The Drupal Cookbook (for beginners) he Drupal Cookbook (for Beginners) helps Drupal "newbies" by providing a walkthrough of a common Drupal Setup. You might also be interested in this whirlwind video http://drupal.org/documentation/customization/tutorials/beginners-cookbook
Background This handbook was originally written for Drupal 5. While the information is generally transferable to Drupal 6, some buttons, links, and menu items have been renamed or moved. Every attempt is made to keep these handbooks current. The intent of the Cookbook is to help the new Drupal user create a typical site. At that point the user will be better equipped to diving deeper into more advanced features.
Terminology This cookbook requires a basic understanding of the General Concepts of Drupal. Additional resources for understanding terms used in Drupal include: • Terminology (Terms) . • Drupal Jargon .
Conventions The Cookbook and other documentation on drupal.org uses the following standard for indicating site navigation: Administer >> Access control >> User management >> Roles. The above example tells the user to click on "Administer" in the navigation menu, then "Access control," then "User management," and then "Roles".
Working with Drupal Here are some general reccomendations: • Use a test site that uses the same Drupal version and modules as the target site. Use a copy of the live database. Avoid development on a live site. • Don't try to make the "perfect site" on the first attempt. Muddle through for a while. Stressing over the perfect solution can lead to frustration. • Start by learning the basic functionality of Drupal. Find out what Drupal can do before working towards a specific goal. Once comfortable with the "core" features and behavior, move on to more complex contributed modules such as Views, CCK, and Organic Groups. These modules and some others require a good bit of understanding to master. The power and flexibility of Drupal and its modules will become apparent over time. • If you need a custom theme, customize one of the default themes before creating starting from scratch. Refer to the Drupal 5 theme guide or Drupal 6 theme guide. • Limit the number of blocks, images, and graphics that clutter the page. • Participate in the forums, the Documentation Team, and IRC.
1 Get support through Drupal.org Before posting to the Drupal.org site: • Search to see if the subject has already been covered to avoid having duplicate postings & issues. If Drupal's search fails, Google will often point to the right references. To use Google to limit the results to Drupal.org include in the search field site:drupal.org • Ask one question per post. The issue tracking system can only handle one at a time. • Don't hesitate to ask the question again and add I'm a newbie, can you say this in easier to understand terms, please? • Before posting, read the tips for posting in the Drupal Forums. Try to describe the situation/case completely. Explain what has been done so far and what you are trying to achieve. • When requesting changes don't demand or threaten to abandon Drupal, and certainly don't resort to name calling or derogatory comments. Often times the best way is to jump in and ask how to get involved. • In general you will see core versions written as 5.x and 6.x or a specific version as 5.18 or 6.12. Contributed modules are listed with a core compatibility and a version number, such as 5.x-2.5 or 6.x-1.6, which mean "Drupal 5 compatible, Version 2, release 5" or "Drupal 6 compatible, Version 1, release 6." This way, if you see "5.x-2.5" you can know that it means a module release rather than a core release. For example, if a page is not showing up correctly, be prepared to provide the following information: 1. A descriptive title 2. Operating system and browser name. Version information and a list of potentially relevant plug-ins you are using are often important. 3. Version of Drupal (5.x, 6.x etc) 4. Any contributed modules 5. The versions of PHP and MySQL being used, as well as the name/URL of the hosting provider. To see which versions of PHP and MySQL (or other database) that the site is using, in Drupal 5 navigate to: Admin >> Logs >> Status Report, and in Drupal 6: admin >> reports >> status.
Things to keep in mind A common mistake when approaching a solution to a problem in Drupal is to make an assumption about how Drupal works. Drupal is a unique and powerful platform that is probably quite different from other solutions you may have encountered. Start simply by making something visible, then celebrate what you have accomplished. Taking one small step at a time will lead to a better site. Don't indiscriminately add many contributed modules right away. Get comfortable with modules one at a time. Modules that are not appropriate or used should be disabled and uninstalled. As with most things worth mastering, there is a learning curve with Drupal. But there is lots of support available as well.
2 Creating content At this point, you might want to read The 11 Most Important Things To Do After You Install Drupal. Content types A content type defines the way in which content is collected and displayed. Content types are a container for all content with the same characteristics (e.g. a "Bio" might contain different kinds of information than an "Event"). Some fields are part of all content types (e.g., basic data such as a title, date, and author). Some modules create their own content types and some don't. Those that do can have unique fields defined in their content type (e.g., the Location module adds fields such as city, country, longitude, and latitude). Additional custom fields of many kinds can be added using the CCK module which is part of Drupal 7 Core. Content types have settings that can be modified by editing the content type and managing the fields.
Examples of content types provided by core Drupal modules:
Page A page is a simple method for creating and displaying information that rarely changes, such as an "About us" section of a website. By default, a page entry does not allow visitor comments and is not featured on the site's initial home page.
Story A story, similar in form to a page, is ideal for creating and displaying content that informs or engages website visitors. Press releases, site announcements, and informal blog-like entries may all be created with a story entry. By default, a story entry is automatically featured on the site's initial home page, and provides the ability to post comments. In Drupal 7 the Story Content Type comes along with an image field to attach images to the content.
Examples of content types provided by non-core (contributed) Drupal modules:
Webform Create a new form or questionnaire accessible to users. Submission results and statistics are recorded and accessible to privileged users. Get Webform module.
Image An image (with thumbnail or other sizes). This is good for photos, art work or screen shots. Get Image module.
Create your own content type You can define a content type to exactly meet your information needs. The easiest way is to start with a page. As you create your content, think about the menu as well. Another handbook section you may find useful is Creating new content.
3 Creating content To create content: click Content management > Create content (Drupal 7: Content > add content), then select the content type you want to create. There are usually one or more fields within each content type. We are providing an example of a page. • Title and Body fields are found in most content types. • Body is where you put the text for the page. "Input format" controls what code can go in the Body field. There are three (core) options: filtered HTML, PHP code, and full HTML. CCK allows you to change the name of this field; for example, you might call it "Product description." • Use the log message to provide information that might be useful to other authors who may edit your document later, or provide your rationale for making edits to your own or other people's content. The log message is not visible to users without the appropriate content editing rights. • Menu settings are used only if you are making this piece of content an item in one of your menus. It's the most efficient way to create menus. Another handbook section you may find useful is Working with the Menu. • Comment settings are probably best set at the site level (click Content management > Comments > Settings), but can be specified for an individual piece of content. • You can attach files to many content types. The "Upload" module must be enabled, and then the content type has to be set to allow this. • If you enabled the Path core module or added PathAuto, you'll have URL path settings next. You can enter a "normal" name here rather than being required to use "node/2" when you refer to it later on. PathAuto will automatically create a URL based on your page title. • Authoring sets the time stamp and creator information. The other use for this section is to control the page or story order when they are based on the time and date it was created. • Publishing options: only "Published" items show up on the website. You can also promote content to the front page and make the content item sticky to the top of lists. The final step is to preview your content and to Submit your page.
