Hi Terry, Colin, Eric, and y'all,
This is the 2nd installment of my explanation of DrupalCard/DrupalTalk.
> Drupal is a free and open source ...
Drupal is open source. You can download it immediately. DrupalCard will also be opensource (GNU GPL). The addons we develop to make Drupal more xCard-ish will be shared with the worldwide community of Drupal users.
> ... content management system (CMS)
> and Content Management framework (CMF)
It's what Drupal is best known for: the ability to create and manage LOTS of content, view it in MANY ways, etc. It often feels like a database yet provides everything to craft interface (IDE), everything saved as process unfolds, interface and data tighly intertwined, add widgets at will, .... sounds like HyperCard, eh! ;-)
> written in PHP and distributed under the GNU GPL.
HyperCard was programmed in Objective-C, and yet none of us needed to use Objective-C to get things done. The only time the system's language comes into play is when one codes externals.
> Drupal runs on any computing platform that supports
> both a web server that runs PHP and a database (such
> as MySQL, PostgreSQL, SQLite, etc.).
This is pretty much any server that exists today! There is a large variety of databases supported, but by-and-large mySQL is the front-runner in terms of popularity. But this is a moot point for MOST of us because the database operates all-by-itself. It's backend stuff we don't need to pay attention to. All you need to know, as Colbert would say, is that there are databases and they make everything go fast. :)
> Drupal is used as a backend system for *many* web sites
It basically provides web-based CRUD ability: Create, Read, Update, Delete; which, furthermore, is not limited to content (text, images, etc) but also the interface itself. HyperCard UserLevels 2, 3 and 4. :)
> worldwide ranging from personal blogs to corporate, political,
> and government sites including
whitehouse.gov and
data.gov.uk.
> It's also used for knowledge management and business collaboration.
Just as it was with HyperCard!: it's easy for most people, tiny projects, and so on, but at the same time you can develop large-scale sophisticated applications with it. :-)
> The standard release of Drupal ("Core"), contains features
> common to CMSs. These include user account registration,
> user-management, menus, RSS-feeds, page layout customization,
> system administration, and user-generated content.
With Drupal core, as-is, you can create a custom blog, a custom wiki (with the input-format of your choice including WYSIWYG editor compatible with MS formats, with just a few addons), a dynamic web site, a groupware where any number of friends can edit, etc. :-) Multi-user online *stacks*, eh! :-))
> Over 7000 free community-contributed addon modules
> are available to alter and extend Drupal's core
> capabilities and add new features or customize
> Drupal's behavior and appearance.
Just as it was with HyperCard!: it offered us many capabilities as-is, as well as numerous addons (XCMD, XFCN, etc) that extended HyperCard's scope beyond its core abilities. Plus you integrate these addons as you need'em ... as one grows more aware of what is possible with our framework/addons. There is ALWAYS more to learn; sometimes discouragingly so; there are over 7000 addons as we speak, more on a regular basis, and because it's open + easy to extend, anyone can create addons of their own... If you find some thing coded in PHP it can probably be adapted to Drupal[Card] if it isn't already. :-)
> Because of this plug-in extensibility and modular design,
> Drupal is often described as a content management framework.
> Drupal is also described as a web application framework,
> because it meets the feature requirements for such frameworks.
HyperCard could similarly be described. ;-)
> Drupal offers a sophisticated programming interface for
> developers, but NO PHP/JS programming skills are required
> for basic website installation, dev, and administration.
None! It takes a l-o-n-g time before any PHP is necessary. Many Drupal users NEVER do any PHP of their own. In most cases it is far better to leverage existing addons than to code something new.
> In my next post, I will tie this in
> with DrupalCard and DrupalTalk. :)
And I did, in a general manner. :) In my next post(s), I will endeavour to explain, in detail, how various features of DrupalCard and DrupalTalk will be implemented in Drupal. If y'all are still interested, eh! ;-))
Alain