CMS Design Resource » Drupal

Drupal

CMS Design Resource — Sun, 04 Jan 2009 21:09:31 +0000

Current Version: 6.19 / 5.23

Cost: Free

Development: Community

Specialization: Web Portal

Hosting: Own Server

Source: Open Source

License: GNU GPL

Programming: PHP

Database: MySQL

Our Impressions:

Because of Drupal’s vastness, it can be made to run almost any kind of website. There is a large community, so finding help or modules should not be a problem. In short order, one can have a very feature-rich site up and running. Drupal also makes it very easy to keep custom modules, themes, and the core Drupal files up-to-date which is a huge bonus. Almost every menu and sidebar and little configuration can be changed without changing the theme. It has thousands of modules that can add on to its functionality.

Drupal can be intimidating to just logon to the system as an administrator. There are so many options and configurations and strange names like taxonomy that you don’t know where to start. Theming Drupal can be a large challenge if you are not a programmer.

Open Source CMS Market Share

CMS Design Resource — Fri, 21 Jan 2011 04:26:41 +0000

A digital agency named Water and Stone has put together a research report about the popularity and usage of varying open source content management systems. Its an interesting quick read, but if you just want the cliffs notes, then here’s their summary:

The Big Three — WordPress, Joomla! and Drupal — remain firmly in command of the market.

• WordPress has taken the lead in brand strength after a strong growth year.

• The gap continues to narrow between .NET market leader DotNetNuke and contender Umbraco. This continues the trend observed in the 2009 Report.

• Liferay leads the Java WCM market, though Alfresco is not far behind and in fact leads in several metrics.

• Up and coming systems to watch include: Concrete5 and Umbraco.

• Systems possibly at risk include: Textpattern and Xoops.

The Big Three — WordPress, Joomla! and Drupal — remain firmly in command of the market.
WordPress has taken the lead in brand strength after a strong growth year.
The gap continues to narrow between .NET market leader DotNetNuke and contender Umbraco. This continues the trend observed in the 2009 Report.
Liferay leads the Java WCM market, though Alfresco is not far behind and in fact leads in several metrics.
Up and coming systems to watch include: Concrete5 and Umbraco.
Systems possibly at risk include: Textpattern and Xoops.

Drupal 7 Out

CMS Design Resource — Thu, 06 Jan 2011 04:35:31 +0000

Big news in the CMS world today: Finally, Drupal 7 has been released. After many alphas and betas, it has been publicly released. As the video states, thousands of contributors have worked for over 3 years to bring this to us. This release brings us many new things including a whole new user interface that streamlines many repetitive tasks, improved database support for all different kinds of databases, better control over theming, custom fields API, and a fancy new image/file handler that can be used anywhere throughout the interface. If you haven’t already, check out the download, installation guide, and then party.

Open Source Awards 2010

CMS Design Resource — Mon, 22 Nov 2010 14:13:41 +0000

Packt has announced their yearly Open Source Awards, awarding CMS Made Simple the winner of Open Source CMS, with Silverstripe and MODx trailing close behind. That said, they separated Wordpress, Drupal, and Joomla into another category called “Hall of Fame CMS” which means they won all of the other years. As a result of a tie between Drupal and WordPress, an extra independent judge was brought in for a decisive vote. Here are the results.

Open Source CMS
Winner: CMS Made Simple
1st Runner up: SilverStripe
2nd Runner up: MODx

Hall of Fame CMS
Winner: WordPress
1st Runner up: Drupal
2nd Runner up: Joomla!

Most Promising Open Source Project
Winner: Pimcore
1st Runner up: TomatoCMS
2nd Runner up: BuddyPress

Drupal 7 Beta 3

CMS Design Resource — Tue, 16 Nov 2010 14:00:33 +0000

Yep, maybe someday we might reach a release candidate status with Drupal 7, but don’t get your hopes up too soon because right now they’re only releasing another beta. That said, it shouldn’t be too long before as release candidate and then a major release for this major CMS.

If you haven’t been back in awhile, you may also want to check out the redesigned Drupal.org, which features a slick, simpler design and a giant support community.

SXSW Roundup

CMS Design Resource — Fri, 19 Mar 2010 21:07:25 +0000

We attended several CMS-related panels at SXSW including:

Is Wordpress Killing Web Design? – This wasn’t as much a discussion about Wordpress as much as CMS’s themselves. The discussion revolved around the pros/cons of themes, and how we, as designers, have gotten lazy at creatively laying out content within the “editable area”
R.I.P. Content Management System – This panel’s speaker was Dries Buytaert who created Drupal. Mostly it was just a presentation on Drupal and how it is being used by developers to create really complex, social websites. Coincidentally, we also were on the same plane as Dries on the way home.
ExpressionEngine 2.0: Total Domination – This one was our favorite. Hosted by a variety of different EE community members, it started with a simple overview of what EE is and how it works. Then progressed down the line of panelists with helpful tips starting with simple theming tips, and ending with complex plugins and whatnot.

SXSW was a completely new experience for us and certainly CMS’s are a big part of what the “interactive” space is involved with. We visited with some of the vendors who were hawking their new CMS’s, we got to meet people we’d met in CMS forums, and we shared a few laughs with fellow designers/developers about the joys/pains of working with them.

Drupal 7 Alpha 1 Released

CMS Design Resource — Sat, 16 Jan 2010 01:24:31 +0000

While we usually shy away from posting about Alpha, Beta and Omega releases (just kidding on the last one) It’s pretty big news that the Drupal 7 Alpha is now available for testing. This is the first progress update we’ve heard for awhile and this is a huge update to the popular CMS with new functionality like new user interface, custom fields, image handling, and an update manager. More soon…

Creating Drupal Themes

CMS Design Resource — Sun, 10 Jan 2010 02:10:09 +0000

Usually designers don’t usually get their hands dirty with any real programming, but we tend to have to learn how to build out a template within any particular CMS. Sometimes this is quite easy, and other times it requires a lot more than we thought! The Drupal Blog brought to our attention a new training series from Lynda.com. This is an invaluable series for those that want to get started with this somewhat complicated system. It looks like some of the courses are free, and some require the $25/month subscription to the service.

PopSugar

CMS Design Resource — Sun, 27 Dec 2009 05:01:13 +0000

PacktPub CMS Awards

CMS Design Resource — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 05:18:10 +0000

For the first time in four years, Wordpress has won the overall “Best Open Source CMS” Award, with MODx and SilverStripe coming in a close 2nd place. The “Most Promising” award goes to “ImpressCMS” and Plone taking the “Best Other Open Source CMS” again. Of course, Drupal and Joomla both won a host of awards, but that’s old news, right? View Packt’s award page for more details.