[Nfb-web] Druple vs WordPress a hobbiest's perspective

Thu Aug 6 14:52:12 UTC 2015

Hi all,

I'm one of the hobbiests.  I know enough to break stuff but have to do a lot of googling to fix anything and even then things still elude me.  I work on two sites:

http://www.nfbnevada.org <http://www.nfbnevada.org/>
and
http://www.inclusiveandroid.com <http://www.inclusiveandroid.com/>

I also worked on the back end for this site.
http://www.markvillephysiotherapy.com <http://www.markvillephysiotherapy.com/>

Inclusiveandroid is done in drupal.  NFB Nevada is done in pmwiki, and markville physiotherapy is done in wordpress.

There are four people working on inclusive android, one of whom is a full time web developer.  Our web developer wanted drupal and there was no one with more experience to gainsay him.  He set up a nice site, but when it came time to display our content, it transpired that this supposedly experienced individual had no working knowledge of the views module.  So, our team, (he), ended up paying for 30 hours of contract work to create  the views for one area of our huge site plus clean up some of his code.  As an administrater of this site, I can absolutely publish and moderate content and sort'a work on the ocasionald site feature, but I definitely wouldn't be able to finish the project on my own if our webmaster were to up and leave.

I'm happier with the work I did on markville physiotherapy.  I had to turn a lot of crud on and off so that it would look like a website not a blog and so that various features would be accessible on the back end.  At the end of the day, we had something the customer and I were both confident with and he has good people to support him and help him keep it updated.

Both of these options absolutely require knowledge of html markup.  This is one of the first skills I acquired on my first windows pc back in 1999, so I was up for it.  On top of that, Drupal requires a working knowledge of php code.

When I took on the NFB of Nevada I needed a cms that did not require a working knowledge of html because of I have a need to teach people of varying skill levels to publish on the site.  Enter PM wiki which really is the closest thing to a html'less cms I can imagine.  I, as a hobbiest with my limited knowledge of PHP could get in and do what needs doing based on the excellent documentation provided.  PM wiki is highly extensible, light weight, collaborative, easy to teach and easy to learn.  The docs are fantastic.  There is an email list just like this one for pmwiki users where people have been more or less willing to help when I got stuck.  Eventualy the NFB nevada site will offer online membership management, online purchasing of novelty items such as t-shirts, online registration for workshops, conventions and seminars, and online application for scholarships.  PMwiki and Drupal both offer us all of this in their way, but wordpress as far as I know, does not.  I haven't explored all of the modules and some one will surely correct me if I'm wrong here, but I don't often see wordpress being used in this way.

PMWiki has a few  main drawbacks.  There are security issues.  You do have to install an account log in and sign up process from scratch as well as manually set permission on groups, pages and actions.  THis is a time consuming process and not for the faint of heart.  Drupal and wordpress really do a nice job of taking care of this for you on the back end unless you want something very specific.

Updates: These are frequent, I'd say on average one every couple of months which address security issues and php compatibility issues.  Extensions on the other hand are often many years out of date and abandoned by their developers.  This leads to compatibility issues not easily fixed by one with limitted knowledge of php.

When I say a few, I guess I meant two.  Those are the ones that really jump out at me as I write this.

With respect to Gabe, I don't recall seeing him at the webmasters committee meeting or reading his name in the attendence.  I've also never seen any of his work and can't comment on it; However, I found the webmasters meeting to be very professional in terms of the ideas put fourth, the presentations offered, and so on.  I don't know most of the people here, and we don't talk very much, but I don't think there's a need to call out the professionalism of the group.  As a non-professional, I'm a bit put off by the comment.

To address Peter's questions directly, I as a non-professional only use mac voiceover and NVDA.  NVDA has had the most reliable web support for probably three years now.  I wouldn't really use anythning else on windows unless an employer bought it for me and told me to use it.  Jaws is alright for some very specific tasks, but to me represents a complete waste of money for general use in the current market.  Of course, I feel the same way about window-eyes and hal and even system access seems like a stretch.  Let's go with NVDA all other things being equal.

As to which is better, drupal or wordress, I believe they are geared towards different skill levels and different website needs.  So, it would be helpful to know what your needs are for us to make a good recommendation.  If you are building a website for an NFB affiliate, then I would ask the group about the nfb template designs which were up for discussion at the webmasters meeting.  Having a template and modules for drupal pre-configured to meet the needs of most NFB affiliates would catapolt Drupal into the lead as a platform for developing for the NFB.  I would even consider porting our pmwiki site over if the feature set is close to what we want.

Let us know what you're looking for in a site, and we'll try to help you figure out what meets your needs.

Best,

Erik
> On Aug 5, 2015, at 5:56 PM, Peter Feysa, III. via Nfb-web <nfb-web at nfbnet.org> wrote:
> 
> 
> 
> Hello. 
> 
> 
> 
> I have been reading the latest email messages from this list and it seems
> like you favor Druple over WordPress. Please tell me the pros and cons. I am
> trying to decide which is best. Alsok, which screen reader works best with
> the two? NVDA or JAWS?
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Sincerely,
> 
> Peter Michael Feysa, III.
> 
> Executor Director of Emerald Coast Lighthouse
> 
> MCSE, MCP, CIW, A+ CompTIA
> 
> Bachelor of Arts International Studies / Computer Science
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> <http://www.eclfb.org/> Emerald Coast Lighthouse for the Blind, Inc.
> 
> `
> 
> 
> 
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