Controlling a spacecraft with incomprehensible modules, or how I struggled with Drupal

Inspired by this post .

In the 80s everyone dreamed of a Japanese tape recorder. At the beginning of the 90s, another equipment appeared on the market, and Bang & Olufsen somehow escaped:

- If you want your tape recorder to look like a dashboard of a spacecraft, buy a Japanese-made tape recorder. If you just want to enjoy the music, buy our equipment (the quote is not accurate).
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Since I began to study Drupal, I have never been able to get rid of the feeling that I am at the dashboard of immense sizes, that I never know exactly which button to press, like that alien from the animated film Pixar .

Here is the simple list setup page:


What is not a spaceship? With that I did not figure out how to sort this list. A lot of buttons, little sense.

The first acquaintance with the drupal

In April last year, with the suggestion, Habrahabr got to the Drupal workshop in Masterhost. I was constantly let down by the deadlines my programmers and simple websites I decided to do myself on some CMS-ke. And here is just such an event! I barely managed to sign up, got.

Alexander Grafov and his comrades very diligently described all the advantages of the system, about how versatile it is, how advanced, reliable, renewable, and so on. Then he went to the educational program, but not in the Drupal area, but in the area of ​​CEO. Talked about the benefits of taxonomy. One participant said that for two days he was trying to figure out how taxonomy is done. What was the answer:

- Well, what did you want to understand in two days! Especially in taxonomy.

It strained me somewhat. If it’s only for a long time to deal with taxonomy, what will happen next?

Then we were shown a corporate trick: ease of installation of Drupal. That is, the initial simplicity. Fill the source to the host, run the index file, enter the MySQL data - that's all, Drupal is installed. This surprised everyone very much and made a strong impression: so easy! Alexander Shvets later used this technique and recorded his screencast on how easy it is to install Drupal.

But, ease of installation, it is not yet easy setup. If you think that you have already built a house, only finishing works have remained, you are mistaken - you have not even done markings for the foundation.

Hello, World!

Historically, learning a programming language begins with the display of the words “Hello, World!” Drupal is not a programming language, but still, let's try to bring this simple phrase to the first page on the newly installed CMS. This should be done just on time.

Do you think there is a “Edit” tab for administrators on the first page? Nothing like this. It is necessary to find the item “Create material” in the menu, then decide what type of material you are going to do, “Page” or “History”, then select “Page”. Finally write “Hello, World!”, But that's not all. Because the created page is somewhere inside, not on the first one, and you won’t find an item on the menu that leads to it. Now we must somehow understand where it is indicated that this particular page should be the first. No where you will not find in the drupale how to do it. But when you go to drupal.ru, it turns out that on a certain page it can be noted that this page should be displayed as the main page. And here it is happiness: on the main "Hello world".

What I can say is very characteristic of Drupal. Any action that should be done easily is difficult. And it is necessary to google it, without it, neither.

Drupal Resources

In RuNet there are quite a lot of resources about Drupal. Of course, drupal.ru , a good resource drupalcookbook.ru , still drupaldance.com , setegnom.com , already famous shvabrashvabr.ru . Everywhere a lot of materials. And everywhere ... you need to google! No order, no where. Everywhere there is a tape, which in fits and turns tells about something, but it’s not always possible to get an answer to the question. If the answer is obvious and should just lie on the surface, on the first page, then somewhere in the distant forum you will find the answer. The answer to the questions of average complexity can wait, but you can not wait. Difficult questions will remain unanswered.

The general approach of the drupalschik is as follows: we are the developers. We don't need any dumb blondes here. If you are a serious developer, you will easily master everything yourself.

Normal Drupal textbook

He simply does not. There is a level for dummies , the simplest things, how to install, how to translate, how to add a module. You will be told how to install the module, but for what - delve yourself.

And there is a level for advanced: how to solve very private problems, after everything is built, but somewhere something does not work. A huge part in the middle is simply torn out. The novice must make the race through emptiness himself.

If we continue the analogy with the construction of the house, then we can say the following: there is a textbook on how to protect the place under the fence, and then immediately scattered notes on how to hang curtains on the windows, how to fasten the bolt to the bathroom door, how to care for ficus How to lay the foundation, build a box - you will not find.

When the Drupal API resource appeared and it was proposed to be translated by the whole world, I was delighted. I thought I would translate, and learn at the same time. It was not there. This is dry advanced documentation, not a step-by-step tutorial.

