DRUPAL KEERTHI PUNUGUNTA. Indiana State University December 15, 2014

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1 DRUPAL KEERTHI PUNUGUNTA Indiana State University December 15, 2014 Abstract Drupal is a free and open-source content-management framework implemented in php and distributed under the GNU.It is used as a back-end framework for around extensive number of websites in the world.drupal is wide open for any computing platform that has server which is capable of running php and a database. This paper demonstrates the magnificent framework of drupal,how to create a website with the help of different modules. 1 Introduction Drupal is content management system that allows individuals to easily publish, manage and organize a wide variety of content on a website. Overall 2.1 percent of the worldwide websites are created using drupal. The Standard release of drupal known as Drupal core, contains basic features and its installation can serve wide range of websites from simple website to single or multi user blog. Why does 1,015,000 sites around the world use Drupal? Simple: Drupal is very simple with its sophisticated programming interface,users find the platform user-friendly.the official organization of drupal provides us with enormous number of modules, for hosting and promoting our content with no programming skills. Flexible: Drupal is built with flexible architecture.you can customize by creating your own modules,by installing your own themes. Secure: Both Drupal community and security experts agree that drupal is secure to use.drupal common code has proven to prevent common security vulnerabilities. Along with all these features, Drupal has large and vibrant community of users and developers,many people testing it,finding security issues, commendable documentation helping new users. 1.1 Our Results We created computer science department website of Indiana State University,replica of mathcs.indstate.edu.through my process of working on my project,i learnt alot about creating webpages,working with modules,creating themes.i gained alot of css and php knowledge which I was unaware of before. 1

2 1.2 History Drupal became an open source in 2001.The name Drupal is originated from the Dutch word druppel which means drop.drupal gained users interest in 2003 when it helped build U.S Democratic Party s primary campaign.on March 5,2009 Buytaert announced a code freeze for Drupal 7 and it was released on January 5,2011 and after that maintenance of Drupal 5 stopped. Newer version of Drupal is Drupal 8 which is under development. 2 Definitions The walkthrough of basic definitions of drupal Drupal Drupal is also described as a Web application framework, as it meets the generally acceptedfeature requirements for such frameworks. 2.2 Module Modules are package of files in a directory that add functionality to Drupal. uploaded in Drupal s Module Space(/sites/all/modules). Modules are 2.3 Themes Themes are package of files in a directory that adjust site layout and style.themes are uploaded in Drupal s Theme Space(/sites/all/themes). 2.4 Getting Started with Drupal Install a local server for drupal to access it in your computer(examples:wamp or xamp). Download drupal from the official drupal organization website. Copy and paste drupal folder in the www directory of wamp or xamp server. Create a database called drupal in mysql database in wamp server.the syntax to open drupal in your server depends on the server name you gave in wamp or xamp server installation.usually it is localhost/drupal. 2.5 How to Install a Module To Install a Module one should have access to the dashboard of Drupal.The steps to install modules are the following- Go to Modules section in Drupal dashboard. In the top left side youll find a tab called Install new module. On Clicking that itll direct you to another page asking for your url of the module or archive file. You can either give the url of the module which is avalaible on the drupal.org website or you can download the module and browse it through your computer. After given the path it installs and we can enable the newly added module in Modules section. 2

3 3 How to Install a Theme To Install a Theme one should have access to the dashboard of Drupal.The steps to install themes are the following- Go to Appearance section in Drupal dashboard. In the top left side of the page youll find a tab called Install new theme. On Clicking it ll direct you to the same page of installation of module. Same procedure is repeated. You can enable the newly added theme in Appearance section. 4 Organization In the Process of creating the cs department website I learnt how to use drupal in a efficient way.in the rest of the paper I would be explaining the different features of Drupal that I came across. 4.1 Adding Content Drupal only allows Admin and Content Manager to add content into the website.admin creates roles called Content Manager and gives permissions inorder to add Content.Content Manager is nothing but a role,which we will understand in next section of the paper. 4.2 How to Add Content? Login to your website with username and password. Click on Content section in the dashboard menu. Click on Add Content and a page opens with Article and Basic Page options. Article is used to publish an article and people in the website comment on the article you published. Basic Page is used to create content on the page in more precise way than Article.Comments are not enabled for basic page. Once you choose what to add into your website,a new page opens with text fields called title,summary. Title is the title of the page or article. Summary is the body of the page or article. You can add a picture by choosing file or giving url of the picture below in the summary. 4.3 Permissions and roles Admin has all the permissions in the website.he is the sole user who can create a role,access administration modules,create a new user,delete a exisiting user and alter the structure of the website. 3

