Re: [admin] Updates on the new website

[Mohammed Sameer <msameer at foolab dot org>]

On Wed, Feb 08, 2012 at 08:55:57PM +0100, Abderrahim Kitouni wrote:
> Salam,
> 
> For those not following regularly, we have installed drupal 6 on
> Arabeyes server at http://drupal.arabeyes.org and we have a test
> instance at http://abderrahim.arablug.org/arabeyes/

Good job!

I'd however greatly recommend using Drupal 7.
Drupal 8 will be out at some point and 6 will lose its security support.

However we will enjoy a longer period of support if we start with Drupal 7.


> I'm looking at what modules we can use to have a better experience for
> the site:
>       * I think CCK (Content Creation Kit) and Views are must have.

I think that's a must too.


>       * Regarding mailing lists, I found mailman_manager which
>         integrates mailing lists nicely with drupal. Another interesting
>         module is user_mailman_register, it allows drupal to use the web
>         interface of mailman to provide a better integration with the
>         website (e.g. providing the option to subscribe directly from
>         one's profile, or directly when subscribing)

I don't really have much experience here.


>       * Another module which offers better integration is listhandler
>         which allows one to bridge a forum and a mailing list (like
>         google groups). I'm not sure we really need this as it seems
>         really difficult to setup. http://drupal.org/node/40777

I don't think it's needed here as well. It might be nice if we can browse
the lists from the drupal website but having a forum might fragment the
efforts which are not that much anyway.


>       * wysiwyg allows to integrate editors (like tinymce) in drupal
>         (which is nice, although I'm not sure this is really needed).

I'd not use it since normal people will not be posting anyway but that's
just my opinion.


>       * If we want a custom theme, I think the best way is to use a
>         "starter" theme: I'm thinking about either tendu or blueprint.
>         tendu seems the best starter theme for dealing with bidi, but
>         blueprint does also support bidi, and it is based on the CSS
>         framework with the same name (which I'm interested in learning),
>         so I think either one will do. Anyway, we can get away with the
>         default theme for now.

There's also the jquery bidi module. It will set the direction of the HTML
elements per the unicode standard.


>       * node_import seems a good way to import news and updates from the
>         old site. I've already imported news and things seem to be ok
>         except for a few items, I'll try to see what I can do about
>         them.

Last time I imported data to drupal I ended up writing a piece of php code and ran it
using drush. I think because node_import was not available for Drupal 7.


> That's all. Ideas, feedback and help are always welcome.

How can we help ? I'd love to but I haven't much time these days.

Cheers,

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