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By steveh2007 on
Here's the deal: I want a way to rapidly create webpages, put them into categories, and have the category names displayed in a navigation panel on all the pages. When someone clicks on one of the category names, a list of pages in that category appears.
Is this possible in Drupal?
What's with this "vocabularies" stuff? I just want to create a category! How do I do that and how do I put the category name in a navigation panel?
Can anyone help? I wasted so much time with Joomla and was not able to get it to do what I wanted, so I moved on to Drupal.
All I want is to type stuff in an editor and have it create a webpage for me. Do I need to write my own CMS? If so, let me know, because with all the time I wasted on Joomla I could have done that.
I am also sick to death of spending hours reading manuals that don't tell you how to do the most basic stuff. All I want to do is put up webpages quickly! I don't want to spend 10 hours reading a manual full of a bunch of stuff I don't care about.
Thank you for your help.
Comments
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It's not. Users typically come with their own set of expectations. Drupal developers do their best to meet these expectations. The old adage is simple, you can please some of the people some of the time, but not all the people all the time. Drupal is a powerful and flexible framework from which you can build most any websitie you desire. Provided you take the time to bring yourself up to speed on how it works, why it works the way it works.
yep! and without a lot of trouble. Though you may encounter some frustration. Judging from your post, you already have some of that.
A category requires a vocabulary and terms added to that vocabulary. This is how categories are created. read:
http://drupal.org/handbook/modules/taxonomy & http://drupal.org/node/46268
LOL!
That's the spirit! Why gain any knowledge at all about the code you are using. Especially considering you have the skillset to create your own CMS. With that skillset, I'd have to figure that API's don't interest you ; )
If you aren't into reading documentation, then you are battling up stream without a paddle. Drupal does indeed have a learning curve. Drupal does indeed require you to read documenation and ask questions when you don't totally understand something.
Than again, if you find it easier to write your own CMS, please don't let anyone stop you. More CMS competition for Drupal to swallow up in the marketplace isn't a bad thing. : )
echoes...
you sound like i did a 18 months ago (except for the roll-your-own part). i actually went away and came back.
it does take a little bit to get your head wrapped around things (taxonomy!), but once the light bulb goes on, wow! a large part of it was terminology (for me).
drupal offers so many ways to do a "thing" that you can easily go with one strategy, and later realize that you should have taken another, "knowing what you know now." what is great is there is something for the non-coder (like me), and something for the code-monster (monster coder?). take your time.
to your list of terms question: look at the "taxonomy" stuff in the downloads section. taxonomy menu comes to mind, but you might find something that is more suitable, once you get there. VM pointed to the page on categories; a good place to start. and like he said, ask the questions; might take some hand-waving; even the code-monsters have to sleep sometimes.
good luck, whatever direction you take!
Ditto tm...
The taxonomy module/concept was confusing to me as well, but it WILL do what you need. My advice: take a break, let go, come back to it, repeat until that proverbial light comes on (and when it does, you might find that the whole thing is actually quite elegant - I sure did.)
I've been here one week...I
I've been here one week...
I just put up a site with good content, a photo album, a slideshow, and blocks. The site looks very good for the little bit I did.
Sure, I needed a few pointers, but got them here... thanks in large part to VeryMisUnderstood - the first responder to this thread.
A very big part of the site is also all the SEO tools. I won't know how effective it is for a couple months, but I'm pleased with it now.
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I've used Xoops over 5 years, and can build Xoops websites in my sleep. If you want a fast site it works, but there is still a learning curve.
The SEO options are pretty limited as well.
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Joomla may be improved with the 1.5,but that's a wait and see for me. I have several Joomla sites running and hate to make any changes in the Joomla, especially 3rd party extensions. A bad extension can crap the works in Joomla and all you can do is a reinstall. I always hated the way you have to use the installer and then it changed owner permissions so you couldn't access your files through an FTP tool or Cpanel File Manager without getting the host to change the permissions. What a pain in the old wazoo... LOL
SEO options are pretty lousy as well. The OpenSef was supposed to be the answer all, but I gave up on that tool months ago. Now the site for OpenSef is "GONE".
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The modX is great if you are good enough coder to build your own CMS then it is probably the best choice. It's a coders dream and the SEO possibilities are excellent. Support is a little laid back, and many postings go un-answered.
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I suggest you go with the Drupal Garland Default theme to start and don't mess with the themes until you've worked with the modules and got a good site up. It seems there are quite a few modules that are affected or affect the themes templates. So... this bit of advice can save you a lot of frustrations.
