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Drupal Online Tutorial. A Product of an ENGL 421 class at Purdue University. Page 1. What is Drupal?.
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Drupal Online Tutorial A Product of an ENGL 421 class at Purdue University Page 1
What is Drupal? • Drupal is an open-source platform and content management system for building dynamic web sites offering a broad range of features and services including user administration, publishing workflow, discussion capabilities, news aggregation, metadata functionalities using controlled vocabularies and XML publishing for content sharing purposes. Page 2
What is Drupal? • What is Open-Source? • Open Source means that whoever writes a piece of computer code makes it available for anybody else to see it, modify it, or use it. • GPL (GNU [GNU Not Unix] Public License) is the most common open-source license standard. Page 2
What is Drupal? • What is Content Management? • Web pages are often easily created with static (non-changing) content, but it is usually very difficult to make regular changes to a page. Content Management is the process of easily changing what a user sees at a web page. Page 2
What is needed to run Drupal? • A web server capable of executing PHP scripts • recommended: Apache • PHP • Recommend using the latest stable release • A PHP supported database server • recommended: mySQL Page 3
Bugs, Bugs, Bugs If you find a bug in Drupals’ open source software the solution to your problem can be solved by using the Bug Tracker system. The Bug Tracker was set up so that if a bug is found in the code it can be reported on the Drupal website. The reports that are submitted are a huge factor in making Drupal a reliable software. It will also save you a lot of time. Page 4
I found a Bug, How can I report it? • First of all if you have found a bug in the software make sure that the you are using the newest version of Drupal (currently 4.2.0). Some of the bugs found may be corrected when you change versions, • If you do find a bug and are running the newest version then bugs can be reported to Drupal.org Bug Tracker Page 4
Submit New Bug • To report a bug just scroll down to the bottom of Drupal’s page and click on the button labeled “Submit new bug.” • From there you will need to fill out a few fields of information such as the title and version of Drupal that you are currently using as well as a description of the bug. • You do not have to be a member of Drupal.org or even logged in to submit bug information. Page 4
How else can I report Bugs • There is another way to report bugs. • If you are a member of Drupal.org you can also send in bug reports by using a development list at Drupal-devel@drupal.org. Page 4
How do I Develop and Use a Module? • Modules are used to add menus to Drupal • Examples of available modules are: stories, blogs, polls, images, etc • Creating modules in Drupal is simple: • It is simply a text file, including PHP code, in the directory that ends in .module • Allows the use of any text editor Page 5
How to Use a Node Module. • Nodes are the individual pieces of content which make up the entire Drupal community—like individual page in website • Node Modules differ from regular modules in that they contain a _node hook. • What is a _node hook?: • A Special PHP function that is defined in a module • What the _node hook does for the module: • Tells Drupal what type node the module defines. Page 5
How do I change a theme • The desired theme must be downloaded to the server • Existing documentation explaining this step in detail • Administration > Site Configuration > Themes • Select desired theme in default theme dropdown box • Sets the default theme seen by most users, although users can change the theme to what they want by editing their accounts Page 6
How Do I Add a Poll? • The Poll module must be installed • Instructions Here. • To create a poll a user needs the "create polls" permission. • To vote on a poll question a user must have the "vote on polls" permission. • To view the results one needs the "access content" permission. • To administer polls you need the "administer nodes" permission. Page 7