Re: [admin] Updates on the new website

[Mohammed Sameer <msameer at foolab dot org>]

On Sun, Feb 12, 2012 at 05:17:34PM +0100, Abderrahim Kitouni wrote:
> 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.

I used views despite the warning :D

It worked fine for me but no it seems that views is ready.
The only _practical_ advantage I see with Drupal 7 is that we won't
have to worry about upgrading it soon.

I guess drupal 7 offers better content translation support. I guess we
can also get that with drupal 6 but it might be a pain to update to 7 :(

However if the translation is incomplete then we should either:
1) Stick to drupal 6 and work on the translation.
2) Jump to drupal 7 and fix the translation _if it won't take a long time_
I guess we will have to update to drupal 7 anyway at some point and we need
to have the translation there but I'd rather not stop the website efforts just to
fix the translation.

We can live with some untranslated strings not visible to the end user. Do we know
whether the current state of the translation is satisfactory or not ?


> 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).


Mailman is a "bit" painful ;)
We can always First make it run then make it run better!


> > >       * 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

At least Fakhouri thinks it's needed so we need to investigate this.


> > >       * 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...

The module is very minimal. I'm sure I can port it fast if needed.


> > >       * 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.

Nah! That's going to be a mess.

What we can do is to use drupal 6 + node_import to import the content then
upgrade to drupal 7 :P

I can also write a simple importer that can be invoked via drush if needed.


> > > 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.

The problem when I started working on the drupalification of arabeyes is that
we didn't know what's needed from the website. If we know that now then it will
make the process way easier.


> 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?

If we want something minimal then:
1) Each project is a custom CCK node.
2) Contributors are assigned via the user reference field.
3) Notes for projects are another content type done via CCK.
4) Each note references its parent project via node reference
5) http://drupal.org/project/nodereference_url can be used to put an "add note" link
  to each project.
6) Permissions will be a bit complex:
   - Users referenced as contributors will be given update access to the project
     using http://drupal.org/project/nodeaccess_userreference
   - Only contributors can create notes and this is done via http://drupal.org/project/nodeaccess_nodereference

The permissions part is really complex but it depends on what we want from each project node!

Cheers,

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