Presentation slides and resources handout delivered by Bryan Mayjor at the NETC 2010 Conference in Auburn, AL

1. Photo Credit: Two men working under car hood; young woman leaning on fender watching, 1964
William Gedney Photographs and Writings Duke University Rare Book, Manuscript, and Special Collections Library
http://library.duke.edu/digitalcollections/gedney/

2. Bryan Mayjor
Technology-assisted Education Developer
Extension & Experiment Station Communications
Oregon State University
http://extension.oregonstate.edu/eesc/
bryan.mayjor@oregonstate.edu
2

3. Session Agenda
• What is Drupal?
• Drupal Overview
• Drupal Pros and Cons
• Demonstration of Drupal Capabilities
•Q & A
3

4. What is Drupal?
Drupal is an open-source Content
Management System (CMS) used to
create dynamic websites
4

5. Requirements
Drupal requires a
– Web Server
– Database Server
– PHP
5

6. How Drupal Works
Credit: http://engineeredweb.com/blog/10/4/architect-using-diagrams 6

7. How Drupal Works
Credit: http://engineeredweb.com/blog/10/4/architect-using-diagrams 7

8. How Drupal Works
Primary Components
– Drupal Core
– Modules
– Themes
– Blocks and Regions
– Menus
8

9. How Drupal Works
Drupal Core
– What you get when you download Drupal
• Contains basic features such as user
management, content creation, blogs, polls,
RSS feeds and site administration tools
9

10. How Drupal Works
Modules
– Modules are “plugins” that extend the
core functionality
• Thousands user-contributed modules are
available to download
10

11. How Drupal Works
Themes
– Themes are the templates that determine
the look and feel of the website
• Hundreds of themes are available to download
11

12. How Drupal Works
Blocks and Regions
– A block is snippet of content that is
displays in a pre-defined area (region) on
a webpage
– Common “regions” are headers, footers
content area and sidebars
12

13. Regions
13

14. Regions
Header
Sidebar
Content Area Sidebar
14

15. How Drupal Works
Menus
– Menus display navigational links to pages
and resources
• Menus are “blocks” that are placed in
“regions”
15

16. Drupal Pros and Cons
Pros
– Easy to create basic websites
– Modular
– Supported
– Open Source
– Taxonomy system
16

17. Drupal Pros and Cons
Pros
– Standards compliant
– SEO friendly
– Built-in search
– Fine grained roles and permissions
– Scaleable
17

18. Drupal Pros and Cons
Cons
– Considerable learning curve for creating
custom themes and modules
– Code base needs frequent updating
– Deployment on non-Linux platforms is
complicated
18

19. Drupal Pros and Cons
Cons
– Open Source
– Too many modules to choose from
– Upgrading to new releases can be painful
19

20. Online Demos
20

21. Q&A
21