Drupal 101 Robin Hastings Missouri River Regional Library
Robin Hastings Info Tech Coordinator at Missouri River Regional Library Web worker for 15 years Pretty comfortable with Drupal, HTML/CSS and PHP, can edit other people’s JavaScript Avid knitter, reader and sometimes World of Warcraft player
Objectives
Understand what Drupal is and what it can do for you
Be able to locate further training resources
Understand how Drupal displays content
Become familiar with Drupal concepts
Learn how one library set up their site
Goals What did you come here to learn?
CMS
Content Management System > Drupal
Database with a fancy UI
Free
Drupal
Joomla
Wordpress
Expensive
Lots of options, none we considered…
Application Development Platform
Blogs
Forums
E-commerce sites
Civic sites (CivicSpace is a port of Drupal geared toward municipalities)
Social Networks
?
Resources
Lynda.com – training videos
DrupalCon – conference with LOTS of Drupal learning opportunities
DrupalTrainer.com – seminars all around the country
Drupal Handbook – community-created help for every part of Drupal, from Core to Modules
Best Practices
Plan – not just for what you want now, but what you will want in the future
Make backups a habit
Test changes if possible (test servers are your friend)
Do not “hack” core (makes updates crazy…)
Get involved with the community – contribute what you can
From Drupal’s Website: http://drupal.org/node/171194
Regions
Blocks of content on the page
Defined in .info
Managed in the “blocks” area of the administration site
VERY POWERFUL
Nodes vs. Content Nodes Content
Discrete bits of content contained in the database
Any kind of content
Building block of your site
Made up of 1 or more nodes
Can be pulled in from off-site
Administration Menu
CCK – Custom Content Kit
Views
Webforms
Scheduler
Embedded Media and Nice Menus
Themes
Lots of “drop and use” options
www.osskins.com
www.themebot.com
www.topnotchthemes.com
HTML/CSS to Drupal is possible
How we did it
Not the easiest
Not the cheapest
Planning Process
Worked out what features were needed
Used old site’s logs
Used survey responses
Did complete content inventory on old site
Got rid of unneeded content
Added content that was needed
Planned out navigation/Information Architecture of new site
Training
I went to hands-on administrator training
Came back and trained staff
Group “what is Drupal” sessions
One-on-one “these are your pages” sessions
Got a video for staff to use for refresher
Made myself *very* available for questions/problems
Design
Hired out the design to a local designer
Designs were received and modified by Public Relations staff
HTML and CSS were delivered to me
Theming
3 .info files created
3 template files created
Kludges and workarounds abound…
Best practice – get the theme in “drupal-ready state”
Content
Copied and pasted content from old site
Created “shells” of pages with staff in one-on-one training sessions
Use log files to determine content needs (include search terms in that!!)
Launch
Live on Nov 17 th (board meeting)
*Completely* forgot major content page (new materials)
Otherwise, very smooth
Maintenance
Update Drupal core monthly (roughly)
Update Drupal modules as needed (weekly-ish)
Update server (LAMP) monthly
Keep learning about new ways to do stuff (daily)
Features
Flickr Slideshow
Twitter badge
Facebook badge
Blog headlines
Content Spotlight
Drop-down menus
Announcements and Event Ads
2 Menus; 2 Menu styles
Drupal in Government
Whitehouse.gov
List of Drupal sites in Government (State and Federal) - http://groups.drupal.org/node/19885
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