4 4.3.1 How to add a user Click on the People section in the dashboard menu. Click on the option called Add user. Enter the required credentials and click Create New Account How to add a role Click on the People section in the dashboard menu. Click on the tab called Permissions. Give the name of the role and Click Add role. Now you can assign this role to any user you want and edit the permissions you want in permissions tab. 5 Working with Contributed Modules Drupal Core Structure is in built with many modules. We install contributed modules arent serving the purpose. There are more than modules in the drupal community which are used for different fucntionalities. For example, there is no drop down list in built in the core themes, in cases like this we need a contributed module. 5.1 Modules that we used jquery Plugins TB Mega Menu Bootstrap Panels Ctools Page Manager CKEditor IMCE Description about Modules jquery Plugins It provides several jquery plugins, which includes creating tabs,tooltip,metadata,validator,date input,range input,scrollable.it is increasingly common for multiple Drupal modules and themes to require jquery plugins.so it can make sense that these modules depend on one module for the plugins. TB Mega Menu Toolbox Megamenu improves the functionality of the main menu by allowing us to style the menu.it also supports drop down list feature.we can adjust all the settings through a embedded toolbox. Bootstrap The Main Features of TB Megamenu are accessed using bootstrap.it gives the toolbox in Tb Megamenu.It improves the customizable functionality of the TB Megamenu. 4

5 Panels The Panels module allows you to create multiple blocks of pages on the same page.it has userfriendly drag and drop content manager that displays the content within the layout.you need to be a administrator to add panels to the page. Ctools Ctools is a requirement for Panels module.it enables the content of your page to be displayed correctly in the right block. There are many kinds of tools you can use to display information on the right blocks, by writing PHP code and it is not recommended to do that. Page Manager Page Manager is a requirement for the Panels module.this allows to create new pages and allows placing blocks within that page.it can also overwrite the existing page.all the pages created by Panels are handled by Page Manager.It was found by Panels itself. CKEditor This module is very useful as it displays a toolbox to upload a images. Add content in drupal doesn t allow us to add two or more images in the same basic page or article.with the help of this module one can add two or more images in the same page and also can adjust the position, width, height of the image uploaded, thereby making it easy to upload multiple images. IMCE It is a requirement for CKEditor.This module is responsible for the image/file uploader to appear on the body of the page.it enables the toolbox that supports personal directories and quota to upload images using CKEditor. 6 Contribution In the Process of completing my project,the things I learned include: Creating a website using drupal Php coding and Css styling Creating panels and customizing them Creating different kind of menus Adding content to a page. 7 Drupal vs Wordpress vs Jhoomla Wordpress is world s best content management system and wins the best CMS competition because of the following reasons- Wordpress has significantly more plug-ins,themes and other customizations available for it than any other CMS. For a beginner, this is probably the most suitable platform to build a site. Many web hosting companies offer automatic installation of WordPress sites,compared to other CMS. Since it is used by over 60 million websites around the world,it has vast community support.its support forum is active,where contributors can help you within minutes. 5

6 7.1 Drupal Advantages over Wordpress and Jhoomla Drupal is the second most popular CMS.It is fully open source program,which many people prefer especially those who want to improve their technical knowledge. Some of the advantages of Drupal over other CMS are- Drupal is the most technically advanced of these three CMS. Drupal doesn t use as many resources as other CMS. Drupal is easily customizable,you install a module and it quickly changes. 7.2 Which is more Efficient? There is still a debate that which one among Drupal and WordPress is more efficient.according to me, Drupal is more efficient than any of the CMS because of the following reasons. Drupal has more improved performance.it typically loads pages quickly and has quicker response than Wordpress or Jhoomla. It is less resource intensive than that of Wordpress Troubleshoot error messages and identifying problems with coding is a significant benefit. 8 Why Drupal has Security Risk? Professional Security audits of Drupal sites have generally found that the vast majority of security holes are present in the custom theme or modules written by site s developers. Protocols like FTP are more likely to be the means of a succesful attack than a vulnerability in Drupal. 9 References drupalize.me websitesetup.org 6