on installing and theming

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luco's picture

hey all,

I've (not so) recently published two videos on how I intend to make D7 easier on the newbies.

I focus on two key aspects: getting Drupal up and running and making Drupal look like your own.

though they have been viewed a few times now - and tagged accordingly, I hope - it had slipped my mind to divulge them here ¬¬

I hope this post helps foster some much-needed discussion on my wireframes. I mean, it's not that I didn't show mom and she thought they looked nice, but I need some unbiased, professional second opinions. LOL

so here's the links:
D7 install script - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kkRKoKdWf3o
D7 theme builder - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u6F6CLkamoU

lemme know what you think, alright?

cheers,
Luciano

Comments

Comments

Boris Mann's picture

On interface language: I'd love to do per language downloads of core directly from Drupal.org. Currently a variety of communities create and bundle their own downloads. We can absolutely bundle .po files, just needs upgrades to the bundling scripts on Drupal.org.

More install profiles: so far, no one other than myself and a few other core people have ever worked on the default install profile. I don't think it's feasible or realistic to list a ton of install profiles out of the box. I'm working on one, see expanded default install profiles. Rather than checkmarks, I'm proposing a wizard. I'd love more comments on this.

Also, you list only the steps for a default install profile. When additional profile tasks are enabled, additional list items become available. I agree that users could go back and forth and make changes in the header section. Once you press install profile X, you would walk through the wizard profile steps.

http://onsugar.com has an interesting theming interface -- including cloning. I suggest people have a look at it for ideas.

looks good, needs work

luco's picture

cool! a wizard - now how come I never thought about that? I love it.

now here's some stuff I miss in your document:

features - blog
1) monthly archive - currently Drupal is the single CMS I know to display YYYYMM instead of YYYY/MM like so: www.example.com/blog/archive/2009/08/google_loves_this_format.html
shame on us!

2) post rating
3) related posts
4) folksonomy - I particularly hate those rows of buttons for twitter, stumbleupon, delicious etc etc etc. I think they only pollute layouts. so what? users love them! so let's give'em what they want.

5) image support - for when you really think images are worth 1000 posts.
6) tag clouds

features - multimedia gallery
1) video filter - such a small module, such an elegant solution. a must-have.
2) image gallery - creating new galleries by tagging content is just - well, talk about must-haves!
3) imagecache - integrating the image and imagecache modules is a great idea from D5, I sure hope it gets ported to D6 and beyond.
4) slideshow pro - this is not a drupal module per se, it's a flash tool for slideshow display of pictures. someone should work on its integration.
5) flipping book - another flash tool whose integration with Drupal would turn a new page (ba-dum, cha!)

as for module configurations, well, I haven't set up that many Drupal sites. I think my opinion in this matter would have a strong bias.

the Zen theme is too complicated for me, I find the Clean theme easier to customise. but since Zen has a subtheming logic, it might fit my suggestion of cloned themes and theme upgrades.

Stay focused on core

Boris Mann's picture

Lots of great ideas ... please add them to the wiki or create a new wiki page with your own thoughts.

Remember: we only have core modules to work with. At best guess, we will have image support / image fields, but there is little else that we can guess at for now. Anything else (i.e. most of the things on your list) are for contrib install profiles to add / create.

Drupal "core" doesn't have archive at all out of the box. I am suggesting to potentially add some sort of archive back in. Pathauto is also not in core, so the URL aliases will be manual. I don't know what you mean by YYYYMM - again, not core as far as I know.

Re: theme. Again, my suggestion if you look closely is that we ship with a core theme that directly supports the community in a box feature set. So, nicely styled user profile pages, styling for different kinds of blog posts, certain blocks turned on and styled by default. It might be based on some existing theme, but most certainly will need an overhaul.

Again, thanks for your feedback ... we definitely need more designers. I am directly working on specing and attempting to build a new, default core install profile, and welcome any help and feedback.

ok! where's the wiki? the

luco's picture

ok! where's the wiki?

the YYYYMM is the archive scheme Drupal uses - year and month glued together:

www.example.com/archive/200904/this_is_not_seo_friendly

every CMS out there uses the YYYY/MM format, like Wordpress, but I never saw it in Views (or Views Bonus Pack). and no one is kind enough to add that simple slash between the year and the month. I'm looking for some help on this one, since I don't write PHP.

in fact this Views episode brings up a nasty side of Drupal development - we're given the tools to build a rollercoaster, but there's no simple way to build a swing set.

let's support the swing set! \o/

Pathauto is your friend

MacMladen's picture

I'm not sure what is this date thing all about?

Isn't Pathauto solving your path style needs in various ways, YYYYMMDD or YYYY/MM/DD or YY/DD/MM or whatever you like?

I see that you are experienced so I can't figure the problem with archive path you are talking about?

As for install language problem - I do not see it as much of a problem. For the first thing, you could guess language based on browser language preference or the Mac OS X installer way:

  • Use English as main language
  • Koristi Srpski kao glavni jezik
  • ...

with a radio button /everyone will recognize own language/ and browser langage could be default.

I strongly agree that database should be created from install without any need for phpMyAdmin or any other 'techie' skill.

Also, I think that Drupal should learn from itself what is good and what is not as well as from others as Joomla or WordPress. Why not? There is not a patent on good idea and we should be proud to emrace what is good for a user, this is what is it all about after all?

I like Admin module from OpenAtrium.com and its' concepts for administration and also Views concept and Form Builder as a true way for Drupal to develop to take a lead.

That is not the hype of Web 2.0, that is UX taken from chosen ones to masses.

At least, that is what I feel about it.

_______________
Use Mac.

Mladen Đurić
Web Development.

I like PathAuto, but...

luco's picture

yeah, you're right: I am experienced and I know my way around PathAuto.

the problem is not individual posts like example.com/blog/2009/10/31/this-is-my-title BUT monthly archives like example.com/blog/2009/10.

currently Drupal + Views does not support this URL structure, only example.com/blog/200910 which is not desired - and even quite hard to accomplish for noobies, mind you.

in fact I was so eager for a noobie-proof answer that I got in touch with Earl Dunovant and together we created the Monthly Archive by Node Type module: he provided code, and I, use cases for dummies.

the problem with language radio buttons is simply having too many of them - I mean in the thousands. not good. but then again, perhaps a drop down would work. the tricky part is getting Drupal to download the right language once you've chosen it during install.

the point I was trying to make by mentioning WP/Joomla is exactly that: if they can do it - and it's cool - then why can't we? ;]