Information CultureSeptember 23, 2012

Content Management SystemDrupal

Information Culture

Sept 23, 2012

Section Topics

Introduction to Drupal

Popularity of Drupal

Development Considerations

The Open Source Community

Section Two

Section One

Section Three

Section Four

Information Culture

Sept 23, 2012

What is Drupal?

“Drupal is a completely free, open source content management system that many intelligent companies are using today to provide for their needs…”

Developed by Dries Buytaert in early 2000 initially as a message board for his own website. Drupal became an open source project in 2001.

Drupal is a CMS for Building Dynamic WebsitesSimilar to other CMS solutions, Drupal allows you to easily setup and deploy a dynamic website solution out of the box.Drupal is an Application FrameworkExtensive API and Hook system allows for rapid development of custom modules, themes and add-on APIs for developers. Drupal is a PHP based CMS/Framework.Drupal is a Social and Semantic Web PlatformTools have been built into Drupal including support for Resource Description Framework (RDF) to enable sharing of data with different web sources.Drupal is a CommunityThe Drupal Community is extremely active, especially in the Washington DC Metro area with conferences, frequent meetups and local user groups.

http://drupal.org/node/220314

Content type choices and descriptions are presented when the editor selects to add new content to the site.

Information Culture

Sept 23, 2012

Drupal and other CMS platforms are constantly in a state of change. Based on past experience with WordPress, Joomla and custom developed systems, a few comparison notes are provided.

How Drupal Compares to other CMS’s

More information:http://www.chapterthree.com/blog/jennifer-lampton/wordpress-vs-drupal-saga-continueshttp://www.pcpro.co.uk/blogs/2011/02/02/joomla-1-6-vs-drupal-7-0/

WordPress• WordPress was primarily built as a blogging engine and later developed into a CMS. It

is great for developing small to medium sized websites, however it was never built to scale as an enterprise level CMS.

• Drupal assumes at its core there will be many kinds of users with many requirements. At its core, WordPress on the other hand was developed only for one type of user in mind and later adapted accordingly.

• Drupal provides more extensive development framework for many different types of websites: blogs, forums, e-commerce, CRM, intranets, social networks, news aggregators, wikis, photo galleries, restaurant review sites.

Joomla• Joomla is arguably a better product ‘out-of-the-box’ as it provides much of the

expected advanced features of a CMS already built-in.• Drupal on the other hand is limited out-of-the-box, however it provides a more

extensive framework for developing a more advanced site. “On the same grounds, if you can master it, Drupal 7.0 is the best CMS”

Information Culture

Sept 23, 2012

Open Government and Drupal

Drupal first gained national attention when the White House announced its move to the open source platform — followed rapidly by Open Government initiatives driven by Drupal web sites.

On his first day in Office, President Obama signed the Memorandum on Transparency and Open Government, ushering in a new era of open and accountable government meant to bridge the gap between the American people and their government.

The Administration is tracking how government uses the money with which the people have entrusted it with easy-to-understand websites based on the Drupal CMS.

Recovery (Recovery.gov) Launched Feb 17th, 2009• Drupal portal created under the Recovery Act • Tracks Recovery funds spent by recipients of contracts, grants,

and loans, and the distribution of Recovery entitlements andtax benefits.

USA Spending (usaspending.gov) June 30th 2009• Provides information on how US Tax Payers money is spent• Summaries, trends and data feeds are accessible

IT Dashboard (itdashboard.gov) Launched June 1st 2009• Federal agencies and the public have the ability to view

details of Federal information technology (IT) investments online and to track their progress over time

Source: http://www.whitehouse.gov/open/about

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Sept 23, 2012

Government-Aimed Drupal Events

Drupal Government Days – May 18th, 2012“Across the government, agencies large and small have reaped the benefits of open source web technology and community collaboration. Now you can learn the best practices for implementing Drupal within you agency by registering for Drupal Government Days to be held for the first time in Washington, DC.”

Source: http://www.acquia.com/resources/events/drupal-government-days

Sessions

• A Beginner’s guide to using Views• Open Source Mapping Tools• Workbench: Managing Content• Designing for Accessibility• Collaboration and Open Atrium• Responsive Design with Drupal

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Sept 23, 2012

Government-Aimed Drupal Events

Capital Camp 2012 – July 27th, 2012CapitalCamp is the DrupalCamp for Washington, DC bringing together developers, designers, open government advocates, IT managers and anyone else that wants to find out more about Drupal.DrupalCamp an unconference-style Drupal training, founded in the style of BarCamp. While there are some differences (DrupalCamp does more pre-planning on the sessions), they have the common goal of bringing smart people together in an environment that is accessible to everyone.

Training Programs

• Beginner & Intermediate Training• Drupal Theme Development• Custom Module Development• Best Practices

In addition to the training programs, a numberof conference sessions will be available on the27th-28th July.

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Sept 23, 2012

Drupal Projects: Koshland Science Museum

Informational Site for Museum VisitorsProvides up-to-date information on museum exhibits, tour information for groups and latest news and events.

Interactive ShowcasesProvides online interactive multi-media exhibits for user’s to explore and interact with the science.

ChallengesCustom developed Challenges system allows for scientific challenge competitions submitted, voted on and administered through the site.

Convio API IntegrationProvides event and ticketing information via a custom developed Convio API module.

CommunityOnline Forum integrated directly into the site for visitors to discuss the issues.

User RolesCustom defined user roles available for staff, volunteers and advisory personnel along with custom permissions, avatars and administration.

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Sept 23, 2012

Common Drupal development involves the following different phases, not necessarily in any specific order. Existing contributed modules are widely available within the Drupal community, however most are open-source contributions so care should be taken before implementation into a production environment.

Use Existing ModulesDrupal has an extensive library of ‘contrib’ modules which are readily available for download and customization into any Drupal installation via drupal.org. Select modules for ‘some’ functionality.

Write Custom ModulesNext you will want to develop your own custom modules to fill in spaces of missing functionality or improve upon existing contrib modules.

Configure the SiteSite configuration can be an ongoing process which will increase with complexity dependent on the amount of modules, size of site, user role, permissions, content types, etc.

Theme itTheming can occur in parallel to other development activities. Drupal’s theming engine also provides extensions to the modules.

“There’s a Module for That!”

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Sept 23, 2012

The Drupal Ladder Initiative

drupalladder.org contains lessons and materials to help people learn about and contribute to Drupal. The site was created by the Boston Initiative to help Drupal user groups develop and share and develop materials for learn sprints and issue sprints.

The ladder teaches essential skills for contributing to Drupal 8 Core. Start on the bottom rung if you are a beginner, and climb as you acquire the skills and knowledge described in each lesson.

Information Culture

Sept 23, 2012

Local User Groups: Washington DC Druplers

“This group has a great meetup every month where we get together to connect in person. The target audience is Drupal developers, users, and people who want to learn more about Drupal. We start the meetups with a round of very focused lightning talks that discuss real world solutions to existing problems, new work people have done, and Drupal news.”

http://groups.drupal.org/washington-dc-drupalers

- Learn about latest Drupal events in the area- Training resources, support, freelance opportunities

2 Meetings per month (Baltimore and Columbia MD)

QuestionsThank You!