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

[Krister Ekstrom]

Thanks, this sounds very exciting indeed. One more newbie question, is
there a dummies guide to views, nodes and blocks? I tried to search for
blocks, but couldn't find any getting started with blocks thingy
tutorial, but i'm sure there are.
Thanks
/Krister

Victor Kane wrote:
> I think you are on the right track using Drupal.
> 
> The confusion arises as users of all kinds get very excited about all
> levels of using this framework, and start getting carried away in their
> suggestions without taking into account what your objectives are.
> 
> Dries, the original creator of Drupal, spoke at the last conference
> about freeing the users from webmasters (you do not have to know HTML)
> and about how now the task is to free the users from programmers (and
> certainly from programming) and to free the users from designers also.
> 
> While people who love to program, or work as programmers, love to
> program a lot with Drupal, and as graphic designers work with Drupal in
> their every effort to make Drupal "not look like Drupal" for their
> fashion-conscious clients, on the other hand, you can fashion very
> decent looking and above all, functional sites without any programming
> or even theming at all.
> 
> To go beyond the blogging question, simply set the front page as a page.
> If your site is basically a brochure site, you can start out by
> following Laura Scott's excellent "Approaching a brochureware website
> using Drupal" (link:
> http://pingv.com/blog/laura/200509/approaching-a-brochureware-website-using-drupal
> ), which shows you which modules to use, to set up an about page, a
> products or services page, contact form, etc., all without programming.
> 
> Then, if you need special blocks, you can make them with a WYSIWYG
> editor like TinyMCE.
> 
> If you need special content types you can make them without programming
> just as you would in Access or the like by going to Administer >>
> Content Types.
> 
> If you need special views, you can create views, with their own special
> paths for page views, also without programming. These paths can be
> placed in menus or blocks holding links, or put on pages as links.
> 
> And you can house everything in the default Garland theme, with your own
> color scheme, dispensing with the graphic artist, and you will have a
> great site.
> 
> Good luck!
> 
> Victor Kane
> http://awebfactory.com.ar
> 
> On 4/25/07, *Krister Ekstrom* <krister at kristersplace.ws
> <mailto:krister at kristersplace.ws>> wrote:
> 
>     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
>     --
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> 
>