Easy web development using Drupal CMS(Content Management System) Version 1.

by:

MOHD ALIF AZMAN

http://www.alifazman.com

Visit alifazman's Scribd Channel on:

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Creative Commons International :Malaysia

Chapter 2 Understanding drupal basics

Chapter 2

2.1 Understanding drupal basics

After you successfully install your drupal CMS on your web server or your local machine. Then you
suppose to get a welcome page .Look like this:

Image 2.1.1 : Drupal Welcome page.

By default, drupal will create a simple welcome page like this one and your content that you like to add
will be configure by yourself. I'll show you later on how to create content for your drupal website in
this chapter.
In this Chapter our main target is to :
1. Create and understanding the function of content management.
2. Understanding what is block function and adding new block in our drupal powered website

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Chapter 2 Understanding drupal basics

Drupal administration :

Drupal administration exist consisting 5 administration section which each of administration part has it
own sub categories to maintains :

1. Content Management

• Comments
• content
• content types
• Post settings
• RSS publishing
• Taxonomy
2. Site Building

• Blocks
• Menu
• Modules
• Themes
3. User Management
• Access rules
• Permissions
• Roles
• User settings
• Users

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Chapter 2 Understanding drupal basics

4. Reports

• Recent log entries

• Top 'access denied' errors

• Top 'page not found' errors

• Status report

5. Site Configuration

• Actions

• Administration themes

• Clearn URL's

• Date and time

• Error reporting

• File system

• Image toolkit

• Input formats

• Logging and alerts

• Performance

• Site information

• Site maintainance

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Chapter 2 Understanding drupal basics

2.1.1 Content Management

Image 2.1.2 : Content Management of Drupal

Above is the image of Content management links and it's sub-menu for managing your website. I know
maybe you are wondering where and how can you find the back-end for creating your content. It's
actually not under content management, because it only provide your the links to manage and configure
your setting for your content.

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Chapter 2 Understanding drupal basics

To create a new content, just point to the “home” of your administration back-end and you should see
the sidebar on your left which displayed as “Create content”

Image 2.1.3 : Create content link is on your left sidebar panel of drupal

Image 2.1.4 : A “Create Content facilities with it options will appear.”

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Chapter 2 Understanding drupal basics

2.1.2 Creating content

As showed just now, when you clicked on create content, there will be options whether you want to
create a Page type of content or Story type of content. Now let's try both style .First we take a look at
Page type style by clicking there. You should get this panel after clicking there.

Image 2.1.5 : An editor page to create content for your drupal website.

Our focus now is to create simple content. Let's ignore first others options then Title, Body and
Publishing option because I just want to show you the way it works. You can try by yourself after
understanding this option. Just type anything for the title and the body of your content.

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Chapter 2 Understanding drupal basics

Creating content with page style option

Image 2.1.6 : Writing content

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Chapter 2 Understanding drupal basics

Image 2.1.7 : Publishing option

As you can see picture above, down of the writing panel you will see the option for publishing whether
you want to promote it to front page of your website or not. For this one, you should check the
Published and Promoted to front page option.

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Chapter 2 Understanding drupal basics

Image 2.1.8 : Front Page with your written content.

As you can see, now we have our content for our front page. When you point your browser to
http://yourhost eg : in my case will be : http://localhost/drupal, you will see the content that you have
created just now.

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Chapter 2 Understanding drupal basics

Page Style VS story style

Creating content with Story Style option was the same as the page style option. What the difference are

• As default setting, page style content will not be promoted on the front page when you
published it.

So, for the story style option it will be vise verse.

Image 2.1.9 : The content with title content was created using story style option.

As picture above, the content named “test” was created using story style option. When you published it,
it will automatically promoted on the front page of your drupal site.

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Chapter 2 Understanding drupal basics

2.2 : Blocks and Menus function

Image 2.2.1 : Panel to access menu and block functions

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Chapter 2 Understanding drupal basics

2.2.2 : Block position inside the drupal block administration

If you are familiar with joomla! CMS, you block in drupal is quite similar to a module in Joomla! .You
can add you desire block, and configure it position using this block management. Above is the image of
position for default template of Drupal which contain following position :Header, Right sidebar, Footer
and content position

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Chapter 2 Understanding drupal basics

Image 2.2.3 : Position for content and footer blocks

Managing block position (Examples)

Users should bear in their mind that blocks position will be different based on the template use. In this
example I'll show how to manage the position of the blocks using template installed .Now, lets

try to add some info on our right side of our website. By understanding this trick, you will understand
how to manage your menu's and etc position on your website

In this example we are trying to:

• Create a new blocks.

• Locate it on a suite position that based on our need.

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Chapter 2 Understanding drupal basics

Creating a new blocks

Creating a new block is simple, click at “Blocks link” (refer to image 2.2.1), and should you make the
appearing panel as like image 2.2.2. After a panel as refer to image stated before, click “Add Block”
just like below and for the time being, use the next image configuration should be suffient to create
your new block. On the bottom of the page you will find save button.Click to create your new block.

Image 2.2.4 : Add block link

Image 2.2.5 : Create content or Description for your blocks.

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Chapter 2 Understanding drupal basics

Image 2.2.6 : Block list

New block created listed
On Block list

Image 2.27 : Set new block position

To set you position of new created block, pick from the down list the position you wants .Click save to
apply the configuration.

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Chapter 2 Understanding drupal basics

Image 2.2.8 : Block created

-End Chapter 2-

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