Drupal Setup
October 1, 2009
Why Drupal
Drupal is a very powerful CMS - Content Management System.
It was first recommended by a friend that suggested that it was probably the best one that was available and was very flexible and powerful. I figured I should take a good look at it as I was familiar with a couple of others such as TextPattern and Mambo. TextPattern was also very powerful and flexible, but a bit cryptic for the common user. Mambo was pretty nice, but not easy to morph into any kind of site... i.e not flexible. After a few times with Drupal, I had to agree that it was a very powerful CMS and something to use when flexibility and power were required. I also tried out WordPress which I find to be similarly flexible, but a little less complex.
So, why Drupal? There are so many other CMSs out there and all of them will have their strengths and weaknesses. Some are built on top of certain languages and others with a specific framework. Drupal, for me, was a great choice because it tended to be something that could be installed on most servers in the wild, whereas some of the others required facilities that are a little less common. PHP, MySQL and Apache are extremely common and available. It's usually a second rate hosting provider that doesn't carry those as standard items.
Drupal's Weaknesses
So Drupal, being so powerful, also has a few inherent weaknesses:
1) Image Gallery
2) Audio Gallery
3) Moving the data
I have to say the image thing is much better in version 6.x, but still a PITA. By default, images aren't part of the install. This, to me, is a bit odd from a development point of view, but there are modules to add image manipulation into Drupal. Basically, it comes down to requirements... so if you need a great deal of images, picking your modules is quite a task. I'll say this: I have never had the chance to just use a regular gallery for images. Every single designer needs a custom display for their images and they are always a bit awkward and code needs to be written to accomplish the presentation requirements. Artists!
Audio is a down-right no go. I've tried a bunch of different modules and to be frank, none of them worked. Close! but not one. Uploading a file and downloading it is fine though. The nice thing about Drupal, especially when things don't work with a module, is that you can make it work by hand coding it... at least your not out in the cold. Most people wouldn't bother. I hope in version 7.x it will be something that gets accidentally, or intentionally, repaired.
Moving the data is MAD. I really like the WordPress way - backup the content - upload it, done. I really hope Drupal can do something about that... maybe there is a module, but I haven't come across it... basically, I would want to click a button and the content is backed up into a file... click a button and it is reloaded from that file on a new site. Delete all content... and start fresh. One button.
Drupal's Installation
The installation is really very nice. untar the current drupal download, and go to your website, and answer the questions. You will have to have a MySQL database ready, to get it going, but who doesn't expect that? I would really like to see PostgreSQL supported as it is much lighter weight that MySQL. I know it more or less works too, as I've had it connected before without flaws.
Once it's there, you should install a smattering of Modules. These are the ones I almost always install now, just because it makes my life easier:
1) Image - the perpetual beta - http://drupal.org/project/image
2) Image assist - http://drupal.org/project/img_assist
3) ImageAPI - http://drupal.org/project/imageapi
4) ImageCache - http://drupal.org/project/imagecache
5) Node Gallery - http://drupal.org/project/node_gallery
6) invisimail - http://drupal.org/project/invisimail
* enable this in the "modules" and in the "input formats" area
7) Transliteration - http://drupal.org/project/transliteration
8) Views - http://drupal.org/project/views
9) Pathauto - http://drupal.org/project/pathauto
10) Token - http://drupal.org/project/token
Some additional ones are:
1) Video - http://drupal.org/project/video
2) Lightbox2 - http://drupal.org/project/lightbox2
Some I think I should try:
1) Backup and Migrate - http://drupal.org/project/backup_migrate
2) CKEditor - http://drupal.org/project/fckeditor