DRUPAL

Community Plumbing

What IS Drupal?

Something between a CMS (content management system) and a CMF (content management framework)

Open Source

Drupal is Open Source Free Transparent code Extensible

EXTENSIBLEDon’t modify itDo expand on it

Structure of a Drupal Site

PHP Code in the form of Modules Modules:

Core: essential to Drupal Ex: search, menu, filter

Contributed: add-ons / features Ex: WYSIWYG, CAPTCHA, webform

Custom: hand-written modules Cancel_link, UBake

Data

Almost all data is stored in the database as a “Node.”

Create content types that expand on the node’s core functionality Examples: page, recipe, clinic, doctor

Display

A “Theme” is a way we present data No different from a PowerPoint theme

Allows us to present the same data, but with a different look and feel

Regions and Blocks

Region: a section of a page where we can display data. Ex: header, footer, content bottom

Block: a piece of content that gets placed in a block. Ex: newsletter signup, extra footer links

How Does it Work??

If there aren’t really folders and pages… how does any of it really work? .htaccess – redirects ALL traffic to your

website back to the index.php Drupal uses the rest of the path, such as

“/recipes/appleton/category/For-the-Home/” to determine which content to serve.

Site.com/a/b/c/d is REALLY the same as:Site.com/index.php?q=/a/b/c/d

Acquia

Acquia is a souped up version of Drupal Core Drupal Core Additional Themes Commonly Used Contributed Modules www.acquia.org

Lems-Acquia is a souped up version of Acquia, with a bit more of everything.

CCK – Content Construction Kit

Allows to expand Nodes into more advanced content types with varying attributes.

Gives us fields for addresses, links, dates, checkboxes, and even references to other nodes

Pathauto

Lets us generate URLs for our nodes based on “Tokens.”

For example, we can put all our Newborn content at /newborns/[baby’s-name] while our doctors are at /staff/[doctor’s-name]

WYSIWYG

Lets users create/edit pages with a more familiar WYSIWYG editor rather than using raw html

*MANY* WYSIWYG editors to choose from

Taxonomy

A method for classifying content Strict categories or free-formed tags

Examples: Recipe categories, Baker’s Corner categories

Views

Create customized lists and queries of our nodes from the databaseExamples:

- list of recipes by category- list of medical providers that meet

certain criteria