Synapseindia drupal intro 0

1. Seattle Drupal Clinic
Introduction to Drupal and Web
Content Management

2. Disclaimer and Copyright
This presentation was created by Jennifer Hodgdon of
Poplar ProductivityWare LLC.
This presentation is placed in the public domain.
You are therefore granted permission to use and
modify this presentation as you wish. However, an
attribution to the source is always appreciated.
Information contained here is believed to be accurate,
but is presented with no warranty as to its accuracy.
Use at your own risk.

3. What does using a Content
Management System (CMS) buy you?
 Content and settings stored in a database: edit
content, menus, navigation, etc. on the web
 Web pages are generated by scripts from
information in the database, not stored as individual
files
 Enter information once, display in different ways on
different pages (lists, grids, calendars, …)
 Content is separate from style/presentation, so style
is consistent across site
 Permissions system: different users have
permission to do different actions on the site

4. What are your options?
 Many Content Management Systems (CMS)
are available:
 Drupal
 Joomla
 WordPress
 Expression Engine
 WebGUI
 Plone
 …

5. Advantages of Drupal
 Free and Open Source software
 You don’t have to pay for a software license
 You can modify the software
 Large and vibrant community of users and developers
 Many people testing it, finding security issues, etc.
 Many modules freely available from developers
 Many people donating their time to writing documentation, helping new
users, etc.
 Flexible architecture
 You can create your own modules for custom features
 You can create your own themes for custom design
 Based on standards:
 Core software is PHP/MySQL, giving many hosting options
 Output uses XHTML, CSS, JavaScript, so compatible with most browsers

6. Disadvantages of Drupal
 Flexibility = Complexity
 May not be the best alternative for simple or single-functionality
sites
 Takes some time to learn
 Takes some time to set up
 Free and Open Source = No guarantees
 Free support options may or may not be responsive
 Features you need may or may not be available
 Your feature requests and bug reports may or may not be
acted upon

7. What types of sites is
Drupal good for?
 Examples:
 http://www.warnerbrosrecords.com – Showcase:
Company brochure, artist profiles. Note innovative
content reuse (see Artists page)
 http://www.fastcompany.com/ - Interaction and
Community: Visitors can submit stories, comment,
rate stories.
 See http://drupal.org/cases for more

8. Drupal Terminology
 Module
 Def: Add-on code that adds functionality to Drupal
 Can be core (comes with Drupal), contributed (download and
install separately), or custom (written specifically for your site)
 Examples: Forum, Blog, Web Form
 Theme
 Def: Set of PHP files, CSS files, and images that defines the
layout and styles for your site
 Can be core, contributed, or custom
 Path
 Def: Part of the URL of your site that follows the base URL for
your site. For example, in http://example.com/admin/node/add,
the path is “node/add”

9. Drupal Terminology p. 2
 User
 Def: Anyone who visits your site
 Non-logged-in visitors are known as anonymous
 Users with accounts are assigned to roles that you can define,
such as Master Admin, Content Editor, Member
 Permissions are generally assigned by role
 Node
 Def: A piece of content on your site, which could be displayed on
its own page or as part of another page (or both)
 Basic nodes have a Title, Body, a unique ID number, and some
meta-data (creation time, last updated, author, etc.)
 Each node also has a content type, such as “Page”, “Article”,
“Press release”, “Event”, or “Member profile”.
 Content types can have additional custom fields besides Title and
Body, such as location, event date, banner image, etc.

10. Drupal Terminology p. 3
 Taxonomy
 Def: Categories, tags, or other classifications that can be
applied to nodes (content) on your site
 Menu
 Def: List of links to pages on your site, generally used for
navigation in headers, sidebars, footers
 Weight
 Def: Number that defines the order of a list, such as of
menu items. Larger numbers “sink” to the bottom of the list.
 Block
 Def: Text, links, images, etc. that can be placed in a region
of your site’s theme (header, sidebar, footer, etc.), and
configured to display on one or more pages

11. Drupal’s Directory Structure
 Top-level directory
 (files such as index.php, .htaccess, install.php, update.php)
 includes
 misc
 modules
 profiles
 scripts
 themes
 The above are Drupal’s core areas. DO NOT MODIFY!
 sites/all
 This is where you put modules and themes to be shared by all sites hosted here:
 modules
 themes
 sites/(other subdirectories)
 Each subdirectory defines an individual web site hosted here and contains:
 settings.php (file)
 modules (directory)
 themes (directory)