The Dr G Book: Version History / CC License An Intro to Drupal · 3 2007.02.11 The Dr G0Book: An Intro to Drupal Menu path conventions ¥The location/ path of many conÞguration settings

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2007.02.11 The DrüG Book:

An Intro to Drupal

The The DrDrüG üG Book:Book:

An Intro to An Intro to DrupalDrupal(DrüG: Drupal User’s Group - users, not

developers)

This is an introduction to Drupal for site maintainersand beginning users; for people without any coder/programmer/ developer background.

Originally developed by Greg Beuthin, withsubsequent edits from: [?]

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An Intro to Drupal

Version History / CC License

Version History

– 2007.02.11 - Original draft by

Greg Beuthin

[email protected]

Creative Commons License

• The text and images are licensed

under the Creative Commons

Attribution-Share Alike 2.5

License

• Attribution: Any derivative work

must contain “Originally developed

by Greg Beuthin”

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An Intro to Drupal

Menu path conventions

• The location/ path of many configuration settings aredescribed in <these brackets>

• Nested menus are shown with a vertical line<administer | content>

• The following items - after a colon (:) show what’s on apage of the selected menu<administer | content: {specific thing on the page here}>

– A specific tabbed item is shown with [square brackets]<administer | access control: [roles]>

– Items within a closed page view use a “: @”<administer | settings: @date>

– Items within a normal page view use a “:”<create content | page: input filters>

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An Intro to Drupal

Menu example

• Simple menu path:

<administer | settings |

menus>

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An Intro to Drupal

Menu example: expandable

• Menu path w/

expandable item:

<administer | settings:

@General Settings>

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An Intro to Drupal

Menu example: tab

• Menu path with tab

item:

<administer | url alias:

[add alias]>

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An Intro to Drupal

Register

• Register yourself on

the Drupal site

• Check email for login

info

• Login

Note: Some sites will log you right in (note: no email registration required).

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An Intro to Drupal

Your profile

First things first

• Look for “Edit” tab

• Change your password

to something you’ll

remember

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An Intro to Drupal

Safeguarding

We recommend you add a new admin user that is

not the the root admin user (I.e. not user #1)

Add new user

<administer | users: [add user]>

• Give new user pwd you’ll remember

• Log out and log in as this new user

(preserves the “admin” account in case you mis-configure the site and mess it

up)

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An Intro to Drupal

Quick look around

• Navigation menu

• Main column - the content area

• Sidebars

• Top: Site name, slogan, and mission

• Bottom: Footer

•Half of what you see you can ignore for now.

•Some items only show up if you are logged in (e.g. navigation menu)

###More descrip of items?

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An Intro to Drupal

Quick look around II

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An Intro to Drupal

Basic site settings

• Site name, slogan and mission

<administer | settings: @General Settings>

• Site email (for admin purposes)

<administer | settings: @General Settings>

• Site logo

<administer | themes: [configure]>

Themes note: Global theme settings, including the logo, are overridden if

settings / logos are changed for a specific theme.

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An Intro to Drupal

More site settings

General settings

<administer | settings:

@General Settings>

• Test and set clean

URLS

• Custom homepage (if

you want custom

“splash” page)

Additional settings:

Error pages

<administer | settings: @Error Handling>

Create custom “page not found” and “you don’t have enough permissions”

pages

Date / timezone

<administer | settings: Date Settings>

Site maintenance

<administer | settings: @Site Maintenance>

“Site down for maintenance” toggle

Ignore these (safely, in general):

RSS

Cache

Cron

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An Intro to Drupal

Looking at Themes

• Themes list -<administer | themes>

• Configure global settingsvs theme-specific

• Display options - enableor disable themes forindividual users to select

• Display post information -displays author,timestamp, etc<administer | themes:[configure]>

Not al themes will show all elements (e.g. many themes don’t show

“missions”)

Custom icon: This is the small icon that sits in the top left of the browser

URL. Also known as a favicon.

Post information:

a) Usually only show post info for blog posts - but can select here

b) This list expands every time you add a new content type (e.g. podcast or

book page, etc)

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An Intro to Drupal

Briefly: Users, Roles and

PermissionsAccess control

<administer | access control>

• Permissions are set here

Roles<administer | access control:[roles]>

• Permissions are grouped byroles

User profiles<administer | users> - and select“Edit” for user

• Admins can assign a user oneor more roles

•Every user is given permission (or restricted) from almost any and every

activity.

•Permissions are determined based on a user’s defined “role”

•Two basic roles: authenticated user (registered and logged in); and

anonymous user (not logged in).

•Other roles can include “admin”, “editor”

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An Intro to Drupal

Recommended modules

<administer | modules>

• Path

• Upload

• Statistics

• TinyMCE*

• (others?)

These are in addition to the “base” modules (some may already be “on”; some

may need to be installed)

Special install step required (need to download and install TinyMCE engine

from here:

http://tinymce.moxiecode.com/download.php)

Settings are within <adminster | settings> except for:

Path - <administer | url aliases>

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An Intro to Drupal

Process for installing modules

• Download / copy modules from

http://drupal.org/project/Modules to your

Drupal /modules directory

• Turn on modules

<administer | modules>

• Give permissions to appropriate roles

<administer | access control>

Some modules require more than just copying to /modules (e.g. TinyMCE).

