Overview:
A theme and/or installation designed for community and college newspapers.
Background:
During the summer of 2008 I needed to choose a CMS with which to build and manage a website for a college publication, Rose Hill Magazine. My choices came down to Wordpress, Joomla! and Drupal, and I chose Drupal because it looked like the option with the best features and the most room for growth. While I'm very glad I went with Drupal, its benefits were joined by a great deal of confusion and frustration as I tried to configure the Zen theme into a dynamic news website. Moshe's profile on the NY Observer site was very helpful, but I still needed to ascend Drupal's steep learning curve before I could get my site working and looking the way I wanted.
Process:
The project might best consist of almost equal parts design, theming and documentation.
First, the scope of the project would need to be decided. Should it be an installation including pre-built views and nodequeues, something that could really be used out of the box or should it be a theme with documentation recommending the other elements? Considering the time it can take for Drupal newbies to configure modules like FCK and IMCE, the inclusive installation option would certainly have attracted me as an editor looking for a CMS. Pre-built views and included modules could allow for features to be used in an installation by simply enabling a block without additional installations and configurations. There are benefits and detriments to both possibilities.
For its design, the theme could piggyback the well-documented CSS of the Zen Theme to provide an easily-editable configuration that would also look great without any changes (here's where the inclusion of modules for menus and content sliders would be really convenient). As an editor, I'm already aware of many of the features that publications would want in their websites and I would also meet with editors of other college and community publications to come up with the best general design. (The project could also produce a series of news themes with different layouts.)
Within theming, the focus would be to create a theme that can be easily configured by a newspaper's layout staff. That would include the necessary sidebars, sections, and archive features that most publications will need.
In its documentation it may be best to create screencasts detailing the processes required to create a news website in Drupal. I'm certain that this could make a huge difference in convincing organizations to take the Drupal plunge.
Looking for comments:
I'm very interested in feedback regarding how to create easily-configurable drupal news sites without including certain modules within an installation (as with Acquia Drupal) or if an inclusive installation would indeed be the best option. I'm also relatively new to Drupal (only 8 months) so I'm sure there are a lot of ideas, solutions and possibilities that I haven't yet considered. Let me know what you think!
Mentors:
I can provide references to vouch that I'm really fun to work with.
Difficulty:
It depends on the scope of the project and the methods employed for customization (such as the color module), but I'm up for a challenge. Its objectives may need to be decided based on what can be accomplished within a GSoC summer, but I would be happy to maintain its development throughout the following year.
Comments
working from existing install profiles?
I'm also interested in community news Web sites and have been poking around the install profiles to see what work has been done to date. I've found two newsy install profiles available for D6:
http://drupal.org/project/innovationnewsprofile
http://drupal.org/project/prosepoint
Instead of starting a project from scratch, is there a way you could build on these existing install profiles as part of your project?
Open Publish install profile
Also check out http://www.opensourceopenminds.com/openpublish
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{ Drupal Themes from TopNotchThemes }
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{ TopNotchThemes | Fusion Drupal Themes }
Design/Theme + Patterns or Spaces = AWESOME PROJECT!
I can't really say whether this project would be enough work to justify an entire summer of code project, but we definitely need a design/theme related project!!! So- let's see what the design folks think.
As far as the creation of an easy to deploy newspaper profile, I LOVE the idea. Two modules you can look at as possible building blocks are Context UI/Spaces ( http://drupal.org/project/context / http://drupal.org/project/spaces ) and Patterns ( http://drupal.org/project/paterns ), both of which offer methods for packaging and deploying rich feature sets.
Let's keep this conversation going- I'm moving it to the official ideas list so that more people see it!
Alex Urevick-Ackelsberg
ZivTech: Illuminating Technology
Alex Urevick-Ackelsberg
ZivTech: Illuminating Technology
Another existing project
ProsePoint is another pre-packaged Drupal core download+modules. Technically I believe it is a fork since they claim it has some minor core hacks, but really its a very fleshed out install profile.
http://www.prosepoint.org/
It actually looks pretty nice, I've been meaning to try it out but have not gotten around to it.
I'll be honest I am torn on the whole idea of install profiles for newspapers and media sites. It seems on the surface like there's an incredible amount of commonality there, but having been involved in several of these projects I can say that the implementations tend to be very different. Anything beyond a certain point is somewhat wasteful.
I too would much rather see work go towards existing projects, but that seems unlikely to result in a project of sufficient scope for SoC. That said I love the idea of news-focused projects and design-focused projects, so I'd love to see something come of this.
