drupal workshop introduction to drupal part 1: web content management, advantages/disadvantages of...
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Drupal Workshop
Introduction to Drupal
Part 1: Web Content Management, Advantages/Disadvantages of Drupal, Drupal terminology, Drupal technology, directories
Disclaimer and Copyright
This presentation was created by Jennifer Hodgdon of Poplar ProductivityWare LLC.
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What does using a ContentManagement 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
What are your options?
Many Content Management Systems (CMS) are available: Drupal Joomla WordPress Expression Engine WebGUI Plone …
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
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 (but
you can pay for support) Features you need may or may not be available Your feature requests and bug reports may or may not be
acted upon
What types of sites isDrupal good for?
Examples: http://www.pdx.edu/ – Showcase: University web
site. http://www.symantec.com/connect/ – Interaction
and Community: Visitors can submit and answer questions
See http://drupal.org/cases for more
Technology of Drupal
Drupal runs on a “LAMP” platform:
– L = Linux operating system(but it can also run on Windows, Mac)
– A = Apache web server (but it can also run on other web servers; not so well on Microsoft IIS as on Apache)
– M = MySQL database (but it can also run on PostgreSQL, SQLite, and others)
– P = PHP scripting language (no choices there!)
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/node/add, the path is “node/add”
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
Content Item (called “Node” prior to Drupal 7) 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 content items have a Title, Body, a unique ID number, and
some meta-data (creation time, last updated, author, etc.) Each item 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.
Drupal Terminology p. 3
Taxonomy Def: Categories, tags, or other classifications that can be
applied to 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
Drupal’s Directory Structure
Drupal’s core areas (DO NOT MODIFY!): (files such as index.php, .htaccess, install.php, update.php) (you might need to modify .htaccess only) includes misc modules profiles scripts themes
Contributed and custom modules, themes, and libraries to be shared by all sites hosted here: sites/all
modules themes libraries
Subdirectories defining the individual web sites hosted here: sites/(other subdirectories)
settings.php (file) modules (directory) themes (directory)