I also suggest you do not apply in third party addons until you've given yourself time to learn the stuff that is in the core. I know that is difficult, because there are features we all have laid out in our minds we need for our sites. The core modules will do a lot more than you think. As I recall from your posting what you want to do is very easy in Drupal to start. I built over 100 landing pages in about 3 hours with Drupal and each page is titled and now I'm putting in Content.
I think static pages in HTML is the fastest way to build a website, but if you want tricked out stuff that needs to access a database you should think CMS. Also, a CMS will be much easier to maintain and secure.
easy easy
You could have all lot of it done by following the instructions here and clicking next a lot. Since I spent a lot of time writing it there, I do not feel inclined to rewrite it here.
-Steven Peck
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Test site, always start with a test site.
Drupal Best Practices Guide
Why IS Drupal so hard?
First off, a disclaimer: the Drupal forums are probably not the best place to ask a question like this. Statistically, you're likely to find people who are either just starting out (and thus not able to answer your question, only commiserate) or have already decided to stick with Drupal and don't actually find it as confusing or difficult anymore.
At a high level, the reason it's hard is simple: you're trying to do something specific and focused, and Drupal is a generalized tool. There are certain things that it does very, very simply out of the box (group blogging, polls, organizing multiple pages into 'handbook' style collections, etc.). But for the most part, energy is focused on keeping Drupal efficient and flexible enough that it can be configured -- or extended via addon modules -- to do specific tasks without unecessarily 'hacking' at the core project's code or pouring lots of time into reinventing the wheel.
That means that if you have a specific, focused idea of what you need to do, Drupal is probably going to look more complicated at first, and will require more configuration to get it "just so."
--
Eaton — Partner at Autogram
+lots for a great response.
+lots for a great response.
Wasted Time?
I've been in the exact place you have several times before, and there's one really important thing I learned - it's only wasted time when you give up on one thing in favor of the other as a resolution to frustration rather than a genuine technical issue. It sounds like you got up to a point with Joomla where you were feeling a bit burned out so you jumped to supposedly greener pastures. Not a good idea.
I've been through Wordpress, Movable Type, Drupal, Joomla, Xoops, Serendipity, Xaraya, then any of the above a second and third time around, and it's definitely been a complete waste of time, in the range of nearly 2 or so years. This is only because I never pushed through that point of frustration where I wanted a site yesterday but still had months to go before anything of value came out of it.
Pick a CMS and ride it through. They _all_ have differences in their core features and capabilities, and generally you will always hit a point where you need to code / read / sweat / bleed for a system to get it exactly how you want. Either that or you accept the functionality gaps and work around them. Buy the books, read the doc pages, experiment and muck around as much as possible, and above all else remember its going to take time, and you can't shortcut that. Jumping ship just burns off any experience you may have gained in a specific system.
After having gone full circle and come back to Drupal, I can say it's really not that much harder than other systems. It requires a much larger time investment up front and that puts people off, but you're much less likely to hang yourself further down the track with it. Drupal will humble you when you are 20% the way through and still at a point in the development life cycle that you can readily change things, as opposed to when you get to the 80% point and realize you are completely screwed. It's worth using just for that bonus.
of course it's possible
Create a new vocabulary and name it area or section or something like that and assign the type to story. Then go to add terms and this were you add the categories were you want to organize your content like graphic design, web design and 3d animation for example. Now when you go to create -> story in your story you will have a dropdown list that's labeled area, here you can select graphic design, web design, etc. This is how you categorize your content, and it might be confusing at first, but it's only because of the power of Drupal that can be harnessed to do simple sites like the one you want or massive high traffic sites.
To display your content you would want to download views (http://drupal.org/project/views). Create a new view for the area you want, and give a name for example web design. Click on the page section and click on the provide page checkbox, give it a URL of web-design for example. Set the view type as teaser list. Then go to the filters section and add a filter for Taxonomy: Terms for web design. Set the operator to Is One Of, then value web design for example. You have many more options, but let's keep it basic.
Then go to site building -> menus, and add a menu called Area. Then go to add item and name it Web Design, and set the URL to web-design. Then go to site building -> blocks, and in the disabled section you will see a block named Area, set it to whichever sidebar you want and click save blocks.
This should get you started.
Nicolas
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I think this is your answer
Hey Steve,
I think ipwa here pretty much has your answer in a nutshell. I'm only slightly less confused than you, but I've been there just days ago and using Taxonomy and Views will get you there. They did it for me, anyway.
The only downside is that you'll probably be confronted with a new problem a few steps down the road. The cool thing however, is that I have yet to find something that is just not doable in Drupal. So far there has always been a solution. You just have to stick it out.
I also think Eatons comment was pretty on point: you have something specific in mind and that just takes a lot of thinking and trying out to do. My first 5 hours with Drupal were heaven. I only tried out what was there out of the box and was amazed by how easy it was. But it can't cover everything and sooner or later you'll get to the point where you are now - a specific goal that isn't included out of the box.
