Please make sure that it is easier than wordpress to use drupal.

Amy

Anyway, hope that makes your next upgrade a bit easier. Also, it tends to be easier if you don’t jump versions so dramatically. Keeping up with updates makes life easier and helps show what may have caused the problem should it occur since you don’t have as many variables.

In relation to 53…

We have been ploughing away at a Drupal install, just to get it to the stage where you have a decent wysiwyg and image uploader installed. Most of the image uploaders tried are pretty poor and not at all straightforward to install. It’s taken us an entire full day and late evening to reach this stage.

The problem is its exceedingly difficult to determine which modules work with what. The dependencies and installation process for them is very time-consuming (at a very early stage of adoption), for 2 critical but simple tools required to make a basic website – “without developer knowledge”.

1. There really needs to be an easy point and click way of installing or upgrading modules and the core in Drupal. (Like the way Ubuntu installs software apps – thats cool!). Functionality enhancements should be merely point and click.

2. Module dependencies need to be clear during this possible automated module install process. So the user has a better understanding of what works with what. So he is not chasing the installation serially.

I performed my first core upgrade from 6.2 to 6.10. My experience is it was very painful. The instructions on how to do this are good but miss a few critical points – like, you have to re-install modules again and check all your configs again. Very painful if you are building your site up step by step.

I am newish to Drupal but eager to see it improve and lead other CMSs.

If we could concentrate on improving adoption, so you can get a newbies up and running with the basics with minimal fuss, that would help nurture the newbie learning curve, and perhaps adoption rate.

1. Philosophy: what does Drupal stand for?
“Freedom to publish for everybody”

2. Vision: how to know we realised this philosophy?
“Drupal will allow anyone to create complex websites without developer knowledge.”

3. Planning/Tactics/Design principles: what to do to reach that vision?
- Make dependent tasks discoverable
- Provide sensible defaults for the 80%
- Especially for the day to day site administration tasks

That last point is my interpretation of ‘privilege the content creater’. Testing has shown that especially the UX for content and site management tasks is essentially broken. It’s the part where “we” Drupal devs and site builders leave our clients to do their day to day site maintenance that needs special attention. Which probably overlaps nicely with the 80/20 principle.

1. wysiwyg-Editors now are included as a wisywyg-connector plus a small external editor of your choice! I like that especially. OK, the connector (API) could be in core.

2. didn’t check that, may be a good point, this is addressed to external editors.

3. tried “Plugin-Manager”? there is some work to do (copy and paste md5-checksums) for security reasons, but well operating in installing and updating modules.

4. blocks contain content related to taxonomy. please discuss in the drupal.org-forum.

Good luck!

frank

1. Wysiwyg editors should be part of the core – pre-installed. Its crazy not having one as standard these days.

2. Wysiwyg editor means having the ability to upload images in a very easy way, when creating content. Setting this up in Drupal is just difficult. A real long way scenic route around for what should be a standard function. This is particularly annoying.

3. Upgrading Modules. Shouldn’t we merely be clicking “Upgrade” within the Drupal interface to upgrade modules or core. We should take a page out of Ubuntu’s ease of upgrades. They make it blindingly easy. Drupal on the other hand is terribly clunky. Unnecessarily wasted time.

4. Blocks: there is no obvious guidance within the system towards setting up blocks that relate to taxonomy. The essential power of the system seems mystic, and remains unknown. Despite digging the internet for answers. Its all still mystic and thus useless.

I opted against Joomla because I thought Drupal was designed solid from a tech perspective up, taking into account permissions etc. I see Drupal as a great CMS if it can be made more user friendly for the less experienced techos.

At the moment it’s just clunky…not easy.

I recently gave an introductory talk on Drupal, and found myself explaining again and again that “Views” meant “List of Nodes”, that “Node” meant any unit of content, that “Theme” meant the display (colors, shapes, etc) and that “Taxonomy” was just groups of categories with sub categories.

Would I like to see these things renamed to be more instantly understandable? No! I would, however, like there to be some sort of walk-through for newbies on their new site, explaining what things were. Perhaps some meaningfully written “sample content” or something, installable on request (think Joomla!)

I think the word “Node” fits the Drupal philosophy much better than any alternative.

Taxonomy smacks of geekiness, but once someone has used Taxonomy to organize their site, they realize that no other word would do.

Views is understandably a little ambiguous, but if used once, it is easy to get along with.

Content Construction Kit had me hung up for a long time; until I actually used it (and I resisted it as much as possible, mostly because I could see no relationship between it’s name and what people were suggesting it for) but still, I think just a few more reminders of it’s real definition are all that is needed.

Theme is mercifully well understood (but perhaps we should rename it to “Wrapping” just to keep the learning curve

So all that down, my suggestions:

1) My number one gripe is that I install a module, then go to access permissions to configure how it’s used, then go to Blocks to enable it (typically), then go to menus to adjust it’s menu link…. all this for just one module (or view). I know the administrative tasks by module view exists, but doesn’t change this. Better would be one page for the module (like the view creation page in D6) with _areas_ on the page for access control, for blocks that it enables, for it’s configuration, etc. Keep the existing blocks and access control pages too, but add a centralized page for each module.

2) After a site has finally been pulled together with various modules, all configured as needed, all blocks put in place, these things need very little changing – just the occasional addition of a block, etc. The maintenance of a site is just in controlling the content. Content management should be more separated from the admin side of things (or vice versa).

3) I dont know if this is possible with the current workflow (I haven’t been able to figure that one out yet) but creating a “Content Creation Flow” i.e. a sort of wizard interface for adding content would be great – one that could be applied to all sorts of content (eg page 1: write content, attach media, page 2: select categories, page 3: select dates and publishing options). Perhaps this could be implemented as tabs for each step on the content creation page. That would help ease up clutter. Which fields go on which page of the creation process could be controlled in CCK.

Creating a website is very different from creating a Blog, for which I wholeheartedly recommend (and use) wordpress. But even Wordpress has it’s UX drawbacks. I particularly dislike having to learn my way around a newly re-designed interface every time I update to a new version.

Everyone knows what a blog is going to need, but no-one can define what a website is. I think some install profiles should be shipped default with drupal, such as Blog site, Brochure site, etc. and have a set of instructive sample data installable too (articles that tell the user how to do common first-step tasks.)

But there is no way around the learning period for Drupal, or for that matter, any other website creation system. The best we can do is make it easier.

“I’m happy with this strategy apart from ‘Privilege the Content Creator’. What the heck does that mean?”

Love your thoughts. I am a ?two? year user of Drupal now and am not really interested in coding or development. I have a design background and enjoy enjoyable websites that are intuitive and thoughtfully designed. I have enjoyed Drupal for the one selling point it flaunts and that is its versatility. However, like you said an argument is what I have with my neighbor (too funny) and a view to my thinking meant I was going to simply push some buttons or check some boxes and shazam I would be able to go to a page and see what I had intended. Alas, that is not is not true and I have had to do much more reading up and writing on forums to get my brain around the more development-focused mentalities that drive Drupal. No complaints in one respect, because it has forced me to learn. But, I cringe at the thought of someone with less focus or simple intelligence trying to use one of the better CMS systems out there. I will be reading the objectives soon and doing my part to help out.