The document provides an overview of Drupal presented by Robin Hastings of the Missouri River Regional Library. It discusses what Drupal is, its uses as a content management system and application development platform. It also provides resources for learning Drupal and best practices. Robin outlines their library's process for planning, designing and launching a new Drupal-based website, including hiring a designer, theming, adding content and ongoing maintenance.

1. Drupal 101 Robin Hastings Missouri River Regional Library

3. 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

5. 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

6. Goals What did you come here to learn?

8. CMS Content Management System > Drupal Database with a fancy UI Free Drupal Joomla Wordpress Expensive Lots of options, none we considered…

9. Application Development Platform Blogs Forums E-commerce sites Civic sites (CivicSpace is a port of Drupal geared toward municipalities) Social Networks ?

11. 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

12. 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

14. From Drupal’s Website: http://drupal.org/node/171194

15. Regions Blocks of content on the page Defined in .info Managed in the “blocks” area of the administration site VERY POWERFUL

16. 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

18. Administration Menu

19. CCK – Custom Content Kit

21. Views

22. Webforms

23. Scheduler

24. Embedded Media and Nice Menus

27. 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

30. 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

31. 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

32. 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

33. Theming 3 .info files created 3 template files created Kludges and workarounds abound… Best practice – get the theme in “drupal-ready state”

35. 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!!)

36. Launch Live on Nov 17 th (board meeting) *Completely* forgot major content page (new materials) Otherwise, very smooth

37. 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)

40. Features Flickr Slideshow Twitter badge Facebook badge Blog headlines Content Spotlight Drop-down menus Announcements and Event Ads 2 Menus; 2 Menu styles

42. Drupal in Government Whitehouse.gov List of Drupal sites in Government (State and Federal) - http://groups.drupal.org/node/19885