Last updated by Anonymous on Fri, 2007-05-18 12:15
This page is intended to help structure what "Drupal for Beginners" might entail. Add what you would like to present or see presented, or comment on the appropriateness of someone else's suggestions. What better way to brainstorm a good presentation than to collaborate on a living document, and what better form to collaborate remotely than on a wiki?
To me, "Drupal for Beginners" sounds a little underwhelming or even condescending.. Let's consider calling it "Beginning in Drupal" to allow it to be more encompassing: the software architect, the db guru, the css pro, the html newbie, the MBA.. all these folks should benefit from this session if they are new to Drupal.
Drupal for Beginners Topics:
* Basic Drupal Site Recipes:
** a community site (what is a social/community site?)
** simple content management (a straightforward CMS)
** an intranet (not sure how simple this is, or how its distinquished from a portal or community site)
** a portal (can it be?)
** [some other kind of framework?]
* Drupal basics/terminology
** core vs contributed modules
** taxonomy/classification
** views
** cck
** themes
** image modules?
* Getting deeper
** basic theme modification (via css, images..)
** multi-site config (? seems like an edge case to me)
* Effectively getting answers (where and how)
** Drupal community
*** groups
*** drupal.org
*** google search / misc blogs
*** dojo
*** lullabot
[sam] I prefer the cooking show format, with tried and tested "recipes" rather than discussion: lets favor steps to getting thing done over musing about things you could do.
And a meta-message: can we have comments on a wiki? Seems like a lot of this belongs in comments, while the wiki should take shape as an actual lesson outline / curriculum.
For me (Kevin Koym) I would like to see if the same presentation that happened at Bar Camp Austin could be repeated. The Four Kitchens guys did a great job- I wish that it had been taped... although my preference would be to have it be more interactive (where we could ask a few questions). Something that is on the same level of presentation would be great- start with an idea, start building it from a new installation of Drupal, and build from there. Some of the other items (like what is a CMS) could be just done with some links from this wiki page... (get the basics out of the way with a set of structured reading). For me, some of the confusion sets in in that there are so many great modules- but sometimes only an Drupal expert might have the insight of how they work together... As an example, I am still trying to figure out how to tie Organic Groups into something that looks more like groups.drupal.org... or how did the Four Kitchens guys use objects from the CCK in another module for making list of the CCK objects? (e.g. I still do not know what that other module's name was... much less how to configure it). Short and sweet "this is how you do this visual introductions would be great for those of us newbies. Thanks.
[Anne] Beginning in Drupal could have two meanings. I'm currently building basic Drupal sites then passing them off to non-technical clients to run the content. First meaning: What did I need to know to build the sites? That sounds like what Kevin was referring to. Second meaning: What basic information do I need to pass along to beginning content managers? In other words, how can I best prepare them to run the site without nagging me to death? Or maybe the better question is this - Any thing special about how to set up a Drupal site that is going to be managed by non-techs.