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Drupal CMS Development

Web Prophets has been building Drupal CMS (Content Management Systems) since 2007. Drupal is an extremely powerful CMS which is available through the GNU General Public License (GNU GPL). This license provides you with the freedom to share and change all versions of a program.

The benefit of using a CMS available through the GNU GPL is that there are hundreds of web developers around the world who contribute to extending the capabilities of the CMS; these extensions are called modules and you can find a list of them on the Drupal.org website. By these web developers contributing to the 'development community' the CMS product becomes stronger and better, and everyone who is part of the community benefits as a result.


Web Prophets effectively 'distributes' this software to you, when you pay for our services you are paying for:

  • our design work for your website
  • setting up of the core Drupal CMS and any required modules to extend the functionality of the web site you require (e.g. shopping cart or an events calendar)
  • any customised development you require to ensure that the Drupal CMS meets your exact requirements
  • test and debugging the Drupal CMS
  • hosting of the Drupal CMS on our servers (if we are your web site host)
  • any support you require after our ‘free support period’ which comes with our initial works on your web site projec

You do not pay for the rights to use the software itself.

Using Drupal CMS for your website will provide a strong foundation to add new functionality as your requirements grow, as well as providing a platform and scripting base which is widely supported by the web development community.
Additionally, utilising Open Source software allows for the development of your website without any proprietary hooks into a web development or hosting company. This means, that at any time, if you choose to host your web site with a third party, you will be able to move your site without losing any web site functionality.

 

ABOUT DRUPAL AGOV

Web Prophets recommend developing your new website on Drupal AGOV, an Open Source CMS solution specifically designed to meet WCAG AA compliance criteria. Using Drupal CMS for your website will provide a strong foundation to add new functionality as your requirements grow, as well as providing a platform and scripting base which is widely supported by the web development community.



 

Why we use it


In September 2014 AGOV was adopted by the Australian Federal Government as part of their GOVCMS solution. GOVCMS is the Department of Finance's  'whole of government content management and website hosting service for Australian Government agencies'. It has been built specifically to allow organisations to quickly set up a website and be AA compliant.


 

Responsive Theme

GOV comes pre-packaged with Zen Responsive theme. This theme is the one we have been using for years as the base for building our own sub-themes. Simply put it means the site will display well on mobile, tablet, laptop and desktop and cuts down a lot of the hard work that web designers often need to do to get a website looking good at many screen sizes and varying browser platforms.

 

Content Types

AGOV installs with established content types for Blogs, Events, Media Release, News Articles, Promotions, Publications & Standard Pages. This makes it even speedier (and as a result cheaper) for us to deploy a new website for our clients, cutting out a lot of the time consuming work. Each content type can easily be configured to meet exact and individual requirements.

 

Roles & Workflows

AGOV contains several roles already established including: Site Editor, Site Builder, Content Approver & Content Editor - we can easily change the permissions of any of these roles (or add new ones if required) to provide different levels of access to your staff; stakeholders and clients. The Workflows set up with AGOV make it easy to set up moderation for site administrators too.

 

Security Features

AGOV comes with Login Security, Password Policies and SPAM protection; helping to protect your website even more. The Login Security can block people trying to log into your website who do not have the correct username/password credentials. We can configure this for you to make it as strict as you might like. The password policy; if activated forces users on your website to reset their password at set times.

 

Google Analytics and WCAG internal Accessibility Report

Once you are logged into your site as an Administrator we set it up so you can view your Google Analytics within your website. In addition to this you can always use the WCAG Validation Reporting tool on site to do a quick review of new content to make sure you are still AA compliant. When we hand the website over to you we use several tools to make sure you are AA compliant; but it is easy to let Standards slip - so having a tool onsite is really handy to do a quick check.

 

Link Checker

AGOV comes with an internal link checker; allowing you to do a review of the Broken Link report whenever you need to confirm your website content.

 

Scheduling

All AGOV content can be set up to use scheduling; allowing you to set publishing dates for content; and removal dates for content as required.

 

Simplified Content Management

The content area has several tabs splitting General Content from Blocks, Comments, Files, Webforms and Scheduled Content. This makes it easy to jump to what you are looking for and do a specific search for the exact type of thing you are looking for. Once found you can edit and/or delete.

 

Media Module

Media Module allows you to easily upload new images; but it also reminds you to add your ALT and Title tags to ensure you stay AA compliant. This is awesome on its own; however Media Module also has a Library containing already uploaded files onto the site so you don’t need to keep adding the same image again and again. It also allows you to add Files, Audio and can even be set up to embed Vimeo and YouTube clips.

 

It is AA accessible

From our tests AGOV is cutting out a lot of the work required to make a site accessible according to the WCAG AA compliance checklist. On average our accessibility testing time has dropped to 9% of our build time. One of these websites was for a major disability service provider. They completed their own audit on the website - the feedback has been that visually impaired staff found the site easy to navigate.