How to not have to use drupal: taking Joomla and Drupal to task with ModX CMS -Ryan Deschamps
CMS: something to develop a website w/o having to do straight code
should do three things:
-facilitate division of labor (code vs. content vs. design)
-support the overall development of the site
-ensure best practices/standards
Halifax public libraries
it's not about the front end -can/will look the same no matter the backend
-it's all about the cockpit
idea is to make the experience easier for staff so they can do what makes your clients/patrons happy
why joomla?
-#1 in terms of market share
-huge community of support
-templates can be edited from the Admin utility
-overall kinder interface on the backend
-rated highly on OpenSourceCMS website (opensourcecms.com -demos, ratings, etc)
-we didn't know better
(drupal a little more 'gnome-ish')
why we switched
-ultimately it wasn't working
-painful upgrade from 1.0 to 1.5, so looked at the other products as alternatives
-learned a lot of things about CMSs in developing on Joomla; it's not that great for some things
-difficult to assign specific areas -couldn't limit access, gave access to more than just one area
things I like about ModX
-has fine-grain user access -set up groups of people w/ access to only specific sections
-template is html w/ bits of syntax to define what will be brought in (menu, etc.)
-community support more engaged & helpful -size of community isn't as important
-lot of flexibility -not getting in the way as much
-template variables -could use to put in CC license, for example
things I don't like about ModX
-still needs some work -documentation issues (have to learn & ask questions a lot)
-labels not the greatest
-some syntax knowledge required
final analysis:
-go to open source CMS
-joomla: great for an intranet
-community engagement > community size
-future: "application framework" rather than "content management system"
Drupal -open source CMS (John Blyberg)
open source CMS of the year for past two years (PACT publishing?)
-commitment to building loyal & passionate community
~250,000 websites sonybmg, theonion
scales really nicely -out of the box, will work for 100,000+ records
key features:
-not as easy as Joomla -steep learning curve (photoshop elements vs. full-blown photoshop)
-content
-associates bits of info w/ that node
-blog post = content type (title, body, tags)
-content construction kit (CCK) -create new content types, modules from admin interface
-taxonomy
-can use taxonomies to set up structure of site (can put content in more than one place)
-templating system
-if you don't like how something looks, you can make it look how you want it to
-allows for aggregation
-API system
-drupal is built on its own API
-api.drupal.org
-drupal.org/handbooks
--drupal is extremely well-documented
they built SOPAC on top of drupal; represents great investment of time and work and assessment that drupal will be around for a long time
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