The Waynethinks Site

The ds106 course is kicking off this week. The first assignment is to register a domain and create a blog to begin to discuss and share materials.

I have had this domain for several years and have various versions of blogs, wikis, portfolios...... hosted on it. My problem has been maintaining a regularly posting habit. The space has been successful as a playground to explore and experiment with new web technology. In this post I figured I would share a little bit about the back end of the site. Instead of using Word Press as the blog/CMS, I have chosen to use Drupal. Drupal is similar in function, but is generally seen as more complex yet more flexible. Word Press is designed as a blog tool while Drupal is more of a web content management system. Both are open source.

I began exploring Drupal several years ago as a few of the eLearning departments I work with started to adopt it as solution for course material. I do have to admit the tool pushes the limits of my technical abilities. Drupal is built on core of PHP and mysql, from there you can build and extend the basic installation. Generally, you need a good grasp of file management a the ability apply simple edits to PHP code, but don't need to be a programmer to create a functional site. Drupal allows for extensions with community developed modules. The selection and combination of modules is where the real magic occurs in Drupal.

In this site I have added the following modules outside of Drupal 6

• Admin Menu
• CCK
• Disqus
• Embed Media Field
• Feed API
• File Field
• Google Analytics
• Nice Menus
• Link
• Path Auto
• Token
• Views

As you can probably see, one of the challenges with Drupal is it often requires several modules even to create a basic website. There are a couple solutions to this problem. Drupal can be packaged into various distributions, which out of the box are provide functionality different than the Drupal core. Some example distributions provide frameworks for conference sites, a Digg look-a-like, online newspaper, intranet collaborative spaces, scholarly publishing and the eLearning Management System (ELMS). ELMS is the installation I'm most familiar with, it was developed at the College of Arts and Architecture at Penn State. My department at Penn State The Behrend College adopted the tool about a year ago. The second solution is to use a module called Features to identify and configure modules based on the functionality of a Drupal site you want to replicate.

This is probably too much information if Drupal or web design is new too you, but if you are interested in learning more about using Drupal, Lullabot is a great place to look for tutorials. If you have access to Lynda.com, the Drupal essential training is a nice starter course