Drupal Content Management System a technical introduction

YIPL Dev Team 20 October 2011

What am I going to tell?

I am going to boast about Drupal. How good it is, who uses it, why use it? How to really start clicking and building your Drupal website.

What is a CMS?
A content management system (CMS) is the collection of procedures used to manage work flow in a collaborative environment. Simple: Lets users mange content store, archive, retrieve and show content in some logical manner.

What is a web CMS?

A web content management system (WCMS) is a software system. Provides website authoring and administration tools designed to allow users with little knowledge of web programming languages. Helps to create and manage the site's content with relative ease. Usually has a template/presentation layer.
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Web CMS in simple terms

A web content management system is a system that makes content adding, moderating, updating, deleting, archiving and retrieving easy. It allows non technical users to build and use a website with little or no training. It is a web application that manages various forms of content from text, images to video. Also helps to manage users and other things like comments.

What is Drupal?
Drupal is a free and open source content management system (CMS) written in PHP and distributed under the GNU General Public License. It is used as a back-end system for at least 1% of all websites worldwide ranging from personal blogs to larger corporate and political sites including whitehouse.gov and data.gov.uk. It is also used for knowledge management and business collaboration.
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Drupal Usage Stats (20 Oct 11)

What is Drupal?
A great free web application that helps you to build dynamic feature rich and maintainable websites in very less time. It is a system that lets you create content with just clicks and not coding a website. A framework to develop powerful and robust web applications. The content you created can be retrieved and shown in a way you desire. Built on PHP and primarily runs on MYSQL.
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Drupal Components
The basic system you use to build your website is called the Drupal Core. The more features you want the more modules you add. You want to make your website look different choose a theme (thousands available for free) Development can be generally segregated into developer and designer tracks.
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Where and When did it all start?

Dries Buyteart from Antwrep, Belgium started it in 2000 in his college dorm. Derived from Druppel, the Dutch word for Drop which also means village in Dutch. Drop.org to now http://drupal.org

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Why Use Drupal

Because it is:
Flexible Modular Robust Scalable Secure Feature rich (5800 Free modules) Themable (1000+ Themes) Huge community to support Etc etc
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Who uses Drupal?

www.whitehouse.gov

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www.data.gov.uk

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http://research.yahoo.com

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http://about.digg.com

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www.sa2010.gov.za

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http://research.nokia.com

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http://www.symantec.com/community

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http://buytaert.net/tag/drupal-sites

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Who uses Drupal in Nepal?

www.ncell.com.np

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www.mapmandu.com

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www.barcamp.org.np

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www.yipl.com.np

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www.unicef.org.np/voy

http://buytaert.net/tag/drupal-sites - Official List http://drupalsites.net - Drupal sites collection 5200+ in the list. 24

Drupal Versions
Drupal 5 Branch Drupal 5.23 Drupal 6 Branch Drupal 6.22 (released 25 May 2011) Drupal 7 Branch Drupal 7.8(released 31 Aug 2011). Drupal 8 Branch May be in the offering

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When to use Drupal?

For A blog For a company website For a robust application - ConnectR Etc etc

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Drupal Architecture

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Drupal Modular Architecture

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Basic Drupal Terminology

Node: a single puzzle piece that is placed onto the site by one of your users, or even yourself. Almost everything is a node. Content Type: general term for a node. Comments: Comments are what allow people to add comments to any node that has been created.

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Basic Drupal Terminology 2

Block: A region or space that contains some data may be links, image etc. Mainly built by modules or may be custom made. Menu: A region that contains links to other content/nodes in Drupal. Like primary, secondary, navigation or any custom made. Weight : Defines the priority of display (obsolete now). Module: A code block that activates a new function in the Drupal Website. (www.drupalmodules.com) Theme: A package when installed and changed changes the overall look and feel of the Drupal website. (test themes at: http://themegarden.org/drupal6/ )
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Learn more about Drupal

http://drupal.org Try http://drupal.org/handbooks Google for Drupal or search for Drupal in youtube. Have fun Drupalling.

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Install Drupal (Hands on)

LAMP stack Acquia stack On XAMPP Any preferred or running platform To Do
Install Drupal Install included and contributed modules (From GUI and drush) Install and change contributed themes (From GUI and drush)
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