I agree that simplicity and power are tradeoffs within the system. However, why can't a decent CMS use progressive disclosure? Set defaults for most of the options, and provide a simple wizard functionality for those that can't be default. Then allow more advanced developers to go in and change the options.
The little cabal of people who build Drupal (along with TYPO3) don't seem to see 'ease-of-use' as a goal, and almost wear the complexity of their system as a badge of honour.
thepete
· 1 year ago
I'm glad I'm not the only person who found drupal daunting. With the number of people who use it I thought sure I'd have a lot less trouble with it, but in the end, it was just like you said, Stan--I found it just too confusing to use and gave up.
I don't know what those Drupalians are thinking.
Let's home Chris hits this one out of the park.
reddknight
· 1 year ago
I would really like to see this happen. I cringe every time I do Web research on CMSs.
I am convinced that much of the bloat is unnecessary. Not only are a lot of CMS features unnecessary, I believe that much of the bloat is due to a developer mentality where they don't see anything wrong with the complexity.
Maybe you can't eliminate all the complexity, but things like RoR and Django have demonstrated there are better ways.
Jacob
· 1 year ago
Wow, this guy has an idea. That's really exciting. Idea 2.0. Where's the beef? or even tofu for that matter? Drupal has an active community which is trying to improve usability (in fact, it's the major priority right now). This guy posted something on twitter, and now he's going to what? fork drupal? Create a theme? what's the actual plan going forward? Does he know anything about the drupal community or who is in it?
This type of complaining and promoting vaporware wastes so much effort.
OzarkMark
· 1 year ago
As a brand new hatchling of Drupal and CMS's, I find the whole setup process confusing, and tedious. From the primanry installation, to the menus, blocks, modules, SEO's and the remainder of configuration, it leaves me feeling like I have just been abandoned on some deserted island.
Before I can create my first paragraph of content, I have to wade though what seems like a quagmire of tutorials, a mountain of menu options and a learning curve so steep, that going back to notepad seems like an appealing option.
But I must go forth if my baby is to breath life. Gone are the days where you could generate some html and display a static page. Everything is so dynamic and multi threaded in this new internet model.
As I listened to Chris Pirillo's concept of Gnomepal, I saw a glimmer of hope. I saw someone with forethought and vision attempting to bring the next generation of social networking and monetization together in one design package, plus make it easy for the average person(like me)to implement.
When Gnomepal comes to fruition, it will break the mold on how we socialize and capitalize in our online universe. It will demonstrate total integration rather than the historic single web/user relationship.
Adam Kalsey
· 1 year ago
Jacob: It's not all hot air. We've been developing it for months for our own usage and now we're opening it up to the community.
There will be a site up later today with the bleeding edge, the code will be in a public SVN repository, etc.
We have no intention of forking Drupal. What we're doing is creating a pre-configured instance of Drupal with the right themes and modules woven together. With the custom code that's needed to get it all to work.
Drupal does a lot of things. We're taking one of those things (community) and building all the little things that are needed to make it work right out of the box. It's not going to be for everybody and not appropriate for every site. And that's okay.
Bill O'Connor
· 1 year ago
We've built a number of Drupal sites at this point, and, based on usability testing done recently, a great number of people find using Drupal to be a bit daunting. There is a great press for the next version of Drupal to tackle many of the usability issues that the average user feels.
Chris' idea is basically install profiles for Drupal encompassing "packages" of modules that conquer particular tasks (Digg-like site, store, etc), and this sort of work is already being undertaken by the community.
Cellarrat
· 1 year ago
I'm all for it considering driving multiple RSS feeds from Drupal for itunes etc. is driving me nuts right now.
Josh
· 1 year ago
I'm in.
I love Drupal; and if I'm going to bank on this lovely package of OSS, I'd sure like to continue to prove why it's so great.
Laura
· 1 year ago
There is no doubt there can be usability challenges with Drupal. In fact, it's a central focus for the Drupal community as we push on towards Drupal 7. http://buytaert.net/first-results-from-usabilit... Efforts like this one are very welcome!
For those who tried Drupal before Drupal 6, you might look again as the administration has gotten much easier to work with (albeit is just as complex, which is hard to get around when you have such powerful features). http://drupal.org/drupal-6.0
reddknight seems to be a bit off the mark on "bloat" with regards to Drupal, though. See http://buytaert.net/cms-code-base-comparison and learn that Drupal's code base is in fact much smaller than comparable systems. Much much smaller.
And blowski's remark about "little cabal" is strange indeed, when you consider that hundreds of people directly contributed code to Drupal 6, and that doesn't count the contributed modules out there. It's an open community, not a cabal or a VC-funded corporation. And the Drupal community has nothing to do with Typo3.
brian
· 1 year ago
One cannot help thinking that this is joining the party a bit late.
All Comments
The little cabal of people who build Drupal (along with TYPO3) don't seem to see 'ease-of-use' as a goal, and almost wear the complexity of their system as a badge of honour.
I don't know what those Drupalians are thinking.
Let's home Chris hits this one out of the park.
I am convinced that much of the bloat is unnecessary. Not only are a lot of CMS features unnecessary, I believe that much of the bloat is due to a developer mentality where they don't see anything wrong with the complexity.
Maybe you can't eliminate all the complexity, but things like RoR and Django have demonstrated there are better ways.
This type of complaining and promoting vaporware wastes so much effort.
Before I can create my first paragraph of content, I have to wade though what seems like a quagmire of tutorials, a mountain of menu options and a learning curve so steep, that going back to notepad seems like an appealing option.
But I must go forth if my baby is to breath life. Gone are the days where you could generate some html and display a static page. Everything is so dynamic and multi threaded in this new internet model.
As I listened to Chris Pirillo's concept of Gnomepal, I saw a glimmer of hope. I saw someone with forethought and vision attempting to bring the next generation of social networking and monetization together in one design package, plus make it easy for the average person(like me)to implement.
When Gnomepal comes to fruition, it will break the mold on how we socialize and capitalize in our online universe. It will demonstrate total integration rather than the historic single web/user relationship.
There will be a site up later today with the bleeding edge, the code will be in a public SVN repository, etc.
We have no intention of forking Drupal. What we're doing is creating a pre-configured instance of Drupal with the right themes and modules woven together. With the custom code that's needed to get it all to work.
Drupal does a lot of things. We're taking one of those things (community) and building all the little things that are needed to make it work right out of the box. It's not going to be for everybody and not appropriate for every site. And that's okay.
Chris' idea is basically install profiles for Drupal encompassing "packages" of modules that conquer particular tasks (Digg-like site, store, etc), and this sort of work is already being undertaken by the community.
I love Drupal; and if I'm going to bank on this lovely package of OSS, I'd sure like to continue to prove why it's so great.
For those who tried Drupal before Drupal 6, you might look again as the administration has gotten much easier to work with (albeit is just as complex, which is hard to get around when you have such powerful features). http://drupal.org/drupal-6.0
reddknight seems to be a bit off the mark on "bloat" with regards to Drupal, though. See http://buytaert.net/cms-code-base-comparison and learn that Drupal's code base is in fact much smaller than comparable systems. Much much smaller.
And blowski's remark about "little cabal" is strange indeed, when you consider that hundreds of people directly contributed code to Drupal 6, and that doesn't count the contributed modules out there. It's an open community, not a cabal or a VC-funded corporation. And the Drupal community has nothing to do with Typo3.