Building sites using Drupal
Keywords: content management, site building, site configuration, user management, reports, comments, content, content types, post settings, RSS, taxonomy, blocks, menus, modules, themes, access rules, permissions, roles, user settings, actions, administration theme, clean URL, date & time, error reporting, filesystem, image toolkit, input format, logging & alerts, performance, site information, site maintenance, recent log entries, available updates, status reports, access denied & page not found.
1) After downloading and/or installing Drupal, you log in as uer admin and change the existing password. To do that after logging in with the existing password, you click Administer (in the navigation menu), then choose User management, the click Users, From the users names list, choose admin, then click the Edit tab on the top, enter the required data including the new password (twice), then click save.
2) Log in as administrator (admin), click Create content, then choose Page, enter the title (eg. Front page), click Input format (close o the bottom of the page) and choose Full HTML, now enter the body of the front page. Go to the Publishing options and click Front page (now this page will be promoted and will be the first page of your site), click save.
3) Click administer, from the Site building section, choose Menus, click Navigation (and leave the other 2 for now, primary & secondary links), click the Add item tab close to the top of the page, enter the Link and Title (eg.../drupal/node/1 and Front page as title) and now click Save. Now you have Front page menu item added to the Navigation menu.
4) Moving page blocks around the web page: click Administer, then click Blocks from the Site building section. In Block table heading in front of you, locate User login, then go to the Region table header click the drop down list and pick Right sidebar, click Save blocks. The login block is moved from the left to the right.
5) Click Menus, choose Primary link, click Add item tab, enter link (eg. ../drupal/node/1) enter title (eg. Front page). Now you will have a link to the front page displayed at the top of the page. The secondary links would display at lower location (underneath the primary links) on the page.
6) Adding more menu items to the Navigation menu: Click Menus from the left sidebar (you find it under Administer), choose the Navigation menu, click add item tab, input the path and the title for the new menu item, then click save.
7) Adding a menu: click menus, the choose Add menu tab, enter the name (meeting the requirements indicated under the field, text box) and Title (eg. useful links), then click Save. Click Blocks, go to the menu you have just creatd and choose the location where you want to see it on your page (eg. left sidebar). Now you can creat contents and enter menu items as shown in the previous steps.
8) Adding the contact us form: click Site building, then choose Modules, in the list that will appear mark Contact as enabled. Click Administer in the left sidebar menu, click Permissions in User management, go to Contact module sub-section, and mark the check box next to access site-wide contact form (for both anonymous user and authenticated user). Click Contact form under Site building, click the Add category tab, enter the Category (eg. contact us), the emails of the recipients, choose Yes in Selected drop down list and Save. Click Menus, then choose Navigation (out of the 4 in our example), choose the Add item tab, input the data required including the path to your contact form and click Save. You can follow the same procedure to add the Contact us form to the Primary links.
9) Adding news feed to the web page: click Administer, then click Modules, enable Aggregator (by clicking the enabled check box next to Aggregator). Now, click Content management from the side menu, then click feed aggregator, then you would either add a Category under which you will be adding the individual news feed or start creating your news feed one after the other. For our example you would click the Add feed tab, then enter an address for the news feed, enter its full URL address (link), update interval (every 2 hours, 3 hours,..etc.), then click Save (at the bottom of the page. Now when you go to the Feed aggregator menu item in the left hand side menu (navigation menu) and click it, you will get a sub-menu item named Sources, when you click it, you would get a list of all news sources.
10) Adding a site description, changing site logo, favicon, slogan and mission: after loggin in as the administrator (admin), click Administer, click Site information (under Site configuration heading) and enter the Name of your site, the e-mail address, the slogan (a catchphrase, often displayed alongside the title of the site), the mission (often prominently displayed on the front page) and footer message (this text will be displayed at the bottom of each page). Now, click Administer again and under Ste building section, click Themes, go to the installed theme and click configure, you can to the Global settings or stay or stay and the default theme and click the components you want to appear in your site (eg. logo, site name, slogan,..). To change the logo or favicon, uncheck the default logo and short cut icon check box and enter the path to the new logo and short cut icon images or upload them and obviously save your new configuration.
