Wylbur and I talked last week about planning a very basic "Intro to Drupal" track of sessions for DrupalCamp Twin Cities. The idea is to reach those people who may only have an inkling of what Drupal is or are just getting started using it (or, a very important segment, those who have inherited a Drupal site from somebody else and need guidance.) Below is essentially a brain dump I did last night of potential topics and material for such a track.
The other part of the process, of course, is to identify possible presenters. I'd be happy to plan on taking two sessions to start, perhaps a third if needed.
What I'd like for input is:
- Suggestions for other sessions targeting this audience
- Improvements/additions to the list below
- Presenters (just put your name next to the title)
Once this list firms up a bit, I'll make them official session proposals over on the DrupalCamp TC web site.
Beginner Drupal Sessions
Drupal, the Super Basic Intro: Covered by Fr0st's session, "Drupal for Dummies"
Explanation of what Drupal is at its most basic, including terminology.
- Nodes
- Menus
- Users
- Roles
- Access control/permissions
- Taxonomy
- Content types/fields
- Modules
- Themes
- Views
- Feeds and aggregation
- Demonstration of basic theming within a contrib or core theme - color picker, upload custom logo.
- Demonstration of a quick site build with D7 core.
- Demonstration of cross-content-type associations using taxonomy.
- Maybe demonstrate a custom content type?
Choosing Modules and Themes
Approaches to selecting modules and themes for your site.
- Differing approaches: Perfect fit for use case vs. extensible "legos"
- Custom "tweak" modules
- Using the issue queue, usage stats, developer reputation to help guide selection
- Theme analog: Base themes and subthemes
Theming 101: Covered by eojthebrave's session, "Make it pretty. An introduction to theming in Drupal"
Explanation of theming - basic overview and examples.
- Browsing contrib, installing, configuring
- Using the issue queue, usage stats, developer reputation to help guide selection
- "smart" themes (dynamic sidebars)
- Base themes and subthemes
- Hacking a "starter" theme vs extending a base theme
- Building a subtheme using 960gs?
We need a new site. Where does Drupal fit in?
-
Drupal is not the first step. Figure out communications needs and goals, what you want to provide, and to whom you want to provide it. Tool selection and configuration comes much later.
-
Maybe make this a more general workshop, save Drupal until the very end?
Not-quite-Core: Modules that (nearly) everybody needs: Covered by Gabe's session of the same name (willing to partner)
- Views
- CCK (d6)/References (d7)
- filefield/filefield_sources
- Date and Calendar
- googleanalytics
- Token
- Pathauto
- Webform
- Workflow
- Workbench?
- Menu Item Container/Menu Position/Megamenu
- Image display - sliders/thickbox,etc
Drupal 7: Is it ready?
- Knowing your needs, watching the relevant modules.
Help!
Where to find help and information in the Drupal community.
- What? There's a "community"?
- D.O.
- Handbook
- Modules/Themes
- Issue Queues
- Forums
- Books/Videos (Drupalize.me, learn by the drop, dev seed, GotDrupal.com)
- IRC - #drupal, #tcdrupal
- Drupal User Group
- Local pros/Lab Hours
- Embedded help
Comments
Yay!
Thanks to both you and Wilbur for tackling this, very much appreciated. I will give this some thought and edit where appropriate.
One thing that comes to mind
One thing that comes to mind for new organizations and developers: managing your installations - code staging/QA, backup, hosting, etc.
Talk to Will
I believe willvincent is preparing a very similar session for Colorado, which would also include multi-developer scenarios. He would be a good one to ping about this.
I also have some material
I also have a talk that addresses directory structures, git, permissions and backups. I had it prepared for a drupalbus chi talk but it was longish and people became rather unfocused at a certain point :-/ I didn't end up giving it.
Oooh, that would be
Oooh, that would be wonderful! You should propose a session!
My session
I didn't get a chance to get this proposed in time for Colorado, but I've just posted it for our Twin Cities camp.
It really will focus most on the issues with multi-developer development/implementation. But as Dev/Staging/QA/Production are kind of linked to those issues that will likely creep into it at least in some part.
Here's the link:
http://2011.tcdrupal.org/node/91
I would be happy to help out
I would be happy to help out with at least one of these sessions. I could pretty easily do one on Theming 101, or Choosing Modules/Themes.
I think it would be hard to have an entire session about "Drupal 7 is it ready", though it is a good conversation to have.
And +1 to managing your code/workflow. Important stuff.
I guess I've nominated myself
I guess I've nominated myself as session cheerleader on this thread - so, Awesome! Yay! Please Do!
True about Drupal 7
I think the D6/D7 question could be covered under other relevant topics, such as "choosing a module or theme."
Sign Me Up!
I'll do Drupal, the Super Basic Intro.
I've trained dozens of people on this, so I already have visual aids and whatnot. :)
Sweet - maybe a couple folks
Sweet - maybe a couple folks could even collaborate.
Super Basic Intro session submitted
I've created a session with an outline that pretty much matches what is listed at the top of this page.
http://2011.tcdrupal.org/node/70
\m/
Rock on!
Wiki updated to note your session. Thanks!
Okay, I submitted an
Okay, I submitted an introduction to theming session: http://2011.tcdrupal.org/node/67
The idea is to give a high level overview of all the components that make up the theming system, and thus your own theme. I'll also plan on spending a little bit of time talking about existing themes, how to install a theme, etc. Primary focus being arming people with enough knowledge to know what is possible, how to get started, and where to find more resources.
Another idea for an introductory session that someone might want to do is an Intro to PHP. Doesn't need to be Drupal specific at all but for people just getting into Drupal land it could be really helpful.
Thanks Joe!
I've update the wiki accordingly.
Question about session formats
Thinking about the "So I inherited this Drupal site..." session idea, and wondering whether it would be appropriate to schedule a session without an agenda - more geared toward tailoring help for those who show up (presumably, they'll be in the situation posited by the title). Any camp organizers want to say "yea"/"nay"?
Another thought
It occurred to me last night how some of this material might overlap with the Chapter 3 training. Perhaps we should factor that in as we develop our sessions, and also perhaps worry a bit less about achieving "full topical coverage."