Drupal Notes for "From the Beginning"

Planning the site

Determine the Menu types you'll use

• Navigation
• Primary (optional)
• Secondary (optional)

If you choose to use Primary or Secondar remember to go to Site Building > Blocks and put them someplace so you can see them

Determine Content Types you'll use

What kind of content and usage rules will you have? Some examples:

• we have some content that doesn't change often that we want to always be available (about us, home page, our mission... etc) = PAGE
• we're writing a document collaboratively for our viewers to see and comment on but not modify; this document has an essential order = BOOK
• We want an area where we can discuss items = FORUM
• everyone can have their own area where they post stuff of interest to them, the articles are listed with the latest first, and it's easy to see all the posts from a certain user. Also each blog-entitled user gets a "My Blog" link in their navigation  = BLOG
• we're writing a series of news items on different topics; the info will age so the most recent are more important= STORIES
• this is a site for a single voice with frequent posts. = custom content or STORIES
  (You could use Blog, but if you don't have multiple users the Blog format is overkill)
• we're writing a series of informative articles on a defined list of subjects. The information stays current until we modify it. There is no implied order in the articles, they just pertain to subjects (e.g. HELP documentation) = CUSTOM CONTENT with applied Taxonomy

If you keep these areas straight, and only enable the ones you'll be using, it will keep unneeded items off the menu and make it clearer for the user.

Create New Content Type

If you're creating something specific you may want to create a new content type so you'll have control over it without affecting the other content types in Drupal that you may also want to use.

For instance, I want a type of document called WebHelp Documentation that forces the editor to pick a category from my Web Help Taxonomy. I may allow people to use these terms for say, a blog, but I wouldn't force it because they may not be on these topics.

Plan Taxonomy

We will discuss creating menus using Taxonomy, so it is useful to think - how will people look for content? Are they looking for types of content (images, blogs, forums...) or subject matter? Audience? Possibly all of these or others. We'll discuss how to set up your subject matter to be easy to find first.

• Example: Taxonomy for Help Documentation for Web Services (part of ATUS)

Working with a new site

See Site Setup

General Info

• Install all modules in sites/all/modules folder
• After installing a module go to Permissions so people can see/interact with the new capabality
• Site Building > URL Aliases for renaming content
• Site Building > Content Management > Content for finding URL of a piece of content

Modules to discuss

• Taxonomy_menu
• Administration Menu
• FCKEditor
• IMCE for images
• CCK / Views - these two modules will be the subject of a later meeting.