Alden Tech and Design

Log in to the web site.

Click on the image/picture/text that you want to change, and then click on edit.

Change the gallery and click on the save button on the bottom of the page.

When I started to write this little tutorial I made a decision to only cover the basic choices that most users will use. What choices you have when you create new content is dependent on the site and what modules are installed. It also depends on what user level you have.

Drupal is security sensitive so every action can be set on node and user level if needed. This means that some of the options below can be blocked for you.

Choosing what content to create

To create content in Drupal you go to Create content in the menu and select the type of content you want to create.

The basic options are Book page, Page, Story, Blog entry and Forum topic. The first and the last two options will only show if those modules are enabled on the site. Other types of content can be image, project, product etc.

• Book page is for content that can go over several pages. You can organize the pages in an hierarchical structure the same way you would with chapters in a book. You might be able to use other content types than Book page in a Book. It all depends on the configuration of the site.
• Page is for static information. Most often content regarding the site and its use.
• Story is content that can change often and that you want the readers/customers to be able to comment on.

There are two fields that will be common for almost all types of content: Title and Body. The title is one line and you can not customize it. The web master can change how it is displayed by changing the template. In a separate post I will show more about how to work in the body field.

Editing the body

I have created a separate post for editing the content, but I wanted to mention it here. Most web sites based on Drupal comes with a WYSIWYG editor that lets you work as if you had Word open. Personally I prefer to use FCK-editor for editing content, but there are a couple of others for Drupal. The picture below shows the filtered toolbar for FCKeditor. To install it on a Drupal web site is a little difficult as you need to change values in configuration files.

As you can see this is very similar to toolbars in other text editors and it is very simple to use.

Input format

This is a choice for you to consider if it is accessible. The web master might have created other options as well. If you have only text and a few links, use Filtered HTML. If you need to display images, video or other multimedia, use Full HTML. Full HTML might not be available for you because of security. Talk to the web master if you really need it. Otherwise, contribute to the security of the site and use Filtered HTML.

Menu settings / Book outline

Menu and books are both used for organizing content on the site. Books are basically organizing larger amounts of content the way you read a book and you can go forth and back between the "chapters". Menues are less flexible and you go to one or the other. They are great for one page content that fit on one page.

How these are used depends on the site and how they are configured. Most sites will only allow editors or administrators to add content to menues or books.

Publishing options

This menu let you decide whether to publish the content you just created or not. You can also choose to place it on the front page or make it "sticky" on the top of the page. Very handy if you want to make an intro to your site and then have other content below it.

If you choose not to publish what you wrote, and you decide to go back and work on it, please go to content, find your master piece and click on edit. That way you can continue where you left off. I normally save what I am working on every 5 minutes and then go back in and edit it.

Comment settings

You can decide if you want people to comment on your content or not, if you are allowed to decide this.

File attachments

This migth be available to you if you have the right to upload images or other files. The web master/owner of the site might have decided to say no unless you are an editor/staff/administrator of the site.

Drupal is today one of the most used CMSs (Content Management System) that is used around the world. Whitehouse.gov relaunched their web site in October 2009 using Drupal as the basis for their web site. One of the reasons for the popularity is that it can handle a lot of simultanous users, it is secure and you can change it to your liking. You can add and remove modules as you need. Creating a site with blogs, forums, online store, organic groups and other features.

Automated installation

There are several options for installing Drupal on a web site. The easiest is if your hosting company has a control panel that has Simple scripts or Fantastico. Then you push the button for installing Drupal, tell it where to install and the site is ready to work on. Remember that if you install to the root folder of the site, it might remove your front page so be aware of what you want to do.

Manual installation

The manual installation of the core is simple if you know how to use an ftp-client, a browser and know how to create a database on your domain. The following is a brief walk through on how to do it. There are other guides on the internet as well that are more thorough and cover the specifics for each hosting company.

Go to drupal.org and download verson 6.xx. Version 5 is still maintained, but I recommend that you go for the latest version.

Once you have that downloaded, unpack it and upload it to your web site using an ftp-client. Filezilla is one that is very popular, but there are many others.

While the ftp-client is uploading the files you can create the database that is needed for the installation. For most web sites a database based on MySQL is sufficient, but if you are going for a bigger site with thousands of users and a lot of content, look into using PostgreSQL. The information that is important is servername, database name, username and password. The username and password should NOT be the same as your normal login, and they should contain letters, numbers and other characters.

When all the files are uploaded, use your ftp-client and go to the following directory on the server: sites/default and copy the file default.settings.php to settings.php. Make sure the file is readable by changing the security to 777 (or read, write and execute for everyone).

Use your internet browser (Internet explorer, Firefox, Opera or Safari) and type in the url to your web site. You will now see the screen below. Click on Install Drupal in English.

You should now see the following screen if everything is working the way it should:

I have highlighted the options that is necessary. Most times the Advanced options is not necessary to look at as Drupal will figure out the database server/host. For some databases it might be necessary to add a table prefix in case you have other data in there. I use drup_ on some of my installations.

The next screen will be for you to add the name of the site (normally your business name), a system administrator username and password and you are ready to go. Have your site use clean urls if possible. It gives you an option to use friendly names on the information you are posting.

Important last step:

Use your ftp-client and change the security of settings.php to 444 (on some servers it will be 644) and you are ready to explore what Drupal can offer you. Most likely you will like to add modules and change the theme/template of the site.