Joomla! or Drupal?

[altivo]

OK, I know that some of you are Drupal advocates.

I need to redesign the library web site. Immediate needs include a system that will let authorized staff members post announcements and information without knowing HTML and FTP, one that will allow some sort of user feedback mechanism, reasonably readable statistics on what's actually being used, and most importantly, some degree of hardware and OS platform independence. I'd like to develop and test for now on Linux, probably Debian, but it's conceivable that I'd be forced to put the final system on (ugh) Windows. The server I have available for testing happens to be an Alpha, though the final target might well be Intel P4.

I've taken a preliminary look at Mambo, Joomla!, Drupal, and Deki Wiki. I think I've narrowed it down to Joomla! or Drupal. What pitfalls do I need to avoid? What should I think about now rather than later?

Keep in mind the fact that I'm an old-order web manager. In other words, I know HTML, perl scripting, and a little CSS and ASP. I'm tired of patching an old FrontPage site (that I didn't design myself) using those tools and we're ready for a major makeover anyway. I'm willing to learn PHP5 if I must, but I'd like to be able to get started on this before I'm up to speed on a whole new language.

Comments

[gabrielhorse.livejournal.com]

You seem to dabble in many areas... I wish I could figure a single bit of it out, but you're speaking a foreign language through most of this entry :P Well, to me anyhow ;)

[altivo.livejournal.com]

It's all web page design. When I first started doing it the only choice was to learn HTML and write your own pages. Things have changed a lot since then, but I haven't kept up. FrontPage was a Microsoft product that let you create and edit web pages without knowing much of anything about how they worked. My predecessor used it and I inherited what he did.

I hate FrontPage, so I quit using it and continued to edit his web pages directly using a text editor. This works, but it gets old fast.

Joomla! and Drupal are what are called "content management systems". They are a couple of steps beyond a WYSIWYG web page design tool like FrontPage or DreamWeaver. They insert another layer of management that lets people modify the contents of a web page directly through a web browser (provided of course that they are authorized to do so.)

I want to enable other library staff to maintain their own events announcements and stuff so that I don't have to do it for them all the time. None of them know how to write raw HTML and there's no chance they are going to learn.

[soanos.livejournal.com]

I haven't dabbled in wed sites myself, but I wonder if Plone would work for you.
I heard my partner mention it when he talked to this person at a dinner. This guy basically wanted a system that would allow the users to update
the content without him having to dabble with the code all the time.
It is open soursce so it should be free.

Have a look :)
http://plone.org/

I hope the link is useful to you. ;)

[altivo.livejournal.com]

Thanks. I was aware of Plone, which provides functionality similar to Drupal but also requires the installation of another tool called Zope. I'm trying to keep things as simple as possible by using products that are already present on most systems.

[soanos.livejournal.com]

Ah, I see. I hope Drupal is easy to configure :)
As I said, I am not a HTML or web site wizard on any stretch of the imagination.
Just a suggestion ;)

I hope it turns out well.

[altivo.livejournal.com]

They claim it is. I'll be finding out, I guess.

[soanos.livejournal.com]

Well, I guess first hand experience is best whan finding out.
Except when learning to defuse bombs and mixing volatile chemicals. :)

[rustitobuck.livejournal.com]

Drupal for the win. I did a site or to with Mambo/Joomla, and Drupal is head and shoulders above.

Now I use Drupal exclusively.

[altivo.livejournal.com]

Drupal isn't impressing me yet. They claim to work with PostgreSQL, but it won't install that way. There appears to be a bug in the installation scripting.

It looks like I'll have to uninstall PostgreSQL and install MySQL in order to even begin. ;p

[soanos.livejournal.com]

Sounds complicated... o.O I hope you can pull it trough. :)

[altivo.livejournal.com]

No more complicated than the rest of the project, but certainly an extra nuisance.

[rustitobuck.livejournal.com]

I used to be a staunch advocate of PostgreSQL, but even popular web programs that claim to support it don't really support it all that well.

So I eventually gave up and started using MySQL. MySQL has improved greatly over the years, and so I consider it suitable enough.

[altivo.livejournal.com]

They have it all over the Drupal site that they support PostgreSQL and MySQL equally, yet the installation dies when it tries to connect to PostgreSQL. I figured I must have missed something in the setup, but I can't see what.

Drupal just says "Can't connect to PostgreSQL" and PostgreSQL says "Incomplete startup packet received" so it looks like a Drupal error. But this just seems to suggest that they haven't really tested with PostgreSQL at all.

Looked in their support forum and it's full of comments flying back and forth like "I don't know anything about PostgreSQL, but I think it will work." Not impressive, folks. Don't tell us you support something when you don't even know if it works.

[gabrielhorse.livejournal.com]

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<iI want to enable other library staff to maintain their own events announcements and stuff so that I don't have to do it for them all the time.</i>

*chuckles* aside from imagining how annoying that must be, it sounds like a good idea to teach others to be self-sufficient... even if it's done for *snickers* "selfish" reasons...

[cabcat.livejournal.com]

Mambo...mambo italliano...ay mambo, mambo italliano. *does the dance*