4 The 11 Most Important Things To Do After You Install Drupal 6
So you've decided to choose Drupal for your web project right? Good decision. I won't repeat all advantages of Drupal here, but this is a best platform for your web project unless you want to stick with PHP Framework and to start your development nearly from a scratch. Ok, I guess you already read all these articles about 'Top 10 things to do with Drupal' and bla bla bla... Well there are maybe some useful, but most of those tip lists are real content bullshit. Sorry for the strong word 'bullshit', but I'm tired of surfing and scanning through obvious steps as 'Create content' or 'register user 1'. I will tell you about The 11 Most Important Things To Do After You Install Drupal. You will do this earlier or later, but after this checklist you will do them from the start and will save your precious time in future. Ok, let's start:
1. Disable Unnecessary Core Modules Go to modules and disable: Color module - you don't need this cause you will use your very own theme and won't colorize Garland (We're making a serious project, right?).
2. Enable Necessary Core Modules Go to modules and enable: Path module - you'll need this one to have a control over Drupal paths. Also enable PHP filter module, it allows embedded PHP code/snippets to be evaluated. And don't forget about Search module, it will let your visitors search on the site.
3. Make It Easier To Navigate Install Administration menu (http://drupal.org/project/admin_menu) module - this module is a real time saver. Install it right after steps 1 and 2 or even you can execute step 3 right before 1 and 2. The module renders all administrative menu items below 'administer' in a clean, attractive and purely CSS-based menu at the top of your website. It contains not only regular menu items - local tasks are also included, giving you extremely fast access to any administrative resource and function your Drupal installation provides. This is a must have modules for every developer and site adminstator. Access any menu fast and easy. I remember my days without this module, this was a real nightmare surfing through multiple Drupal menu links.
4. Feel The Power Of Content Type Creation Install CCK (Content Construction Kit http://drupal.org/project/cck) I'm sure, someday this module will enter Drupal core package. CCK works as its name sounds, it let's you to contstruct and content type with any fields set you wish. Want a fields with select boxes or Imageuploads or maybe, radio buttons or check boxes? No problem, CCK's posibilities are nearly endless. You can't live without this module.
5. Control Category and Content Output Install Views (http://drupal.org/project/views). Views is one of the most popular Drupal modules. It works in close with CCK (however it can live without CCK). The Views module provides a flexible
5 method for Drupal site designers to control how lists and tables of content are presented. This tool is essentially a smart query builder that, given enough information, can build the proper query, execute it, and display the results. It has four modes, plus a special mode, and provides an impressive amount of functionality from these modes. However I love the fact Views exists, I personally don't use it much because of somewhat expensive queries it produces. But it will work for most of your tasks. Fully themable and flexible.
6. Configure The Way Drupal Works With Urls OK, we have already enabled path module. Let's install three more. Pathauto (http://drupal.org/project/pathauto), Token (http://drupal.org/project/token) and Globalredirect (http://drupal.org/project/globalredirect). Pathauto and Token work together and will help you to automate clean url and aliases. You can define the structure of the path depended on content type, taxonomy, vocabulary, etc. Global redirect is another handy modules which will save your life from Google Double Content penalty nightmare. It will 301 redirect your 'node/11'-like paths to their aliases.
7. Tune Your SEO I'm sure you know about this simple rule: no SEO, no visitors, no customers, no money. So you need a SEO friendly site! There are two main modules for SEO to be installed: Nodewords (second name Meta Tags, http://drupal.org/project/nodewords) and Page Title (http://drupal.org/project/page_title). Nodewords module allows you to set some meta tags for each node, view or panels page. Page Title allows you to set custom page titles for any node (page or content type), also you can specify patterns for how the title should be structured.
8. Configure Search One of the main features of every site is the Search. Web Users often use web site search and this feature should be properly configured, you need to build a proper and regular built-in Drupal search index. Go to Site configuration -> Search settings and check your settings.
9. Don't Forget About a Backup Always do backups, especially, before doing any significant changes. There are plenty of various solutions for FTP and MySQL backup, but start with small: install Backup and Migrate (http://drupal.org/project/backup_migrate). Backup and Migrate simplifies the task of backing up and restoring your Drupal database or migrating data from one Drupal site to another. It supports gzip, bzip and zip compression as well as automatic scheduled backups. Very useful and saves data and time, the two most precious things for a web developer.
10. Configure Your Cron I won't explain how to configure cron jobs on your server. This is simple, just check your hosting provider's FAQ. But don't forget to do this in order your search re-indexing and sheduled backups to work. The path you need to call is http://www.example.com/cron.php
6 11. Buy a Good Drupal Book There are lots of Drupal oriented books, but there is one essential, written by Drupal developers: Pro Drupal Development, Second Edition. You can get it from Amazon. (CLICK HERE). This one will help to understand Drupal and how to develop modules, so you will be able to change any module or write a new one from a scratch. UPDATE (07/08/09): The following steps were added thanks to useful comments of my readers:
12. Server Tweaks Bump your memory limit to 96MB. Most of hosting providers allow to do this, if yours doesn't, leave him with no regrets. You can extent a memory limit either in htaccess or settings.php. a) For .htaccess tweak: edit the .htaccess file in the Drupal root directory. Look for the section: # Override PHP settings. More in sites/default/settings.php # but the following cannot be changed at runtime. and immediately after this add the following line: php_value memory_limit 96M b) If you're afraid of tweakening .htaccess, you can do the same with the sites/default/settings.php file. Locate the PHP settings section and add the following line at the end of that section: ini_set('memory_limit', '96M'); Why did we set limit to 96M? Well, 96M is suitable enough for most modules, for example Image module requires 96M of memory to operate correctly.
13. Lower The Number Of Http Requests Drupal modules produce numerous .css and .js files. Almost every enabled module adds its own files. The more .css and .js files you have to load on every page, the more http requests your server should serve, the longer loading and page rendering time your visitors will experience. But there is a nice solution built in the Drupal: enable caching and css /js compression in admin/settings/performance. This will compress all of your .css and .js files in one combined file each which will reduce the time of page rendering and the number of http requests. As a result, your pages will load much faster and your server will experience lower load. But use this function wisely, enable it only on a production web site.
As a Conclusion Drupal offers endless opportunities for Web developers and for casual users too. I hope these 11 first steps will help you to unleash the power of Drupal. If you have additions to this post, feel free to contact me here! regards, Tim
7 "Teasers" - short summaries of node content Throughout Drupal you will find the concept of a Teaser. A teaser is a short piece of text, usually the first paragraph or two of an article. This text is then displayed in most lists, including the default home page (/node). Many modules (including Views) are designed to work with node teasers, and the concept of a "teaser" vs the node "body" is integral to the workings of Drupal core and the Drupal UI. The length of the default teaser can be modified. You will be able to change the number of words after which Drupal attempt to break the text cleanly. When the length of the content exceeds the set limit, a link to "Read More" will automatically be displayed. In Drupal 6, click Administer > Content management > Post settings. In Drupal 7, the instructions are a little more complex, but you get more flexibility as this setting can be changed on a per-content type basis. 1. click Administer > Structure > Content types. 2. click the "Manage display" link for the content type you wish to edit 3. click "Custom Display Settings" to drop down its settings 4. make sure "Teaser" is enabled. Save the content type if you had to make a change. 5. you should see a "Teaser" sub-tab. Click it. 6. make sure the Format is set to "Summary or trimmed". 7. click the gear widget on the right side of the settings 8. set the trim length and click "Update" 9. click the "Save" button Some modules help you to display different content, or different versions of that content in 'teaser' view vs full 'body' view. image.module for example inserts a thumbnail of an image into the teaser, while you see a page-sized version when viewing the node. CCK provides many features under Administer › Content management > Content types allowing you to fine-tune what does and doesn't show as a teaser.
