Drupal is from Mars, WordPress is from Venus: Finding your library’s CMS Soulmate

Connecticut Library AssociationMay 3, 2011

Sharon ClappPolly-Alida Farrington

Overview

What We Hope to Cover

• What a web content management system is (& why your library can’t live without it)

• What open source software is (& why it’s best)• Comparison of Wordpress & Drupal

• Currently, the 2 most popular open-source web CMS’

• Help in making decisions about which to choose

Content Management System

http://www.flickr.com/photos/atibens/4578260998/

Content Management System

A web content management system (WCMS) is a software system that provides website authoring, collaboration, and administration tools designed to allow users with little knowledge of web programming languages or markup languages to create and manage website content with relative ease. A robust WCMS provides the foundation for collaboration, offering users the ability to manage documents and output for multiple author editing and participation.

- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Web_content_management_system

Open Source is Unlocked

www.flickr.com/photos/subcircle/500995147/

Open Source is Community

www.flickr.com/photos/thomashawk/170691672

Some WordPress Examples

Some Drupal Examples

WhiteHouse.Gov

A quick look inside WordPress

A quick look inside Drupal

Drupal Gardens Example: D7

Running Drupal & WordPress

“Out of the box” Hosted Versions

Drupal

• DrupalGardens.com

WordPress

• WordPress.com• EduBlogs.org

On your own in-house server

Drupal

• LAMP (Linux, Apache, MySQL, PHP) "stack“ preferred

• WAMP (Windows, Apache, MySQL, PHP) stack ok, not great

• WIMP (Windows, IIS, MySQL, PHP) doable, but a lot of extra work

WordPress

• LAMP (Linux, Apache, MySQL, PHP) stack preferred

• WAMP (Windows, Apache, MySQL, PHP) ok

• WIMP doable, not ideal

Commercial Hosting

Drupal• Available on many general

shared commercial hosts, if using lots of modules (=memory), can run into problems

• Best solution = find a good "Drupal-friendly" host or a "Virtual private server" 

• try Acquia, Hot Drupal, ANHosting, check Drupal.org forums)

WordPress

• Available on many shared hosts

• Library-specific: LISHost

Sandbox Site

Drupal• A good idea for Drupal

learning/training, testing modules, etc.

• Easiest to run "local stack" on your own computer

• Download DAMP stack installer (Drupal, Apache, MySQL, PHP) from Acquia - Win/Mac/Linux OS

• WebEnabled.com

WordPress• Usually not needed• WebEnabled.com – free

test site for 1 month

Compare: Themes

Themes in WordPress

Themes in Drupal: http://drupal.org/project/themes

Base Theme: Superstars = Zen, Fusion, AdaptiveThemes, 960

Comparing Features

Out of the box easy?

Drupal

• No• Exceptions: Drupal

Gardens.com, "Drupal distributions" like OpenPublic

WordPress

• Very easy• Installs with some

sample content to help novice get started.

Community & Getting Help

Drupal

• Community - Excellent• Getting Help - Good

WordPress

• Community – Excellent• Getting Help - Good

Size & Scope of Site

Drupal

• Can run very large & complex sites

WordPress

• Easy to run small to medium sized sites

Accessibility (Section 508-compliantHandicapped accessible)

Drupal

• Good - depending on modules, themes & how you add content

WordPress

• Depends on modules, themes & how you add content

• Admin interface – plugins to make it accessible.

Mobile Friendly

Drupal

• Excellent

WordPress

• Excellent• Requires Plugins• Examples

o WP Toucho Mobile Press

Extensible? Integration with other systems?

Drupal

• Unlimited extensibility • Excellent integration

with other systems

WordPress

• Extensible with plugins• Not as easy to integrate

with other systems

Comments

Drupal • Excellent

WordPress• Flexible control• Spam filtering• Blocking by IP, email,

language, etc.

Events Calendars

Drupal • Lots of options

o Date module o GCal Events /

Agenda moduleso Evanced integration

moduleo Ubercart integrationo Whole conference

website distribution (COD)

WordPress• Not included in core • Many options via

pluginso The Events Calendar

(free)o Event Espresso (free &

fee)

Web Forms

Drupal • Webforms = any type

of form you want to do

WordPress• Can construct basic

HTML forms • Better support via

pluginso Contact Forms 7 (Free)o Gravity Forms (Fee)

Slideshows, Images, Galleries

Drupal • Many, many options• jQuery is part of Drupal

WordPress• Core support is ok• Plugins provide many

options

Compare: Building Navigation

WordPress: Custom Menus in 3.0

http://www.mobiledrupal.com/content/overview-mobile-modules-drupal

Drupal: Navigation by Menus

Drupal: Navigation by Taxonomy (Categories)

Compare: Custom Content Types

Drupal - Custom Content Types

• 1 of the most important & powerful concepts that was developed by the Drupal community • CCK contributed module = “Content Construction Kit”

• Became part of Drupal 7’s “core” functionality (as “fields)• Many things we put on the web aren’t “pages” as much as they are

listings of information• If we could take that information apart, then we could reassemble it

and combine it with other information more easily• Like giving webmasters Lego blocks

Drupal - Custom Content Types• Example: Staff Directory

• 1 big list = 1 new or retired employee, you have to retype the whole list (web equivalent = 1 web page)

• 1 entry for each staff member means that all you have to do is add a record or delete one (Drupal equivalent = custom content type “staffmember”)

• The list is dynamically assembled (in Drupal, the Views contrib module allows you to display information however you want)

• Custom Content Types can have different characteristics, different categories applied to them (taxonomies in Drupal) • Staff members can have departmental category terms applied to

them, for example

Drupal - Custom Content Types

Drupal - Custom Content Types

Compare: Managing User Roles

WordPress – Core & Plugin

Core Support• Support for multiple roles• Admin, Editors, Authors &

Contributors• Adequate for many sites

Role Scoper (Free)http://goo.gl/nmlrm• Control individual user access• Create & control groups of user• Highly granular permissions

Drupal– Core

Core• Create whatever roles you want• Allow roles to do various

functions (very granular)• Assign users to roles

Add-on modules:• Control access to subsections of site

via content classification or individual nodes

• Get even more sophisticated & granular for collaborative teams, publishing workflows, etc.

Picking the right tool

for the job!

flickr.com/photos/robinson-rhora/

Thank you!

polly@pafa.netSharon.clapp@ct.gov