Oh I just noticed that Emmjane already linked to ProsePoint, my bad. :P
specificity
@heyrocker: What if instead of targeting "all news and media and online publishing systems" bguhin looked specifically at deploying a student newspaper? In theory student newspapers have more in common with one another than student newspaper vs. community news paper vs. the NY Observer?
Ideas and Caveats:
- Unfortunately GSoC doesn't include documentation as "code" work. So although documentation would be needed to support the project, it couldn't be the bulk of the hours on its own.
- Work should not be repeated. For example: it doesn't make sense to have YANP (yet another news profile) for the sake of a GSoC project. New and supporting work, however, is awesome. If you've looked through the news profiles, bguhin, and see they are NOT a good starting point, tell us why!
- Themes are always good. Zen is very nice, but BeginningW2 also has some good news-friendly footers too. Another option would be to incorporate the color module and have the theme easily customized by novice news editors.
Yes
All great ideas, I would love to see a proposal like this.
existing install profiles
The innovation news, the demo of the prosepoint and especially the OpenPublish installs definitely look solid - I'd be very happy to work off of those.
As a designer, I'm particularly interested in extending more layout, type, and image options. As bengtan and the Open Publishing Lab have already set up core themes, the ideal project could make news themes more easily customizable using the color module and options for font families, article layout, image and thumbnail sizes, sidebar blocks, slideshow nodes, homepage sliders, etc. It could also use an admin theme similar to the Wordpress Dashboard that would serve the needs of editors and site administrators with necessary updates on new comments and copy status. Altogether I'd really like to make Drupal more accessible and attractive so that newspapers don't give up because it looks complicated and I'm interested in doing so in whatever way is decided best.
Regarding aiming specifically for student newspapers, integrating the calendar module and event nodes would make for an installation that could meet and surpass the capabilities of mtvU's college publisher CMS, which would definitely help Drupal gain footing among college publications. Integrating Organic Groups for student organizations would make for even more dynamic websites - in colleges, however, Facebook is king, so configuring Organic Groups to compete with Facebook groups would take some creativity. There's also Facebook Connect in that arena, but that's a slightly different project.
Spaces, Context and Patterns also look like great ways to extend and configure an installation - I need to do some more research on those. Thanks for the comments!
Admin themes
@bguhin check out the RootCandy admin theme as a starting point for awesome dashboard goodness. Control Panel (module) also has some interesting possibilities.
I'd steer clear of Facebook for now. I believe that's what the kids refer to as, "biting off more than you can chew." ;)
Innovation News
My name is John. I am a student researcher at the Open Publishing Lab and the lead developer on the Innovation News project.
I just wanted to say that I am very excited to hear that the Drupal community is interested in pursuing this goal, as is the rest of the OPL. We would be very happy to work with the Drupal community by sharing the insight we have gained in developing Innovation News, and of course by also sharing the Innovation News software and source code.
At this point, we have two main questions. Have you decided if you will be using Innovation News in any way? If so, would there be room for a second developer on this project...?
working together
John: thanks for popping your head in!! I would be delighted if you could give us a bit of a run down on ways that Innovation News could fit into some of the ideas that have been mentioned. It would be tricky to add a second developer to the project, as most successful SoC projects are self-contained to the student, but would you be interested in mentoring?
Configurable installation
Thanks again for the suggestions of the ProsePoint, Innovation News, and OpenPublish installations. As I’ve been demoing and installing each of them I’ve been really impressed by the work that’s been been shared with the community and I’ve realized that although the pre-determined modules are part of the charm of installations, pre-determined design can detract from it. To their themers’ credit, I think that most people would be more than happy with the default designs of the installations mentioned above, but even small news organizations have visual identities by which they’ve come to be known and would likely prefer more control over color, type, and layout options without having to find another theme or crawl down to the style.css file and wonder what it means to clear:left.
This is similar to ipwa’s configurable styles proposal but is focused on type and layout options within an installation interface rather than a separate theme. This would require designing and theming a number of templates for articles, blogs, front pages, menus and comments and then configuring an interface with Patterns or an install profile wizard (or whatever technology is deemed best) to offer up choices and compile the selections into the final installation.
Regarding the several news installations that already exist, I think that OpenPublish’s wealth of features is impressive but much more than what most publications would need or use. If the interface mentioned above could also control which additional modules and content types are included, it would likely be best to do so in sets:
The base configuration:
article, blog and poll nodes
Multimedia addition:
slideshow/photostory nodes + embedded media content types
Events addition:
event nodes + calendar module goodness and google maps
Let me know what you think.
Thanks!