Teaser break The length of the teaser can be overridden when editing the node content itself and allows you to choose a logical length for the introduction. In Drupal 6 the edit interface gives you the option to "Split Summary at Cursor". Using that button will visually divide your edit area into [teaser] and [the rest of the content]. Some of the Drupal contributed WYSIWYG editors also provide that feature in their own way, when configured to do so. Drupal 5 offers the ability to manually enter a special tag to indicate where to split the content.
Show summary in full view When you first 'split' a teaser from the body content, it is still treated as part of the page when the full page is displayed. This is the easiest, and most intuitive way for automatically-generated teaser text to work. A reader always sees [teaser] and [the rest of the content] without seeing any break. For more control, better grammar, or to make the teaser text more promotional in nature when the first paragraphs on their own don't adequately describe the node, you can choose to not "Show summary in full view". If you choose this option, the custom description will not be displayed as part of the full-text. Your
8 full text should be complete, and make sense alone, and your teaser, which is used to entice readers to click "Read more" can be entirely different from the text that appears in the actual item. Some more reading: Using teasers for effective SEO Yet another solution for editing media content on a Drupal-site. Here I am going to explain my successful experience of tuning my Drupal sites. We have few steps to make sure that users can easily add and edit rich-content on a Drupal-site. 1. At first, let us install the following modules (this solution requires you to disable the jquery ui module, so skip this page if you need to use this feature. Although you can try to make them working together. Isn't the CKEditor's jquery adapter usable for it? ): • WYSIWYG: http://drupal.org/project/wysiwyg • CKEditor 3: http://ckeditor.com/download (unpack it to your Drupal site's sites/all/libraries directory). As described on the official site, IBM, Oracle and Adobe are using CKEditor. • IMCE: http://drupal.org/project/imce • IMCE Wysiwyg bridge: http://drupal.org/project/imce_wysiwyg 2. Go to admin/settings/wysiwyg page and assign CKEditor to input formats you need to use for editing rich-media content. For these input formats configure the HTML filter on admin/settings/filters/*filter_id*/configure page. You need to add some tags to the list of enabled ones. Append the table, tbody, thead, tr, th, td tags if you want to allow the tables; the object and embed tags for flash objects. If it's intended to edit the rich media content by admin only, simply disable the HTML filter. 3. For each admin/settings/wysiwyg/profile/xyz/edit, where xyz is identifier of Wysiwyg CKEditor profile, it's good idea to enable all the toolbar buttons you want to see in CKEditor. But if you want to browse and upload media files, you must enable the IMCE button. Don't forget to select CKEditor's language. 4. Assign IMCE profiles to Drupal user roles on the admin/settings/imce page. 5. You can customize CKEditor's appearance - here's the way to find out how: http://docs.cksource.com/CKEditor_3.x/Developers_Guide/Setting_Configura.... After these steps you will get rich-media online content editor on your Drupal site working for you. Setting up your home page ke one of those items your home page. Go to that page and note the URL, e.g., node/1. The URL must be the system URL (eg "node/1"), not an alias such as that generated by another module or one you've assigned to a node yourself ("pretty-url-1.html"). If you try to use an alias url to set the front page, the results will be quirky, such as some blocks not showing up. Go to Site Configuration > Site Information. At the bottom of this page where it says "Default front page" you will see Default front page. Type in the URL of the page you want to be your home page, e.g., node/1. Save this and test it out by clicking on the home page link.
9 Working with menus Menus are how users move around a website; by clicking on words like 'Services' or 'Contact Us', they will get to your content. As such, it is important to think about what the best terms are to describe your site to someone who isn't familiar with what you or your organization offers. Happily, the time it takes to think through and decide on the best options probably takes less time than it takes to actually build them. Drupal 6 comes out-of-the-box with three menus. The first is the 'Navigation' menu, which is the one used to administer the site (it has the 'My Account' and 'Administer' links in it). There are also the 'Primary' and 'Secondary' menus, which show up in different places on the page (and, by default, are empty in a new Drupal installation). You can also add new menus, like 'Footer Links' or 'Foo Bar' or anything else you might like. The next few steps show you how to add a new menu as well as how to add new items (links) to an existing menu.
Creating a new menu
Start by going to the navigation menu and follow the links: Administer > Site building > Menu
You'll end up at the Menus page
10 There are three fields: menu name, title, and description
Menu name The menu name has to be 'machine readable', which means that it can't have spaces, punctuation, and has to be lower case (like the help text says). This is for Drupal's own internal use. Title The title is for humans and may be visible to site visitors as well. It can be anything you want. Description Writing a description for your menu can be useful to describe why the menu was created.
Once you have entered your information save the menu.
Adding a menu item to an existing menu Click on the name of the menu you would like to edit. (If you created an entirely new menu per the above, the navigation menu will now show that new menu, e.g. 'Foo Bar'.)
11 To add a new menu item, click the Add item link
Path The path is where the menu entry will take your visitor. This can be external, as it is in this case http://drupal.org, or internal such as node/1 or admin/reports. Menu link title Give your menu entry a title. In this example, Drupal Description
12 A description can be useful to tell yourself and others what the menu entry is for Enabled This checkbox allows you to make the menu entry active or inactive (show or not show) without having to delete it. Expanded If this menu entry has sub-entries, known as children, this allow the menu entry to stay expanded so that the children are shown by default. Parent item Parent item selection allows you to choose where in the menu hierarchy your menu entry belongs. Weight Weight defines the relative rank of your menu entry. A smaller number means it is placed higher up.
Now save your menu entry.
Display your new menu To display a new menu you will need add a Block display to your Drupal installation. To do so, go to Administer > Site building > Blocks and scroll down to the 'Disabled' section (where blocks that aren't currently being displayed are managed). You can activate the Foo Bar block by dragging it to the left sidebar (or any other region). When complete, you should see:
Your left sidebar should now display Foo Bar followed by the link you specified
You should now be able to create and edit menus. You can read more about blocks at Blocks - Adding extra information
13 How to display sub menus (children) of primary links in Drupal This page describes how to display sub menus (children) of primary links in Drupal. Step 1: Since we'll be using php codes in a block to display menu, the first thing to do is to enable the PHP Filter under modules. Step 2: Go to administer->block->add block and create a new block. Add a description (for instance submenu). Choose PHP Code as the filter and paste the code below in the body textarea. $m) { //check current active menu if ($m['link']['in_active_trail'] && $menuItems [$key]['below']) { $menu = menu_tree_output($menuItems [$key]['below']); } }
//print the menu print $menu; ?>
Make sure you include the php delimiters in your code. Click Save. Step 3: Place your block in a region you want. and that's it. next time you select a menu item in the primary links, the children menu items will show in this block. You can use active-trail to style the selected menu item.
