Loosing Site

RoopleTheme have released Tapestry, a very flexible theme for the Drupal content management system. The tableless design validates against XHTML and CSS specifications and also performs well in Accessibility Valet tests. When properly configured Tapestry will not only give sites good browser compatibility, but can also comply with Section 508 web accessibility guidelines.

Tapestry | A Drupal Theme via kwout

Tapestry comes with 20 pre-built styles that can be used as is, or used to provide a starting point for a custom style sheet. It also comes with a very flexible set of layouts for 2, 3 and 4 column displays.

2.2. Using Tapestry Sidebars | Tapestry via kwout

Even greater flexibility is given by the Block Theme module that site administrators can use to apply a custom themes to any block on the site.

2.3. Using the Block Theme Module | Tapestry via kwout

While the template itself gives an easy mix and match approach to site design, it also acts as a solid starting point for additional CSS development, inspiration for which can be taken from some of RoopleTheme’s designs for dooce and 43 folders.

Services | RoopleTheme via kwout

(CLARIFICATION: The 43 folders theme was created by RoopleTheme based on a design by Chris Glass.) 

Tapestry is open source, released under the GNU General Public License it is compatible with Drupal 5 and 6.

Coventry based Senokian Solutions have just launched Tactile, a hosted contact management and sales pipeline tool. Tactile is aimed at small businesses who are daunted by the cost and complexity of traditional customer relationship management solutions.

Tactile CRM: Easy to use affordable CRM. Client and contact management, sales pipeline reporting and email management. via kwout

Before building Tactile CRM, Senokian spent time working with local companies to better fit the software design to the needs of a typical small business. Their approach is described in an evaluation of an implementation of Open Source in Health Care by OpenAdvantage.

NHS: National Institute for Mental Health in England — OpenAdvantage – Freedom, Choice, Control via kwout

Tactile is built on EGS, an award winning open source Enterprise Groupware System, built using PHP, Postgress, adodb, Smarty, Prototype, Scriptaculous and the Zend Framework.

EGS via kwout

With prices ranging from free (2 users) to 75GBP (200 users) per month Tactile’s hosted service provides a scalable low-cost  CRM solution. Where and whether Tactile finds a niche depends in part on their selection of features and interfaces, but also may be affected by location, support and cultural nuances expressed in the interface.

Today marks a milestone for the Drupal content management system as version 6 is released.

drupal.org | Community plumbing via kwout

Significant changes include:

• easier setup and installation
• drag and drop administration
• multilingual interfaces
• improved workflow handling through the use of actions and triggers
• OpenID support
• many improvements to theming
• enhanced security
• improved performance

Greg Knaddison has prepared a good screencast demonstrating some of the updated features.

New features in Drupal 6 (updated) | Mastering Drupal via kwout

For designers an important change is the introduction of .info files for themes, through which designers can define and control regions, features, stylesheets and scripts. This improves the separation between design and code, paving the way for smoother team interactions.

Work has already begun on drawing up a roadmap for version 7 with Dries Dries Buytaert’s definition of a killer containing:

• Better media handling
• Custom content types in core
• WYSIWYG editor
• Better performance
• Better tools to structure/organize content
• Basic Views like module
• Automatic upgrade functionality
• Improve node access system
• Better internal APIs
• Better external APIs (import/export, webservices)
• Usability improvements

Background information on this selection of features can be seen in Dries ‘ presentation on the state of Drupal at the Barcelona 2007 Drupalcon.

Every now and then I need to find a new tool to work with. It might be a blog or a content management system, a image gallery or an e-learning platform. It could be for a personal project, for a client’s needs, or just a whim. More often than not my starting point is opensourceCMS.com.

Home – OpenSourceCMS via kwout

This site hosts 150 live demos of open source content management systems with both the public interfaces and the administrative interface exposed for you to experiment with. This means you can get a quick feel for a packages interface, structure and capabilities without having to download, unpack, install, configure etc.

Three things to bear in mind:

• There is only one instance of each package running, so if someone else is evaluating the same application at the same time you will see some unexpected changes.
• Each application is refreshed every 30 minutes. This means that all your changes will be lost and you’ll be starting from scratch. This is a way of shortlisting, not of conducting an in-depth evaluation.
• Only PHP/MYSQL packages are included. If you’re looking for .NET, Rails or Servlet solutions you’ll need to look somewhere else.
• The installations are plain, vanilla, out of the box; no extra plugins, modules or themes. So in Drupal, for example, you won’t see a WYSIWYG editor even though there are several available.

Although the site’s focus is on content management systems it’s fairly broad in its definitions, including blogs, forums, shopping carts, project management systems and e-learning applications in the mix.

I use this site intensively three or four times a year. Each time I use it I save time and effort, quickly drawing up a shortlist of applications that meet my needs or my clients’ needs.