Drupal CMS. History and Fit in an Organization s Content Management Strategy. Brooke Hawkins and Jessie Whitmill

Transcription

1 Drupal CMS History and Fit in an Organization s Content Management Strategy Brooke Hawkins and Jessie Whitmill

2 I. Introduction Drupal is a free, open-source content management system (CMS) and content management framework (CMF) that is currently used by approximately 2% of the world s websites. Drupal is used by a wide variety of clients and individuals because of it s dynamic capabilities. In other CMSs, specific assumptions have been made about a website s use that are hard for a user to override. Frameworks, on the other hand, provide a user with raw materials and require knowledge of programming language with a clear design vision to build a site. Drupal s framework reflects the dynamic capabilities of its CMS and can be used to organize and maintain many different types of content grains. These dynamic capabilities are unique to Drupal, which makes it desirable for many specific instances of content management online today. II. History Dries Buytaert began the Drupal software as a message board in 1999 as a way to connect with his friends in their dorm at the University of Antwerp. The group used the forum to share updates about their lives and stay connected across buildings. The group decided to put the internal website online so they could stay in touch, keep sharing interesting findings, and narrate snippets of their personal lives - naming the software drop. Drupal, as it was renamed, was created a year later, after the group decided to make their group available for a wider audience online. It s audience then changed, and members began talking about new web technologies, such as moderation, syndication, rating, and distributed authentication. Drop.org slowly turned into a personal experimentation environment, driven by the discussions and flow of ideas. The discussions about these web technologies were tried out on drop.org itself as new additions to the software running the site. This same ideology drives the CMS today, as this open source software is made different and flexible for different purposes everyday. It is this open-source, open-access attitude that has allowed Drupal to become one of the most flexible and most diverse CMS s available. III. Functionality A. Building a Site To build a site in Drupal, users download Drupal Core to their computer s desktop. Drupal Core is a database for content, which Drupal calls nodes. Users can create their own databases for content in MySQL and upload them to Drupal Core. On top of nodes, Drupal developers and the Drupal community have created modules that provide the site s functionality. Drupal Core comes with several, pre-packaged modules, like an aggregator for RSS feeds, blogs, forums, custom URLs, file uploads, etc., but the rest of the modules must be downloaded separately. Above modules, blocks and menus affect how data is displayed. User

3 permissions configure settings to determine what users are allowed to do and see. Finally, the template of the site, written with XHTML, CSS, and PHP affect how the site looks to a third party (see Figure 1). B. Adding and Editing Content The many layers that make up Drupal, primarily modules, allow developers to create any kind of conceivable content. However, there are three main types of content a user can add to his or her Drupal site: pages, stories and blocks. Pages are the nodes of a site, providing the essential framework. Pages are meant for content that will not change very often, like an about us or contact page and by default, do not allow user interaction through comments. Stories are meant to engage website visitors. They could be used for press releases, announcements and other informal entries. By default, stories allow comments. Pages and stories can be written in plain text, but also in full HTML to allow users to completely manipulate the content. Blocks contain secondary content. Themes have defined areas in which blocks appear and are usually positioned in sidebar regions, but can also be added to headers, content or footer regions. Some basic blocks include Who s New and Who s Online, but users can add custom HTML and PHP blocks. Version control is conducted in GIT, requiring knowledge of SSH keys familiarity in the computer terminal. Drupal, however, does provide detailed instructions on how to push a project in GIT. Access control in Drupal is flexible. The website administrator(s) can create accounts and set permissions for different users based on what role they have. Searching and retrieving content is easy because of Drupal s highly specific content types. Information is organized in rich and complex ways. However, Drupal s flexibility is also one of its downfalls. As stated above, Drupal requires knowledge of HTML, CSS and PHP to create a truly customizable website. Additionally, users should make careful decisions about which modules and blocks to include on their sites. Certain modules and blocks can slow a website down significantly. Before an organization decides to use Drupal for their content, it should consider the learning curve involved in CMFs (see section V Contexts). IV. System Support and Upgrades Drupal offers Community Documentation with an Installation and Administration guide, for both users and builders. These official documents offer information on: Understanding Drupal

