TLA Webinar: Introduction to Drupal -- part 1 of 3

Intro to Drupal, Part 1 of 3 TLA Webinar Series, Nov. 12 2013
Introduction to Drupal
Part 1 of 3
Installation, Basic Conﬁguration, Content Types, User Roles

What is Drupal?
•  A content management system
•  A web application framework
•  A community
•  Free
•  Open source
•  Entirely customizable
•  Extremely powerful

Minimum Requirements
Drupal 7
•  A web server
•  Apache, Nginx, Microsoft IIS
•  A database
•  MySQL 5.0.15+, PostgreSQL 8.3+, SQLite 3.3.7+
•  PHP 5.2.5+ (5.3 recommended)

Installation Options
•  Webhost
•  Acquia Dev Desktop
•  Drupalpro + Virtualbox
•  MAMP
•  Bitnami
•  Zend Desktop

Installation Demo

Common Installation Gotcha s
•  Files not writeable: check sites/default/files permissions
•  settings.php does not exist: duplicate default.settings.php and rename
settings.php – make sure that it is writeable for installation
•  White screen: usually means not enough memory
•  Cannot access any interior page: missing .htaccess ﬁle
•  Database access: read your host s database instructions
These are the common issues/solutions, but they are not the only factors.
Drupal.org is a fantastic resource for further troubleshooting.

Proper Permissions
•  sites/default/ﬁles:
755
command line:
chmod -R 755 files
•  settings.php:
444
command line:
chmod 444 settings.php

Basic Conﬁguration
Demo

Content Types

Basic Content Types
Basic Page

•  Title

•  Body text

•  Belongs in menu

Article (Right)

•  Title

•  Submitted by info (1)

•  Image (2)

•  Body text

•  Tags (3)

•  Comments (4)

•  Does not belong in menu

New Content Type: Event
Requirements
•  Title
•  Body text
•  Image
•  Tags
•  No submitted by info
•  No menu
•  Event contact (new field)
•  Event date (module)
•  Event location (module)
•  Registration link (module)

Content Types
Basic Fields & Choices
Demo

Requirements
•  Title
•  Body text
•  Image
•  Tags
•  No menu
•  Event contact (new field)
•  Event date (module)
•  Registration link (module)
•  Event location (module)

Extending Functionality
with Modules

Selecting a Module
1. Module description

•  Is its purpose clear?

•  Is it well documented?

2. Age of the module

•  How long has it been around?

•  If for a long time, has it been
kept up to date?

3. Issue queue

•  Is it active?

4. Maintainers

Selecting a Module Cont.
5. Related modules

•  Are a lot of projects working
with this tool?

•  Are there lots recipes to
work with?

6. Project information

•  Is the module being actively
maintained, today?

•  Is it widely used?

•  When was it last updated?

7. Downloads

•  A – recommended downloads

•  B – date of release

•  Are there green versions
available?

Installing Modules
Demo

Requirements
•  Title
•  Body text
•  Image
•  Tags
•  No menu
•  Event contact
•  Event date: Date module
drupal.org/date
•  Registration link: Link module
drupal.org/link
•  Event location: Multiple
drupal.org/
addressfield_staticmap +

Finish up
Event Content Type
Demo

Event Content Type
•  Custom ﬁelds requiring additional
modules
•  A date ﬁeld that will allow for database
queries based on date (for a calendar,
e.g.)
•  Custom display settings for the node
view and the teaser view appropriate for
event content

Recap: Drupal Glossary
•  Node: a piece of content which belongs to a content type. A
node page is the speciﬁc single page for that content, but
nodes can be viewed outside of their page.
•  Teaser (aka Summary): an introductory paragraph about a
piece of content.
•  Terms (aka Tags): organizational keywords that can be used to
create categories or metadata.
•  Module: a package of code (typically written in PHP and CSS)
that extends Drupal functionality.
https://drupal.org/glossary

Users & User Roles

Users
•  Individuals with accounts on the site
•  Accounts are tied to the individuals’
email addresses so that they can reset
passwords on their own as needed
•  Activity on the site is tracked so that you
can tell who created/edited a node or
did other tasks on the site
•  Users can be given roles that have
speciﬁc sets of permissions

User Roles
•  Your site can have unlimited roles
•  Roles can be given very specific sets of
permissions (e.g. “Post to facebook”)
•  Users can have many roles, and will have
the permissions from each role
•  Permissions can be further refined with
the help of workflow modules including
Workbench, Workbench Access and
Workflow

Users & User Roles
Demo

•  User: an individual with login credentials for the site.
•  Role: a set of permissions that can be applied to individual
users. Users can belong to multiple roles.
•  Permission: a tool for controlling access to content creation,
modiﬁcation and site administration.
•  User1 (aka Site Maintenance Account): this is the ﬁrst user on
the site, and can do anything. It is not advisable to work on
your site as User1. Always create an administrative account for
yourself, and protect the User1 credentials.

•  Administrator: a default Drupal role that has high-level
permissions on the site. This should only be given to trusted
individuals who know what the tools do.
•  Authenticated user: a site visitor who has logged into the site
using their credentials.
•  Anonymous user: a site visitor who has not logged in (and
may not have credentials). The general public will typically be
anonymous users.

Questions?

http://chillco.com/
tla-drupal-questions

TLA Webinar: Introduction to Drupal -- part 1 of 3

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TLA Webinar: Introduction to Drupal -- part 1 of 3