Beginning
the Drupal
Version 22/12/2009
by AZ
Multisite?
YES
NO
Installation of
6.X or 7.X-dev
Local or/and online
GENERAL
CONCEPTS
Beginning
the Drupal
THE 11 COMMANDMENTS
GENERAL
ADVERTISSEMENTS
Security Update
REAL STARTING OF DRUPAL FOR CREATING CONTENT
Multisite?
YES
Installation of
6.X or 7.X-dev
Beginning
the Drupal
NO
Please follow another
tutorial for the installation
of Drupal locally or/and
online.
See for example the file
drupalunderfree.doc
GENERAL
CONCEPTS
THE 11 COMMANDMENTS
GENERAL
ADVERTISSEMENTS
Security Update
REAL STARTING OF DRUPAL FOR CREATING CONTENT
Installation of
6.X or 7.X-dev
Multisite?
YES
Beginning
the Drupal
NO
If interested in local multisite installation on windows
system, please follow
Labs.1 of this tutorial.
GENERAL
CONCEPTS
THE 11 COMMANDMENTS
GENERAL
ADVERTISSEMENTS
Security Update
REAL STARTING OF DRUPAL FOR CREATING CONTENT
Multisite?
YES
Installation of
6.X or 7.X-dev
Beginning
the Drupal
NO
GENERAL
CONCEPTS
To learn some elementary
jargons: see the General
concepts slides of this
tutorial
THE 11 COMMANDMENTS
GENERAL
ADVERTISSEMENTS
Security Update
REAL STARTING OF DRUPAL FOR CREATING CONTENT
Multisite?
YES
Installation of
6.X or 7.X-dev
NO
GENERAL
CONCEPTS
The 11 Most Important
Things To Do
Beginning
After You
Install Drupal.
the Drupal
Refer to
corresponding section.
THE 11 COMMANDMENTS
GENERAL
ADVERTISSEMENTS
Bonus: Also includes
Labs.2 giving the usual
steps for installing contributed modules to
Security Update Drupal.
REAL STARTING OF DRUPAL FOR CREATING CONTENT
Multisite?
YES
Installation of
6.X or 7.X-dev
Beginning
the Drupal
NO
You have to be aware of several points
before starting working with Drupal:
see the general advertissements given in
the drupal documentation. Also do not
forget to update Drupal if needed (alerts).
These points are not detailed in the
following slides.
GENERAL
CONCEPTS
THE 11 COMMANDMENTS
GENERAL
ADVERTISSEMENTS
Security Update
REAL STARTING OF DRUPAL FOR CREATING CONTENT
Multisite?
YES
Installation of
6.X or 7.X-dev
Beginning
the Drupal
NO
GENERAL
CONCEPTS
THE 11 COMMANDMENTS
GENERAL
ADVERTISSEMENTS
Then you can really start using Drupal.
To do that fine, a set of lessons will be the subject of
further tutorial… Security Update
REAL STARTING OF DRUPAL FOR CREATING CONTENT
LABS.1 MULTI-SITE ON WINDOWS
Labs. 1 Multi-site on Windows
• Step1. Set up Drupal as usual
4 sub-steps:
A-INSTALL Latest release of
WampServer 2.0i [07/11/09]
Includes :
- Apache 2.2.11
- MySQL 5.1.36
- PHP 5.3.0
http://www.wampserver.com/en/
http://drupal.org/node/288126
Labs. 1 Multi-site on Windows
B-Open PhpAdmin, Create a new database -- we'll
call it drupal7 because this will be our base
installation which we will leave untouched.
While you're here create a second and third
database, which we'll call site2 and site3.
You can also change the database privileges if you
want, but to keep things simple here, we'll stick
with the default user root and no password for
these tutorial.
Labs. 1 Multi-site on Windows
• C-Download Drupal x into WampServer's
wamp/www folder
Labs. 1 Multi-site on Windows
D-Do your first Drupal installation by pointing your browser to your Drupal folder,
which should be something like http://localhost/drupal-7.x-dev.