Ben
Seems like panels?
Hm. The layout changer seems a bit like panels? http://drupal.org/project/panels so I'm not sure if this was the best direction possible. I just noticed John's comment though ...
Ben: Can you get in touch with John and bounce some ideas around to see if there's a fit somewhere in there? I'd be over the moon with happiness if you were able to work on a project that already exists with the lead developer as your mentor!
That's a good idea.
I just put up a rough proposal on the GSoC site (per your recent request) for compiling an installation profile and theme to be configured by the Patterns module. It's a direction that might work well, but if there are clearer objectives to be reached with Innovation News then those might make for the most cohesive (and ultimately successful) proposal.
Thanks!
Ben
Perfect!
Thanks Ben for getting your application into the GSoC queue! Hopefully John will have some rockin' ideas on how to integrate your energy with the work that's already been done by Innovation News! :)
This looks cool
I really like your ideas here, and I would be willing to help you out designing the interface for the theme settings, if you haven't found a design mentor yet I'd also like to help you out designing, building and contributing the sub-themes you have mentioned in your proposal.
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Nicolas
http://nic.ipwa.net
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Nicolas
That would be great!
Chris Bryant has generously offered to be a mentor to help with the Patterns side of things so having a design and theming mentor as well would be fantastic.
Still a chance
You should get him to rate your proposal in the gsoc site, because there are only a few slots left, and only a few hours for those slots to be taken.
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Nicolas
http://nic.ipwa.net
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Nicolas
Supporting the Project
Hey,
I just wanted to follow up on John's note. We're keenly interested in supporting this type of effort. While the OPL doesn't have google's deep pockets (yet), we would love to collaborate on open source development to extend the iNews platform.
And if there's anything we can do to support the SOC application (as a third party, educational/non-profit institution) please let me know!
Matthew Bernius
Co-Director, Open Publishing Lab at RIT, http://opl.rit.edu
Rochester Institute of Technology
69 Lomb Memorial Drive Rochester, NY 14623
e. mbernius@mail.rit.edu
t. www.twitter.com/ritopl
Want to see the best RIT has to offer? Check out this year's Imagine RIT Innovation + Creativity Festival, Saturday May 2nd
http://www.rit.edu/imagine
Fantastic!
@Matt Fantastic! It'd be amazing to have your team mentor a GSoC project. Is there anything that needs work that you know of which fits in with what Ben has previously identified?
Ben, Your updated proposal
Ben, Your updated proposal looks great and as mentioned we're be happy to support it.
As mentioned above it would be great to first compare ProsePoint CMS and Open Publish and then combine for the best of both worlds.
I can't wait to see this happen. :-)
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Gravitek Labs
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Gravitek Labs
I would also recommend to
I would also recommend to update the title of the project from "Community News Theme" to something along the lines of "Community News Site Package"
Or something to that effect...
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Gravitek Labs
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Gravitek Labs
Thanks!
I'm all about working with some of the great features that the OpenPublish installation offers - my one problem with working with it exclusively is that it's already larger than what a lot of smaller news organizations would want or need and I'd prefer to add to ProsePoint than to take out parts of OpenPublish. Either way, I added a step to work with its offerings in a detailed timeline that I just posted with the SoC proposal:
May 23rd - June 5th: Compiling all of the modules and contributed themes that would best be included in the installation, talking with community newspaper editors and members of the community to ensure the most effective methods for image handling, WYSIWYG editing, media integration, advertising handling and content sliders are used as well as formalizing the options for content types to be included in the installation and installing demo sites to test the various configurations. The Edition content type (and sorting concept) would also be addressed.
June 5th - June 12th: The design round: continuing on research of the most popular news website designs, creating a series of subthemes for ProsePoint’s Newswire theme; the variety being a comparison of styles between classic newspapers (of the style that use blackletter for their mastheads), modern newspapers (similar to the current theme), and magazines (which have less time-based material and a heavier emphasis on issue dates). As I come up with sketches and comps for various content layouts and supporting blocks, I’ll post them for the community to review and critique, together changing the prototypes throughout the week to consider the needs and interests of a variety of users.
June 12th - June 23rd: Constructing and testing the sub-themes within the demo installations created during the first week. Sometimes various theming elements are forgotten and the default is inconsistent with the new design; the design process would continue during this period of time, aiming to catch those inconsistencies and bring the changes up for review with the community.
June 24th - June 27th: Extensive testing of everything built so far in multiple browsers and with multiple types of content, error-fixing and re-testing.
