Building Conference/Event Websites like FUDCon.in

!By Vaidik Kapoor

In this session...

➔ Conference/event websites ➔ What is COD? ➔ Why COD? ➔ Features in COD ➔ Comparison with other event software solutions ➔ Demo on building a conference website ➔ Case study

✓ FUDCon.in

In a nutshell...

Today, we are going to learn how to build websites for

conferences and events like FUDCon Pune. !

When in doubt, please interrupt and ask your question. I will try my best to answer your question.

Conference Organising Distribution➔ COD is a Drupal distribution.

✓ What is Drupal? ■ An open source Content Management System/Framework

✓ What are Drupal distributions? ■ Similar to the concept of Linux distributions ■ A Drupal installation packaged with a lot of modules and

settings configured for specific/generic use-cases. ✓ Latest release is built over Drupal 6. ✓ GPL v2 Licensed. ✓ Website - http://usecod.com

Why COD?

➔ Out-of-the-box benefits. ➔ Its free and open source! ➔ Backed by the amazing Drupal community.

✓ Always there for support. ➔ Saves time and energy. Prevents your from re-inventing the wheel. ➔ Lets you focus on more important issues (like functionality, design

and your event, of course). ➔ Why learn Drupal for COD?

✓ Drupal is a great CMS/F. ✓ It saves a lot of time, even if you are not a website developer or designer. ✓ You can use your experience for further projects where you don't want to

get into something completely different. Ex: project documentation websites, small community websites, etc.

Features in COD➔ Sessions Management

✓ Submission ✓ Voting ✓ Moderation

➔ Event Management ✓ Registration and fee payment ✓ Resource management ✓ Scheduling and schedule grid ✓ Space for BoFs

➔ User Management ✓ Personal schedule for every user ✓ Personal profile for every user

➔ Sponsors Management ✓ Update information and provide logo ✓ Organization of sponsors (Gold, Silver, Bronze)

And a lot of other features. !http://usecod.com/benefits

Comparison

!

A detailed comparison of features, prices, licenses, etc. with other event/conference

software solutions is available at

http://usecod.com/cod-comparison

'Nuff said!

!

!

Lets get our hands dirty!

Goal

Our goal is to build a simple conference website: ➔ Features

✓ Sessions submission ✓ Session voting ✓ Session moderation ✓ Scheduling ✓ Event registration ✓ Contact form ✓ Sending email notifications to speakers and attendees

➔ Design ✓ Where to find a Drupal theme ✓ How to use those themes

Case Study : FUDCon.in

Prior to FUDCon.in➔ MediaWiki was used for:

✓ Planning ✓ Attendee registration ✓ Session/hackfest submission ✓ Information Sharing

➔ MediaWiki ✓ Good for planning ✓ Good for internal work ✓ Good for organisers ✓ Not good for session submission/moderation ✓ Not intuitive for attendees ✓ No way to contact attendees and speakers ✓ Everything had to be done manually

Our Requirements➔ All events on the same installation. ➔ Speakers with their profiles. ➔ Sessions submission with slides/attachments. ➔ Voting on sessions ➔ Important: FUDCon follows Barcamp format. ➔ Parallel tracks. ➔ Complete scheduling. ➔ Management of resources. ➔ Attendee registration. ➔ Sponsors

The Only Problem

!

!

We were behind schedule and

we had very less time.

COD (Drupal) Themeing

➔ COD themeing is Drupal themeing. ➔ Good knowledge of HTML/CSS and

Javascript is required. ➔ Basic knowledge of PHP is required.

✓ Using of PHP variables, objects, arrays.

COD (Drupal) Themeing

➔ Pick a base theme, like Zen. ➔ Modify its HTML/CSS according to your

needs. ➔ Add some Javascript. !

You are done!

Thank You!The slide and the screencast will be uploaded somewhere

soon and the links will be posted on the session page on FUDCon.in.

!OSDC Links: λ Website

http://opensource.jiitu.org λ Wiki

http://opensource.jiitu.org/wiki λ Twitter

http://twitter.com/jiitosdc λ Facebook Group

http://on.fb.me/jiitosdc