Drupal: Creating Blogs, Forums, Portals, And Community Websites

Drupal is one of the most popular content management systems on the internet. Based on PHP/MySQL, its power and flexibility combined with its exceptional design mean it is already on the way to becoming the de facto standard for CMS Websites. Drupal’s modular design and structured source code make it both highly flexible and easily extended and modified. Drupal is extremely scalable, making it ideal for both a simple personal website as well as an industrial strength commercial or institutional web presence.

Drupal is a model open source project in that it has a large, friendly community of people who contribute to the project in various ways.  Drupal is not only free and easy to use, but this community provides on going mutual support.

Drupal’s power means choosing an initial pathway can be daunting. The flexibility and power of its content management features mean the right approach needs to be taken.  This book takes you from initial set up through site design and creation in a series of carefully structured steps. While there are a few advanced topics that are beyond the scope of the book, all of the core stages of creating a website using Drupal are covered in detail.

 

Table of Contents

• Preface

 

• Chapter 1: Introduction to Drupal
  • Drupal—An Overview
  • How Drupal Came to Be
  • What Drupal Has to Offer
  • Uses of Drupal
  • Building a Drupal Site
    • Planning Your Site
    • Analyzing the Proposed Solution
      • Feasibility
      • Phone a Friend
      • Critical versus Desirable Criteria
    • The Demo Website
  • The Drupal Community
    • Support
    • Handbooks
    • Forum
    • Downloads
    • Contribute
    • Contact and Community
  • The Drupal License
  • Summary

 

• Chapter 2: Setting Up the Development Environment
  • The Drupal Environment
  • Obtaining and Installing PHP, Apache, and MySQL
  • Obtaining and Installing Drupal
  • Upgrading Drupal
  • Troubleshooting Common Problems
  • A Short Tour of Drupal
    • A Couple of Important Settings
    • Creating an Administrative User
    • Using the Administrative Panel
    • A Sample Drupal Page
  • Summary

 

• Chapter 3: Basics I: Site Configuration
  • Before We Start
  • General Settings
  • Error Handling
  • Cache and File System Settings
  • RSS Feed Settings
  • Date Settings
  • Site Maintenance
  • String Handling
  • Summary

 

• Chapter 4: Basics II: Adding Functionality
  • Adding Modules
  • Third-Party Modules
    • Downloading Modules
    • Installing Modules
  • Configuring Modules
    • Forum
    • Locale
    • Comments
    • Content Types
    • Search
    • Upload
  • Menus and Primary Links
  • Using Modules
  • Working with Blocks
    • Adding Blocks
    • Configuring Blocks
  • Summary

 

• Chapter 5: Users, Roles, and Permissions
  • Planning an Access Policy
  • Roles
  • Permissions
    • Setting Permissions with Taxonomy Access Control
  • Users
    • Administering Users
    • Configuring Users
  • Access Rules
  • Summary

 

• Chapter 6: Basic Content
  • Content Types
  • Working with Content
    • Content Options
    • Administering Content
  • Content-Related Modules
    • Aggregator
    • Archive
    • Similar Entries
    • Taxonomy Block
  • Summary

 

• Chapter 7: Advanced Content
  • HTML, PHP, and Content Posting
    • Input Formats and Filters
    • HTML
    • Creating a Feature-Rich Page
    • Posting a Feature-Rich Page
  • Categorization
    • What and Why?
    • Implementing Taxonomies in Drupal
      • Introduction to Vocabularies
      • Dealing with Descriptors
      • Posting Content with Categories Enabled
      • Hierarchies
      • Content Structure
  • Summary

 

• Chapter 8: Drupal's Interface
  • Planning a Web-Based Interface
    • Visual Design
    • Language
    • Images
  • How Drupal's Interface Works
  • CSS
  • Themes
    • Choosing a Base Theme
    • Configuring Your Themes
    • Customizing Your Theme
      • Images
      • Colors
      • Page Modifications
  • Summary

 

• Chapter 9: Advanced Features and Modifications
  • Flexinode
    • Downloading and Installing Flexinode
    • Creating a Custom Content Type
    • Adding Structure
  • AdSense
    • Installing and Configuring AdSense
    • Adding Google Ads to Your Pages
    • Adding Google Ads to Your Content
  • Advanced Site Modifications
    • Scrolling News Ticker
      • Obtaining the Ticker
      • Creating the Content
    • Dynamic Content Page
      • Incorporating the Application into the Theme
      • Building the Content Page
  • Summary

 

• Chapter 10: Running Your Website
  • Backups
    • phpMyAdmin
    • The mysqldump Utility
  • Cron and Scheduled Tasks
    • The Crontab
    • Windows Scheduled Tasks
    • Poormanscron
  • Throttling
  • Patching
  • Website Activities
    • Search Engine Optimization
    • Maintaining Users
  • Summary

 

• Appendix A: Deployment
  • Getting Ready to Deploy
    • Make Sure the Host Is Ready
    • Get the Files Ready
    • Get the Database Ready
  • Transfer the Files
  • Setting Up the Site
    • Set Up the Files
    • Set Up the Database
    • Configure the Site
    • Access Problem?
  • Testing
  • Summary

 

• Index