Primary and Secondary Links The Drupal theme layer supports the output of two lists of links in your theme, each taken from a single tier of the menu system. In the theme settings admin they are called "Primary links" and "Secondary links", but they are commonly just referred to as menus, because their content comes from the menu system. Drupal also provides two default system menus called "Primary links" and "Secondary links". When you first install Drupal, these menus are assigned to the theme's Primary and Secondary lists of links (that is, the $primary_links and $secondary_links theme variables). This means that themes that support these variables show the top level items of both of these menus. It is possible to assign any menu to these variables by visiting the Menus settings page (Administer > Structure > Menus > Settings or http://example.com/admin/structure/menu/settings in Drupal 7, and Administer > Site building > Menus > Settings or http://example.com/admin/build/menu/settings in Drupal 6). A powerful feature of this primary/secondary system is when you choose the same menu as the source for both theme variables. In this case, the two menus magically couple together, and the Secondary links shows you the second level of items from the menu for the page that you are on. This makes the maintenance of your menu far easier, especially if the primary and secondary menu content is closely related.
14 The ability to use the variables in this way is why many themes display $primary_links and $secondary_links in a closely related context.
Drupal 7 In Drupal 7 this same system is still largely in place, but some of the names and default menus have changed. At the theme layer the variables are now called $main_menu and $secondary_menu. The default top level menu has also been renamed to ‘Main menu’. There is no longer a menu analogous to Secondary links, and the new User menu (containing user information) is assigned to the $secondary_menu by default.
Video Tutorial For a video tutorial of how to use the primary / secondary system in Drupal 5 and 6 check out. http://www.lullabot.com/videocast/using-secondary-menus
Related Module Menu block is a module that allows the children link behavior of secondary menu to be used via blocks — and for as many menus as you want, and for tertiary or greater levels, too. Users, roles and permissions Your site requires different permissions to be set per user type. For example, you probably won't want casual visitors to edit your homepage. However, the site owner or trusted user should be able to do so. To learn more about the term "user", learn about Differentiating the Four Different Kinds of "Users" Encountered When Installing Drupal. Drupal allows you to setup any number of different kinds of users or 'Roles'. Many websites have editor and site administrator roles; editors to make content updates and site admins to install new modules and make larger configuration changes. Out of the box, Drupal recognizes two types of site visitors - those who are logged in (or 'Authenticated' users) and those who are not (or 'Anonymous' users). The exception is the first user created (user/1) -see here. Although it is not necessary, many sites have additional levels of users.
Managing roles in Drupal 5.x and 6.x To create or edit a role, click Administration > User management > Roles. To create or edit a user, click Administration > User management > Users. To specify the permissions for a role, click Administration > User management > Permissions. To add editors to your site, you will first need to create an editor role. Click Administration > User management > Roles. Type in the name of your new role (e.g. 'editor') and click 'Add role'. To add a new 'editor' user, go to Administration > User management > Users and click the 'Add User' tab. After typing the username and email address, enable the 'editor' checkbox and click 'Create new account'. Finally, you can configure permissions for editors at Administration > User management > Permissions. To give editors the ability to edit any page within the site, scroll down the permissions
15 page and click the checkbox next to 'edit any page content'.
Managing roles in Drupal 7 To create or edit a role, navigate to the Roles Page ( Administer > People > Permissions tab > Roles tab ) or go http://example.com/admin/people/permissions/roles To create a user, navigate to the People Page (Administer > People) or http://example.com/admin/people To specify the permissions for site roles navigate to the Permissions Page ( Administer > People > Permissions tab ) or go http://example.com/admin/people/permissions For example to add editors to your site, you will first need to create an editor role. Click ( Administer > People > Permissions tab > Roles tab ). Type in the name of your new role (e.g. 'editor') and click 'Add role'. To add a new 'editor' user, go to (Administer > People) and click 'Add User'. After typing the username and email address, enable the 'editor' role by selecting 'editor from roles and click 'Create new account'. Finally, you can configure permissions for editors at ( Administer > People > Permissions tab ). To give editors the ability to edit any page within the site, scroll down the permissions page and click the checkbox next to 'edit any' for each each content type. Adding modules and themes Just a note: Before installing extra modules, you should consider the required functionality for your site, and only add a module if your site actually needs it. Unnecessary modules add to the memory and other resource needs of your site, and will make pages load slower. Because a module is popular or someone tells you that 'every site needs it' doesn't mean that yours does. There are good sites that have been built with absolutely no contributed modules at all. Also, you should focus on content, functionality, and configuration of your site before you consider how it should look (the theme), since that decision can be made later and may detract from your thinking about functionality and content. Themes are largely a matter of taste. For example, many people do not like to use a "fixed width" theme, but lots of people do. One nice thing about themes is that they are mostly independent of your content so you can switch them when you want. Caution, though, there are parts of your site (blocks, for example) that get built based on the theme, so switching themes can leave junk lying around to slow down your site. Now, if you experiment with different themes and modules, you should also look at the Update Status (core in D6) and Site Documentation modules to make sure you are current and to document and clean up the mess your experimentation will make. Here are some suggestions on choosing the release: Strong stomach? For examples of different opinions on what are "must have" modules, here is one, and here is another.
Installation 1. Go to the Drupal site and click on the "Downloads" tab. Then select either "Modules" or "Themes" depending on what you're after.
16 2. Locate the module or theme you want. 3. Make sure there is a version for the version of Drupal that you are using. Drupal 5 modules and themes will not work on Drupal 6. 4. Click "Find out more" and read the notes. This gives you the chance to see if there is support for your release of Drupal. You can also look at pending bugs and feature requests - it might change your mind. 5. Download the release for your Drupal version. 6. Unzip the downloaded file (on Windows you can use a program like WinZip). 7. Extract the code to to your /sites/{sitename}/modules/{modulename} or sites/{sitename}/themes/{themename} folder. If you are not running multiple sites, this would be /sites/all/modules/ or /sites/all/themes/. 8. That's it! Now you need to enable the module or theme. You should end up with a folder structure something like:
For advanced users If you have access to a Unix shell (e.g. SSH), the following series of commands will download and extract the files directly to your server. Before you start, use the pwd (print working directory) command to confirm that you are in the correct directory (e.g. modules). If not, use the ls (list directory) and cd (change directory) commands to navigate to the correct directory. Steps:
1. Download archive: wget http://copy_and_paste_archive_url/sitedoc-5.x-1.x-dev.tar.gz 2. Uncompress archive: tar zxvf sitedoc-5.x-1.x-dev.tar.gz 3. Delete/Remove archive: rm sitedoc-5.x-1.x-dev.tar.gz
Note: the module sitedoc-5.x-1.x-dev.tar.gz is taken here as example please check the current version and or substitute with your preferred module.
17 Modules To enable a module, click Administer >> Site building >> Modules. The non-core modules are listed farther down. With 5.x, they now show you some of the inter-module dependencies. You can turn them on and "Save configuration" in order of the dependencies. For example, "Views UI" requires "Views", so you can turn on "Views" first, save the configuration, then turn on "Views UI." and save again. Most modules introduce some kind of menu items. Those will generally appear automatically when the modules are enabled. A few menu items will not show up until the permissions are set (the next step). And even fewer require you to take action to add the menu items, but the modules will have instructions on how to do that. Now the real work begins. Click Administer >> User management >> Access control (or Administer >> User management >> Permissions in D6) to select who can use the features of the new module. If the module introduced new content types, go to Administer >> Content management >> Content types and configure them. Don't forget this may also affect your "Input formats" (Administer >> Site configuration >> Input formats) and "Categories" (or taxonomy, Administer >> Content management >> Categories); you'll have to check those too. Okay, now you can start using the new module.