Enter the site1 database and user settings (root, no password).
Complete the installation.
Step2.Prepare the files for your new
multi-sites
• A-Find Drupal's sites folder, make a copy of the default
folder and rename it to the URL you want for your first test
site.
To keep it simple, we'll make it the same as the first test
site database: site2.
While you're here, create files, tmp and themes sub-folders
within this new folder. The themes sub-folder will be used
for any custom theme you create specifically for this site.
Similarly, you can create a modules sub-folder for any
module you use only with this site. However, generally, I
find it easier to keep all contributed modules together in
the sites/all/modules folder so I can use them with all my
test sites.
Labs. 1 Multi-site on Windows
B- Use a text editor to open the settings.php file
in your new site2 folder and change $db_url
line to reflect your first test site database, and
the database user name and password, eg:
mysql://username:password@localhost/site2
Also, change the $base_url to the above site
URL, eg:
$base_url = 'http://site2'; // NO trailing slash!
Labs. 1 Multi-site on Windows
C-Repeat the above 2 sub-steps (A,B) for the
other test site (site3)
Step3. Adjust windows so it can find
the new site at a new made-up name
• Find the Windows hosts file, which should be in
Windows' System32/drivers/etc folder, make a backup
of that file and then open the hosts file in a text editor.
Here, add new lines mapping your localhost IP address
to match the URLs of your test sites and your original
Drupal site. In our example, it would look like this:
127.0.0.1 localhost
127.0.0.1 site2
127.0.0.1 site3
127.0.0.1 drupal7
Step4. Adjust Apache so it responds
to requests for the new names
A-Find the Apache httpd.conf file which, in
WampServer, should be in the
wamp/bin/ApacheX.X/conf folder (where X.X
is the Apache version number).
make sure the "Virtual hosts" line is active by
removing the # before
Include conf/extra/httpd-vhosts.conf.
B-Make a backup of that httpd-vhosts.conf file (which is in Apache's conf/extra folder), then open
httpd-vhosts.conf with a text editor and add these lines:
<VirtualHost *:80>
DocumentRoot D/wamp/www/drupal-7.x-dev
ServerName site2
</VirtualHost>
where C:/wamp/www/drupal-6.x is the path to the Drupal installation folder and site1 is the URL
for your first test site.
Add another entry for your other test site, another entry for your original Drupal installation and
another entry for WampServer's localhost URL (if you want to keep this active), eg:
<VirtualHost *:80>
DocumentRoot D:/wamp/www/drupal-7.x-dev
ServerName site3
</VirtualHost>
<VirtualHost *:80>
DocumentRoot D:/wamp/www/drupal-7.x-dev
ServerName drupal7
</VirtualHost>
<VirtualHost *:80>
DocumentRoot D:/wamp/www
ServerName localhost
</VirtualHost>
Labs. 1 Multi-site on Windows
C-Restart Apache for the changes to take effect.
With WampServer, this is done by selecting
the WampServer icon in the system tray and
then "Restart all services".
Step5. Launching brower
• Now you're ready to install each Drupal test site using
your browser, eg:
http://site2/install.php
http://site3/install.php
And that's it! You can access your two test sites
anytime WampServer is running by using the
http://site1 and http://site1 URLs.
And the first created is available at
http://drupal7/
Labs. 1 Multi-site on Windows
• If you mess up with, say, site1, just delete the
site1 folder, the site1 database in
phpMyAdmin and the site1 entries in the
Windows hosts and Apache httpd-vhosts.conf
files and start again
Tada!
GENERAL CONCEPTS
General concepts (1)
• A module is software (code) that extends
Drupal features and/or functionality:
– Core modules
– (downloaded) Contributed modules
– creating own modules (advanced)
26
General concepts (2)
• User : Every visitor to your site, logged in or not
(anonym):
– Anonymous users have a user ID of 0
– The user with user ID 1 is special, it corresponds to
user account created when you install Drupal: that
user has permission to do absolutely eveything on the
site.
