At many events and sessions, the presenter asks the Drupal audience how many developers and then how many themers there are in the audience. I was just wondering why isn't there a category for a Drupal interface expert (who uses the advanced contrib modules)? I've been working with Rules and Display Suite, and of course Views, and I can do a lot through the interface of these contrib modules rather than writing a new module or do theming with templates and preprocessing.
Isn't there a whole category of Drupal users out there -- and those that, perhaps, the Drupal interface is made for -- that are not being included?
I would like to see more advanced discussions about using the interface and the existing advanced contrib modules at the Drupal meetups rather than coding uses and whole website examples. Break it down and show how the modules work and give a brief example (and show the options available and why one is checked or not checked -- love the negate feature in Rules). The Rules video at Drupalize.me is a great example -- and it is free. The youtube video about Display Suite in D7 is another good example.
I am such a contrarian -- sorry, it's the New York-ness in me...
Comments
Ya, there are lots of ways to
Ya, there are lots of ways to describe the different roles people fulfill. I think generally the reason a presenter asks that question is to get a feel for who they are talking to ... and how to focus.
You bring up some good points about site-building ... and perhaps theming. Drupal lets you do lots of things through the GUI that you used to have to do by coding. If there are topics / modules / themes / distros / tools, etc, that you'd like to see at a meetup, I really suggest you add to the wiki: http://groups.drupal.org/node/9220
As meetup organizer, I'm always interested in hearing ideas for topics we can cover. (And if you're someone that has something specatular to share ... hit up an organizer of a meetup near you ... see http://groups.drupal.org/la/events )
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mike stewart { twitter: @MediaDoneRight | IRC nick: mike stewart }
I think you're talking about
I think you're talking about what the Design for Drupal movement is about, which includes design, usability and frontend tools for site building as part of its focus.
The movement is growing and changing, and Morten DK just posted a recap of Frontend United, the conference that just wrapped up in Amsterdam:
http://morten.dk/blog/frontend-united-we-came-rock
A couple organizers are trying to address this part of the Drupal community, both with Drupal Design Camp LA, our design- and usability-oriented conference (tentatively scheduled for October, 2012… stay tuned!) and the budding theming and usability meetup that we're planning in Culver City.
Would you like to be one of the organizers of the theming and usability meetup? Let me know here or contact me at http://groups.drupal.org/user/1242/contact
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A lot of people in the Drupal
A lot of people in the Drupal community focus on the code aspect of creating a website. The truth is that now-a-days with Drupal one could easily create bunches and bunches of websites with vastly different functionality without writing a single line of code (that is a single line that would have to be managed in a repository).
The category that I have heard to describe those that prefer to build this way is the Site Builders category.
I think that the primary reason that no-one does a "Shout Out" to see how many site builders there are in the room is because we are all site-builders. If you are developing then you are building a site and if you are theming you are building a site.
I know that the OC Drupal meetup did a Commerce site building walkthrough just a few months ago; though I know that is of little help today. ;p