I hope you'll stick it out. Good luck!
This is your answer
Read it carefully and you will be able to do what you want.
Another way to do it without using Views:
1) Create your categories and subcategories.
2) Tag your content with the appropriate categories and subcategories.
3) Create a menu for your categories.
4) Add your categories to the menu (linking each menu item to the correct taxonomy term).
5) Create a block for the menu and display the block.
Voila -- a menu with all your categories and subcategories.
Drupal is actually perfect for what you want to do.
I vote in favor of Steveh2007
This is such a self serving rebuttal of an honest and real frustration with Drupal that I have to weigh in. First, there is a lot,and I mean a lot, of effort and good work being done here.
But, If I don't progress much further in another *month* of trying to work this all out then Drupal is gone and I'll go invest in another effort that isn't so in love with it's own "red-badge of courage" of terminology. Nodes, Taxonomy, Category and "Content", Oh My!
Bottom-line, this attitude does not serve Drupal.
It does serve a crowd that ought to be interns in medicine or Frat-boys as they love to require those that are new to suffer what they've had to earn. I don't mind earning my way, I take particular effort in making sure I've done my homework. But it is ridiculous that after reading the entire tutorial and reviewing it more than once as well as working through the forums and reading every modules' release-notes and install tips that I am *still* struggling with interpreting Drupal and its Community terminology with what I expect to be able to *do* with Drupal.
And, for those that are tempted to continue being smug I'll offer this right now, I am not a technology newbie, having worked on systems that are far more complex than most I suspect. I can only imagine how determined some Drupal newbies are that don't have my background.
This is real problem for Drupal. Save the "Ivory Tower" for some corner of this community that enjoys the smug viewpoint and step up to serve Drupal as an effective CMS for the People by providing a real "introduction" to why and how Drupal is so great for those who *do not* have months or years invested in this platform.
The current tutorial is not that effort. There is no effective bridge between what *most* people understand and the translation into Drupal concepts and terms.
If Drupal is only ever going to be an Academic exercise then I have better things to do with my time .
KWL
But, If I don't progress
There are always things that can be done to make the 'mental models' simpler, to streamline the experience, to explain things more clearly. But you act as if there are a bunch of PhDs sitting around in the faculty lounge, sipping fair-trade espresso and adjusting their monocles while trying to invent new ways to confuse people so they can feel special.
The problem here is that words have meaning, and some of the bits of Drupal terminology that people traditionally complain about were chosen because they mean very specific things. 'Taxonomy' means something different than 'tags' or 'sections' or 'topics', so it's called "taxonomy." "Node" means something different than 'Page' or 'story' or 'blog post', so content is referred to as 'nodes.' This is the challenge of working with a system like Drupal that is designed to be used in different ways, not just a specific use case. Simply renaming 'Taxonomy' to something else will not make it magically simpler -- it will only fool people into thinking that a swiss army knife is a steak knife. While that may be simpler at the beginning, it doesn't help them understand the actual underlying models Drupal uses to manage and organize content.
What specific changes do you think can be made? What tutorials do you think can be written? How would you say that the new introductory handbook falls short? If you have insights into what needs to be explained better, share the specifics. Don't just accuse the people who do get it of being a stuck-up club.
Not to put too fine a point on it, but you're talking -- by addressing the community of people "in the know" about Drupal -- to a group of individuals who are basically swamped with work. Individuals and companies from grandma-next-door to global corporations are building sites using Drupal, and more are jumping on board on every hour. YES, we should make sure that energy is being poured into education. YES, we should make sure that the 'mental models' we use for Drupal are as consistent and simple as possible. YES, we should take the time to explain and document confusing terminology. But to say that Drupal is nothing more than an academic project -- because you're having trouble understanding its terminology -- is a bit strange.
It might be that Drupal is too complex for what you need to do. There's nothing wrong with that -- Wordpress, for example, is an excellent solution. Although if you're looking to avoid Taxonomy, I've got some bad news for you.
--
Eaton — Partner at Autogram
a month? Is that all?
I tell people 6 weeks to three months to begin to understand Drupal. Begin too. Drupal is not simple and what it does is not simple either. After 12 releases in six years, Drupal is more then an academic exercise. It has a vocabulary that means very specific things. Every profession and specialized tools have this.
The name calling from a four week old account is not appreciated, though it helps everyone understand a little bit more about you and whether they want to risk themselves in responding to your requests for help. The unpaid local help has much better things to do then listen to people call others in the community names. The original poster has one post. Creating an account to complain has never been a way to succeed in getting help here.
