drupal mobile

Drupal offers a versatile open framework that allows developers quickly code and deploy content based apps for both mobile and desktop interfaces. It is the perfect CMS for going from desktop to mobile experience.

As you already know, Drupal in an open source platform, which comes wrapped in a modular fashion. Drupal is backed by a large number of developers that for a huge support community. The Drupal community is constantly working on improving and developing modules, to offer innovation and flexibility to all users. As a matter of fact, modules are created and updated on a regular basis, to stay on top of the industry trends.

This is why Drupal is able to keep up with the rapidly evolving mobile devices, platforms and networks with ease. As a matter of fact, Drupal is a highly versatile framework for developing native mobile apps, responsive sites, adaptive sites and more.

Here are a few developer advantages of using Drupal as the infrastructure for your mobile projects:
– Abstract content delivery. The content is stored in one location and there’s no need for managing it in different locations. A content type is used for each specific type of content and then associated with unique descriptions. Drupal is able to create nodes that point to the specific content.
– Easy security and access rights management. Application-level services are used to manage users and set their roles and permissions. The site administrator can set them on the fly.
– Easy to customize look and feel. Drupal uses themes to render content, themes based on one or more cascading style sheet (CSS), and one or more PHP-based template. And these are highly customizable.

Thanks to these features, a single Drupal-powered application can manage both a desktop experience, and various mobile experiences running on various devices, browsers and operating systems.

Drupal is one of the most reliable and scalable content management systems today, but its capabilities are way beyond that. It is not just a simple CMS, as it can be used as the framework for native mobile application development. The app can be the front end that talks to Drupal using the Services module, while the Drupal itself is the backend that contains content, business logic, user management and other functionalities.

There are advantages of building a native mobile application compared to designing a mobile web application. You can distribute the app through mobile app stores and gain access to native functionality. And building the app with Drupal ensures reliability. You don’t have to worry about developing future updates, about how the content is rendered on different devices or about restructuring the code. Drupal keeps everything clean and neat.

There are lots of features you can benefit from when having a native mobile application. You can stick it into Google Play or App Store and get paid, you get app purchase and subscriptions through the App Store, Google Play, or other app stores, you can implement app advertising from native mobile app networks; you can access the device’s camera for images or video, the device’s file system for caching, the device’s contacts, map functionality and much more.

These above mentioned features will probably be available for mobile web applications in the future, but for now, only native mobile applications incorporate the full package.

At this point we all know that Drupal is a powerful and easy adjustable content management system. It is easy to integrate with existing technologies, fast and user friendly. When it comes to rendering content on desktop based browsers, Drupal works like a charm. But what about mobile-based websites? Is Drupal still efficient?

The answer is YES, without the shadow of a doubt. Drupal is perfect for designing mobile-specific websites that render beautifully on any mobile device or browser. Let’s say that you’re not interested in responsive sites (although Drupal is perfect for responsive design too) and you need a dedicated mobile website or app for your business. A website that features different markup and layout compared to the traditional desktop site and uses a mobile web framework like jQuery Mobile or Sensa Touch for mobile users.

Well, Drupal comes with the Mobile Tools module which includes extremely useful features such as Web Browser detection, Mobile domain redirection, Mobile specific themes, Mobile site availability, Mobile context, plus other useful tools that make mobile site development fast and easy.

So, Drupal is very capable and versatile when it comes to designing mobile-specific websites. Mobile sites designed with Drupal provide the user with enhanced experience and are very easy to manage by administrators.