This site Nancy's documentation site is a relatively "vanilla" implementation of Drupal. Core Modules Contributed Modules in Use Enabled • Blog • Codefilter - Provides tags for automatically escaping and formatting • Book large pieces of code; used for formatting code snippets. • Comment • Meta Tags (Nodewords) - Allows users to add meta tags, e.g. • Contact keywords or description. • Help • Site Documentation - Documents and cleans up your configuration. • Menu • Taxonomy List - a demonstration for one of my modules. • Path • Web Links - a demonstration for one of my modules.
To get some idea of what modules are available, check these links: module handbook and contributed modules handbook.
18 Themes To enable a theme, click Administer>>Site building>>Themes If the theme has never been enabled on this site, you will have to check the "enable" box and then click the "Save configuration" button at the bottom. To set up how the theme works, click on the "Configure" link (not the tab at the top). Fill in the fields. Save the configuration. Don't leave the page yet.
Logo and favorite icon Now use that "Configure" tab Some people prefer to do this part under the "Global Settings" but it can be done theme-by-theme. The "Default Logo" is that little picture (usually) in the upper left corner of the page. For example, on the "Bluemarine" theme, it's the Drupal logo. If you want to change it, here's how: 1. First, find out what size it is because you'll want your own logo to be about the same. (If you are comfortable with HTML and CSS, you can also edit the theme's code to accommodate your logo rather than resizing the image. How to edit theme code is not covered in this guide.) Theme Name Width Height Bluemarine 48 55 Chameleon 49 57 Garland 64 73 Minelli 64 73 Pushbutton 144 63 Fancy 80 80 2. Under "Logo image settings" either type in the path to your logo, or upload it from your PC. 3. Note: Neither one of those options turns off the "Use default logo" check box. You must select the correct check box yourself. 4. The "Shortcut icon" (a.k.a. the favorite icon, or "favicon.ico") is the same way. If you want to change this, you must specifically say, "Hey, Drupal, I'm changing this." Now you click the "Save configuration" button. If you did this in "Global settings" it affects all themes (assuming they behave properly); if you did it for a single theme, then only that theme is changed. For a list of all available themes, check Themes. HINT: Going to make a few (or a lot) of changes to a standard theme? Think about copying it over to your /sites/sitename/themes/ folder and renaming it. Then you can do anything you want and still be able to undo it easily by recopying. If the changes are a bit bigger, think about contributing it back to the community (with your name, of course).
19 Adding a contact form While a contact form is a simple concept, it can be a bit complex to get set up and operating. Read this whole page before doing it the first time. Don't give up; it really does work.
Setup The easiest way to add a contact form to a basic Drupal site is to enable the contact module. Go to Administer > Site building > Modules and locate it in the list of core modules. Enable the check box and go to the bottom to save the change. Click Administer > Site building > Contact form. Here you can set up the "Categories" - or recipient name/office. For example, email for the Sales Department might be given a category of "Sales." The email address that the form is sent to may be [email protected]. If you want a reply automatically sent to the person sending the contact email, you can specify that here. Don't worry if you don't know them all right away, you can come back and change this at any time. Click the "Submit button." Now click on the "Settings" tab. Here you can limit how many contact emails an individual may send in an hour -- this helps limit spamming. You may also turn on personal contact forms here; this allows users to contact each other. Click on the "Save configuration" button.
Grant access permissions In order to allow people to use this contact form, you will need to give them permissions to do so. Click Administer > User management > Access control (in D6 Administer > User management > Permissions), locate the "Contact module" entry and enable it for the roles that will use Contact. Save your changes. The menu link (next step) will not be visible to anyone not having access.
Add "Contact" to the menu Go to Administer > Site building > Menus. You can add a 'Contact' menu item as described in the Working with Menus section.
Using it in content To add a link to a content page use Contact Us. Need a customized contact form? Check the WebForm, Contact Forms or CCK modules.
Contact form spam If you find you're getting spam emails through your contact form, check out the Gotcha module or use the Captcha module.
20 Categories (Taxonomy) You will see a lot of posts on the Drupal site about creating and using a Taxonomy (or "vocabulary" and "terms"). While it is true that the more content you have the more obvious the need for a taxonomy becomes, there is certainly no reason why a smaller website that has things to classify can't use it. But to try to help you get a slightly better idea of how to use them, we'll use a case study here. The Recipe module is probably a good example. On one site, in order to foster a bit more "community" feel and encourage visits, the administrator decided to add a group cookbook (a real one, not like this book). The recipe module does that. It didn't take very long to realize that entering a bunch of recipes without any organization would get messy pretty quick. Well, recipes fall into several categories: Appetizers, Entrées, Desserts, etc. So let's set up those things as a "vocabulary" with which we can organize the recipes. 1. Go to Administer>>Content management>>Categories and click on the "Add vocabulary" tab. [In Drupal 6, the menu path is Administer>>Content management>>Taxonomy] 2. Enter the name, for example "Recipes." Then a "Description" like "Our community cookbook." 3. Select the type of content this applies to. The Recipe module introduces a "recipe" type. 4. Select a "single" hierarchy. Later on, if the number of contributions gets large, you can always add sub-categories (like "Beef," "Poultry," and "Pork") and change to a multiple level hierarchy. 5. Select "Required" to force the users to choose a category for any recipe they enter. That's it for the "vocabulary," so click on the "Submit" button. You'll go back to the Categories list. You should see your new vocabulary listed. Towards the right, you'll see a link to "add terms." Click on it. 1. Since this is a single level hierarchy, the "Parent" should say "
21 Blocks - adding extra information Blocks are used to show extra information on pages, as is often seen in the left or right columns of a page.
Adding a 'Contact Information' block Many websites include contact information in the sidebars. This is a very straightforward task to accomplish with Drupal. 1. Click Administer>>Site building>>Blocks. 2. Click the "Add block" tab.