If you have a problem, then ask for help. Complaining or ranting only annoy people and get you a bad reputation. In the meantime, welcome and here are some tips.
-Steven Peck
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Test site, always start with a test site.
Drupal Best Practices Guide
what's the point Steven Peck?
lol
If I need a website in 2 months time, and your say I'd need at least 6 weeks to begin to understand Drupal, than I say? thank you very much. You can keep it. I'll stick with plain PHP and HTML...
Ciao... Isn't this clear enough?
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Actually, I find it short sighted, but that likely isn't the point in your digging up a three year old thread for that comment.
It takes time to learn to use a new tool and use it efficiently. The length of time it takes to comes to grip with drupal and it's internals is different for everyone. If you know PHP and HTML then you're likely in a different position on the learning curve than someone who knows very little.
no sweat, but still sweating
I didn't have to dig up anything...
This is just what's still available as comment... Let's say this thread came on my way :-)
Indeed, I agree now. I takes time to learn... a new tool.
And that's just my point as this was always presented as a tool to let you make "a website in 5 days time" without actually the huge disclaimer that you'd start only grasping a note of the concept of Drupal after 6 weeks to 3 months time, banging your head trough the wall and "learning" extensively... cutting your way trough the jungle.
The point is that I choose this path because of the fact that I need a full blown website ready in 1 month time and this was presented a lego approach, "click here and there, mixes the blocks together and you'll get your result"...
Now I'm to far gone... I'm in the rabbit hole, deep in wonderland and the door behind me is closed. You may translate this in: there's no time to start again from scratch in plain PHP... other arguments are that after me another architect should easily be able to take over the website (instead of diving into pages of dry PHP code) and that it would be a "back-move" to depart from Drupal and dive back into the ways of the past... as the website building community would be calling this.
So to say now: If you wanna learn Drupal. I now know that you may not have a deadline for a certain result, you need patience to grasp concepts, to read documentation.. and what you try out must be guided by what you know and what you're learning instead of what you precisely want... let's say that you have to row your boat along the stream, along the current of the river instead of plowing trough opposite currents to that specific destination...
In taking your time you'll start managing your rowboat and learn the water currents and how to overcome them step by step.
but again, time is against me, I'm to deep in wonderland, and I need a way out. This leads to frustration which is the source of my previous post.
Nevertheless I'm surprised (without diving into examples that only enlarge this post) that simple and standard functionalities and implementations which you come across on so many website are not implemented in any kind of module (44.000). I'm also surprised that for simple things (which only takes 4 lines of PHP code in plain website coding), there only exists heavy or dirty solutions, work arounds, snippets here and there or other modules as an answer that gives you 75% solution and 300% overhead...
I also begin to understand why this is a conceptual reality, but still...
If you understand me well, fine... but If you totally disagree with this, i'll be obliged to give you some examples in a next post.
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You can have a Drupal site up in less than 10 minutes. I don't believe the wording meant; nor was it intended to indicate that any possible idea your mind/imagination or any human mind/imagination can possibly concieve in a website can be put together in 10 minutes, 5 days or in 10 months. It is humanly possible to envision something that requires one to expand their knowledge and therefore their skillset. Divinci envisioned the submarine without the resources and skillset to build one. Therefore, if you took the "5 days" statement as literally as you've stated that you did, I would think your expectations were set far too high for any script. Though, at this point its difficult to state with any legitamacy one way or the other since you've not taken the time to offer any specifics.
Specific examples are always much more enlightening in any type of feedback whether positive or negative. So please do englighten as to what "simple and standard functionality" is missing or isn't being worked on in some way? At which point myself and others can aid you in how to obtain the funtionality that is sought. Also of note, before stating the examples please take the time to ensure you understand what has changed between D6 and D7 so that you are aware of the direction that the release is moving to address some short comings. This is important for newcomers who aren't as up to speed about what has already been discussed, agreed on, disagreed on so on. You know. The hows whats and whys. Whether the short comings already being worked on for the D7 release or had to wait for the D8 release are the ones you refer to as "simple and standard" .... I can't say. What with over 4250 community contributed modules for Drupal 6 alone, the possible combinations of said modules are exponential.
While it's unfortunate that someone with your skillset found themselves in a rabbit hole. Without actually asking questions about those issues so others can address those issues we've no idea how much rope we need to build you a ladder to get out of said rabbit hole.
Critical feedback is wonderful and certainly aids any project whether software or other. That feedback aids in a better understanding what others think about a project as well as point out shortcomings one may not have noticed before. What is of a far greater benefit is when a person like yourself with your self stated skillset explains how to overcome the shortcomings in a project that you've found along with the critical feedback.
