Posted: February 25th, 2009 | Author: msh | Filed under: Our Work | Tags: contentmanagement, drupal, flash, prototyping | No Comments »
Back in the day, Drupal was for us a platform of necessity. There was a lot to dislike about it: no object architecture to speak of, patchy module support, enormous amounts of spaghetti sprawling through the hooks-based function names, a lot of messy UI, and a deep knowledge of magic words needed to theme an element or alter a behavior. And on the design side, there was this seemingly deep-set predilection towards boxy pages.
Then we really started using it. Then Drupal 6 dropped. Now, D6 is our development platform of choice, and our default platform for many kinds of projects. Here are a few types that range beyond the typical “site with managed content” category.
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Posted: January 23rd, 2009 | Author: msh | Filed under: The Craft | Tags: drupal, prototyping | 1 Comment »
There is a vast matrix that exists in my mind (there are also other, emptier spaces of such magnitude that we dare not approach). The matrix maps functional requirements, content structures, and media assets against out-of-the-box Drupal functionality, popular and flexible modules, and theming methodologies.
This matrix exists in a Platonic form where all of the requirements and conditions map neatly to available functionality and structures. It’s only when I populate it with the real-world facts of a project that gaps emerge. Those gaps identify the responsibilities and data structures that we’ll need to delegate to our own modules. Once we group these by logical or functional affinity, we have our module strategy.
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