3. Fill in the "Description" and "Body." Here's a sample body: Example Organization
123 Main St.
Mytown, State Zip
USA
(123) 456-7890
4. Save the block. 5. Now you can "Configure" the block to add the block's title and define it's "Visibility".
22
6. Follow the Configure link next to the block and enter "Contact Information" as the block's title. 7. Decide if you want to allow users to turn the block on or off, and, if so, which roles should have that ability. Leave this as is for now. The next section allows you to choose which pages the block will be shown on; Leave this empty to show the block on all pages. 8. Save the block. 9. Now you're back on the block list. Find the block you just created in the list and choose a "Region". You can use the "Weight" parameter to set its position with in the selected area. For example, if you like the address at the bottom, you can use a heavier weight. 10.Click the "Save blocks" button. Migrating content from another site Once your new Drupal site is up and running, your next challenge may be to port possibly years worth of content from a previous site. There are probably as many ways to do this as there are sites on the web. Therefore no one method works for everyone, but you usually do not need to start from scratch. Various migration methods have been contributed to the community. There are even Drupal modules to convert an entire site from other standard CMSs into Drupal. See the page, Migrating to Drupal in the Installation Guide for more information. http://drupal.org/handbook/migrating
23 Moving stuff to your site
Occasionally, you will need to move files to your website (e.g. new modules or themes). FTP stands for File Transfer Protocol. It is a common way to move files, modules, themes, etc. to a remote website. FTP is not used to edit the contents of your website. In many web browsers, you can type: ftp:username:[email protected] (where username is your user name at your site, password is your password), example.com is your site's domain name), which will allow you to drag and drop files from your computer to the remote server. For more information on tools that you can use to transfer files to your website, see Development tools It is unlikely (and inadvisable) for your FTP username and password to be identical to your Drupal username and password! They are probably different. FTP account login happens at a network level below the Drupal CMS. Your FTP credentials are probably supplied directly from your web host, or managed through your web hosts "Account Control Panel" somehow. Check your web hosts help documentation (or read the emails they sent you when you set it up) for more information. Keeping these two types of accounts separate is more secure, even though it's more to remember. Migrating from Joomla/Mambo http://drupal.org/node/80195 This guideline focuses on migration from Joomla! 1.0.x to Drupal 4.7.x/5.x. Before you do migration you must understand some differences between both to make sure your migration to be successful:
Joomla! vs Drupal 1. Joomla only supports one Section and one Category for each content, while you can assign Drupal contents to several Sections/Categories. 2. Joomla does not support multi-site setups, so the migration must be put into a certain site if you already setup a multi-site with Drupal. 3. In this guide I assume you have a forum in your Joomla site. Drupal has built-in forum discussion, so you don't need to install additional modules. 4. The term Blog in Joomla is not same as blog in Internet dictionary. 'Blog' term in Joomla is actually a teaser view of contents containing: Title, Introduction and a Read More link. So, in short, 'Blog' in Joomla terminology is not 'Weblog'! If one is asking if Joomla supports a 'Blog' by default, then the answer is yes, but with a different meaning. 5. Comments on contents are not available in Joomla by default, but Drupal supports comments for all content-types by default.
Joomla vs. Drupal Terminology There are some different terms between Joomla and Drupal. Here is a list to give you a quick understanding: 1. Joomla Template is called Theme in Drupal. 2. Component = Module.
24 3. Module = Block. 4. Mambot/Plugin = Input filter. 5. Menu-Horizontal = Primary Links 6. Menu-Vertical = Navigation 7. Dynamic Content Item = Story 8. Static Content = Page 9. Back-end = there is no back-end in Drupal, but modules like Administration Menu that provide a similar interface. 10.SEF = Clean URLs (but some docs refer to SEF, too). 11.Section = Taxonomy Vocabulary/Term 12.Section Title = Taxonomy Term (master) 13.Category = Taxonomy Term (child) 14.Introtext = Teaser 15.Maintext = Body (see explanation below) 16.Pathway = Breadcrumb Other terms are the same, such as: forum discussion, editor, search, region, comment, subject/title, preview, html tag, view, edit, advertising/banner, log in/log out, profile, avatar, access control, logs, cache, site maintenance, RSS feed, parent-child and snippets.
Migrating Joomla Content/Items First, you must transfer all Joomla-Sections to Drupal-Categories and transfer Joomla-Categories to Drupal-Term according to their parent. After that, you can transfer Joomla content/item from jos_content table. Drupal tables for saving article are drupal.node and drupal.node_revisions!
Migrating Joomla Introtext Introtext vs Teaser, this is very important, you must know that Drupal can automatic turn the beginning of an article into an introtext. The introtext is called a teaser in Drupal. Now, how to convert Joomla introtext to Drupal? 1. copy the Joomla Introtext to drupal.node_revisions:teaser 2. copy the Joomla Introtext+Maintext to drupal.node_revisions:body You may confuse why step #2 including the Introtext again? Because in Drupal, there is a possibility to set Teaser different from the First Paragraph of a body. In other words, the First Paragraph of Drupal is not always become a Teaser! If you want to edit migrated contents later on in Drupal, you should actually copy Introtext + "" + Maintext in step #2.
Migrating Joomla Forum I assume you use Joomlaboard forum for Joomla. In Drupal, forum is built-in, then you only need enable it on administer-module then show it on certain front page section using administer- blocks. You must transfer Parent-Forum Category of Joomlaboard to Drupal-Forum Container and Child-Forum Category to Drupal-Forum Category. Again, I am using SQLyog to transfer the entire forum contents, SQLyog is very easy because its GUI.
25 Editor Drupal by default has no WYSIWYG Editor, meaning you must type in HTML tags manually to format your article. Joomla has built-in TinyMCE editor. In Drupal, you can use users contributed modules such as TinyMCE Editor or FCKeditor.
Tips Usually better to install Drupal in a folder such as domainname.com/drupal, so you can still access both website during this migrating. You better not convert the Joomla templates to Drupal Theme, but edit any existing Drupal theme to meet your requirement because Drupal supports theme engine (PHPtemplate) and separate templates such as comment.tpl.php, mean you can apply any format to the comment.
Conceptual Differences between the two
Creating Content and Menu Structure Joomla's content is stored in a hierachy with content categorisation being heavily intertwined with its menu structure. In drupal all content is a flat Node where menus and taxonomy "sit on top" of the content. In joomla a common structure for creating with content is this: Choose where in the Menu article should go -> Create Menu item -> Define the type of content (eg Article) -> Input Content However in Drupal it is potentially simpler. Create Content -> Input Content -> Change Settings including Menu placement, taxonomy, etc However this can create a confusion to Joomla users not used to the Drupal way. If you try and create a menu item before creating the content (or Node) then the Drupal Menu administration seems comparatively basic. The most complicated aspect of Drupal Menu system is that you have to manually type the path to the content, rather then selecting this from a list. This is not complicated if you create the content first and then change its menu settings whilst editing the content. But if you create the content without assigning menus it can only be found through the administrative menu. Similarly to categorise content you do that on the actual edit content page. It requires you to have already have set up the Taxonomy for your website. This is powerful because the sorting of your content is not always tied into the Menus but if you are used to Joomla's way of doing things then there is a Taxonomy Menu Module.
26 Setting up cron This page is for beginners; more complete information can be found on the main cron page. If you can understand that page, then use it first. Cron is a UNIX command that allows you to run tasks on a schedule. There are things in Drupal that will run on a timed basis, if cron is available. Access to the shell means you can get to the operating system to issue commands. Many hosts won't allow this. But they do provide the more-or-less-standard cPanel function. On some versions, the "cron" entry is in the lower left. For Cron jobs another possibility is http://drupal.org/project/poormanscron For every page view, this module checks to see if the last Cron run was more than one hour ago (this period is configurable). If so, the Cron hooks are executed, and Drupal is happy. These Cron hooks fire after all HTML is returned to the browser, so the user who kicks off the Cron jobs should not notice any delay.