###Running update.php

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An Intro to Drupal

Creating “content”

Select content type

• Page

• Story

• Book page

• Blog

• Other common types: event; podcast;

image;

Mostly copied from Drupal:

blog entry

A blog is a regularly updated journal or diary made up of individual posts

shown in reversed chronological order. A blog is tightly coupled to the author

so each user will have his 'own' blog.

book page

[Original description deleted] The main benefit of a book page is to allow

for the automatic creating of menus that list chapters / sub-chapters (I.e. nested

individual pages); and re-ordering the menus on the fly. It is not necessarily

any more of a collaborative tool than any other part of Drupal.

page

If you want to add a static page, like a contact page or an about page, use a

page.

story

Stories are articles in their simplest form: they have a title, a teaser and a

body, but can be extended by other modules. The teaser is part of the body too.

Stories may be used as a personal blog or for news articles.

[There is very little functional difference between page and story.]

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An Intro to Drupal

Typical content options

• Comment settings

• URL Path settings

• File attachments

• Authoring information

• Publishing options

• Title

• Body (with

WYSIWYG* editor)

• Input formats / filters

• Log message

• Menu settings

* What You See Is What You Get

WYSIWYG editor is typically TinyMCE or FCKEditor

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An Intro to Drupal

Content: WYSIWYG Editor

• Typically, TinyMCE

• “Disable rich text” to turn

off

• Can insert images and

links

• Site wide editor settings

<administer | settings |

tinymce> - select a user

role to edit

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An Intro to Drupal

Content: Input formats

Filters out unwantedHTML

Typical options:

• Filtered HTML

• PHP Code

• Full HTML

• Settings<administer | inputformats>

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An Intro to Drupal

Content: Comment and Menu

SettingsMenu Settings

• Can only add this page as

a new menu item into an

existing menu; can’t

create a new menu

Comment Settings

• Use node-specific

comment settings to

override site-wide

<administer / comments:

[configure]>

• “Read only” useful to

keep old comments

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An Intro to Drupal

Content: URL Path Settings

• Used to create natural language URL paths

– www.mysite.org/about

vs

– www.mysite.org/node/165

• Full settings: <administer | url aliases>

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An Intro to Drupal

Content: File Attachments

• Files must be attached while still on page.

• Page will refresh, showing:

– Delete

– List

– Path URL

• Uncheck “list” if inserting image

• File upload limits are set here:<administer | settings | upload>

See also slide: “File upload settings” for more info

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An Intro to Drupal

Content: Authoring Information

• Author’s name

• Date / timestamp

• Editable if you are a admin

• Authoring / timestamp display on/off here:

<administer | themes: [configure]>

Authoring / timestamp display on/off here:

<path>

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An Intro to Drupal

Content: Publishing options

• Published - Visible (according to access control

rules)

• In moderation queue - Awaiting moderation (if

moderation is activated)

• Promoted to front page - Added to “river of news”

blog list

• Sticky at top of lists

• Create new revision

Promoted to front page - always sends to /node. I.e. if you’ve set up a different

home page / front page, the URL “/node” will still show “river of news” style

blog posts of all items marked “promoted to front page”.

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An Intro to Drupal

More on content

• Full content list is available here:

<administer | content>

• Can filter content by status, type, category

• Can apply limited actions to groups of posts

(e.g. delete, etc)

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An Intro to Drupal

Customizing block (sidebars)

• Blocks - <administer | blocks>

• Visual display of page areas

• “Enabled” turns block on or off

• Weight and placement determines location

– More options in “configure”

• Creating custom blocks

<administer | block: [add block]>

Some modules add new blocks when they are installed. E.g. groups, forums,

etc.

More detailed control of block placement: "Show on these pages”

within block configuration.

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An Intro to Drupal

Customizing menus

• Menus - <administer |menus>

• Default: Navigation, andPrimary links

• Ordering menus / items -“Edit” and select orderwithin hierarchical list

• Displaying menus

– Every menu gets own block(see customizing blocks)

– Expanded / collapsed

Display of primary links determined by theme.

Trick: In order to “turn off” standard navigation menu display:

•Move all yoru preferred menu items to a new menu

•Disable everything on Navigation menu

Your name-based navigation menu will no longer display.

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An Intro to Drupal

Customizing menus II

• Menu configuration

– Add new menu

(container)

– Add new menu items

(single links)

– Any new menu adds

subsequent block

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An Intro to Drupal

File upload settings

• Turn on "upload" module <administer | modules>

• Give roles access control <administer | access

control>

• Configure settings <administer | settings | upload>

– Max. file upload size - for gen users, and admins

PHP settings may restrict max upload setting - usually 2MB. See<http://drupal.org/node/97193>

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An Intro to Drupal

Suggested additions to guide

• How to enable/ disable public registration

Documents

The Dr G Book: Version History / CC License An Intro to Drupal · 3 2007.02.11 The Dr G0Book: An Intro to Drupal Menu path conventions ¥The location/ path of many conÞguration settings