Drupal Kickstart Workshop

RIT - 19 June 2010 - FOSSCon

Ready to dive into Drupal? In this workshop, you will create your own Drupal site, create content, change the look, add navigation, implement search, and more.

Kickstarters

Tom Patros has been a web nerd for close to a decade, and lead the redesign for the City of Rochester's web site in 2009. He is currently working on a project that integrates Drupal with SalesForce, to create an enterprise-grade association management system.

Ted Husted has consulted with teams throughout the United States, including CitiGroup, Nationwide Insurance, and Pepsi Bottling Group. He has been a regular speaker at ApacheCon and the Ajax Experience.

Kickstart Agenda

Create hosting accountThe What, Why, Who, When, Where, and How of DrupalHands on Exercises (as time allows)

Enable Clean URLsAdd a role and create a userCreate a Hello World "Story"Edit Content and summariesRevert ContentSet the front pageDefine menu linksChange ThemesConfigure SearchReview RSS FeedEnable production caching

Next StepsQuestions and (maybe even) Answers

Create Hosting Account

A serious site should use an unmanaged hosting account, but for casual use or learning Drupal, a managed site can be easier.

1. Open www.drupalcafe.com and select Create Account2. Punctuation is not allowed, lowercase alpha numeric

characters only. a-z and 0-9.3. Input Account Name and Email - Select Personal use -

Accept Terms - Select [Create new account].4. Wait five minutes.5. Check email and login to your new site.

What does Drupal do?

Why do people choose Drupal?

Who makes Drupal?

When did Drupal come out?

Where can we host a Drupal site?

How do you create a Drupal site?

Enable clean URLs

Drupal defaults to using parameter style URLslike </?q=admin/settings/clean-urls>

but clean URLs are better when support/admin/settings/clean-urls

Step by stepSelect [Administer/Site configuration/Clean URLs]Select [Enable] operation

(If system indicates setting is supported by the server)

Add an administrator role

Drupal ships with two roles, authenticated user and anonymous user.

Most sites can use roles to indicate the administrators and other privileged users.

Step by step Select [Administer/User management/Roles]

(/admin/user/roles)Enter name for new role (e.g., "administrator")Select [Add Role] operationSelect [edit permissions] operationEnable permissions as appropriate (e.g., all)

Create user

The initial Drupal user ("user/1") is automatically a super-user with all privileges.

Create your own personal user account for day-to-day authoring and administration.

Step by stepSelect [Administer/User management/Users]

(/admin/user/user)Select [Add user] operationInput Username, e-mail address, Password, and Role(s), and Notify user of new account (optional).

Log out / Log in

Sign back in using your new account.

Step by stepSelect [Log out] (/logout)Open /userInput username and password (for personal account) Select [Log in] operation.

Create a "Hello World" story

Drupal ships with two types of content defined: a Page and a Story.

A Page is standard content without any special features. A Story is a Page with commenting enabled that is automatically featured on the site's front page.

If we create a Story, the default front page text is replaced.

Create a "Hello World" story (2)

Step by step Select [Create content/Story] from the left menu.

(/node/add/story) Input Title and Body

(e.g. "Hello World" , "This is my first Drupal page.")Select Publishing options.

Confirm that "Promoted to front page" is selectedSelect [Preview]

(and admire your handwork!)Select [Save] operation. Select [Home] link in menu bar

(Open / on your site).

Edit content

Authenticated users can have editing privileges. Content can be edited by following edit links on the page, or via the Admin menus.

Step by stepSelect Administer/Content Management/Content

(/admin/content/node).Select [edit] operation for the "Hello World" item.

Create a summary

The default front page automatically features Story content by printing the summary or up to the first 600 characters.

The summary (or "teaser") component is used by other features as well. A best practice is to indicate the "summary" portion of the page yourself.

Create a summary

Step by stepSelect [Split summary at cursor].In the lower panel, enter some additional text ("It was quick and easy to make.").

