Why I'm sticking with Drupal...........and why you might want to consider Headway

It's no secret that the reason I chose Drupal for my first blog was because D comes before W on Fantastico, and I hadn't heard of either before!

Over the years, I've taken a lot of stick from people I work with, who believe Wordpress is the greatest blogging platform around. And you know what? They're right.

But only if you don't know how to use Drupal.

And that's a big if. Because learning Drupal is a complete and total nightmare. After a year and half, I'm pretty good with it now, but oh boy, it was some learning curve. Contrastingly, Wordpress is so much easier to use out of the box - and that's because it's designed for people who aren't techies. Drupal is almost exclusively used by experts, and the problem is all the help information and blog posts about it are written in the kind of language you and I don't understand.

With WP, you can search for almost anything and find an easy, step by step guide to do whatever it is you want to do. With Drupal, you'll end up staring at a page of what looks at first like complete nonsense!

But here's the thing: Once you know Drupal, it becomes the most amazingly powerful content management system under the sun. And trust me on this - I have been working on three WP sites for the last six months, so I am able to draw a direct comparison.

Here's some stuff I can on Drupal, out of the box, and in seconds:

Change from left sidebar to right sidebar to both
Insert content (images, text, adverts, anything!) pretty much anywhere I want on some or all pages of the site
Set up a forum (it's built in to every installation)
Set up a membership area with infinite levels of access (again, it's part of the package)
Set up a site to be dual language with auto translations
Move content wherever I want it, using click and drag
Drop in an HTML sales or squeeze page which operates outside Drupal but on the same domain

Enough of a sales pitch! I'm not advocating you should change to Drupal - the learning curve is too steep and long if you just want a blog, and that's all most of us need. I'm just explaining why I'm not moving this site, or my other sites any time soon.

Maybe there's a new way for you to get this flexibility

But, if you want to experience some of the drag and drop versatility of Drupal, while keeping the ease of use of Worpdress, then you need to look at the Headway theme. At last, it's a Wordpress theme that give you the opportunity to put things where you want them, to create stunning designs without having to know code and fine tune every setting for the best effect.

I've got to know Headway through my work in The Beyond Blogging Project, where Michael Martine and Grant Griffiths are mentors. They are the people behind Headway, and I've been really impressed to see what they can do. And they haven't finished yet. They're constantly refining and adding to what the theme can do, and people using it are entitled to upgrades as they come through.

Headway is the first theme (it's so much more than a theme though) I have seen which begins to combine the power of a management system like Drupal, with the ease of use of Wordpress.

There's some really good material on the site, including a tour of Headway. Check it out here: Headway Wordpress Theme.