Converting from Xoops - similar features available in Drupal?

I don't have time for a detailed post, but here's the things you need to look at:

Menu module (part of core)
Could use Mission (in settings, need a theme that shows it) or...
Panels for all the non-menu stuff (contrib module)
Views for all the list type stuff like forum posts, articles (contrib module)
Comment module (part of core)
Forum module (part of core)
Notify module (contrib module)
Several links modules in contrib to choose from
Search, user, contact all part of core modules

Michelle

This might take some time to answer but lets give it a shot :)

TOP LEFT: Menu (multimenu module) which, when an option is selected, displays 'sub'-options. Options were Home, Articles (extra options were the categories), Forums, Links, Search, User account, Contact.

Various options for this and nice menus may be the one you want

http://drupal.org/project/nice_menus

TOP CENTRE: Welcome text - a few paragraphs.

You could use the built in missioon statement for that, promote a node to the front page or hard code a welcome message anywhere in your theme.

TOP RIGHT: Five most recent articles.

BOTTOM RIGHT: Five most recent links.

There are loads of blocks as well as snippets of code to make your own that will do this. So this really isn't a problem at all.

ARTICLES: (xfsection module)

Approximately ten categories with (so far) approximately five to ten articles in each. The main Articles page showed every article title divided into categories; it was possible to click the category name (for category details and article summaries) or the article title (to read it). A little image for each category.

In Drupal you can make your own nodes (content) or use one of the many available to achieve this pretty easily. One such node that is built right into the system is the books module and thats what the handbooks use here at drupal http://drupal.org/handbooks

You could also use taxonomy and class the content and heirachy anyway you feel.

FORUMS: (newbb)

Drupal comes with a standard forum module (the one your using here) that is basic and expandable by theming and extra modules. For instance you can add a module to allow email notifications to new forum messages to be incorporated to both forums (still classed as a node) AND your articles with ease.

LINKS: (weblinks)

Approximately five categories with approximately five links in each. Ability to submit new links (non-members' links are moderated).

Again no problems. You could make your own nodes to handle this or use one of the many modules that have been created for this purpose.

SEARCH / USER ACCOUNT / CONTACT US:

Just basic functions: i.e. search site, view and edit selected user details, and a contact form.

All available straight out of the box and can be enhanced with extra modules or php snippets.

Everything you achieved with your XOOPS site can be achieved with Drupal looking at what you posted above.

Hope that helps.

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Learn about Drupal TAXONOMY = Categorization

Xoops users are usually accustomed to Categories by Content Types, which means that a News cannot be put together with Sections and Articles

Actually Sections and Articles are almost the same, but the module `articles' are additional module - I know because I had used it extensively before going to Drupal 4.6.3 a year ago

Example is if your site is about Sports, many types of sports, but how do you go about putting just the type of sports you want in one place (put together whatever type - image, article, news, links, etc) for example `tennis' to be separated from `soccer'