4 Security Structure Site Building Multilingual features Themes Mobile sites API references Version control in Git These documents offer suggestions as to which audience would benefit the most from them (users, designers or developers) and attempt to answer any question one might have, also offering an FAQ, multiple tutorials, a glossary and snippets of code. All of these documents function as wiki for Drupal developers. Though users cannot edit content on these pages, they can see revisions made to the document and view it with or without these revisions (see Figure 2). In addition to these official documents, Drupal provides an open forum and Internet Relay Chat (IRC) where any user can post and answer questions. The IRC has very specific topic channels. For instance, a user who has chosen to download and install a specific theme can follow this theme in the IRC with #drupal-themename. Each theme has specific issues, and Drupal outlines these clearly for the user (see Figure 3). The support drupal provides is extremely detailed, but someone new to drupal may find looking for help to be a long, arduous process because of this specificity. Due to the high volume of the IRC, Drupal has outlined a Dos and Don ts section to help users ensure their question is answered. For example, Drupal encourages users to minimize personal chatter, keep questions in the main channels and remain patient when waiting for a response. Drupal discourages users to read its official documentation or search on Google before posting, be precise, be patient and to not expect to have your hand held throughout the entire process. While this is helpful for users, it implies that many questions users have go unanswered. In addition to online support. Drupal offers a great number of books for different versions of the software, different audiences and in different formats. Drupal s core software is currently in version 7, which requires an Apache or Microsfot IIS web server, PHP 5.2 or higher, MySQL 5.0 or higher, PostgreSQL 8.3 or higher or SQLLite. Updated versions of software are released regularly (7.1, 7.2, 7.3, etc). However, modules and other customization features lag behind the development of Drupal s core software. For example, though Drupal 7 is currently on the market, some themes might only work with Drupal 6. Drupal 8 is currently in development and set to be released in August of 2013.

5 V. Uses Cases Drupal is particularly suited for an organization or team that has a large staff with dedicated developers and designers that would be in charge of maintaining the website and creating new web content. The CMS is not suited for an organization that cannot afford a developer to create the appropriate finished website that suits the organization s needs. Drupal s core is very minimal, and requires that users have an advanced skill set in order to create a finished project. Unlike WordPress, which offers many options for themes and styles and is very easy for nondevelopers to use, this website has a high learning curve. Yet, the finished product in Drupal is dynamic and robust. Some companies and organizations that use Drupal for their website include: Beyonce The White House Fox Searchlight WWE Fast Company Fox News Bravo TV The Washington Post Spin Magazine One specific example of this CMS s wide range of flexibility is the Mukurtu project. Mukurtu is a CMS that was developed using Drupal in order to serve indigenous populations in Australia that required special content management systems to maintain their digital archives. Due to their cultural traditions and needs, it was important for these communities to have a CMS that was flexible enough to allow for different privacy settings for each of their individual artifacts. The Mukurtu development team used Drupal to create a new CMS, one that is responsive to the needs and concerns of a culture that has atypical artifacts. The project was born from the needs of the Warumungu Aboriginal community who wanted an archival platform that allowed them to organize, manage and share their digital cultural materials in line with their cultural protocols. This solution began and ended with the understanding that technology is meant to bend to human needs, not the other way around. 1 For example, the ability to be very specific about access control, and how information was viewed: 1 Mukurtu Official Website,

6 Powerful users, groups, and roles management. Use preconfigured compositions (library, museum, tribe) or easily modify to suit your needs. 2 VI. Contexts Due to the wide range of flexibility and vast different applications that Drupal allows, this CMS requires that users have a specific skill-set when beginning to use the software. It is important that users are fluent working with HTML, CSS, and often PHP markup, as well as have a fluency with the culture of the message boards and support forums that run the Drupal site. Without this development knowledge, it would be difficult for a beginner to create a project as dynamic and flexible as the Mukurtu project, for example. Rather, this CMS would be best suited for a tech-startup, large organization, or other group that has a dedicated team of web-developers on staff. The time and energy required to make a successfully dynamic Drupal site would be sufficient for this type of team, as they would have the knowledge of the software and would be fluent working with the expectations of the community. Rather, a non-profit or other organization that does not have the finances or staff to dedicate to this sort of intensive web development might be better suited using less flexible CMSs like WordPress. VII. Conclusions A. Though Drupal is an open source software, it does not mean that is unmaintained. The limits of the flexibility of the CMS are seemingly non-existent, as users and developers have the power to create a wide variety of modules for organizing data in meaningful ways. B. There is a steep learning curve for Drupal CMS, and it is not intended for use in organizations that do not have money, time, or dedicated teams of web developers to create and maintain the Drupal site that will work best for them. C. This CMS is best suited in an environment where varied, flexible considerations are needed for content objects. For organizations who want to organize their media simply and do not require lots of specificity between their information objects, something like Wordpress or another CMS might be more suitable for their needs. 2 Ibid

7 Appendix Figure 1: Drupal s information model

8 Figure 2: Drupal details the revisions on all of their official support documentation. While all users do not have access to edit these pages, they serve as a wiki for Drupal developers, and users can see revisions.

9 Figure 3: In addition to drupal s official documentation, the software offers detailed information on each theme Drupal provides.