June 28th - July 6th: Constructing the first sets of patterns for the full installation, beginning with basic content types and including one of the new subthemes, running the installation and interface for errors or inconsistencies, noting any better practices to use for the following installations.
July 7th - July 19th: Constructing the additional patterns with continued testing of the results throughout the process, inviting the community to test the results as well.
July 20th - July 24th: If the pattern is delivering the desired result at this point, I’d begin designing graphics to be placed within the interfaces of both the pattern and the installations to make the process easier for more graphically-minded users.
July 25th - August 1st: Usability testing - encouraging more members of the community to test out the installation pattern, creating public demos of the three new patterns-installed subthemes for testing and review and sitting down with the newspaper editors consulted earlier to note any confusion or frustrations with various aspects of the process or interface so that they can be fixed or simplified before the project is deemed complete.
August 2nd - 9th: Interface and usability fixes. If users have requested additional modules or content types to be added to the pattern, these can be integrated and tested before the pencils-down date.
August 10th -17th: Final testing and completion of documentation, creating tutorials with illustrations as well as screencasts describing the process of both installation and the subsequent configuration so that publications considering a news CMS will see Drupal as a powerful option that’s easy to set up and manage.
Where do I begin?
Hi my name is Stephen Brecht, President of Com 1 Communications Inc. We are an established web design & hosting company, in business since 1995, with over 4000 clients worldwide. We have offices in Ft lauderdale, Florida, and in San Jose, Costa Rica. ( visit corp website at www.Com1USA.com )
Recently, we have seen a large increase in the number of requests for online newspaper and magazine development, so much in fact, that we purchased a developers license for VIVVO ( www.vivvo.net) with the idea that we would offer prospective clients who inquire about online publishing needs, a rock solid package, that would be customizable, user friendly, but yet, 'ready to use' out of the box as much as possible. We would offer pre-built 4 packages depending on the application ( online news commercial, online news academic, online magazine and online technical ) with a standard set of features only. Additional features/modules would be additional cost- remember this is a commercial business model.
We have 32 total employees, 6 of which are programmers. I assigned my head programmer, and an assistant to devleop this project using the VIVVO framework. However, we have been so busy with other projects ( we are a high volume dvelopment company, completing , on average 20 projects per month, ranging from turnkey e-commerce sites to CMS, CRM, custom database projects etc) that Howard, my senior programmer feels he needs much more time to build out our packages, as VIVVO VTE framework has turned out to be anything but easy to work with, and may be 6 months or longer before our team has a pre-launch package set ready. This is unsettling because I feel there is only a small window of opportunity to capture literally thousands of propective clients who are moving from printed news/magazines to online only, and we want to position ourselves as a player in this sector.
So, now to the crux of the matter.
I was reading one of my favorite online newspapers last week ( www.sportingnews.com ) and was shocked to find it was developed in Drupal. I think Drupal has reached critical mass, and maybe the answer to our development issues.
I have an idea that since Drupal already has many developers involved with it, that perhaps we may swing from VIVVO to Drupal, as our platform- and enlist the help of developers, like ones in this Drupal group, to work with us on this project, which in reading these posts, seems like there is mutual interest amongst you all. However, we have every intention of commercialising this. One thing that I left out was that we have an inside track to over 3,000 schools, and when we are ready will be marketing this package to them.
With that said, would any of you be interested in working with us on this project? We would pay you to develop 4 templates, based on either the http://www.topnotchthemes.com/theme/1033 theme ( which we would buy) or the http://openpublish.opensourceopenminds.com/ theme, which I actually like better, in some ways. We can either pay you guys for the customization of the 4 needed templates, or we would be willing to start a joint venture arrangement with several developers,
Thankyou for your time, hope to hear back from you all soon.
Small Newspaper Projects
From my experience, don't even try installing Open Publish unless you have 96M minimum available on your host. Think VPS or dedicated. And probably a rich uncle who's got shares in Time-Warner. Open Publish has got everything in it, including the kitchen sink and the garden hose. No drops there. It's a flood. For small ezines, college papers, etc., I'd start with Innovation News (lovely) or ProsePoint (crisp). You might even be able to install these profiles or distros on a shared hosting account, especially if you're a newbie with limited means and are tired of tinkering with CCK and Views ad nauseum, and digesting some of the ridiculously arcane terminology Drupal uses to sound "post-modernist" I imagine. The main thing is getting your fonts right and legible, so that your readers can read your content without eye-strain. And then, what? I guess, start writing, which I myself am having a hard time doing. Forget the plumbing once you are set up, then turn on the tap. And if your content is good, they will come to drink, google or no google. Best success!