Ensure the initial text is still in the top panel ("This is my first Drupal page.).

Select the [Revision information] operation.Select the [Create new revision] checkbox and input a Log message. ("Add teaser.")Select the [Preview] operation. Note that the system shows two previews, one for the teaser and one for the full page. Select the [Save] operation.

Revert to a prior version

Before making drastic changes to a content item, a best practice is to create a new revision when saving the updates. If the update doesn't go well, you can revert to a prior revision.

Step by stepSelect [Home] link in menu bar (Open / on your site).Select the new [Read more] operation. Select the [Revisions] operation.Select the [Revert] operation and confirm the prompt. Select the [Edit] operation.

Set the front page

Most sites like to carefully manage the front page content. Drupal ships with an automatic front page, but you can replace it with your own content item (or "node").Each node has an unique number that can be referenced as an URL.

Set the front page (2)

Step by step Select [Administer/Site Building/Site Information] (/admin/settings/site-information) Input a reference for the front page content item (e.g., "node/1")

For extra credit, input the Slogan, Mission, and Footer fields.

Select the [Save Configuration] operation. Select the [Home] link in the menu bar.

Notice that the front page now has a View/Edit/Revisions menu.

Define menu links

Drupal ships with primary and secondary content menus, and other menus can also be added.

The third default menu is the (poorly named) Navigation menu that is used for site management

(My Account, Create Account, Administer, Logout). Items can be added to menus through as a Site building operation, or directly from the content item when it is created or edit. An item can be linked to the root of a menu, or the child of another menu item.

Define menu links (2)

Step by StepCreate a Story content item

See Create "Hello World" Story exercise.After entering a Title (e.g. "News"), open the Menu settings options. Input the same text as the Menu link title ("News"). Select <primary links> as the Parent item. Input a Body ("Welcome to our news page.").Select the [Save] operation. Create another Story content item.

Change Themes

Drupal ships with several layouts, or "Themes". Drupal provides a baseline set of theme features, which may be implemented differently (or not at all).

For example, many themes do not present the child items on menus, or it might not implement the Drupal "Slogan" setting, and so forth.

Third-party or custom themes can also be installed.Drupal themes are powerful and intricate to create, but easy to install and use.

Change Themes (2)

Step by stepSelect [Administer/Site building/Themes] (/admin/build/themes)For the Acquia Marina theme, select Enabled and Default. Select the [Save configuration] option. Select "News" from the top menu bar. Hover over "News" and select "An article".

Configure Search

Drupal provides a simple keyword search as a core feature. Enabling search is a three step process. Search relies on running a cron.php script on your server

Varies by installation

Configure Search (2)

Step by step Enable Module

Open [Administer / Site Building / Modules] Enable Search (in the core section) Select [Save Configuration]

Enable Permissions[Open Administer / User Management / Permissions]Select [Save permissions]

Enable Block on Theme[Open Administer / Site Building / Blocks]For Seach Form, select "Footer Top"Select [Save Blocks]

Wait 24 hours for site to be index.

Review RSS feed

Each Drupal site has a front page RSS feed at /rss.xml. items promoted to the front page.

Step by step Open /rss.xml and review current feedSelect [Administer/RSS Site Publishing]Change number of items to "1"Change Feed Content setting to "Full Text"Select [Save Configuration]Open /rss.xml and review current feedSelect [Administer/RSS Site Publishing]Select [Reset to defaults]

Enable production caching

Out of the box, Drupal is configured for site development. When deploying a production site, reconfigure the caching

Step by step Open /admin/settings/performanceSelect [Normal] Page caching modeSelect [Enable] for Block cacheSelect [Enable] for CSS and JavaScript

(when not adding modules)

Next Steps

Official Drupal Site - www.drupal.orgYouTube - Lots

http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=drupalDrupal Overview

www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Q2aPi9ZEgs * Learn by the Drop - www.learnbythedrop.com