Hello,
A couple months back I made some Flash based tutorials introducing basic concepts in Drupal (for potential customers and as demos to customers I have moved to Drupal). The tutorials covered the following, step-by-step:
1. How to log in
2. How to create a page
3. How to edit an existing page
4. How to edit text (TinyMCE)
5. How to insert hyperlinks (TinyMCE)
6. How to upload files
7. How to insert graphics (TinyMCE)
8. How to add a new menu item to the navigation
9. Introducing Taxonomy
You can view an example Flash tutorial for page creation here.
Would the Drupal community be interested in contributed flash tutorials? Someone on another forum suggested I contribute these. I guess they could be helpful Drupal-newbies.
Right now they are "branded" which could be a turn off, or not?
They have some rough spots and if I were to re-do them in the future I would like fix the following:
1. Provide the summary text to accompany audio (which is already available on the demo site itself).
2. Outline each step (e.g. a screen "Step 1" followed by the demonstration and audio, then a "Step 2" screen and so forth; possibly a small menu with a pointer to the step I am on, and possibly "quick nav" buttons to jump back and forth to steps).
3. Audio quality (current program limitation... note all the final "s" that get cut off...)
4. Link to the handbook at the end of each video for further documentation and a link to the next video.
I don't know if my current ones will work for Drupal or if there is even a desire for such a contribution. Some may find introduction, installation, setup, and "basics" (page and blog creation, hyperlinks, pictures, etc), introduction to Taxonomy, installing modules, installing themes, etc... nice + links to the handbook for further information... may not be very useful at all to experienced Drupal users.
Any thoughts?
The initial videos are available now if Drupal so wishes (although I refer to Drupal generically as "CMS"), and I could begin creating new videos (specifically for Drupal users and cleaned up) immediately, although I could not say when I could be finished. I would probably do them 1-by-1, starting from square one, and see how they work out and the feedback I get from the community.
Ps- I would like to give a big thanks to Wink for the great free app that I used to create the demos and to the Drupal community for a great CMS :D
Comments
These are a really great
These are a really great resource, your clients are really lucky ;)
I think any resources like this, that are nicely packaged and easily digestible, will be a nice addition to the existing documentation. My only suggestion would be that the new ones cover more developer issues rather than content management issues. This seems to be more of a learning curve for the community - something showing how to install a module, manage filters and settings etc could help make the move to Drupal much easier.
BTW what was the free app for the screen capture (i have seen a linux only one) - does it run in windows/mac?
Wink by DebugMode
Thanks gollyg. The application I used to make these is Wink by DebugMode.
Maybe you and others can help me brain storm an "outline" of logical sections and individual tutorials. I can do some tomorrow as well (off to bed soon!) but something like...
Major Section
-Tutorial 1
-Tutorial 2
- etc...
Major logical sections off the top of my head are About Drupal, Installation and Setup, Adding and Modifying Content, Installing Modules, Access Controls, Themes and Theming, Taxonomy, Views, and so forth.
Even if I did a couple modules a week it would be "something" and a slowly growing library is better than none (until 5.0 when I would have to start all over... egads!). The big thing is core features for the noobies and areas of trouble for those with experience... although on the later I may need some help myself! ;)
After an outline is created maybe I can get a sense of "priority" from other users? i.e. Tell me :D
Though I will admit that the ones I already have done will be easiest to get up first. The reason being I already have the step by step written tutorials to go buy and "tested" them and went through the process of creating them. Tutorials are not hard, but you have to be familiar with what you are doing and think of ways to explain it clearly, without jumping around too much.
Btw, I was thinking of using the "Blue Marine" default template (sans the "theming" tutorials) instead of my demo template and just leaving a small "plug" on the loading screen (as well as ones for Drupal, PHP, MySQL, and Wink as well). Exposure is nice, but I don't want to be tacky or take the focus away from Drupal and the great product everyone here (both product, community, and resources) puts so much work into.
I am sure the documentation
I am sure the documentation list would also be very interested in your tutorials!
Anisa.
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These are great. Have a look
These are great. Have a look here: http://drupal.org/node/62196