For over a year LA Drupal has been recording our meetings and many of our events. View the videos online... http://ladrupal.blip.tv
Subscribe to our video podcast... http://ladrupal.blip.tv/rss (available directly on iTunes too)
We provide these videos for free for people to learn Drupal of course. Over the next handful of weeks you will see us release videos from our meetings and DrupalCampLA '08. Learn the basics of Drupal, theme design, module development, advanced views, Services module (Flash + Drupal), and many, many more topics all relating to Drupal.
Follow us on twitter... https://twitter.com/ladrupal
Our video feed (podcast; http://ladrupal.blip.tv/rss) has been updated, and you can subscribe in iTunes, Miro, or in other video podcast apps. We run our videos mainly from http://ladrupal.blip.tv so you can watch them there directly too.
Comments
The Contrib module maze
I've just started with Drupal, so my expertise is as a beginner. The Building a Drupal Website in 10 steps really hit it for me:
"If you were to take two minutes to read about every module available, it would take you more than a week to go through the entire list. Of course you would never install every module available—your site would slow down if not crash if you were not careful. Remember, your server is processing content through every module in some fashion. There are tons of modules for all your site needs and it is common to hear Drupal community members respond to questions with, "there (probably) is a module for that."
This is one of the things that is really really hard for beginners. Add to this having to look over documentation (mainly to see if there is any). Best of all is if there are demo sites for the module. But finding what one needs and configuring all together is a huge hurdle - especially as finding it ain't so easy and there's lots of overlap and duplication of features.
What would be really nice is to have documentation on recommended 'quality' modules that provide functionality - what works nicely to do what maybe 80% of newbies want to do to start off with (ideally with a 'pattern' which can be used so tick checkboxes to select the modules and the whole config is brought together.
I'd also love to see more cookbooks for beginners - how to do things. The trouble is that often because Drupal is more of a framework, what is needed are cookbooks which work with contribs - hence having a 'core contrib' set would be really helpful. It needn't be too limited - I'd include weblinks, advanced forums, draggable views, Jquery menu and others that wouldn't be 10 must have contribs, but 100 or so good ones. (this would also mean that bugs and feature enhancements and cross-module integration of these could be concentrated on.
Meanwhile, for beginner, trying to find out how to set up a wiki, forum, faqs, weblinks, wysiwyg, and javascript/jquery behaviours (and other stuff that can get 'out of the box' with some sites and services), it's a very trying and tedious process. In building a Drupal site, step 2 - choose site features and modules - it's not nearly as easy as it should be or could be.
cookbooks for beginners
For a Drupal cookbook for beginners, I highly recommend "Using Drupal" by Byron, Berry, Haug, Eaton, Walker, and Robbins. I've been working through it and have found it to be well written and pretty explanatory.
After working many of the chapters, I feel fairly confident with branching out into the wide world of Drupal modules.
Also consider listening to the Lullabot podcast.
More Cookbooks
It took about 4 hours of 4+ people to rewrite the first page of the cookbook for beginners yesterday! The reason we don't have more cookbooks is because no one writes them. If it wasn't for Mary, we might not have the cookbook. So all we need is someone willing to spend the time to do it.
What is a "quality" or
What is a "quality" or "necessary" module really is subjective, though, isn't it? There are even groups who wish to spin out some of the lesser-used modules like Forum or Color from the core so that they don't drag down (or can stop being dragged down by) the rest of core.
Really, though, there's absolutely no harm in going into the forums or IRC channels and asking, "Can anyone recommend any modules which do X?" Just approach it with the attitude that you're looking for opinion and guidance instead of a complete how-to guide that you're entitled to, and you'll probably get a useful reply. Searching for more Drupal Groups on topics related to the site you're building and asking or lurking there should also be helpful.
The Boise Drupal Guy!
Great points
Great points, Garrett. The only problem with removing the Color module from Core is that the default (Garland) theme uses it & depends on it.
other video sources
Here are few more to check out.
http://www.mustardseedmedia.com/podcast?page=1
http://brianstevenson.com/drupal/screencasts
http://gotdrupal.com/
Cindy McCourt
Consultant
http://idcminnovations.com
703-803-4621 home office
703-927-5636 cell
contrib modules
you might try http://drupalmodules.com and use their convenient top rated or most favorited list to get a good idea of what you need.
I know Drupal 7 is really focused on making it easier to access contributed modules, as was the drupal.org redesign. As both a module developer and as a Drupal user, I know both how difficult it can be to find the module you need and difficult to make it clear to users exactly what your module does.
Drupal evangelist.
www.CoderintheRye.com
Beginners extended D6 installation?
Thanks all for very helpful links and suggestions.
I'm not sure about the scope of this group in terms of documentation for beginners. I thought I'd join though to give some perspective from a beginner starting out, and what would really assist as a newbie.
Thinking on this a bit further, perhaps one of the most helpful things would be to have an 'extended' Drupal installation available, set up and pre-configured with various contrib modules and sample data so can see how these work. It could also make sense for the sample data to include stuff for getting started with Drupal. (e.g. the weblinks module could be included, and have links to videos etc.), views and cck and media extensions so can have videos in a views page, FAQs (with collapsible categories), WYSIWYG API with various editors, some ready make cck content types, geo maps, simple news, and so on. It may well be 'over featured', but it would provide a quick start.
With this installed, a beginner can then go into admin settings etc and see how this was done, can play around with it, and modify and adapt very easily. (no more trying to get a module to work because not clear how to set it up and not understanding documentation etc.).
In some ways it might be easier to have a ready made 'cookbook' examples which are working (and for most part self explanatory) than to provide documentation for setting this up from scratch. A search in the beginners site could bring up 'how to' pages, which link to admin sections etc. - a kind of working beginners guide. (and a front page with a quick guide have to do to get working with cron etc.).
Once the extended version was set up, then a working version of this could provide a kind of wiki site where people could submit useful links, FAQs etc. which may then get included in the installable version.
It's maybe a different approach to 'documentation' which might not fit with the purpose of this group, but IMO would be a really great way to quickly get started with Drupal. (Also bear in mind different people have different learning styles, and some people prefer to get stuck in and try things out than reading manuals).
BTW, personally I really like the fact that Drupal is a CMF rather than CMS - and also inclined towards view that some stuff like forums should perhaps be spun out of core. The idea though is to have a way of showing CMF + contribs and modules to make this working and with sample data rather than 'bare-bones'.
Acquia Drupal
I'm pretty new to Drupal myself, but at our last PDX DUG meeting people were recommending Acquia Drupal (http://acquia.com/products-services/acquia-drupal) as just such an extended Drupal installation as you describe.
more Drupal Camp LA 2008 videos uploaded
More videos are up on our LA Drupal videos (podcast) feed. http://ladrupal.blip.tv (can subscribe in iTunes; iPhone & iPod ready)
We've tried to make sure a couple videos go up each week. The remaining 2008 camp videos will be up before DrupalCamp LA 2009 (August 8-9).
Chris Charlton, Author & Drupal Community Leader, Enterprise Level Consultant
I teach you how to build Drupal Themes http://tinyurl.com/theme-drupal and provide add-on software at http://xtnd.us
Awesome!
Been dying to see some of those, Chris! Thanks a ton!
Thanks
Thanks, Chris. I appreciate it.