[support] Do you *really* have to be a programmer - was Re: Newbie question on concept

[Krister Ekstrom]

Hi,
In the message quoted below you talked a lot of having to make ones own
code to get around in Drupal. I know i'm a newbie to all this CMS stuff
and i consider myself an idiot when it comes to programming in any shape
or form even though i know a tiny little bit about Javascript but not
enough by far to get around, partly because i have a terrible memory for
syntax, so my question is do i really need to know about programming to
be able to manage Drupal?
I chose to go with a CMS because as a blind person it can be quite
tricky to do layout and contents that looks desent and more atractive
than working in a standard html editor, but if you have to learn how to
hack in order to manage this, maybe it's time to think again.
/Krister

J-P Stacey wrote:
> Hi,
> 
>  > I realized CMS is aimed at Blog users, and I am having tough time
>> getting quick tutorials for commercial site where no Blog or News Feeds
>> are needed.
> 
> I realize I'm late to this party, but as a newbie myself I've just come 
> through the procedure of turning Drupal into my CMS of choice, so being 
> rubbish is still fresh in my mind!
> 
> Although Drupal isn't specifically aimed at blog users, out of the box I'd 
> say it *does* look very bloggy, so the confusion is understandable. The 
> default theme is very much "WordPress++", I'd say. But under the hood it has 
> different ways of doing things that mean you can move fairly quickly away 
> from that.
> 
> My suggestions would be:
> 
> * CCK, as suggested elsewhere. You can create new content types with Drupal 
> core, although they all have the same input fields. CCK provides the ability 
> to create custom input fields, like dates or extra metadata.
> 
> * To get a more hierarchical structure to the site, look into the category 
> module. This puts Drupal-core taxonomies into "containers": when a content 
> node is tagged with a taxonomy term, it then goes into that container. It's 
> a slight hack and a bit fiddly but it seems to work well.
> 
> * Get the hang of PHPTemplate, Drupal API, Drupal Form API and the concept 
> of theme_* and hook_* functions early on, as it'll save you extra 
> programming later. These permit you to hook up to Drupal core in your own 
> templates, so you (a) don't reinvent the wheel and (b) have less hassle 
> moving to a new theme later on.
> 
> * Learn about page Regions (sidebar, header, footer etc.) and the Blocks 
> that go into them, and the Views you can use to automatically generate 
> content for blocks.
> 
> * For your own purposes, check out Drupal's language locale support. Make 
> heavy use of the t() function in your own code and you should find you can 
> translate between different languages easily.
> 
> * Similarly for your own use, look into one of the more XHTML/CSS-friendly 
> included themes like garland. Some themes still make extensive use of 
> <table> elements for layout.
> 
> Good luck!
> 
> J-P