A Brief History of Mops

Shvabrashvabr dot ru was born right before our eyes during the April seminar. Previous speakers outdid their time resources and Romke left 15 minutes to build on the basis of a Drupal social network such as Habr. Of course, no one understood anything, and to honor Romka, he later released a good screencast on this topic. Well done.

But here's the problem: I personally did not earn the Vote Up Down module. And he is almost the key there. Googled, and found out that I'm not the only one. We received no replies. I asked a question on Drupal.ru, on Shvabr.ru - there is no answer.

Further more. There is news: there is an article on how to do the same on the 6th Drupal. I look at the article: very superficial and formal, it is not clear for whom it is written. Not for those who really want to do something. On Shvabera.Ru ask Romka - how to build yourself? He answers - do it on the 5th, only the modules themselves are looking for others ...

What is CCK?

So, the simplest things about Drupal can learn. And what makes Drupal so attractive?
- Views,
- CCK,
- taxonomy,
- and so forth, so forth, so forth.

Where to learn this? No where Tinkering yourself.

How to make your own theme? You can take someone else and remake for themselves. You can simply change the CSS. And if you want to make a normal theme with your layout? Tinkering yourself. The above resources open and google, google, google. Collect picking information, maybe you are lucky.

Fighting for the project, or fighting with Drupal?

There was a small holivar here in Habré: “ I don’t like Drupal ” “ I love Drupal ”. Neochief , as a defender of Drupal, said that the attitude towards Drupal is going up and down, up and down. The problem - down, solved the problem - up. And the question arises: are we fighting for the project, or are we fighting with Drupal? The feeling of having a drupal.

As in the old joke: we love to overcome difficulties, and therefore we create them ourselves.

Is it really so difficult to write a textbook?

The one whose name cannot be called in Runet has created a language for creating good websites . I'm not a programmer, but after 6 simple lessons I suddenly realized that I know the language. I wrote my website with a large catalog of products, admin panel for it, and managers now use this admin panel. There are no extra buttons, sections, everything is done simply and easily. Intuitively, how to express it.

The initial ease and clarity of the language gave rise to a good textbook, together they gave rise to an easy and understandable project. Somewhat pathetically expressed, but what to do if it is so.

And heavy weight and an attempt to grasp the immensity immediately gave rise to shapeless projects about everything and about nothing.

Who is guilty?

From my topic it may seem that I blame the aforementioned Alexander, Romka and Alexey (Neochief) for not writing a good step-by-step tutorial. It would be easy and pleasant to just blame someone and shoot , but in general we do not have the right to do so. Alexander, Romka, Neochief have done a lot to popularize Drupal in Russia. And it is their right to make popular the way they do it. So I honestly say thanks to them for the work done. The fact that I personally lack some textbooks, my personal problems.

It seems to me that the problem is somewhat deeper. Drupal was originally a system about everything and nothing. WordPress is based on a blog, and everything is already hung on it, so it’s easier to learn. And Drupal - as a clean sheet, draw what you want. Therefore, when someone tries to establish at least some order in the presentation, porridge is immediately formed in the head.

Even a book about Drupal, which I honestly bought on Ozone , begins not with installation, not with tuning, but with ... writing my own module! It says a lot. Drupal is not for ordinary users, but for programmers. And it is built according to the logic of programmers: it would be the core, and the interface can always be screwed! As a result: I have seen very few easy understandable interfaces on Drupal.

In addition, another paradox pops up - the majority of web programmers dislike Drupal, they consider it a system for dropouts.

In the end, it turns out that drupalschiki - they are not listed among programmers, and among newbies, too. They are somewhere off to the side.

What to do?

I understand that advanced drupalschiki earn money, and there is no time to spend on training others. I understand everything, honestly.

But I want to remind you that Drupal is cool, thanks in large part to the huge number of people who write modules for Drupal for free. The more of these people, the more fresh ideas there will be, the more popular Drupal will be, and in the Russian part too.

Writing a good step-by-step tutorial, with a description of the main functions and modules, is needed so that programmers would stop brushing off the drupal, like: “Let's write our own on PHP-tamplate”. And this is necessary to attract those who are not very versed in programming, but can make websites: copywriters, bloggers, photographers, and other creative professions.

While the drupalschiki keep themselves inside their party, potential Drupal fans leave for Wordpress, Joomla and so on.

What appeared since the post was published

Ivan Grishaev was not lazy and translated an excellent textbook for beginners , with a description of the important modules of Views and CCK. Download it in PDF here . Recommend.

Authorship

Text writer Vadim Galkin. When publishing the text, please refer to my personal page .

Picture alien taken from the official website of the studio Pixar .