Drupal: The Basics & More. Walter Nelson RAND Corporation walternelson.com

Transcription

1 Drupal: The Basics & More Walter Nelson RAND Corporation walternelson.com

2 Disclaimer RAND Corporation does not use Drupal All my Drupal experience has been extracurricular Non-profits, movie theater, personal site etc. I am self taught and there is much I don t know

3 Open Source Content Management Systems Drupal Joomla! WordPress I know Drupal, so that s what I will discuss Search Drupal vs. Joomla vs. WordPress for informed comparisons

4 About Drupal Creates database driven website/content Management System Open Source Currently at version 7 Uses PHP and MySQL

5 Database Driven? Content and format are separate Internal search engine is a standard feature Self-organizing (if you are organized) Content can be entered in once place, and appear in many

6 Some Advantages Easier to add content no need for Dreamweaver etc. Multiple contributors with VERY granular permissions Contributors can t break it unless you let them Format changes are instantaneous

7 The Down Side of a CMS Initial setup is a lot of work to include wrapping your head around the architecture of your information Performance may be slow You can destroy the whole website with a single mistake (back up your database) You can t make format changes to specific pages

8 Open Source Advantages Not owned by anyone Developed by a huge community Constantly growing and expanding Amazing variety of capabilities No cost to acquire

9 Open Source Disadvantages It s a jungle out there! Constant changes are hard to keep up with New modules or versions may not be compatible with key pieces of your installation Existing modules may not be compatible with each other Modules may be abandoned by their developers If there s a problem there is no patient chap in Mumbai to whine to

10 An option to consider 3 rd party vendor They run your Drupal for you They usually want to host it for you, so they can manage it properly

11 Installation Step by step videos Helpful Fix this to continue messages The easiest web application I have ever installed

12 Some Problems Your server s PHP installation may not support all modules (e.g. graphics issues) Insufficient memory allotted to application or database Performance issues if resources are constrained Caching is imperfect fix

13 Modules Drupal has hundreds of modules which do almost anything you want to do Download and unzip Upload to server Activate via Admin page Set appropriate permissions Use it

14 Selected Modules Date + Calendar MARC (turn your OPAC records into web pages) Contact form Image uploader RSS feeds (lots of them) Feed Aggregator Commenting CAPTCHA spam reducer

15 Taxonomies be still my librarian heart Each term creates aggregated pages, each with RSS feed Fixed vocabulary with sub-headings Free form tags do the same Book format with child pages creates menu tree Affiliates pages hierarchically and menu is created automatically Easy to change location in hierarchy

16 Permissions Everything on the site, including the ability to see a thing, is permission driven Every module has its own set of permissions You can create special content types with unique permissions Permissions are bundled in admin-defined Groups Users are assigned to Groups

17 Some screen shots The interfaces at work

18 Module On/Off Admin Panel

19 Typical Content Creation Screen

20 Permissions Management

21 Themes

22 Drupal Example

23 Another Drupal Site

24 Graphic & Attached Document

25 Feed Aggregator

26 Calendar

27 Contact Form

28 MARC Display

29 Conclusion Drupal gives those without the resources or skill set the power to create a real CMS driven website Collaborative community provides resources beyond anything an individual or small organization could create Drupal can do the job

30 A Final Observation Drupal is the real deal It is not Content Management lite It is a real CMS, and it is as good as your understanding of data architecture can make it