Additional tips and tricks This page contains some common settings and describes the background of each to make your site easier to configure and maintain. • Go to the Administration > Site configuration > Site information page. Many people don't like, when they visit a site, being called "Anonymous" so you might want to change the designation to "Visitor." • If there are any modules (core or contributed) that you want to use, go ahead and enable them. Many people do recommend turning on (enabling) the "Path" core module so you can use "normal" names for your pages. There are a few things that are commonly recommended for almost all sites, so this is a good time to do it: • Turn on "clean URLs" to make your site more user friendly. Go to Administration > Site configuration > Clean URLs. At the bottom there is a link to run the "Clean URLs Test." If it passes, then the "Enable" radio button will be available. Click on that. (If the URLs stop working for some reason here are instructions to unset clean URLs.) • While preparing the site's initial content, it might be useful to go to Administration > Site configuration > Input formats and set "Full HTML" as the default, but only until the site is ready to go live (then it needs to be set back to "Filtered HTML" for security reasons). Then you may still allow administrators to use that format. Do this now and you will avoid a very common problem with building your site. • Many people don't like having "Promoted to front page" as a default for content, so go to Administration > Content management > Content types and turn that off - in each content type. • While you're there, decide on your default comment mode. Go to Administration > Content management > Comments > Settings (in D6: Administration > Content management > Post settings) and set the comments to be entered on a "separate page" and make sure that "Preview comment" is set to "Required." If you want to use the contact form to email anyone from the site, be sure to enable the "Contact" module (see Adding a Contact Form).
27 • Now, let's turn on the Contact form so your users can send you a message. Go to Administration > Site building > Menus and locate the "Contact" item, it should listed be under the "Navigation" menu. Click on the "enable" link. Remember that later on you will want to go to Administration > Site building > Contact form and finish setting that up. • URL aliases • User login FAQs • How to redirect users after login in drupal? • Browser tips for accessing your site maintainance tools • Tracking module status • Error pages • Links and IMG URL aliases URL is an abbreviation of "Uniform Resource Locator" and is the page's address on the web. It is the "name" by which a browser identifies a page to display. In the example "Check us out at mysite.com." the part mysite.com is the URL for the home page of your web site. Users use URLs implicitly to locate content on the web. Drupal uses "nodes" to identify pages by their position in your database. So your page on "The History of the Macadamia Nut - Part 1" might be known as "node/167." to Drupal. By maintaining the list of nodes in your site, the URLs are maintained as a result, which in turn enables your visitors to find your site's content. Drupal has a feature called "URL Alias" that allows you to provide a more understandable name to the content. As far as browsers, servers, and search engines go, it is totally unnecessary. But for humans, it is nearly mandatory. This is why most consultants tell people to always turn on the Path core module, which supports URL aliasing. So, just before you submit that treatise on macadamia history, and if you have the Path module enabled (and you will want it), then you'll see a section on the edit page that says "URL path settings." So let's say you want your visitors to see it as http://www.example.com/MacadamiaHistory. In the URL field, enter MacadamiaHistory. You can administer the URL Aliases directly on the node edit or add forms, or by doing the following: First, visit the page you created. In your browser's address field, you'll see its URL. On the end it will probably say "node/xxx" where xxx is some number. Write down that number. Now go to Administer > Site building > URL Aliases. There's an "Add Alias" tab at the top. In the top box, enter "node/xxx" from above. In the second box, enter "MacadamiaHistory".
Automatic Alias Generation If your site is going to have lots of content, particularly user-submitted content, you might want to look at the PathAuto module. Not only will this module automatically generate URL aliases for new content (according to rules you can set up), but can even go back and change aliases in bulk.
Path and clean URLs Note that the Path module does not require Clean URLs. As an example:
28 With clean URLs: • http://www.example.com/MacadamiaHistory Without clean URLs: • http://www.example.com/?q=MacadamiaHistory
Permissions After you enable the Path module, you need to give the appropriate roles permission to use it in admin/user/permissions. Scroll down to the Path module to enable "administer url aliases" and/or "create url aliases" permissions. User login FAQs
How do I disable "Create New Account?" It's in Administer » User management >> User settings. Click the radio button that says: Only site administrators can create new user accounts.
How do I disable User Log In entirely, and how would I get in if I do? First, you can go to Administer » Site building >> Blocks and change the "Region" setting for the "User Login" block to
29 Browser tips for accessing your site maintainance tools A lot of people don't realize that their browser home page does not have to be out on the web somewhere. It can be right on your computer; just create an HTML file which will reside on your computer and specify your browser homepage as that file.
Here's part of one admin's home page, with links to her Drupal sites' maintenance tasks (cPanel, FTP, etc.) included, so she doesn't have to keep looking them up. She also included links to her test sites, so they are easy to get to as well. Configure the browser Startup to "Show my homepage" not to "Show my windows and tabs from the last session". That way, it should always start up by displaying the home page you specify. Tracking module status A "site" you might want to build on your PC is a "catch-all" site for monitoring module and theme status with the Update Status module. This module will check with the Drupal site and let you know if newer releases of your modules are available. Many people eventually find that they need (want) to patch, tweak, or otherwise modify modules or themes. If you create a "catch-all" site, you can place unmodified code here so that you always have a "clean" copy to fall back on. You can then copy it to the correct site before changing it. Now, not only do you have the fall-back plan, but you get the added advantage of knowing if it needs to be updated. Error pages Occasionally, a user may do something that confuses Drupal, such as typing a wrong page name or trying to access content they shouldn't. These will generate 404 and 403 errors, respectively. A recent SEO newsletter, they mentioned the value of letting Drupal handle these errors: Your unique 404 error page should look like a regular page of your site. It should include your site's header, footer and navigation bar so that the site visitor can easily click on another area of your site. The content of this unique 404 error page should contain text explaining that the page selected is no longer available along with contact information so the site visitor has the option of emailing or calling your company.
30 The same more or less goes for the "access denied" (403) error message. Let them know they did a no-no and try to explain why. Just go to "Create content" and select "Page." Some might title them "Access Denied" and "Page Not Found" but you can call them whatever makes sense to you and your users. When you submit them, note the node IDs (the last number in the link displayed in your browser e.g. http://www.example.com/node/3 -->nid=3). Then click Administration >> Site configuration >> Error handling (or Administration >> Site configuration >> Error reporting for Drupal 6) and enter "node/nnn" in the appropriate boxes.
Page not found Here's the HTML for one site's 404 page:
Sorry! The page you were looking for no longer exists. We redesigned our site and many of the pages have changed.
If you are unable to find something on our new site or have a question about our site or services feel free to contact us.
--Webmistress
Access denied Here's the HTML for one site's 403 page:
We're sorry, but you must have permission to view the page you requested.
If you are already a registered member of this site, please try logging in.
If you are not a member, you need to join us.
If you have any questions about our site or group, please feel free to contact us.