In conclusion when I'd read sepecks comment three years ago and when I read it now I take it in the context of the entire conversation on this thread. Which is that while it is easy to set up a website with Drupal, it can take a newcomer some time to get comfortable with the innerworkings (api's, themeing layer, hooks, and modules) when it comes to customizing. Many modules are built in a generic form so that they can be used for multiple ideas. Thus getting them to act and react and present themselves may take time if you want something more than the out of the box workings. However, the reality is customizing Drupal is no different any other script in that respect. It takes time to get acquainted and comfortable with most relationships with most things.
Couldn't have said it better myself
As I have found most if not all CMS platforms are created by geeks(coders) for geeks(coders) and not for the everyday user who wants to get their site up and running. This hinders peoples interest because its so complicated when it doesn't have to be. The terminology on Drupal is from another planet I agree and makes absolutely no sense regardless of how much documentation you read. My advice would be to redo the documentation, redo the terminology (wordpress people) its easy fun and simple. I'd also re-do the modules and and try to have just one Drupal version in the oven so that all modules are baked fresh for the same version.
Remember, coders love to read long lengthy technically documentation, everyday user do not, drupal has tremendous potential but what good is that if most of the users don't get it.
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Dictionaries help clear up terminiology
Drupal is not WordPress
And what you can do with Drupal is far broader and more complex. As a result, common technical terms that have specific meaning are unavoidable. Yes it is complicated. Have you thought about what you get with Drupal? Everything from a flexible content creations system, categorizations, user management, etc etc.
Developers are not evil, they do NOT obfuscate on purpose (actively discouraged on this project). They are some of the very same people providing the tools to make creating complex websites easier. Not everyone participating is a developer, many are not. Many document, many support, many are interface and information architects.
Remember, your biased stereotyping of coders is not fair nor is it an accurate depiction of the contributors here. It may be a nice little assumption of yours, but yes, most do 'get it' and have years of experience making things better. The sad truth is, if you are doing something technical, you are going to have to learn at least a little of that technology.
-Steven Peck
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Test site, always start with a test site.
Drupal Best Practices Guide
Use the forum module
If your site isn't too complicated (ex: Blog) I suggest you use the built in forum module as an alternative. You can see the example in my newest website itechstyle.com. I use the forum to categorize my contents just because I like the way it looks and feels. You can prevent users post topics in the user Access Control if you don't want it .
Just my 2 cents.
Drupal is designed for HARD problems
The following might help:-
http://drupal.org/handbook/modules/taxonomy
Hint - a simple model needs only ONE Vocab - call it Categories, where each member is a specific Category. Eg members of Pets are Dogs, Cats, etc
User chooses Cat Member from drop down list when creating page, or you can allow freetagging.
For navigating - hard code it in taxonomy urls, or learn how to use the various taxonomy modules, views etc.
hmm
I am finally starting to learn the vocab for drupal though it has taken a long time (im a lil slow) I am determined to stick with drupal even though i am not a coder i get alot of help here on the forums and have made a few friends who can code as well. I can truthfully say that the vocab was the one thing that made me wanna try and find another program. I wasnt able to find a condensed list of definitions but i wouldnt be surprised if there is one. If there isnt one someone should really post a dumbed down (for lack of a better expression) list like node= content taxonomy= handles categories but is also.... e.t.c i just think it would help a bit with the learning
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Keyword term = Drupal Terminology = http://drupal.org/search/node/Drupal+Terminology
which uncovers:
Drupal terminology
Drupal Explained Simply
General concepts
Terminology
One actually has to "click" on the links in posts and comments to see where the links lead. ; )
Guess where all these pages are?
:cue theme to jeapordy:
answer: What are the Drupal handbooks? : )
Oddly enough one of the links is already posted in this thread by tm in his comment here:
http://drupal.org/node/185023#comment-282664
That wasn't that difficult, was it? : )
clicking becomes difficult indead
If you need about 200 click to get to your solution (or still not), clicking for the 201ste time becomes a serious burden.
Than again clicking to the handbook at first and so clicking for all the basic handbook tutorials takes so much time that, actually building your site with all the special requests will be postphoned for long...
At one hand it's said that Drupal will make it easier for you to build your website, make it faster...
At the other hand there's said that it'll take at least 6 full time weeks to begin to grasp the concept of Drupal... So contradictory!
Anyway, In my experience it's frustrating to see that a lot of simple implementations or standard functionalities on websites are not answered with simple solutions in Drupal. Refer to the whole issue with custom registration forms, users that can register other users, theme/browser rendering problems without any topic existing, scrolling forms within panes --> no easy solution, etc...
