Re: Drupal and Microsoft CMS Options?

  • From: "RicksPlace" <ofbgmail@xxxxxxxxx>
  • To: <programmingblind@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
  • Date: Sat, 11 Dec 2010 09:36:42 -0500

Hay Ken: Do you develop Drupal on your local machine? Is it running Windows or 
Linux? Or, if Windows, did you use something like xampp or the MS Web Platform 
Installer to build the development environment?
  Rick USA
  ----- Original Message ----- 
  From: Ken Perry 
  To: programmingblind@xxxxxxxxxxxxx 
  Sent: Saturday, December 11, 2010 8:14 AM
  Subject: RE: Drupal and Microsoft CMS Options?


  Do you ever do a presentation at CSUN?  If you don't you should.  We use 
droople at APH and love it but it would be nice to get some Drooplites to do 
some presentations.

   

  Ken

   

  From: programmingblind-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx 
[mailto:programmingblind-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of E.J. Zufelt
  Sent: Saturday, December 11, 2010 6:48 AM
  To: programmingblind@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
  Subject: Re: Drupal and Microsoft CMS Options?

   

  Good morning,

   

  Thought I'd jump in here.  I am currently the Drupal 7 Core accessibility 
maintainer, which basically means I help to organize efforts around ensuring 
that Drupal is the most accessible CMS that it can be.  We are by no means 
perfect, but we have made some noticeable improvements over Drupal 6, and 
Drupal 6 wasn't all that bad.

   

  Yes, Drupal powers Whitehouse.gov, along with many other government sites.  
It is a robust, secure and highly extensible CMS.  However, any accessibility 
problems you may notice on a site powered by Drupal has very little to do with 
Drupal itself, sometimes people who make custom themes for Drupal end up making 
their site less accessible than Drupal would be out of the box, because they 
know little if anything about accessibility.

   

  Drupal is a more difficult to learn system than something like Wordpress.  
Generally speaking, Wordpress is designed for people who want to quickly throw 
up their own site, whereas Drupal is designed for site builders and developers 
as a platform that can be used to launch more complex web solutions.  With the 
recent release of Wordpress 3 and the soon to be released Drupal 7 (currently 
in RC1), this difference has been lessened, but definitely still exists.

   

  Both Wordpress and Drupal have many contributed modules and themes, to extend 
functionality and to modify the look and feel (along with the markup) of your 
site.  Most anything you would ever want a Drupal site to do can be 
accomplished with existing contributed modules.  If you do need functionality 
that is currently not acheivable with contributed modules then you would need 
to create a module using the module API, modules are developed in PHP, as is 
all of Drupal.

   

  HTH,

  Everett Zufelt

  http://zufelt.ca

   

  Follow me on Twitter
  http://twitter.com/ezufelt

  View my LinkedIn Profile
  http://www.linkedin.com/in/ezufelt

   

   

   

  On 2010-12-11, at 5:46 AM, RicksPlace wrote:





  Hi Katherine: Well, don't give up on MS just yet. I have just started looking 
at how to develop Sharepoint solutions in Visual Studio and it sounds pretty 
clean and powerful as an integrated approach. I know I tried building a Local 
Website using Web Parts in VB.net 2008 and found the experience not screen 
reader friendly. Or, at least, not as friendly as using standard UI Controls in 
a regular old Website. When Windoweyes 8 comes out I might take a look at 
Vb.net 2010 to see what, if any, Sharepoint tools are included in the package 
and how accessible they are. In the meantime I have seen that various U.S. 
Government agencies and even the White House are supposedly using Drupal 
according to one Drupal Website Webpage. That means that it must be accessible 
and quite configurable since I would never have guessed those websites were CMS 
sites. They just look and perform like regular websites unlike many of the 
Drupal and other CMS sites I have visited recently. So, it seems Drupal can be 
used effectively if one knows what they are doing. My only reason for not 
jumping on it is that I like to develop on my local machine and to do that with 
Drupal I would have to either install something like xampp or whatever to get a 
simulated Linux Environment, set up a Duel Boot software disc somehow or 
implement the Microsoft IIS based Web Platform which is a huge mess to fix if 
anything goes wrong with any of it's many,, many modules installed. In fact, 
one problem would likely be port conflicts between my current Sql Server and 
the MySql server which would be automatically installed. Anyway, I don't like 
headaches so am just holding off on playing with Drupal even though it sounds 
pretty nice I am of the KISS school of thought - Keep It Simple Sir! (Note: you 
can substitute any word starting with "S" for the word "Sir" in the above 
phrase - grin. Oh Ya, I am not so sure that the thousand or so apps created by 
third party folks are designed to be accessible to screen readers so that is 
always a concern as well when working with an Open Source Project with no 
Accessibility standards for third party software plugs or apps.
  Well, that's all I have this morning from
  chilly Farmington Michigan and I am off to do a little more reading on Visual 
Studio 2010 and Sharepoint 2010 with any related offerings like Office or other 
modules and compare the development and maintenance process to that of Drupal. 
Right now I am not sure which way to fall - headaches with Linux on a Windows 
machine or working in Visual Studio and withthe built-in Sharepoint and other 
tools and the learning curve of WPF and Silverlight if necessary. I really will 
tend twoard the one that is the most stable over the next 5 years or so, has 
the easiest procedures for working with sites and offers the greatest 
flexibility. Oh ya, also add in a weighted factor based on the learning curve. 
I would like to work in the Linux environment mainly because so many of the old 
timers on this list work in it but I have had my doubts about how productive I 
might be in that environment compared to a comprehensive integrated IDE.
  I must wait  for  Windoweyes 8 to see how accessible vb.net 2010 or other VS 
products will be with it since they use the new UIA Accessibility hooks.
  Later Katherine and don't give up on MS Stuff just pick the right tool for 
the job - that is what the qualified professionals do:
  Rick USA
  ----- Original Message ----- From: "Katherine Moss" 
<plymouthroamer285@xxxxxxxxx>
  To: <programmingblind@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
  Sent: Saturday, December 11, 2010 1:27 AM
  Subject: RE: Drupal and Microsoft CMS Options?