– Other users on your site can be assigned permissions
via roles.
special built-in roles: "anonymous user” and
"authenticated user" / new roles: create a role
27
General concepts (3)
• A node : each item of content is called a node
– Pages in books
– Discussion topics in forums
– Entries in blogs
–…
• Note that each node belongs to a Content
Type. (type de contenu)
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Screenshot: Types de contenu
29
Basic Content types associated
with core Drupal modules
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
Blog Entry A Blog (short for weblog) is an online journal or diary, and the core Blog module
allows registered users on your site to create their own blogs. Each entry in a user blog has
content type Blog Entry.
Book Page Book pages are designed to be part of a collaborative book, enabled by the core
Book module.
Forum A Forum node defines a topic for a forum discussion; people can reply to the topic by
using comments. Forum nodes are organized into subject areas via a Taxonomy (list of
categories).
Page The Page content type is enabled in Drupal in the default installation profile. Typically
Pages are used for static content that can (but are not required to) be linked into the main
navigation bar.
Poll A poll is where a multiple choice question is asked, and users can answer and see other
people's answers to questions.
Story The Story content type is enabled in Drupal in the default installation profile. Stories
are generally used for information whose relevance decreases as time passes (such as news
items), so that newer Stories will typically be placed higher on the page than older Stories
Comment Comments actually aren't nodes, so Comment is technically not a "content type".
Enabling the Comment module allows site visitors to add comments (typically short notes
and replies to other comments) to nodes on the site.
30
• Custom content types can also be created by
going to Administer > Content > Content types
> Add content type
31
Note
• If you want to add fields to your custom
content types, install the Content Const.
ruction Kit (CCK) contributed module, etc.
32
General concepts (4)
•
Comment: Comments are another type of content you can have on your site (if
you have enabled the core Comment module).
•
Taxonomy: Drupal has a system for classifying content, which is known as
taxonomy (taxonomie*) and implemented in the core Taxonomy module. You can
define your own vocabularies (groups of taxonomy terms), and add terms to each
vocabulary. Vocabularies can be flat or hierarchical, can allow single or multiple
selection, and can also be "free tagging" (meaning that when creating or editing
content, you can add new terms on the fly). Each vocabulary can then be attached
to one or more content types, and in this way, nodes on your site can be grouped
into categories, tagged, or classified in any way you choose.
*La taxinomie ou taxonomie est la science qui a pour objet de décrire les organismes
vivants et de les regrouper en entités appelées taxons afin de les identifier puis les
nommer, et enfin les classer. Elle complète la systématique qui est la science qui
organise le classement des taxons et leur relations. La taxonomie s'étend
maintenant à d'autres sciences, entre autres les sciences humaines, les sciences de
l'information ou l'informatique.
33
General concepts (5)
• Database: Drupal stores information in a
database; each type of information has its own
database table.
– For instance, the basic information about the nodes of
your site are stored in the Node table, and if you use
the CCK module to add fields to your nodes, the field
information is stored in separate tables.
– Comments and Users also have their own database
tables, and roles, permissions, and other settings are
also stored in database tables.
34
General concepts (6)
• Path: When you visit a URL within your Drupal site, the part of the
URL after your base site address is known as the path. When you
visit a path in your Drupal site, Drupal figures out what information
should be sent to your browser, via one or more database queries.
– For instance, this page is http://drupal.org/node/19828, whose path is
"node/19828". The module that is responsible for this path is the core
Node module, so when you visit this page, Drupal lets the Node
module determine what to display.
– To determine the path to a particular page on your site, for purposes
of creating a link, go to the page you want to link to and look at the
URL in the address bar. By default the URL, after the base address of
your site, will begin with '?q='.
When 'Clean URLs' are enabled you will see a directory structure in
the URL. The "path" for use in a menu item is the part of the URL
after the site's base address and without the "?q=".
35
General concepts (7)
• Theme: The theme controls how your site is
displayed, including the graphic look, layout,
and colors.
– A theme consists of one or more PHP* files that
define the HTML output of your site's pages, along
with one or more CSS** files that define the
layout, fonts, colors, and other styles.