For example I'll give a challenge: for example "get only the user/registration form with a red background"...
or... "get it in a pane with a scroll bar"
You'll see that you look hard for a solution and if exists, it' ll be again, tweaking, snippet, coding module-on-module, dead-ends, dirt y or pretty,etc... for some simple issues you'll die on the way!
First of all
Thanks for the good discussion and additional info.,
And...
Let me apologize for any hurt feelings. I have no intention of purposively "gunning" for someones (anyones) well-deserved pride earned by hard-work, good intentions and actually caring about doing something meaningful and useful.
My belief though is that it is just plain wrong, especially after I've invested this much time and effort, and come to appreciate the effort and the product of all of the hard work, to stand aside while I see in post after post the problem of privileged perspective being practiced again and again in reply to honestly expressed frustration in getting someones head around translating the Drupal-way into what they just simply want to do with Drupal. Add to this the number of people that are simply dropping out and I think it's time someone needs to share in a way that gets the pain across.
Privileged perspective is where someone explains how to understand something using the exact same terms and concepts that are being asked to be clarified because it is *so* obvious to the person doing the explanation that these are the simplest terms to use.
See the problem? You can't fall back to using Taxonomy, Nodes, "Content" (as a generic term), etc..., etc..., in explaining to someone who's asking to solve a problem regarding understanding these terms, so they can accomplish what they want to do.
In any case, the tutorial is a very good effort but even still there is a problem that I think shouldn't be ignored because people are dropping out because of it. And if I didn't care I could have saved myself the grief.
I'm thinking perhaps a handbook that takes someone from just after an install to a working simple website with a standard three pages? Home, About and MyContent as an example. Use a review up front of Drupal terms and then *don't* use any of them again to reference anything. Only use terms that are common to plain old-style websites. You can't avoid referencing where to click, of course, but treat it as that, just a menu item reference. Throughout the handbook footnotes or sidenotes tieing Drupal terms to creating the website can be used to familiarize the user to what correlations there are between what they are probably familiar with and what Drupal uses as terms and concepts. This treatment bases understanding Drupal from a well known perspective while introducing them to a new, Drupal perspective.
Just my two cents, thanks for the consideration,
KWL
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Trust that there are no hurt feelings!
The Drupal Cookbook (for beginners) was written by nancyw from the perspective of a new user. Which she was at the time of writing it. Now it surely doesn't hold your hand and take you through the baby steps of setting up a site using examples, like an about page, or what have you however it's good for new users none the less.
All anyone has to do is ask for resouces that they cannot find. If they are out there you will be handed a link to them, someone else will do the searching for you. Or already have the link memorized and hand it to you. Unfortunately it seems the typical behavior is to begin threads like this one, whereby the user rather then asking for help, choose to use the keyboard to stomp their feet and throw a tantrum : ). It only goes to show that no matter how much documentation is written, no matter how many videocasts (YES! there are even videos) are created many users will still not look for information that others have spent hours writing up or working up. Instead they want information rewritten and handed to them on a golden platter in the form of yet another forum post.
head banging
Sometimes I miss some sort of ancient Drupal experienced didactical tutor, who'd more or less lead you to the correct path or approach toward a solution for your problem.
In many instances, more than 1 approach is presented for any given problem, which makes it so hard (to choose).
Which one will not end up in a dead ally?
The frustration that many beginners (and I) have is that they lack of some sort of experienced "toolset" of approaches for very common goals... They -as I still as well- often spend hours of reading and trying solutions at which a certain point they see all there time is wasted because the chosen solution did not render the right result (or no result at all for that matter, I even got me twice a WSOD)
So not to say there are no solution but to say there are many crappy 'solutions' or to say in your particular request 'false solutions'.
To still see "the clear" without your head going blurr of searching, reading, looking, writing, asking...becomes very... very hard!
Above this, you really can't go beyond the fact that at a certain given point one really has to dive into the PHP coding, css styling, or even trying for a custom module... in order to improve.
In my perspective it's highly irrational and a fake expectance to make a full blown website, with only pasting blocks like lego's en tagging checkboxes within the drupal administration.
Given things like webshops, with special product visualization that have menu's, given and advanced way of registering that is heirarchical (roles under other roles, inheritting permissions), users belong to multiple roles, special templates (indeed making your own ...tpl.php template for a given nodetype...) and so on...
This really isn't for the feint of heart.
In lots of advanced features, the solutions are not pre-made, and come from own php knowledge, drupal core knowledge, and the use of hooks, altering css and template files, etc... Again, this is far away from the klicking and playing with lego blocks approach.
The frustrating thing for beginners is that in some cases, they expect to implement a simple feature or they want to change a simple detail or add some functionality to an existing module, but it is not that simple.