  Oh gosh, Jamal, thanks!  These anti-Microsoft folks are killing me!  And

    whoever called Mojo Portal "Mojo thing that no one has heard of" better

    think again.  I'm a volunteer on the project, and I don't appreciate

    people's work being insulted.  And besides, that CMS works on Linux despite

    it's coding.

     

    -----Original Message-----

    From: programmingblind-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx

    [mailto:programmingblind-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Jamal Mazrui

    Sent: Friday, December 10, 2010 12:27 PM

    To: ProgrammingBlind@xxxxxxxxxxxxx

    Subject: RE: Drupal and Microsoft CMS Options?

     

    Hi Rick,

    Here is the web site of an ASP.NET-based CMS:

     

    DotNetNuke - The Leading Open Source Web Content Management Platform for

    ASP.NET -

     

    http://www.dotnetnuke.com/

     

    Jamal

     

    -----Original Message-----

    From: programmingblind-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx

    [mailto:programmingblind-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of RicksPlace

    Sent: Friday, December 10, 2010 9:43 AM

    To: programmingblind@xxxxxxxxxxxxx

    Subject: Re: Drupal and Microsoft CMS Options?

     

    Hi Gang: Jim, I don't know just yet. My preference would be to just learn

    whatever Jamal is doing but I am now thinking of putting up some sites for

    some blind folks so their sites are kept up to date and work well with

    screen readers so I am not sure about the scope of my involvement. It might

    be Drupal based or, more likely if really accessible, something in the

    Microsoft venu since I am familiar with their DB stuff and coding websites

    using various ASP Controls and Server Side coding technicals.

    For development I might use one of the packages Jacques or Katherine

    mentioned but I can start reading up on them to get some color on what this

    stuff is all about.

    Hay, Jacques, are you French? If so, are you from across the pond?

    Later and thanks for the ideas to explore.

    Rick Farmington Michigan USA

     

    ----- Original Message -----

    From: Katherine Moss <mailto:plymouthroamer285@xxxxxxxxx>

    To: programmingblind@xxxxxxxxxxxxx

    Sent: Friday, December 10, 2010 9:19 AM

    Subject: RE: Drupal and Microsoft CMS Options?

     

     

    Look at both Umbraco and Mojo Portal.

     

     

     

    From: programmingblind-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx

    [mailto:programmingblind-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of RicksPlace

    Sent: Friday, December 10, 2010 8:01 AM

    To: programmingblind@xxxxxxxxxxxxx

    Subject: Drupal and Microsoft CMS Options?

     

     

     

    Hi: I know very little about CMS. As a result of Jamal using it, I

    have looked at some of the Drupal docs by googling but am having trouble

    wrapping my head around exactly how it all works since I am an old

    Microsoft user. I am trying to figure out a similar option in the

    Microsoft World. So far I think that Sharepoint and Open Office, both 2010

    versionws with accessibility, sound like they are the Microsoft

    counterpart to Drupal. does this sound about right? Since they support

    ARIA and the other new Web Standards, or at least some articles say they

    do, has anyone tried them out? If there is another Microsoft thingy where

    it looks or works sort of a CMS with DB storage and perhaps Media support

    could you mention it so I can do a little more digging?

     

    It looks like allot of blind folks are trying to use various CMS

    Websites and most of them are pretty bad. They also sound almost as

    complex to create and maintain as a standard Website developed in

    something like VWD. Anyway, thanks for any input you provide on CMS,

    Drupal or any Microsoft counterpart products that I can research a little

    more.

     

    Again, the Microsoft 2010 versions of the Open Office and

    Sharepoint are suppose to be accessible where the older versions were not

    very accessible if that helps.

     

    Rick USA

     

     

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