Re: [admin] Updates on the new website

[Abderrahim Kitouni <a dot kitouni at gmail dot com>]

في ح، 12-02-2012 عند 01:34 +0200 ، كتب Mohammed Sameer:
> 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.

*hides behind Youssef*

Seriously, the Arabic translation of drupal 7 is (or at least was when
we started) incomplete and there is a big warning about views for drupal
7 on http://drupal.org/project/views so we (Youssef and me) decided to
use drupal 6 for now.

But since we still didn't do much, we can start over with drupal 7 if
you really think it's better (after all, you're the expert here).

> >       * 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.

I've tried them on my machine and they seem to work correctly. It was
painful to get mailman itself to work, but the only problem I've noticed
with these modules is that one needs to enable mailman_manager first
(enabling them at the same time seems to cause problems).

> >       * 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.

OK

> >       * 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.

OK

> >       * 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.

Looks nice, but doesn't seem to be available for drupal 7...

> >       * 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.

Yes, node_import isn't available in drupal 7, and the author suggests to
use feeds instead.

> > 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.

I don't have a proper TODO list, but what I think is the most important
is:
      * move the (static) content of the current site (to the test
        instance) updating it in the process;
      * translate said content to Arabic;
      * investigate how to model the features of the current website in
        drupal.

I think your help is most needed with the latter. I had some questions
to ask you anyway.

For the blocks on the right sidebar (listing projects for each
category), I think it is easy to do them using views. But how about
project pages? like this one:
http://projects.arabeyes.org/project.php?proj=GNOME
How can one do something like this?

Regards,
Abderrahim