If your lucky than an extended other module already exist, and if you're really lucky it even does what you want it to do... And if you're really really really lucky, there's a good manual attached with examples of implementing with what's and howto's.
Sometimes, some ugly and hard laboring "work arounds" are offered, but in most cases, if you do not know enough drupal & PHP, you're screwed and you might starting with posting questions this forum, hoping to get answers.
Well anyway, in my experience I've banged my head several times trough a wall, and I still am @ so much things in Drupal... It's hard. I'll stay on trying, but anyone who wants to present drupal as a yuppy-hipe-thing "easybee" with blockies here and checkyboxies there in 3D color... has to be "silenced" immediatly... grrrrr
I assume It'll take me at least one or two years of pottering, muddling, fiddling and messing around untill I have build up my personal mental toolset strong enough to be able to make a full blown website and keep my head relatively without bumps.
I also refer to the 'Drupal Learning curve' ofcourse.
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learning through trial and error is how many of us have learned. There is no single person who knows everything about every line of code in drupal. Those who are having difficulty with drupal and who would like "tutors" or "mentors" can join local drupal meetups in their area where more experienced users share their knowledge.
Tutors and mentors can also come in the form of community members/authors who've written books on drupal.
Writing docs is hard
As a professional writer, I'd just like to point out that writing short, clear, docs takes MUCH longer than most people think, esp when you want to make complex issues clear to non technical people. (See Proust - "Sorry for the long letter, I didn't have time to write a short one).
I have written a little in the Drupal handbooks http://drupal.org/node/81589, and I intend to write more, but that has remained an intention for some time now because it is just so time consuming.
I think that the Drupal people do a very good job, considering that their main love is coding, not writing, and that no one pays them for all this stuff.
My tip of the day - just keep reading, playing, reading, playing.
Still in the Drupal Twighlight :)
Ok Ian D.. And many thanks for doing that... I'm serious :)
But let's all agree at the least that learning Drupal is not for "the feeble of mind" so to speak, right?
Let's keep it, in the way that, playing with Dupal in a sense that you quickly get to setting up a website (even really advanced) is something that you light expect after years and years of everyday diving into...
"Playing, reading, playing, reading, playing..."
I can live with this truth :-) ... But I really completely dislike the "Pepping-talk" or the "Steve Ballmer" way of presenting Drupal as an "easy-bee-dream of a solution prior to all for every-one"...
You know what kind of publicity-convention-talk I'm referring to.
Maybe you might say. Where did you get that idea from? Has anyone ever presented you Drupal in this way.
I say: "Yes" ... This is the Aura that's hanging around it... by the fact that it's spoken of in several articles as "the way to go", "the future", "now, open, everyone, promising... etc"
While the promising aspect might be trough, the aspect of the fact that it's damn hard to learn and the road is full of bumps, is completely under exposed in the road of choosing this solution. (Untill you get bussy with it...)
Maybe Drupal should tutored in school or evening school courses at universities, high schools, etc...
With little projects and step by step approaches... Fundamental basics about the core... means & ways to tackle problems, several mental tools and feasibility op different solutions you might find, have or be presented with...
I suppose those kind of lesson would give a Drupal a quick and right boost with a positive experience.
I believe that for know the threshold is somehow still to big. As I said before you really need some special human skills to still keep going ...one of the most is patience... this combined with time.
And many times, if not a personal feature, impatience is boosted by "lack of time" which unfortunately really is core-property in our today's society.
Don't worry...VM & Ian, I'll keep on reading, playing, fiddling, pottering, tweaking, tinkering, bumping, climbing and diving... I also hope that goes for many other people, as we don't know for sure how many people already may have already "unhooked" themselves from the drupal path... ("unhook_drupal_beginner" lol)
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I'm not worried. When I feel like I'm getting angry at some of the things the rants in this thread go on about, I install an early version of drupal to see how far it's come. To remember what it was like 5-6 years ago when I first installed Drupal. It aids in reminding me of what Drupal has made easier/more intuitive/better over that time. Drupal makes many tasks easier. Does that mean it makes all things easier? no. The things that drupal does do well is often overlooked in these kinds of threads over the years. Is Drupal perfect? nope. Can anyone point to a script that is .. in every sense of the word ... perfect?
Noone has stated drupal doesn't have a learning curve. It does. As does getting to the innards of any script and customizing it or writing modules for it. Based on the drupal community track record and the changes that continue to get made in an effort to make Drupal better, I see promise and people working on ways to lessen the learning curve required. Though there will always be a percentage of people who want to do something with a script, they they think should be easy or intuitive and doesn't seem to be.