*Personal Home Page Tools
**Cascading Style Sheets : feuilles de style en cascade
36
General concepts (8)
• Pages on your Drupal site are laid out in regions, which can include
the header, footer, sidebars, and main content section; your theme
may define additional regions.
• Blocks (Blocs) are discrete chunks of information that are displayed
in the regions of your site's pages.
• Blocks can take the form of menus (Menus) (which are concerned
with site navigation), the output from modules, or dynamic and
static chunks of information that you've created yourself…
– There are three standard menus in Drupal
• Primary and Secondary links are built by site administrators, and displayed
automatically in the page header of many themes (if not, you can enable their
blocks to display them).
• Navigation is the catch-all menu that contains your administration menus, as
well as links supplied by modules on your site.
• You can also create your own custom menus, and display them by enabling
their blocks.
37
SOS: Acronyms & jargons
• http://drupal.org/node/937
• http://drupal.org/node/302232
• http://drupal.org/node/122018
38
THE 11 COMMANDEMENTS
•
•
It is assumed that you have successfully installed Drupal and are looking at a "Welcome to
Drupal" screen. If not, see for a tutorial.
The next slides reflects only a personal choice. Of course, these choice are debatable. The
complete origin article can be found in the references section at the end.
40
The 11 Most Important Things To Do
After You Install Drupal
1. Disable Unnecessary Core Modules
Go to modules and disable: Color module
Administrer >> Construction du site >> Modules
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2. Enable Necessary Core Modules
• Go to modules and enable: Path module. Also
enable PHP filter module. And don't forget
about Search module.
42
• 3. Make It Easier To Navigate
• The Drupal administration menu module
displays the entire administrative menu tree
(and most local tasks) in a drop-down menu,
providing administrators one- or two-click
access to most pages. Other modules may also
add menu links to administration menu using
hook_admin_menu().
43
The 11 commandements
• 4. Feel The Power Of Content Type Creation
InsTall CCK (Content Construction Kit
)http://drupal.org/project/cck)
Part of CCK is moving to core in the Drupal 7 version.
44
The 11 commandements
• 5. Control Category and Content Output
• Install Views
(http://drupal.org/project/views)
45
The 11 commandements
• 6. Configure The Way Drupal Works With Urls
Pathauto
(http://drupal.org/project/pathauto),
Token (http://drupal.org/project/token)
and Globalredirect
(http://drupal.org/project/globalredirect).
46
The 11 commandements
• 7. Tune Your SEO
There are two main modules for SEO to be installed: Nodewords
(second name Meta Tags, http://drupal.org/project/nodewords)
and Page Title (http://drupal.org/project/page_title)
L'optimisation pour les moteurs de recherche (en anglais, Search
engine optimization : SEO) est un ensemble de techniques visant à
favoriser la compréhension de la thématique et du contenu d'une ou
de l'ensemble des pages d'un site web par les moteurs de recherche.
Ces techniques visent donc à apporter un maximum d'informations
concernant le contenu d'une page web aux robots d'indexation des
moteurs de recherche.
47
The 11 commandements
• 8. Configure Search
One of the main features of every site is the
Search. Web Users often use web site search
and this feature should be properly
configured, you need to build a proper and
regular built-in Drupal search index.
Go to Site configuration -> Search settings
and check your settings.
Paramètres de recherche
48
The 11 commandements
• 9. Don't Forget About a Backup
Always do backups, especially, before doing any
significant changes. There are plenty of
various solutions for FTP and MySQL backup,
but start with small: install Backup and
Migrate
(http://drupal.org/project/backup_migrate)
49
• 10. Configure Your Cron
cron est le nom d'un programme qui permet aux utilisateurs des systèmes Unix d'exécuter
automatiquement des scripts, des commandes ou des logiciels à une date et une heure
spécifiées à l'avance, ou selon un cycle défini à l'avance. Le nom est dérivé du grec chronos
(χρόνος), signifiant le temps[1],[2].
