Introduction to Drupal. Slides adapted (only slightly) from Jennifer Hodgdon's originals posted here: http://poplarclass.com/

1. Vancouver Drupal Clinic

2. Web Content Management
Advantages/Disadvantages of
Drupal
A Drupal Dictionary
Introduction to Drupal

3. Content and settings stored in a
database
Web pages are generated by
scripts from information in the
database when requested by the
client; they’re not stored as
individual files
Edit content, menus, navigation,
etc. on the web
Content Management
System

4. Enter information once, but
display it in different ways on
different pages
 Create an event
 Have that event show up with other
events on different pages, in
different lists, grids, or calendars,
based on date, or category
What this means

5. What this means… cont.
Content is separate from
presentation
 style is consistent across site and
can be changed
Permissions system
 different users can have permission
to do different actions on the site

6. What are your options?
Many Content Management
Systems (CMS) are available:
 Drupal
 Joomla
 WordPress
 Expression Engine
 WebGUI
 Plone

7. Drupal Showcase
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.
 http://www.whitehouse.gov/
○ Theming and taxonomy-based browsing
 http://materia.kerobia.com/en
○ Internationalization
http://drupal.org/cases

8. Advantages of Drupal
Free, open-source software
(FOSS)
Huge community of users &
developers
Flexible architecture
Based on standards & best
practices

9. Disadvantages of Drupal
Flexibility … Complexity
Free and open source software
… No guarantees

10. Introduction to Drupal

11. Module
Add-on code that hooks into
Drupal to add functionality
 Core: comes with Drupal
 Contributed: download and install
separately
 Custom: written specifically for your
site)
Examples: Forum, Blog, Web
Form

12. Themes
Set of PHP files, CSS files,
and images that defines the
layout and styles for your site
Like a “skin” for an application
Can be core, contributed, or
custom

13. User / Role
User: anyone who visits your
site
Non-logged-in users are called
“Anonymous” in Drupal
Users can have accounts
 Can be assigned to roles that you can
define
 Permissions to view or edit content are
generally assigned by role

14. Path
Part of the URL of your site that
follows the base URL for your
site.
http://example.com/node/add/page
PathBase URL

15. Node
A piece of content on your site
Nodes can be displayed on
their own page, as part of
another page - or both
 but usually, 1 node = 1 post

16. Nodes cont…
A node has at a minimum:
 Title
 Body
 A unique ID number
 Some meta-data - creation time, last
updated, author, etc.

17. Content Types
Each node has a content type
 Eg: “Page”, “Article”, “Press release”,
“Event”, “Member profile”
Content types can be given
additional custom fields besides
Title and Body
 Eg: location, event date, banner
image, etc.

18. Block
Basically, boxes of stuff
 Text, links, images, generated lists, or
even nodes.
Can be placed into pre-defined
regions of your site’s theme
(header, sidebar, footer, etc.)
Can be configured to display on
one or more pages, based on
path or role.

19. title
block
regions
body
node

20. Menu
List of links to pages on your
site, generally used for
navigation in headers,
sidebars, footers
Drupal has several default
menus:
 Primary, Secondary, Navigation

21. Taxonomy
Categories, tags, or other
classifications that can be
applied to nodes (content) on
your site
Tags like on flickr, in a
glossary/index, or a dewey
decimal system

22. Weight
Number that defines the order
of a list, such as of menu
items.
Larger numbers “sink” to the
bottom of the list.
Lighter, or negative numbers,
“rise” to the top.