The blogzine

[Debashish]

I know it may sound stupid and especially after Pankaj having spent
quite lot of time on Drupal. It occurred to me several times in the
past too so let me just put it forth. I am ready for the brickbats.

Facts are:
1) The blogzine would appear once in a month
2) The content would be static (forget the aggregator here, to be very
honest an aggregator shouldn't be a part of the zine)
3) The zine would be very attractive (I almost fell from my seat
looking at this site http://www.bearskinrug.co.uk/, can we think of
something as cute as this
http://www.bearskinrug.co.uk/_work/bsr4/launch/, keep the sound on
while seeing the second link)

What I mean is, here we need a website rather than a blog. SInce most
pages would be static archiving would be matter of having pure html
stuff in simple folders.

Now tear me off :)

[Pankaj Narula]

Debashish,

Good to hear you thinking aloud. Never mind the work I have put in
Drupal, as I always consider this as learning something new. I might
use the knowledge acquired by this in someother project. What is
important is the best alternative for the magzine. I am all for the
good looks and here are my 10 paise on this -

1. It should be very easy to add more content. This is the reason for
success of blogs. Once the design or template is finalized anyone can
add more content without worrying about the presentation. No one has
to know HTML intricacies. THIS IS VERY IMP for me atleast and that is
the reason for going with a CMS.

2. I totally aggree with having archives and the requirement for nice
permalinks is a step in that direction.

3. Third important requirement is the workflow capability.

So far I have worked maximum with drupal and frankly speaking it is
not there yet. There is some work going in that direction. One of the
dudes at Civicspace is working hard to get a module magzine. Check the
following link for this guys thoughts

http://civicspacelabs.org/blog/63

4. I liked the way Mambo works and is a very suitable candidate for
our magzine, but one of the module needed for Nicer URLs is payware.

Let us keep the discussion going. We will make it happen.

जय भवानी

--
Pankaj Narula
http://pnarula.com
http://hindi.pnarula.com/haanbhai
http://pnarula.com/lamhein

[Debashish]

I agree with the complexity being reduced by a CMS but the fact remains
that the zine in any case had to be moderated/managed by a select few,
those who would actually publish it, who I think can manage it well
using HTML. And it would perhaps be easier (once we have the site
design ready).

[Pankaj Narula]

Deb,

Going with your suggestion, let us do a dry run of the zine with
content from various hindi blogs and Chittha Vishwa. This way we will
be able to comprehend the complexity involved.
What say...

Pankaj

[Debashish]

Absolutely Pankaj!. But before that should we delete all present
contents in Drupal as of now, start with a clean slate. We will make
three books, Dec (Past issue), Jan (current issue) and Feb (Forthcoming
issue). The current one should be visible at
http://www.pnarula.com/drupal/ with links to the past issue. The Feb
issue shouldn't be visible except for admin. Also I noticed that the
theme setting is not working. I would prefer a full screen format.

Now for more intersting stuff (sorry I am driving you to do more stuff
on this):
Periodical: http://drupal.org/node/14252
Magazine module in the works: http://drupal.org/node/5911

Here I found mention of CAMPSITE (http://www.campware.org/). I am not
at all sure if it fits well in the software requirements as per your
hosting. This site
(http://www.noseweek.co.za/look/ns_index.tpl?IdLanguage=1&IdPublication=5&NrIssue=63)
supposedly runs on it (exaaactlyyyyy what we need).

Thoughts? :)

Debashish

[Pankaj Narula]

Deb,

Themes are working now. There is something in drupal/civicspace that
needs to be researched and I am sure would be useful to us. So far it
has been totally over my head. But I haven't put my full efforts to
it. If you can look at the taxonomies or categroies in drupal and
understand and see how it will apply in our case it would be great.

Periodical is not useful as tested by the guy who is developing
magzine module for drupal.

I did look at CampSite after I read the reference you pointed today.
It doesn't have the Permalink functionality. Besides the Dev community
for that software would be limited too.

You can clean the Drupal as per your heart's content :D I am going to
sleep in a short while. See you guys tomorrow.

Pankaj

[Debashish]

I have done a bit with the blogzine. http://pnarula.com/drupal/
The taxonomy seems to be OK however it appears that we would need to
have terms for each issue separately which would be associated with all
posts, so for example an editorial book-post would have both
"Sampadkiya" and "Janwary 2005 Ank" terms as parent. Consequently user
can click on either to view all editorials for all issues of all posts
for the January issue respectively.

Problem points:
1. http://pnarula.com/drupal/node/19 The individual permalink posts
have two <HR>s below the post, how do we remove them (I can even add a
link to the Issue page there but how to do it either?)?
2. On any issue permalink page
(http://pnarula.com/drupal/taxonomy/term/29) you would see the posts
appear in hierarchy of posting and not as the "weight" of the category
they belong. Thus instead of the "Cover story" appearing below the
"Editorial" (as per weight) it is appearing above it (being newer
post). How can we change that?
3. Where is the "Chaupal" intro text set, I could not see it settings
as well as theme config.
4. The aggregator is not updating, gives error when tried to do so.

Rest in next,

Debashish

Pankaj Narula wrote:
> Deb,
>

[Pankaj Narula]

Very impressive work Deb, sau sunaar ki, ek luhaar ki :D

I will look at the pain-points you mentioned and try to remove the pain :D

Pankaj