Il s'agit d'une fonctionnalité très utile pour des tâches routinières d'administration système,
mais elle peut très bien être exploitée pour toute autre chose. Par exemple, on peut demander
à cron de jouer tel fichier ogg tous les jours à sept heures sauf le samedi et le dimanche afin
de se réveiller en musique.
50
• 11. Buy a Good Drupal Book (!)
51
Extra commandements…
• 12. Server Tweaks
Bump your memory limit to 96MB. Most of
hosting providers allow to do this, if yours
doesn't, leave him with no regrets. You can
extent a memory limit either in htaccess or
settings.php.
52
• 13. Lower The Number Of Http Requests
• Drupal modules produce numerous .css and .js files. Almost every
enabled module adds its own files. The more .css and .js files you
have to load on every page, the more http requests your server
should serve, the longer loading and page rendering time your
visitors will experience.
• But there is a nice solution built in the Drupal: enable caching and
css /js compression in admin/settings/performance.
This will compress all of your .css and .js files in one combined file
each which will reduce the time of page rendering and the number
of http requests.
As a result, your pages will load much faster and your server will
experience lower load. But use this function wisely, enable it only
on a production web site.
53
LABS.2 ADDING CONTRIBUTED
MODULES
Labs.2: Installing contributed modules
• Step1. Download the module
Here a tar.gz file at
http://drupal.org/project/admin_menu
• Step2. Extract the files
• Step3. Upload the folder.
sites/all/modules
• Step4.Read the directions. If the module has an
installation file (usually INSTALL.txt and/or
README.txt), read it for specific instructions (not here)
• Step5. Enable the module
Check the 'Enabled' box next to the module and then
click the 'Save Configuration' button at the bottom.
55
Apparu
NOTE: If you're upgrading an existing module you'll need to browse to your update page
at www.example.com/update.php and click on 'run the database upgrade script'.
56
• Step6. Set up permissions.
Some modules will require you change
permissions to get them working. Permissions
information may be in the instructions that
came with the module.
Usually, go to Administer > User management
> Permissions
Scroll down to see if the module appears in
the list and, if it does, give the appropriate
permissions to desired roles.
57
Example of README.txt
-- CONFIGURATION –
* Configure user permissions in Administer >> User management >> Permissions >> admin_menu
module: Administrer >> Gestion des utilisateurs >> Droits d'accès
- access administration menu (accéder au menu d'administration)
Users in roles with the "access administration menu" permission will see the administration
menu at the top of each page.
- display drupal links (afficher les liens drupal)
Users in roles with the "display drupal links" permission will receive links to Drupal.org issue
queues for all enabled contributed modules. The issue queue links appear under the
administration menu icon.
Note that the menu items displayed in the administration Menu depend on the actual permissions
of the viewing user. For example, the "User management" menu item is not displayed to a user who
is not a member of a role with the "administer permissions" and "administer users" permissions.
* Customize the menu settings in Administer >> Site configuration >> Administration menu.
Administrer >> Configuration du site >> Menu d'administration
* To prevent administrative menu items from appearing twice, you may hide the "Navigation" menu
block, or move the "Administer" menu items into a separate menu.
58
• Step7. Adjust settings. Most modules will have some type of
settings page. It will vary from module to module but but if not
described in the README.txt file it will usually be located under
Administer > Site building or Administer > Site configuration. If you
have trouble locating a module's settings page try navigating to
"admin/by-module" and see if the module appears in the list. If it
does, it's settings page(s) will be listed also. If all else fails, check the
module's .module file for a 'modulename_menu' function-- even if
you're not a coder the settings path, if there is one, should be
pretty easy to discern.
• Step8. If you run into problems, search the module's issue queue
and the forums. If your problem hasn't already been addressed,
post a question or issue and someone will try to help you out.
59
REFERENCES SECTION
References
• Adapted from « Drupal for beginners » (cookbook) and « getting started »
Drupal documentations (drupal.org)
• www.wikipedia.fr
• http://timonweb.com/the-11-most-important-things-to-do-after-youinstall-drupal
• http://www.wampserver.com/en