StackOverflow2013

Note that there are some explanatory texts on larger screens.

plurals

POHow does a CMS developer used to "traditional" templating learn how to love Drupal?
text
Body
copied!<p>One thing I struggle with in learning Drupal is managing the output. There's such an abstraction from the templating. All the output -- all the templating, really -- is meant to be done from the interface. You don't code markup, you place blocks and create views. And you have to have the correct block or view for the specific output you want.</p> <p>Contrast this to most other CMS, where you have some templating library and you're embedding tokens (or code -- actual or template-specific) in HTML markup. There doesn't seem to be any of that in Drupal.</p> <p>Example:</p> <blockquote> <p>I want a certain menu to appear for a certain content type. Instead of having a template file for that type in which I just insert this menu, I'm instead finding a block that might output what I want, configuring the hell out of it (and hoping it configures how I want it), placing it in a spot globally, then limiting it to just display for certain content types.</p> </blockquote> <p>This is a pretty huge departure from most other CMS. As I said before, there really is no...templating. It's all configuration, and as a developer, I find this really, really cumbersome. I'm navigating through all these admin screens, and trying to minutely configure a block, and all the time I'm thinking, "If I could just get at the markup, I could solve this problem in 30 seconds..."</p> <p>What's the solution to this alienation? Do I just need to bite the bullet and embrace the philosophy? Do I start writing my own themes -- would this take me back to a more familiar environment? How do other developers coming from more "traditonal" templating environments handle this?</p> <p>I'm just trying to get the big picture here.</p>

Querying!

Guidance

An individual column

Larger individual text columns get their own page to allow for proper reading.

SQuiL has stopped working due to an internal error.

If you are curious you may find further information in the browser console, which is accessible through the devtools (F12).

Reload