A Drupal That Even a Content Creator Could Love?

There are many reasons to like the content management system Drupal. It’s powerful, it’s popular, and it’s free. But Drupal 6, the current version, is hard to love. The interface can be confusing. The results, for the beginning user, can be ugly. Even Dries Buytaert, Drupal’s creator, says it can be hard to tell the front end of Drupal from the back end. For non-technical content creators or designers, using Drupal 6 can be an exercise in frustration.

All that’s about to change with Drupal 7, Buytaert says. The new version is being designed with content creators, designers, and themers in mind.

“Managing content on this system will be so much easier. It brings us to parity with a lot of other tools out there. Hopefully it won’t scare people away like Drupal 6.”

Buytaert and Jeff Noyes, director of user experience for Acquia,  join Lynne Capozzi, marketing vice president at Acquia, in this webinar to talk about Drupal 7. Acquia is a company founded by Buytaert and others to provide Drupal-related support and services.

Drupal 7 will include numerous new features that will make it easier for content managers and designers to use, say Buytaert and Noyes.

Improved content management features include simplified start-up options and more intuitive information architecture, they say. You won’t have to hunt so long and hard to find recently added content. You can just click on the a content bar at the very top of the new interface and that will take you to all of the content in the system, with the most recently created on top. Point and click edit has been added, along with editing on the fly. Shortcuts, similar to bookmarks, will be available for most-used sections. The help content is more “meaningful” and clear, they say.

A new sitewide dashboard will provide quick access to frequently used tasks, recent content, and anything that might need your attention. Buytaert and Noyes say it’s all configurable and extensible. As with the rest of Drupal, they are hoping developers will create and contribute powerful dashboard blocks to make it even better.

In terms of telling the front end from the back end, Buytaert says that actually makes it easier for advanced users, allowing them to move quickly from one task to another. “But for new users, it’s actually confusing and takes a while to appreciate,” he says. So the new version will have an overlay “that tries to marry the best of both worlds.” There will be a site layer and an administrative layer, with the distinction between the two made clear.

To fully improve the interface for designers and themers, they say (around the 30-minute mark in the webinar), “there is still more work to do here,” but version 7 will have some new features for those users. The clear-cache button will be more accessible, and you’ll be able to clear the cache without having to scroll. The upgrade manager will allow you to install new modules without using an FTP server, and you can install and update modules from within the browser.

Drupal 7.0 Alpha 2 was released Feb. 23. When will it go to beta? And when will the full bug-free version be ready for commercial use? Buytaert isn’t saying and there’s a reason for that. Since development of the open source software is a community effort, it’s really up to the community. Drupal 7 “will be ready when it’s ready,” Buytaert says in the Feb. 11th webinar. “Today we have 190 critical bugs left. We will release Drupal 7 when the number of critical bugs reaches zero.” If he had to make a guess, he says, it will be sometime this year. “But we need your help.” To find out more about how you can help, you can go to the Drupal “Contribute” page.

Drupal Gardens was also discussed during the Webinar. Here is some information that from the Drupal Gardens blog:

Drupal Gardens is a hosted version of Drupal so you don’t have to worry about installation, hosting or upgrading. Think of it as WordPress.com or Ning, except that it comes with the power of Drupal. Equipped with multi-user blogging, commenting, forums, custom content types, and advanced user management, Drupal Gardens should be a great tool for organizations that want to build social sites. For those of you who would like to also test drive Drupal Gardens, you can sign up to request a beta on drupalgardens.com and we’ll be releasing more registration codes during the next few months of beta testing. We’ll run in private beta for a bit and then open up to a public beta as we get closer to a final launch in early spring.

To find out more about Drupal redesign process, you can check out this report from the Drupal site.

To find out more about Acquia, you can read their “About Us” page.

Here are the slides from the webinar: