Re: [development] Early Drupal 6 review from Chris Messina
Whenever there is a release we have these discussions. I don't disagree with what Drupal is all about. The issue is, most people don't relate to the concept of CMS. They relate to the concept of "The Blog" as this new way of creating websites. That's all my point. Keeping in mind how people "speak" and "relate" to web development in the real world doesn't take anything away from the power of Drupal. Something I took out of my article, I'm going to share here : The way you speak about Drupal is a fantastic way to sell it to other developers but it does nothing to a lot of people looking for a "blog platform on steroids". And by blog, remember, I am not referring to the technical word but to the mythical "The Blog" that people relate to as the key to web 2.0 success. I honestly believe a developers version of Drupal should be distributed. This would be your dream Drupal and it hopefully will create the space for creating distributions that actually speak to "mere mortals", aka "the market". It, for once, will give the opportunity to UI and UE people to focus on usability instead of just features or tools. Too many times I am told Drupal is hard to use. And you know what, it's true. The interface of Drupal is really not about the user experience. It's all about the features; which is cool for developers but not necessarily awesome for users. Most people don't want to see a menu with 120 choices, they just want to know that what they want to do they will be able to do it. Which is why when Chris says "just choose an input format", it's about simplifying the user experience, it's not about taking away anything from the back end. Good discussion, btw. -- Liza Sabater, Publisher culturekitchen.com dailygotham.com ________________________________________________ Message sent using UebiMiau 2.7.10
On Nov 10, 2007 9:06 PM, Liza Sabater <blogdiva@culturekitchen.com> wrote:
Something I took out of my article, I'm going to share here : The way you speak about Drupal is a fantastic way to sell it to other developers but it does nothing to a lot of people looking for a "blog platform on steroids". And by blog, remember, I am not referring to the technical word but to the mythical "The Blog" that people relate to as the key to web 2.0 success.
Drupal is different things to different people. It is a CMF (Content Managment Framework), a project, and a community, way before it being "just a blog". One of the things I suggested on the marketing group is developing several "30 second elevator pitches" each for a specific use/audience. I will not repeat it here. It can be found at http://groups.drupal.org/node/6943#comment-20457 I honestly believe a developers version of Drupal should be distributed.
This would be your dream Drupal and it hopefully will create the space for creating distributions that actually speak to "mere mortals", aka "the market".
The developer version is, well, Drupal itself. The API is there, and one can write all the modules they can eat. Install profiles address the rest. If one wants a blogging install profile, then it is fairly straightforward to do one. Perhaps it is done already even. -- Khalid M. Baheyeldin 2bits.com http://2bits.com Drupal optimization, development, customization and consulting.
On Nov 10, 2007, at 7:06 PM, Liza Sabater wrote:
Whenever there is a release we have these discussions. I don't disagree with what Drupal is all about. The issue is, most people don't relate to the concept of CMS. They relate to the concept of "The Blog" as this new way of creating websites. That's all my point.
In my experience, "blog" is still an exotic content type to most of our clients. Even if they are familiar with the concept, they find it rather individualistic for their purposes. Mind you, these are media and B2B kinds of companies and organizations. When I tell them that "blog" comes with the meal, though, they often are thrilled. But they do not consider Drupal to be a "blogging" platform.
Keeping in mind how people "speak" and "relate" to web development in the real world doesn't take anything away from the power of Drupal.
I agree. But we seem to be running into different "real worlds".
I honestly believe a developers version of Drupal should be distributed. This would be your dream Drupal and it hopefully will create the space for creating distributions that actually speak to "mere mortals", aka "the market".
I agree with this. And I'd say that Drupal core, as-is, is the distribution for developers. But as we move forward, hopefully we'll find a way to make installation profiles more accessible and understandable, so that when people want a Drupal website for a particular purpose, they have a menu or recipe to choose from. In that vein, I agree that David Strauss' suggestion of making a freetagging "tags" vocabulary enabled by default would be ideal for a "blogging" installation profile, but not advisable by default for most other applications. I'd hate to have to disable functionality on every new installation just to get on with things.
It, for once, will give the opportunity to UI and UE people to focus on usability instead of just features or tools. Too many times I am told Drupal is hard to use. And you know what, it's true. The interface of Drupal is really not about the user experience. It's all about the features; which is cool for developers but not necessarily awesome for users.
This is something we can look at addressing in the theming layer, imho. (And woohoo for the .tpl.php implementation in Drupal 6!!!!) While site administration could stand for some UI improvements, it is at least reasonably logical in layout. At least I usually know where to look to configure some new module. For the end-user, though, that's theming. Drupal offers the bare bones, for the most part.
Most people don't want to see a menu with 120 choices, they just want to know that what they want to do they will be able to do it. Which is why when Chris says "just choose an input format", it's about simplifying the user experience, it's not about taking away anything from the back end.
Maybe a contributed module would be of use here, to generate user roles and access control permissions for a variety of admin/ moderation end-user workflows? I for one would love to engage in a discussion of that. Perhaps something for g.d.o? Laura
participants (3)
-
Khalid Baheyeldin -
Laura Scott -
Liza Sabater