Drupal.org - open source CMS

Drupal - open source CMS Easily create and run your own feature rich website for free

Easily build your own feature rich content managed site (CMS), with very little technical expertise.

Drupal gives everyone the chance to create and run their own web site for free. These sites can range from simple personal blogs, through to hugely complex community-driven sites packed full of features. The best thing is that you don't need to be that web savvy to get up and running with Drupal.

The reason Drupal's free is because it's an open source content management platform. Open source software is built by an entire community of volunteers. Users of Drupal are able to contribute to the community in a variety of ways. It's because of these contributors that you can make use of Drupal and it's various add-on modules, get pre-designed themes, find support information and more.
See here for other examples of open source software.


Getting started with Drupal - in simple terms

This describes the easiest way I have found for getting a Drupal web site up and running on my local computer. Once you are happy with the site on your local computer you can put it on a web server and make it available to everyone.

  1. Download and extract Xampp to your computer, following the instructions. Xampp has a bundle of goodies you need to get Drupal running on you local computer (MySQL database, Apache Web server, PHP, etc). Xampp can be downloaded here for free.
  2. Once Xampp is installed and you have started Apache and MySQL, test it is working by going to http://localhost. You should be presented with a 'Xampp Welcome' screen.
  3. Look on the left menu of this screen and you will see under Tools there is a phpMyAdmin link. Click it.
  4. On the next page find where it says Create new database. Enter in a new name for your database in the form field, then click the Create button.
  5. Congratulations you have now created a database for your Drupal site. This will store your site content and other data.
  6. If all is good at this stage go to Drupal.org and download the latest release.
  7. Extract Drupal into the HTDOCS folder found inside the Xampp directory (usually C:\xampp\htdocs).
  8. Rename the Drupal folder to YOURSITENAME
  9. Drupal comes with a default.settings.php file in the sites/default directory. Before running the installer you need to make a copy of this file, in sites/default, naming it "settings.php." Ensure that this file is writable. (NOTE: do not rename the default file, copy it instead. Drupal needs the default.settings.php file to exist.)
  10. If you now go to http://localhost/YOURSITENAME you should be presented with a Drupal site installation screen.
  11. Follow the on-screen instructions. When you get to the 'Set up a database' step, enter the database name that you created in step 5. At this point I usually leave the username as root and the password field empty.
  12. Complete the remaining setup steps, and hey-presto you should have a brand spanking new site!

Drupal site is up and running, now what?

Once your basic Drupal site is up, you will want to do a couple of the following:

  • Setup your site configuration - Go to the Administer area of your site and you can edit user permissions, site information etc.
  • Change your default Drupal theme - this is the look of the site. Download 'ready-made' themes from Drupal.org, edit an existing one, or create a new one from scratch.
  • Add modules - Browse and download a range of modules to provide add-on features for your site. Mix and match the Drupal modules to your needs.
  • Get some content up - Now you have the site, you just need to populate it with some content!

For the Drupal newbie the community forums and support areas of Drupal.org are invaluable. If you have a question or problem, chances are someone else has had a similar issue and posted it up on the site.

Good luck and happy Drupal'ing.


Useful links

Fri, 11/27/2009 - 10:27

Go to Drupal.org

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