SiteGround Tutorials

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Drupal Tutorial

Drupal is one of the best Content Management Systems (CMS). It is written in PHP and requires a MySQL database. Its basic installation can be easily turned into many different types of web sites - from simple web logs to large online communities.

This Drupal Tutorial includes:

• Why use Drupal;
• Drupal applications;
• Drupal automatic installation instructions through Fantastico;
• Drupal manual installation instructions;
• How to use Drupal;
• How to install Drupal modules;
• How to change Drupal themes;
• How to manage Drupal users;
• Access control in Drupal;
• How to use Search Engine Friendly URLs in Drupal;
• How to backup Drupal;
• How to upgrade Drupal.
• How to use Drupal Taxonomy.

We have also prepared the following video tutorials for Drupal:

change password	install Drupal	manage modules	manage users
configure your site	maintain your site	manage pages	set your account info
create menus	manage blocks	manage stories
get help	create menus	manage themes

 

Drupal Tutorial

Here is a list of the Drupal benefits:

• Easy to install - Drupal installation described here;
• Easy to use - no programming knowledge needed! Read this tutorial to learn the basics of Drupal.
• Lots of features including Search Engine Friendly URLs(SEF), categories, search function and many more;
• Lots of modules to extend your site's functionality;
• Flexibility - you can easily turn your Drupal installation into a forum, blog, wiki and many other types of web sites;
• Free to use, open source. You can freely install Drupal and you can modify the source code to fit your needs;
• Lots of users and a large community - easy to find solutions to your problems. 

Drupal Tutorial

Examples of Typical Drupal Applications

By enabling and configuring individual modules, an administrator can design a unique site which can be used for knowledge management, web publishing, community interaction purposes, etc.

Here are some typical Drupal usages:

• Content management - Via a simple, browser-based interface, members can publish stories, blogs, polls, images, forums, etc. Administrators can easily customize the design of their Drupal installation.
• The Drupal classification system allows hierarchical ordering, cross-indexing of posts and multiple category sets for most content types. Access to content is controlled through administrator-defined user roles. A search option is also available.
• Weblog - A single installation can be configured as an individual personal weblog site or multiple individual weblogs. Drupal supports the Blogger API, provides RSS feeds for each individual blog and can be set to ping weblog directories when new content is posted on the home page.
• Discussion-based community - A Drupal web site can be successfully used as a discussion forum. Comment boards, attached to most content types, make it simple for members to discuss new posts. Administrators can control whether content and comments are posted without approval, with administrator approval or through community moderation. With the built-in news aggregator, communities can subscribe to and then discuss content from other sites.
• Collaboration - Used for managing the construction of Drupal, the project module is suitable for supporting other open source software projects. The wiki-like collaborative book module includes versions control, making it simple for a group to create, revise and maintain documentation or any other type of text.
• FAQ - you can use the Drupal installation as a frequently asked questions platform.

Drupal Installation

On the SiteGround servers, Drupal can be installed very easily. They are optimized to fully satisfy the script's system requirements and provide the best hosting solution for your web site.

Drupal Installation Detailed Tutorial

Once logged into Fantastico, you will see a list of scripts in the left column of the the page.

• Look for 'Content management' and click on 'Drupal'.
• Now click on 'New Installation'.
• Choose the Drupal installation directory - if you want Drupal to be accessible at http://yourdomainname.com, leave the installation directory field empty.
• If you want Drupal to be accessible at http://yourdomainname.com/drupal, enter drupal as an installation directory. Proceed using the on-screen instructions.

If you need to install Drupal manually, you can follow the manual installation instructions here.

Manual installation of Drupal

In order to install the Drupal CMS application, please follow the step-by-step instructions below:

Step 1: Download the installation file from Drupal.org by choosing the latest stable version and clicking on the Download link next to the package.

Step 2: Upload it in public_html folder of your account. You can do that through an FTP client like FileZilla or via cPanel -> File Manager -> Upload file(s). This way, after the installation is completed, the script will appear once your write something like http://yourdomainname.com in your web browser. Or you can create a subfolder there and upload the file in it. The Drupal installation will be available at: http://yourdomainname.com/subfolder.

Step 3: Once you are in the File Manager, please navigate to the uploaded file and extract it by clicking on the Extract link. It will create a subfolder: drupal-x.x.x., where instead of x.x.x. is the current version. So you can move the files one level up in the desired directory. The other option is to extract the file in your computer and then to upload the content in the desired folder via FTP.

Step 4: Once the files are extracted in the desired folder, you should create a MySQL database for Drupal. You can do that from cPanel -> MySQL Databases. There you should create a database and add a user to it - click here to learn how to create a MySQL database and user.

