Beginner's guide for Drupal

What is Drupal?

What is this thing with the funny name, Drupal?

It is a "content management system". I am using it for several of the websites that I manage because it enables quick and easy updating of content.

I act as publisher and you act as a contributor. I and my fearless staff can edit and arrange your timeless prose and make it look beautiful and then publish it on the site. You don't have to know anything at all about the technical details. Weellll... maybe you do need to know a few things. That is why this page exists.

If you want the full story about what Drupal can do, simply visit the Drupal web site. You might even end up teaching me about an extension you think we need.

How do I use Drupal?

It's so easy! But not so easy that I can do it without a few notes. So here we go.

First off, I have set up the site so that articles that you submit go through an editorial process. You are free to experiment without worrying about messing up the site. I will check things out before they are published.

This page purports to give you just enough information to create and edit pages in the sites that I manage. For now the publically accessible site is Solar CREEK.

This page is part of another easy-to-use content management system called a MediaWiki. Wiki's have their own advantages and disadvantages but that's a story for another day.

If something here is confusing to you, you can either write to me or you can directly edit the page to clarify it; that's how a wiki works. Anyway. On with the Drupal story. Let's get started.

Registration

The first thing you need to do is register an account for yourself. For aesthetic reasons there might not be a registration link on the main page. The link will be at the bottom of every article though; bring up any article and scroll to the bottom.

You could also enter the URL directly by adding "user/register" to the end of the site name. for example for Solar CREEK: http://www.solarcreek.org/user/register

Similarly the login page is: http://www.solarcreek.org/user/login

Choosing account name and password: this is not a secure server. For your own safety, don't use the same username and password here that you used when you set up your online billpay account with your bank. Make up a new one.

Advanced topics

You might not want to delve further. This section is a set of notes to myself on how things fit together in Drupal...

Blocks

"Blocks" are blocks of text that appear in left and right columns. They can be administrative (such as the login block) or generated by modules.

Set up your account

To browse the site and leave comments, you don't need an account. To add or edit content, you do.

Currently you can just sign up; I act as the editor and decide whether stories get published. (This is to limit defacement of the site, not to step on your toes.)