the center. Or may be, I want home to be on the lefthand side part. The problem is, the options shown to me are limited. Even if I do change the "home" link from primary and put it to seconday or may be even navigation, the flexibility to place my link - though present - is limited. I can only place it at header,footer,left or right side bars. Of course I can assign a weight and make the link float or sink. But then again, it is limited, Ain't it?Ideally speaking, I need a theme which will place either primary or secondary on the top right corner and the other at the center of the screen. I was unable to find such themes.Other option was to understand Drupal architecture and create my own code to costomize it. I wanted a simpler road;-) But now, I've decided to try understanding the design and learn coding with Drupal. Wish me luck and time, mate;-)For discussing other problems I'm facing this is not the forum. I'll post it at the right place Well, rest assured, I too haven't given up on Drupal yet!

Edited September 17, 2006 by SP Rao (see edit history)

[Vyoma 0]

Hmmm. I get your part about where you want to place the links. The source of the problem (or we may say it to be the limitation), is due to the theme and not Drupal itself. If placing of a particular group of icons is the problem, then I would suggest you take a look at the theme templates. It is pretty much in HTML with some php code in it. Locate the code that puts the groups of links under question in that theme code and then you should be able to place it anywhere you want. Now, to do that, there would be two possible soltuion depending on what way the theme is designed - table oriented or CSS layouting.With Drupal, there are two sets/groups of links - primary and secondary. Other than this, you would be able to create your own set of links. I would suggest, placing the Logout link in the primary and place it at the top right (or whereever you want), and for the rest of the navigation or other links (including home), place it in the secondary links; left align the secondary links.

[superJazz 0]

I haven’t made any progress on Drupal since I installed Xampp. I guess one of the challenges is that there are so little templates out there for Drupal (php driven). And writing one is more challenging than I thought. I have the xhtml part down, and I know some basic php, so why is putting both together so hard? Should I general some more contents for my website before I go crazy with design?

I am in the same boat with Drupal on my site... I would quit it and start using something like Mambo or Joomla. It does look easy but in actual fact it is tricky to customize or add new modules of your own. Sadly, I sat down, uninstalled Drupal and looked for another way for my site to look good

[sherifmayika 0]

Now it is very easy to create theme in dupal using dreamweaver extension

 

http://dreamweaverdrupalthemeextension.blogspot.com/