Back when I was still fairly new to web design, I made the critical error of ignoring the big CMS’s for the first couple years of practicing. I did not appreciate how complicated editing the CSS was. I refused to learn php (or hooks or any other proprietary coding). And as such, I turned more than one lucrative project down. A couple years further down the road (and a bit wiser), I have some big ideas for my friends at the moving company. Big as in can only be practically handled by a CMS.
Being a bit dissatisfied with my WordPress experience, I am turning to Drupal, and have already fallen in love with a few of its features.
- Taxonomy. Virtually every piece of content you add to your Drupal site can be tagged by a classifier. Meaning virtually piece of content can be indexed, sorted, and reconfigured depending on what the user is looking to learn more about. I this feature unique to Drupal? No. Is it more flexible and configurable than WP? Yup.
- User Accounts. Again, not unique to Drupal, but incredibly powerful. Most of my clients are intimidated by CMS’s because of how complex (read: many options and menus) the back end is. Drupal is set up so you can customize roles beyond author/editor/admin/etc. so you can let permission levels for EVERY SINGLE task accomplishable behind the scenes. Remarkable.
- Nav Menus. Do you want to add links to 5 static pages in the header, then 10 taxonomy categories in the left sidebar? Easily done. Want to reverse it? Done. Add some links to the footer? Click. All done through the admin interface: no code necessary. Brilliant!
- Modules. Want to add a photogallery? There’s a module for that. Shopping cart? Module. Contact form with spam protection. Module. All downloadable through the admin interface. 3 or 4 clicks later, you have some serious functionality on your hands.
- HTML5 compliant themes. Drupal: 41. WordPress: 16. Need I say more?
Now is when someone is allowed to call bullshit: this blog is written in Word Press [gross].
The moment 1and1 [my affordable hosting solution] gets up to speed with PHP5.2 and is capable of running Drupal7 the shift will occur.