Drupal

Drupal

Content Management System

Mallikarjuna Pinjala CIS 764, Nov. 2008

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CMS?

• Application to manage public content.• Identify users and roles.• Manage multiple versions of content• Capture content• Constituent Interaction

History

• Creators: Dries Buytaert and Hans Snijder • Small news site, builtin web board,

drop.org.• In 2001, software behind drop.org

released as “Drupal” (droo-puhl).

Features

• Open Source• Friendly URLs• Personalization• Modules• Search• Solid CMF• Database Independent

SetupDownload DrupalRename the /drupal/sites/default folderEdit htaccess file.Create Database MySQLmysqladmin -u username -p create databasenamecreateuser --pwprompt --encrypted --no-adduser --no-

createdb usernamecreatedb --encoding=UNICODE --owner=username

databasenameRun automated Install Script

Installation

Basic CM

• Page and Story Content Types• Content Addition• Edit/ Disable primary links• Menus• Alias• Set up category

Components of Drupal

Module systemBased on the concept of “Hooks”Foo_bar (), Foo module name, bar hook nameDatabase Abstraction LayerInherits PHP’s PDOPerforms queries by db_query () or db_query_range ()

Menu SystemFollows hierarchy defined by paths.Page request is registered as a menu item with a callback. Searches for the most complete match with a callback it

can find

• Other Components…• Form Generation• File System• Search Interface

Takeaways• Open-Source Software

– Buggy– Frequent updates– Support Community

• Simplicity– Minimize reliance on modules– Steer away from excessive and focus on the essential

• Tracking System– Document versioning & modules (sources & versions)– Helps tie-in with overall web strate

Sample Drupal Site

References

• Dries Buytaert, “Drupal” ( Open Source Content Management System), www.drupal.org, visited 11/04/2008

• “Drupal” ( Content Management System) , Wikipedia, 9 pp.,

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drupal, visited 11/04/2008