Drupal For Dummies

From Drupal For Dummies by Lynn Beighley

With Drupal, you can create robust Web sites with blogs, forums, e-commerce, image libraries, RSS feeds, and more. Drupal.org and other Web sites give you opportunities to download free modules and themes to extend the features and customize the look and feel of your Drupal Web site. All of your Drupal site building, maintenance, content management, and user management is controlled through the administration menus. You can also monitor your Drupal site through status reports accessible through the Reports menu.

The Drupal Content Management Menu

Drupal's Content management menu allows you to create content. To create new Drupal content, login to your Drupal site as the administrator and use the Create content link in the Navigation menu. To manage your Drupal site's content, use the Administer→Content management menu. The options are

Comments: List, moderate, and edit comments on your Drupal site.
Content: View, edit, and delete all content on your Drupal site.
Content types: Manage the settings for each type of content.
Feed aggregator: Control content that your Drupal site pulls in from other sites and displays on your Drupal site.
Forums: Create and manage forums.
Image galleries: Create and manage image galleries.
Image import: Import images to your Drupal site from your computer.
Post settings: Manage posts and their appearance on the front page.

The Drupal User Management Menu

The Drupal User management menu allows you to manage your Drupal site's users and their privileges. To access this menu, login to your Drupal site as the administrator and browse to Administer→User management menu. The options are

Access rules: Controls user access to the Drupal site using usernames, e-mail addresses, and IP addresses.
Permissions: Control exactly what features users can use and see on your Drupal site.
Profiles: Add specific fields you want to appear in user profiles.
Roles: Add, edit, or delete access roles.
User settings: Manage user settings such as requirements for Drupal site registration and ability to upload images.
Users: Add, edit, and delete Drupal site users.

The Drupal Reports Menu

Drupal offers a number of reports about the status of your Drupal site, errors, and updates for modules. To view these reports, login to your Drupal site as the administrator and browse to Administer→Reports menu. The options are

Recent log entries: Report of any events that have recently been logged.
Top "access denied" errors: View "access denied" errors (403s) which result when an unauthorized user tries to see a protected page.
Top "page not found" errors: View "page not found" errors (404s) which occur when a URL is not found on your Drupal site.
Top search phrases: View most popular search phrases.
Available updates: Reports any available updates for your installed modules and themes.
Status report: Creates a status report about your Drupal site's overall status and operation.

The Drupal Site Building Menu

Everything involved in controlling the way your Drupal site looks is controlled by the Drupal Site building menu. To access it, login as administrator, and browse to Administer→Site building menu. The options are

Blocks: Manage the content that appears in the major regions, or blocks of your Drupal site.
Contact form: Create a contact form.
Menus: Control location and links of the major Drupal site menus.
Modules: Enable or disable Drupal modules.
Themes: Control the theme used on your Drupal site.
Triggers: Define rules for when actions should happen.

The Drupal Site Configuration Menu

Drupal allows you to configure basic site settings. Basic Drupal site configuration settings, like date formats, image preferences, and your Drupal site name and e-mail address are located under a menu. Login as administrator and browse to Administer→Site configuration. The options are

Actions: Manage Drupal site actions.
Administration theme: Select the theme for the administrative pages.
Clean URLs: Creates simpler URLS for pages on your Drupal sites.
Date and time: Settings for the Drupal site time zone and how the date and time are displayed
Error reporting: Manage how errors are handled and reported.
File system: Set the location for uploaded files.
Image toolkit: Choose which image toolkit to use if you have installed optional toolkits.
Images: Set the location of where image files are stored and control allowed image sizes.
Input formats: Controls which HTML code is permitted in posted content.
Drupal site information: Important, basic Drupal site information, like Drupal site name and e-mail address, are set here.
Drupal site maintenance: If you need to work on the Drupal site, you can use this option to take it off line and prevent users from logging in until you finish.

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Posted by Mason Ruffalo APRIL 25, 2010 | 05:38PM
Super-Duper site! I am loving it!! Will come back again - taking your feeds too now, Thanks.

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