[Nfb-web] Using Drupal on Safari

Wed Jan 7 06:26:03 UTC 2009

Hello Mike H. and listers,

    I knew they were both content management systems, but was wondering if 
Drupal has more keyboard shortcuts than X Catalyst and if the same problem 
we had with X Catalyst happens in Drupal. Recall that we tried selecting 
text for formatting. If we moved off of the selected text to activate the X 
Catalyst commands for formatting text the text would be deselected and we 
could not do the formatting. Some of us also had trouble creating links with 
X Catalyst as well. If you tried creating a link when you viewed your 
document the HTML was displayed instead of the highlighted text to alert the 
visitor that that text was a hyper link. I'm wondering how this is handled 
in Drupal and if this is a problem there too, or can one activate keystrokes 
in order to keep the text selected for formatting, insertion of hyperlinks, 
creating forns, etc. That's what I was getting at with my question. Thanks 
for the great information.

Peter Donahue

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Michael Hansen" <mhansen4 at gmail.com>
To: "NFB Webmaster's List" <nfb-web at nfbnet.org>
Sent: Wednesday, January 07, 2009 12:05 AM
Subject: Re: [Nfb-web] Using Drupal on Safari

Peter,

Good question. I could answer it by asking whats the difference
between a Packmate and a Braille Note? Drupal and X Catalyst are both
Content Management Systems (CMS). So for the benefit of others, a
Content Management System is a web based application tht runs on your
webserver. At a minimum it provides a method of authentiation (to be
able to log in and out) and a method to create web content via a
system of web forms. This is ment to make it easier for non HTML savy
people be able to maintain a website. It also allows you to update
content no mater where you are as long as you have web access.

Many Content Management Systems go far beyond this though by allow you
to create different types of content like (polls, forums and, user
provided comments). Many CMS's also provide a mechanism for other
programmers to right add-on modules to further enhance the features
available in the CMS. For instance on the NFB of Nebraska website I am
working on I have modules installed to help with backups, allow for
online sales and, host a picture gallery.

Now Peter specificly the differences I have found between Drupal and X 
Catalyst.

1. ITS FREE. Now this obviously means that the price is right, but in
this case it also means that there is a huge user base and development
community.

2. Since drupal has such a large development community there is a huge
amount of add-on modules available for it.

3. Now I use drupal vissually but I know from reading on the website
there is a consious effort to keep the core of drupal accessible to
the blind. This consious through on the developer part was on of the
key reasons I choose to persue it. alot of drupals competitors are
mouse over menu driven and I imagine potentially very difficult to
navigate with a screen reader. Drupal is navigated purely by hyper
links.

4. If you have gotten a chance to try X Catalyst you should recall the
What You See Is What You Get (WYSIWYG) editor. Drupal can have one of
these, if you load the right add-on module, but by default it relys on
the CSS of the site and the content developer to know some basic html,
so you can format your content using HTML or PHP as you type it in.

5. Conceptuall X Catalyst had 2 sides to it a development side and a
published side. Drupal implements this feature a little differently.
There isn't 2 seperate interfaces you just have to conciiously publish
content. Each peice of content has a published atribute. If you
publish something then the world can see it, but only a content
developer will see it untel it is published.

Let me know if I didn't hit on something you were wondering about or
if you have further questions.

I will say I was a little intimidated by drupal when i first installed
it. To me it was a completely new way to look at website development.
Until I got use to how it works I found myself getting frustrated
because I knew how to do something the old way but not necessarily in
drupal. I am happy to say though that I am now very comfortable with
drupal.

Unlike some of you I would not call myself a developer but instead a
integrator. I am good at taking other peoples work (programs) and
making them work together. Working with Drupal has forced me to begin
to learn PHP and CSS. This has been a struggle but I don't regret it.

Mike
---
Mike Hansen

On Mon, Jan 5, 2009 at 1:31 AM, Peter Donahue <pdonahue1 at sbcglobal.net> 
wrote:
> Hello Michael,
>
>    Can you explain how Drupal differs from X Catalyst?
>
> Peter Donahue
>
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Michael Hansen" <mhansen4 at gmail.com>
> To: "NFB Webmaster's List" <nfb-web at nfbnet.org>
> Sent: Sunday, January 04, 2009 11:18 PM
> Subject: Re: [Nfb-web] Using Drupal on Safari
>
>
> Couple notes on Drupal,
>
> 1. I am about ready to cut the nfb webmasters site over to a drupal
> version. I am working out some of the last details but it will allow
> us a password protected site (one of the original requests by Gary). I
> am also looking at allowing members to contribute content that way we
> have a place besides email to share ideas.
>
> 2. I have a Drupal NFB Affiliate template that I have worked up over
> the last few days. It is roughly the same layout as the Offical NFB
> Affiliate templates and uses the same color sceme but still needs some
> work to be exactly the same. If any one is interested in it let me
> know.
>
> 3. If there is interest I would be happy to setup a Drupal Sandbox
> members could experiment with.
>
> Oh and by the way drupal is awesome, I have to thank Atty for turning
> me on to it.
> ---
> Mike Hansen
> NFB of Nebraska
>
>
>
> On Sat, Jan 3, 2009 at 9:57 AM, The Crowd <the_crowd at cox.net> wrote:
>> Some hosting companies are still not up to 6.8 though, unfortunately.
>>
>> Atty
>>
>> Life is short ...forgive quickly, kiss slowly, love truly,  laugh
>> uncontrollably... and never regret anything that made you smile
>>
>> "Qui docet, discit."
>> "He who teaches, learns"
>>
>> I have learned that people will forget what you said,
>> people will forget what you did,
>> but people will never forget how you made them feel.
>> Maya Angelou
>>
>>
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>
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