Presentation given at the 2010 BADCamp at UC Berkeley. With appologies to Dr Suess, this presentation explores the use of Drupal as a Conference Site development tool, looking at both the good and bad aspects of Drupal and other Conference Site development tools.
2. 1 Fish 2 Fish Red Fish Dru-phish?
• Who is this cat?
– Webmaster for the Delta
Science Program
– Developing web pages
for over a decade
– Drupal Rookie
3. 1 Fish 2 Fish Red Fish Dru-phish?
The Evolution of the Science Program Conference
Websites
• My work is general maintenance for the Science Program,
but I have also been tasked with managing the websites for
our related conferences.
– 2005 State of the Estuary Conference
• HTML + CSS site
– 2006 CALFED Science Conference
• PHP and Postgres based site
– 2007 State of the Estuary Conference
• HTML + CSS site
– 2008 CALFED Science Conference
• PHP and Postgres based site
– 2009 State of the Estuary Conference
• Open Conference System
– 2010 Bay-Delta Science Conference
• Drupal with the Conference module
4. 1 Fish 2 Fish Red Fish Dru-phish?
First Stab at Open Source
Conference Site.
Created the 2009 State of the
Estuary Conference site
using Open Conference
System.
• Open Source
• Very Powerful
• Too Powerful
• Not Manageable
Needed to find another option.
5. 1 Fish 2 Fish Red Fish Dru-phish?
Had to go back to the drawing board to see what might
work.
• WordPress – had potential but not really good for
what I needed
• Drupal – again had potential, but might be too
difficult.
6. 1 Fish 2 Fish Red Fish Dru-phish?
Went to my first drupal community
Event, and Presented my first talk,
looking for help.
• Conference Needs
– User Experience
• Static Pages for General Info
• Create/Edit Profiles
• Create/Edit Abstracts for
Presentations
• Register for Conference
• Add files
– Admin Experience
• Create/Edit Static Pages
• Create/Edit Profiles
• Edit Database
• Edit/Review/Approve
Abstracts
• Abstract Registration Info
8. 1 Fish 2 Fish Red Fish Dru-phish?
Decided to go with Drupal.
9. 1 Fish 2 Fish Red Fish Dru-phish?
Modules – What to do!
• COD???
• More fish
• Very cool but at the time not
what I needed. Now probably
the direction I would go.
10. 1 Fish 2 Fish Red Fish Dru-phish?
Modules – Final Decision
• Conference
• 80% of what I needed
• Unfortunately not supported, but
only had to do slight
modifications to get it to work.
11. 1 Fish 2 Fish Red Fish Dru-phish?
Problems – If you build they will come!
• Hacked!
– Being new to Drupal, I didn’t really know about
general security and in due course the site was
hacked.
– Google searched to find out what happened.
– Learned to use the .htaccess and to lock down
permissions.
– Fortunately not too painful, only my pride took a hit.
12. 1 Fish 2 Fish Red Fish Dru-phish?
Problems – If you build they will come!
• User Error!
– Not all users are created equal.
– Screen Size is important.
– Be clearer than when you think you’re being clear
enough.
– Create a FAQ page.
13. 1 Fish 2 Fish Red Fish Dru-phish?
Problems – If you build they will come!
• Blocked!
– Not all hosts are created equal.
– .Gov sites take Malware seriously
– Really it’s not me, it’s you. It’s your fault now fix it…
– There may be no fix.
14. 1 Fish 2 Fish Red Fish Dru-phish?
Problems – If you build they will come!
• Fracked!
– Sometimes it’s important to look a gift-horse in the
mouth, the teeth are sharp and they hurt.
– Generosity with no support is not generous.
– Get full access or get busy dieing.
15. 1 Fish 2 Fish Red Fish Dru-phish?
Problems – If you build they will come!
• MySQL vs Spreadsheet!
– Workflow adjustments needed to happen.
– Creating a secondary access to the Database would
have been a good idea.
– Trying to import Spreadsheet into Drupal was a major
pain.
– Gotta find a better way to sync updates and changes.
16. 1 Fish 2 Fish Red Fish Dru-phish?
Drupal == Happy
• Will need to refine the install for
optimal use.
• Need to think about workflow
adjustments.
• Will need to join COD to address
any modifications that will make it
better for our needs.
• Upside - Delta Science Program
website will be migrating over to a
full Drupal Install!!