I was recently contacted by the Houston Area League of PC Users regarding their plans to convert their existing website HAL-PC.org to use Drupal. Their existing site was developed over many years by a team of volunteers. This has resulted in a website that does not have a very uniform appearance and that is more difficult to maintain.

Their main goals for the redesign are:

1. Allow individual contributors to create and maintain their own articles to the magazine.
2. Allow users to comment on magazine articles.
3. Allow users with the appropriate permission to upload pdf files to the site.
4. Create forums for SIG members to interact with other members
5. Improve the overall look of the website using either a purchased template or by creating a custom theme.
6. Make the site easier to maintain.
7. Incorporate all existing functionality in the new site design.
8. Pave the way for adding new functionality to the site.

I have agreed to act in an advisory capability during their site upgrade and I will be writing a series of articles describing some of the design decisions being made, technical hurdles that are being overcome, and how Drupal is being leveraged to make the site easier to maintain.

Our series of articles will start with some general administrative tasks and then move quickly into setting up the magazine pages.