--Webmistress
Don't worry that you haven't created the "join_us" page yet. This is an advantage to having URL Alias support (the Path module) enabled. Just add to your to-do list to create this page when you get to the "Creating Content" chapter in this book.31 Links and IMG Yes, you can link between pages in Drupal. It's the same as not having Drupal, except the name may be weird if you're not using the Path module (URL Aliasing). The biggest mistake people make is not knowing that there needs to be a leading slash ("/"). Omitting this will probably cause a "404:Page not found" error and, depending on which browser you're using, additional problems, like being logged out. For example, if your home page on a site is node #4, a link to it would look like this: Home, but with URL aliasing turned on, you can also code it like this: Home A picture could be embedded with this tag: Common problems There are some problems we all seem to "find;" this section documents a few of them. [Remember to always search before posting on the forums.] Tables messed up, images not showing, other "strange" problems with HTML. Drupal defaults to filtered HTML; that is, only certain tags are allowed. Further, that input format also breaks long lines of text. The fix is easy: switch to the "Full HTML" input format. You can make that the default for administrators (like yourself). Note that you may still want the URL Filter and Code Filter modules turned on for this input format; they are not defaults. Help, I turned on Site Maintenance, now I can't login! About three out of four Drupal users have done this to themselves. You can still log in with http://www.example.com/?q=user. Note that "user" is exactly that - do not put your username there. I don't want anonymous users to see "Create content." "Create content" is actually a child menu item of "Content" which is usually disabled. Go to your menus administration screen and enable the "Content" parent above "Create Content." Then you will see a "Reset" link appear. Click on that. Once again, "Content" will be disabled, but "Create content" will not be shown to anyone who does not have the access permissions to do so (especially anonymous users). I enabled the Contact module, but if I click on it as an anonymous user, I get the Access denied page. You've missed a step. Go to Administration >> User management >> Access control (or Administration >> User management >> Permissions in Drupal 6) and scroll down to the contact module section. There you need to click on the check box for "access site-wide contact form" for "anonymous users" (and, presumably, "authenticated users"). Also read the handbook section Troubleshooting FAQ
32 More reading Now that you're a Drupal expert, there are some additional topics you might find useful: • Adding Hidden Site Design Notes - how to put design or maintenance notes on your site that only admins can see. • Core modules - what the many core modules do. • Contributed modules - a starter list to get you to the right modules, if you need them. • Site recipes - collection of tricks and techniques. • Localhost or testing environment setup • Multi-site Installation • Site configuration challenge: corporate brochure - many ways to get to a "Corporate Brochure" type site. • Best practices guidelines - a guide to doing the right things. • My favorite module or theme is outdated. What next? -- it happens! • PHP and Javascript snippets -- useful code to use as is or adapt to your own needs. • SQL snippets -- database stuff. • CSS Tips, Tricks, and Techniques • Theme developer's guide • How to write automated tests • The Road to Drupal Hell -- this should be required reading for anyone who wants to do something not in the core Drupal. Glossary A node is a container for stuff (sorry for the technical term). Some of that stuff is the content you create. Drupal itself creates a few nodes for its own stuff. A module is a way to extend the functionality of Drupal. It is usually a lot of programmed code (usually in php) and, usually, a style sheet (CSS). For example, if you want to include meta tags to describe your content, you would add on the "Nodewords" module (also known as "Meta Tags"). [Note: Similar concepts exist in other software and are sometimes called plugins, addons or extensions] A teaser is a short enticing phrase about the asset (page) to encourage readers to visit the full story. By default, the first paragraph or two of the page content is used (there is a setting for how much), usually displayed above a "read more..." link. A theme is a means of manipulating and describing how you want your content displayed to your visitors. This includes elements such as your header, icons, block layout, etc. It also includes programming and style sheets. A server is (generally) a computer that provides services to the Internet. These services may be things like running the database or managing the gathering and dissemination of information. A browser is the "program" that you use to display content from the Internet. In reality, it is usually a set of programs, not a single one; it is also a set of tables (e.g. settings) that are used to control its display. Examples are Internet Explorer, Firefox and Google Chrome. This operates on the client, or user, side of the presentation. A URL (Universal Resource Locater) is the "address" of a resource (such as a page of content) on the web. It is the way the web browser locates your content or site. You will see the URL listed in
33 the address bar on your browser. A path is generally site-specific and refers to the means by which a resource is located. This could be a full URL (see above), or a relative location (such as "files/xyz/image.jpg" - where "files/xyz" would be the path to the file "image.jpg"). HyperText Markup Language (HTML) is the standardized language of the web. It has its own "vocabulary," consisting of tags, elements, and descriptors. A tag is the basic component and is used to say, "The following content is to be displayed according to these rules." An example of a tag is a level one heading (
). Most tags can have additional information to tell the browser more specifically how you want it to render the content. This specification is called an element. Most elements require more information to make them work, this is the descriptor, which really should be called "value." For example, if you want that heading centered, you would use the "align" element and give it a descriptor (value) of "center." So , completely constructed it would look like this: . A Taxonomy is a way of characterizing stuff. It can be used for grouping, selecting, and protecting stuff. Many people who are new to Drupal think this is a very difficult subject (admittedly, we can make it so), however, virtually all of us had an introduction to taxonomy in school: classifying living creatures (i.e. the Linnaean taxonomy). In that taxonomy, we classified living things according to kingdoms (plant or animal), phylum, class, and so on, down to genus and species. In reality there is an additional classification below species; sub-species (animals) or varietal (plants). [Oh, yeah, I vaguely remember that! That's a taxonomy?] In Drupal, the highest level of taxonomy description is the "vocabulary;" it is used for defining the terms, or tags, that actually end up on your stuff to be used for the various purposes. In the above example, think of "Living things" as the vocabulary. Each vocabulary has one or more "terms" that are used to tag (i.e. define, or describe) your stuff. Terms may be hierarchical; that is they may exist in levels. Genus and species would be hierarchical terms. The vocabulary is assigned to input types (e.g. stories, recipes); terms are assigned to a given piece of content (e.g. "Groundbreaking Research on Macadamia Nut Yields" or "My Fabulous Macadamia Brittle"). Notice that I said "terms" - plural - because an individual node may have more than one term associated with it; for example, the "Research" news article may be assigned to "Nuts," "Trees," and "Harvesting." It could then be viewed through any of those terms (or keywords). Breadcrumbs is a term borrowed from Hansel and Gretel, who left crumbs of bread along their path so they could find their way back out of the forest. In current computer parlance, it refers to the section, usually near the top of the page, that shows the path you followed to locate the current page. For example, it might show Home > Macadamia Nuts > Current Events > News Articles, meaning that you started at the home page, clicked on "Macadamia Nuts" in the menu, then selected "Current Events" in the sub-menu, and finally selected, "News Articles." A database is a container for containers. It is a collection of related "tables" that are generally used for a single application (such as Drupal). A table is a collection of data used for a specific purpose within that application, such as identifying users. Within a table, each individual grouping of data is referred to as a row (or in traditional terms, a "record"). Each row is identified by one or more keys that allow easy retrieving of the row. Each row is then broken down into columns (often called fields, although this is more appropriate for forms on which the data is displayed). A column holds a specific piece of information for the row, such as a user name or country. (You can also think of this much like a spreadsheet.) Now, just to complicate things a bit, some times we describe the collection of item-related table rows with a collective term. One such term is "node." For example, information about a page on your site may exist in several tables; yet we describe all of this as a "node."
34 Still confused? Let's try to relate this to an example you're probably familiar with. Let's relate this to your windows computer. Your [hard] disk (or disc) is sort of like a database; it is a collection of your data. On that disk, you have folders; they are analogous to tables within a database. Inside those folders, you have documents or programs; these relate to rows. Within the document (e.g. a Word document), you have paragraphs; these are much like columns. Okay, let's add to the analogy a little. Word or Lotus 1-2-3 would be your theme, as they describe and manipulate the content before it is displayed to you. It's a bit of a stretch for several reasons, but you can then think of Windows itself as your browser, since it is responsible for the final rendering of the content to you. Does that help a little? The Structured Query Language (SQL) is a standard specification for how database engines locate data that you want. An example might be SELECT country FROM user_profile WHERE username = "Nancy"; this would get the value from the column "country" in the "user_profile" table using column "username" as the key. See also: • Terminology for a more complete list of Drupal terms • Common expressions & acronyms
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