There was a time, when I "unhooked" myself from Drupal when I first laid eyes on it 4 years ago. I'd venture a guess that I am not the only person who was at one time turned off by Drupal (or any script for that matter) based on early impressions. After "unhooking" myself and exploring other scripts, I realized they all have/had their strengths and weaknesses. They all required some level of getting comfortable with code when I wanted something that wasn't available otherwise. They all required some understanding of documentation and time to orient to the way they worked. That said, I continued to work with scripts, read documentation and the learning curve lessened for many things (not just "Drupal").
You will be happy to know that these types of things do happen. There are many ways to learn how to work with Drupal and learn from others in the community beyond the forums and the documentation.
There are multiple books on the market which walk you through some of the approaches that can be taken toward building a specific type of site.
an approach
Hi VM,
Maybe by your personal experience, you can give me a good advice on a good book, that really step by step helps me by setting up, understanding and changing the theming of a webshop via Ubercart? Even more would there be an extensive amount of description on howto change front-ends, change node templates, with examples... etc.
As for now the Ubercart documentation itself is still very superficial and lots of important needs and normal requests for implementations are not answered. Finding more information about something trivial but important as for example node-product.tpl.php as to really make your own node template... is difficult.
Information about Ubercart Variables like for example "$fusion_uc_additional" is hard to find (where is it used, what kind of variable? Who fills it up? When? where? in which modules? Correlation to database variables,etc...)
I know and I agree that you have to dig, but in many cases and because of lack of documentation it's like digging into a deep dark hole without any guidance nor lights. Than asking around or passing trough the whole drupal forum will not always give you results... and there you are... hmmmm, ...empty.
And the weird thing is that you start asking thinks ... "Am I requesting such a peculiar information?", "Am I the only one that's really struggling with this?", "Am I the only one that looks for this result?"...
And at the last question you really know that's not trough since you've seen the same kind of implementation on websites over and over... and you star asking, "but why don't I find anything close to a solution or way of investigating?", "Can't I really search efficiently? (with a taste of shame)" Even at the moment you have like 4 displays with 15 Browerscreens with each on average 20 tabs open.
The only thing at that moment you'd still like to do is START --> RUN --> CMD --> taskkill /F /IM firefox.exe (yeah, sorry I'm not on a Linux Machine :)...)
So to end. I agree about digging in and diving in. I agree that, as all other stuff, it is still in motion and always in development. I agree now that you must be ready to accept dealing with code, etc...
But what's frustrating and moreover strange is that for some normal day to day cases (proven normal by the fact that several websites have the features required), it's like there's a black hole of "information darkness"... Haven't you never had that experience as well? What did you do than?
I can give you an example if you want. :)... And I hope that I'd be wrong by you than telling for example "oh, but that's something already discussed a lot and with a lot of information, howto's, etc.. here are some links..."
I'd rather like to feel stupid at that point (by not finding the required information myself) but have at least some answers than being right in my perception, but still not having a clue on how to proceed.
(Progress above pride, lol :))
Thanks,
ps. I'm not unhooked yet :)
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ubercart api = http://www.ubercart.org/docs/api
ubercart docs = http://www.ubercart.org/docs
ubercart issue queue = http://drupal.org/project/issues/ubercart?categories=All
one ubercart specific book = https://www.packtpub.com/drupal-e-commerce-with-ubercart-2-x/book
Whether or not the level of information you seek has been documented for ubercart, I don't know.
have you tried beginlearningdrupal.com
drupal is super easy to use, i used beginlearningdrupal.com
i just wish the advanced stuff was ready already
Drupal hard to use
This is just a quick, two-part theory on why Drupal is so hard to use.
1) Code-writing is specialized and becoming more so in that is seems increasingly to be written for a variety of more and more specialized programs such as Drupal, Wordpress, Joomla and many other similar and dissimilar "programs" or "systems" instead of, say, DOS -- or whatever the operating system first used on computers was called.
2) Code-Writing (pr programming -- I'm unsure what it is called) is like all similar collectives. Its group members are self-protective. As part of that, the members develop a specialized language that evolves like any language. Most of us simply don't speak those languages.
As far as I know, what you and I are looking for in web-page building and use simply doesn't exist in anything resembling a pure form.
I struggle with every single aspect of Drupal. And the program is always changing. It is or soon will be in Version 7. Even without the changes (which I generally like), Drupal is a challenge for anyone not specifically trained in its use. Anything else the Drupal techies say about the usability of it is simply meant for other techies. It's not meant for us.
That said, I appreciate what they do but at the same time long for a simple version more accessible for one-man editor-writers as I am through my www.pamlicotoday.com website . . . now virtually lost because I am unable to move files from one database to another!
Ah, well. Life and Drupal go on . . .