Step 5: Navigate to the URL of your Drupal site and run the install.php file (for example http://yourdomainname.com/install.php)

Step 6: Pick the default language for the Drupal web site. 

Step 7: Copy the /public_html/drupal_installation_folder/sites/default/default.settings.php file to /public_html/drupal_installation_folder/sites/default/settings.php. This can be done through cPanel -> File Manager. Also through the same tool you can grant write permissions to the settings.php file.

Step 8: Enter the database details for the database which you have created in Step 4. Click on the "Save configuration" button to continue.

Step 9: The installation procedure is finished. You will see the following screen:

Alter back the file permissions for the settings.php file and enter the site information along with the admin account's details. Click on the Save and Continue button.

Step 10: Well done! The installation is completed and you can proceed to your web site.

How to use Drupal?

• How to start a Drupal site?
• Logging into the Drupal Admin Area
• How to create new content?
• Content management in Drupal
• How to change the Drupal theme?

How to start a Drupal site?

All you need to do is open a hosting account where you can have the Drupal application installed. Here at SiteGround we offer a FREE Drupal installation! With our Professional Drupal hosting package you can start creating your site right away! If you already have a hosting account, you can check here how to install Drupal.

Logging into Drupal Admin Area

To log in your Drupal Admin area, after installing the Drupal application, you simply need to enter your administrator credentials into the User login form on your Drupal site:

How to create new content?

You can create new content through the Create content section under the Drupal administrator area.

• The Page option allows you to create a static page;
• The Story option is suitable for a blog or a discussion usage.

Content Management

In order to manage the content of your Drupal web site, you need to navigate to the Content management section under your administrator area.

In the following lines we will give a brief description of the options under this section:

• Drupal Comments - With the default installation, only users that have logged in can access/post comments. This can be changed from Administer -> User management -> Permissions. The comments settings are self-explanatory. By default, registered users can post comments (they don't need to wait for moderator approvals). If you want to let anonymous users post comments, go to Administer -> User management -> Permissions -> comment module.

• Content - You can manage, view, edit and delete the site content. You can publish and unpublish it.

• Content types - Manage posts by content type, including default status, front page promotion. You can include new content types besides the Page and the Story.

• Post settings - You can control the post behavior, the length of the posts and the number of posts per page.

• RSS publishing - You can configure your RSS feed publishing.

• Taxonomy - You can manage the tagging, the categorization and classification of your content. 

Drupal Modules

Affordable installation of Drupal modules with the Drupal Hosting Services!

How to install/enable Drupal modules?

You can enable/disable Drupal Modules from the Drupal Administration area -> Administer -> Site building -> Modules section.

The default installation of Drupal has many useful modules, and there is a brief description of what each one of the modules does. If you need more modules, you can freely download them from the Drupal Modules official website.

On your site, Drupal modules are stored in the modules subfolder within the Drupal installation directory. You can install additional modules by simply unzipping them in that folder.

How to install/enable the Event module?

We will demonstrate the module installation process in Drupal by installing the Event module.

Visit Drupal Modules website and find the Event module. Download it to your local harddrive. Then upload the archive in the modules folder of your Drupal installation and extract it.

Now you can enable the Event module from your administration area.

Drupal Themes

How to change the default Drupal theme?

The default Drupal installation comes with several themes which can be changed from your administration area. Log in as an administrator, click on Administer -> Site building -> Themes and choose which theme you want to use for your website.

How to install new Drupal themes?

Drupal keeps its skins in the themes subfolder. To install additional themes, you can get the archived theme from the SiteGround Drupal themes gallery (these themes are compatible with Drupal 5.x) or from the Drupal official theme resource. Extract the files under the themes subfolder. This can be done through cPanel -> File Manager.

If you don't have cPanel or you prefer using an FTP client, you can extract the archived theme to your computer and then upload the theme's files to the themes folder in your Drupal installation directory.

You should now be able to see the theme at your Drupal Administration Area -> Administer -> Site building -> Themes.

Drupal Users

Managing Users in Drupal

Managing Users in Drupal Detailed Tutorial

You can manage users' rights from Administer -> User management.

You have 5 sections here. Here is a brief explanation of each section:

• Access rules - from this section you can define different access rules for your Drupal; you can disallow users, emails and IP addresses
• Permissions - from here you can which modules will be available for anonymous and/or authenticated users
• Roles - Drupal comes with two default user roles - anonymous user and authenticated user; you can add additional roles such as administrator, moderator, etc
• User settings - from this section you can configure the user registration settings, the emails notifying a user for new registration, password recovery, etc
• Users - shows a list of your current users; you can also add new users or block existing ones

Access Control in Drupal CMS

The access control list at Administer -> User management -> Permissions is quite self-explanatory.

