Drupal Complaint
Continuing the journey, I run aground.
Have just hit a complete showstopper while evaluating Drupal as a CMS. True, I only discovered it when testing the Event Module, but the deficiency infects every drupal module I’ve seen. They make no differentiation between the ability to create a content item and the ability to publish it.
I’ve a number of community sites I develop, where the list of people allowed to submit stories/content items is larger than the list of people allowed to post to the website. Any CMS that wants to invade my space has to provide that functionality.
Yes, Drupal allows me to create new roles, so I’m able to create a “Publisher” role. But it’s pointless to do so, because none of the Drupal modules separates the permission to create content from the permission to publish it.
This is really a major deficiency. Most organizations are sensitive to what kind of material gets on the website, and ceding control of that to all registered users is out of the question for them.
A prime example is what I was testing for the Event Module. We have a state clearinghouse for chess tournaments; the clearinghouse doesn’t tell you that you can’t run an event on a particular weekend, but will inform you of any conflicts you might be having with other organizers on that weekend. The state organization supports the clearinghouse by only listing events on its schedule that have been cleared through the clearinghouse. Ideally, the organizer enters the data about his tournament, the clearinghouse examines the event, and either e-mails the organizer about conflicts or OKs it for posting to the state calendar.
Nice, straightforward workflow. The event organizer knows the details, so that person enters the data, while the publishers only know the clearinghouse has approved the event, so they click the button to allow the event to be posted to the web calendar. For our state, the clearinghouse is hundreds of miles from most of the organizers, so it’s not really feasible to clear the event face-to-face, and it’s equally unworkable to have the clearinghouse enter all the pertinent data for the tournament.
This same approach goes for several of the non-profits I work with. They have associates who they encourage to submit stories, testamonials, and the like. But they need to have control over what appears on the website under their name.
Drupal, in the final analysis, has virtually no usable workflow support built into it, and the structure of it is so loose that it would take far more effort than it’s worth to add that to it from the field. I cannot recommend Drupal for any site for which workflow control is an issue.
You can set the workflow as described. Go to admin/node/configure/types and set the default options for each content type. If you UNCHECK “publish” items won’t be automatically published – they’ll have to be approved by a moderator before they get published.
“You can set the workflow as described. Go to admin/node/configure/types”
Just one of the many joys of Drupal. I’d seen things like that mentioned often, but always thought this was a command/menu chain, which of course doesn’t exist. It wasn’t until quite late in the game I realized this was actually the path part of a URL. One of many user-hostile bits I’ve discovered so far.
Any way, I was there yesterday configuring the event calendar. Succeeded admirably in not having the item published directly, but instead dropped into the moderation queue. However, even after it was voted on sufficient times to “promote” it (the number being, BTW, one more than what the interface leads you to believe it is) I never had any luck having it show up in the calendar.
I even tried using the workflow and actions modules, with also no luck at all. The clearinghouse shouldn’t have to be the admin to approve event dates, but it seems Drupal is going to insist on it, at least as far as the event calendar goes. I’ll try later tonight to see if your suggestion works for other content types.
I suspect I may yet have to start reading code to figure out what I’m doing with this. Someday there’s going to be a car ordinary people can drive.
One of the reasons I was looking for YACMS was that some of the sites I design are going to need better workflow than Mambo/Joomla offers, so I figured I’d start down the list looking for something that meets that need.
I’ll keep futzing with it, and maybe I’ll run across a way to make it work.
If you get it working the way you like, feel free to submit a Handbook page to drupal.org so that those who come after with similier requirements will have less of a journey.
That will depend both on my getting it to work, and my deciding to keep using it. So far neither condition has been satisfied.
Documentation (HowTo’s, Handbooks, User Guides and the like) is the worst part about most packages, commercial and OS alike. In the OS world, the cause is usually because the people who write it are too close to the product. I’ve had a similar problem with a project of my own. As the developer, I was too close to the project. I knew exactly what and why about every little piece of it. Which meant when I wrote the doc, I made too many assumptions about what was clearly self-evident, and the first person who was not me got mixed up. Mea Culpa. Back to the drawing board.
Doc writing takes a lot of energy. If I stay with Drupal it’ll be worth expending the energy. If I don’t, I’ll expend the energy wherever it is I end up. Fair enough?
Here’s the issue, described in greater detail:
I go to “admin/node/configure/types” and uncheck publish. Illusion of success, as the event doesn’t get published to the calendar. BUT….
a) There’s no way to assign the moderator role, as the role doesn’t exist.
b) Creating the role doesn’t assign any rights at all to it.
c) There’s no way to assign the ability to administer just the events module (at least that I’ve found).
So I could give someone the ability to administer all the content, but I just want the event calendar farmed out to this person, not the entirety of the site’s content!
So you see what the basic problem is. I’m still digging, hoping the major problem is hidden somewhere I haven’t looked yet, but I’m starting to doubt it.