websites that work for you
Drupal is a very flexible CMS which can be extended to provide the functionality needed for may different types of website.
I've worked on a few projects where I was brought in for my Drupal expertise, but in the end felt that Drupal wasn't a good solution in these particular circumstances. So I've been pondering what sorts of projects is Drupal best suited to.
I've been working in the CMS arena for 10 years, and the whole time I've been expecting one or more “industry standard” CMS's to come along, but instead we've seen thousands of competing products with almost every web agency claiming to have CMS product.
While development costs have come down a long way due to greater experience and code re-use they still haven't come down anywhere close to the level that people are used to from purchasing shrink-wrapped mass market software.
Any complex website that needs updating has to be tested without affecting the users of the live site.
The challenge then is how to replicate the changes made on your test site on the live site.
If all the changes are in code then version control systems such as svn and cvs solve this problem very neatly.
But with a CMS such as Drupal some changes are inevitably required in the database.
Managing these changes without affecting the site content can be tricky.
I was recently called in to help out with a Drupal powered website that was in the late stages of development.
It's a really well designed corporate website made really easy for the
editors to add information about new projects, partnerships, news and so on. These elements are automatically cross-referenced and appropriate articles highlighted on the home page.
The Ramblers' publish the leading legal reference work on footpath law.
The latest version of this book was accompanied by a microsite within the main website.
In order to allow staff across several offices to collaborate on this project with a smooth workflow; the site was built with the Drupal CMS.
An innovative project which saw thousands of people involved in updating a UK map
The whole site is fully bi-lingual (English/Welsh) with a Custom Content Management System enabling all text elements to be easily edited in either language.
The site uses a custom Map interface - this used satellite images at large scale conveying the feel of the green countryside, and detailed walking maps at the small scale.