A typical use of the access control is when you want to make some parts of your site available only for registered users. The default access control rules are quite safe, but you might want to change them to satisfy better your needs. Spend some time playing with the permissions menu to better understand what you can do.

Search Engine Friendly URLs

Here we will try to explain how you can enable the clean URLs in Drupal in three simple steps. All SiteGround servers fully support the Apache mod_rewrite module and all Drupal users hosted on our servers will be able to use the clean URLs option.

There are only 3 steps you need to follow to enable the Search Engine Friendly URLs. Here we assume that you already have Drupal installation for your account into the /drupal subfolder (www.yourdomainname.com/drupal) and you want to activate the clean URLs.

 

How to Activate Search Engine Friendly URLs in Drupal?

Step 1: Edit the .htaccess file in your Drupal directory.

Delete the entire content of the .htaccess file and insert the following lines into it:

RewriteEngine on
RewriteBase /drupal
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ index.php?q=$1 [L,QSA]

You should replace the path in the following line:

RewriteBase /drupal

with the relative path to the directory where Drupal is installed. For example if your Drupal is installed in your web site root folder and you access it via www.yourdomainname.com, the line should look like this:

RewriteBase /

Please note that the rewrite rules are set by default in the Drupal 6.x installation package. All you have to do is verify the RewriteBase setting.

Step 2: The next step is to log in the administrative back end of your Drupal site and enable the "path" module. This module is essential for the clean URLs in Drupal. Once you are logged click on the "Administer" link on the left menu and then on the "Modules" link:

Scroll down the page, find the Path module, tick the little check box on the left of the module and save the settings:

Step 3: The next and final step is to test the clean URLs and confirm the changes. In the administrative back end point your browser to the Site configuration link from the left menu and click on the Clean URLs link.

The page will be loaded, you will be able to select the Enable radio button and save the changes.

Now load the front end of your site and point the mouse over a link. In the status bar and in the address bar you will notice that all links will be in clean (human readable) format.

Drupal Backup

How to Create a Backup of Drupal?

In order to backup your Drupal application you have to:

Step 1: Backup all your web site files.

Backup all the files and folders inside your Drupal directory. You can do that by downloading them via your favourite FTP client. You can find our comprehensive FTP tutorial here.

Step 2: Backup/Export your database

Then, you have to export your Drupal database. You can do that by using PHPMyAdmin. Please, check our tutorial on how to backup/restore MySQL database in order to create a backup of your Drupal database.

Please, make sure that you choose the correct database, which your Drupal application uses.

If you are unsure about the Drupal database name, you will be able to find it in the drupal_folder/sites/default/settings.php file. You can view this file through cPanel -> File manager. 

Drupal Upgade

How to Upgrade your Drupal Application?

Here we will explain in simple steps how you can upgrade your Drupal application to the latest stable version.

Before you proceed with the upgrade procedure you should make sure that you have a full backup of your Drupal site.

We assume that you have an outdated version of Drupal installed into a sudfolder (e.g. at www.yourdomainname.com/drupal)

Step 1: The first step is to visit the official Drupal site and download the latest stable release of Drupal.

Once the download is complete, you need to upload the new version of Drupal on your website. The safest way to do that is to create a new folder in the public_html directory of your website, e.g. drupal_new, and upload the new version package there. Then you need to extract the archive file through cPanel -> File Manager.

If you don't have cPanel, you can extract the archive on  your computer and upload its contents to your account using your favorite FTP client.

Step 2: Once you have the new version uploaded in the drupal_new folder, you should copy the necessary files and folders from the old version of Drupal to the new one. Here we assume that you already have a full backup of your live Drupal site. Navigate to the backup folder of your Drupal site and copy the .htaccess file, the sites and the files directories and upload them into the drupal_new folder by overwriting any existing files.

Now, go to your cPanel -> File manager -> public_html -> drupal_new/sites/default folder and open the settings.php file for editing. Edit the following line:

$update_free_access = FALSE;

and change it to:

$update_free_access = TRUE;

The changes above will allow you to run the update.php script from your browser.

Step 3: The next step is to update the database of your Drupal.

Go to

http://yourdomainname.com/drupal_new/update.php

where yourdomainname.com is replaced with your actual domain name. The screen should look similar to the one below.

Click on the Continue button and follow the instructions.

If there are no errors reported, your Drupal application is successfully upgraded.

Due to security reasons you should turn the $update_free_access variable back to false in the settings.php file:

$update_free_access = FALSE;

Open a new window in your browser and point it to the site you have just upgraded. As we performed the upgrade in a test folder drupal_new you should point your browser to: http://yourdomainname.com/drupal_new/

Once you are sure that the upgraded version of the site works properly you can delete or rename the old folder to drupal_old and rename drupal_new to drupal in order to put the new version live.