Types of content in Drupal 7

When I started to write this little tutorial I made a decision to only cover the basic choices that most users will use. What choices you have when you create new content is dependent on the site and what modules are installed. It also depends on what user level/access you have.

Drupal 7 is security sensitive so every action can be set on node/content and user level if needed. This means that some of the options below can be blocked for you.

Choosing what content to create

To create content in Drupal 7 you go to Create content in the menu and select the type of content you want to create.

The basic options in Drupal 7 are Book page, Page, Story, Blog entry and Forum topic. The first and the last two options will only show if those modules are enabled on the site. Other types of content can be image, project, product etc.

• Article is for time-sensitive content like news, press releases or can be used for blogs.
• Basic page is for static content that doesn't change a lot.
• Book page is for content that can go over several pages. You can organize the pages in an hierarchical structure the same way you would with chapters in a book. You might be able to use other content types than Book page in a Book. It all depends on the configuration of the site.
• Blog entry is a blog post.
• Forum topic is a new topic that you are posting in a forum. Forums are very convenient for exchanging thoughts and information between people.

Types of Content in Drupal 6

When I started to write this little tutorial I made a decision to only cover the basic choices that most users will use. What choices you have when you create new content is dependent on the site and what modules are installed. It also depends on what user level/access you have.

Drupal is security sensitive so every action can be set on node/content and user level if needed. This means that some of the options below can be blocked for you.

Choosing what content to create

To create content in Drupal you go to Create content in the menu and select the type of content you want to create.

The basic options in Drupal 6 are Book page, Page, Story, Blog entry and Forum topic. The first and the last two options will only show if those modules are enabled on the site. Other types of content can be image, project, product etc.

• Book page is for content that can go over several pages. You can organize the pages in an hierarchical structure the same way you would with chapters in a book. You might be able to use other content types than Book page in a Book. It all depends on the configuration of the site.
• Page is for static information. Most often content regarding the site and its use. A page is for content that will rarely be changed..
• Story is content that can change often and that you want the readers/customers to be able to comment on.
• Blog is a blog post.
• Forum topic is a new topic that you are posting in a forum. Forums are very convenient for exchanging thoughts and information between people.

Creating content

Now that you have chosen what type of content you are creating it is time to go through some of the most common choices that comes up.

There are two fields that will be common for almost all types of content: Title and Body.

• The title is one line and you can not customize the look of it as it is bound to the template of the site. The web master can change how it is displayed by changing the template.
• The body is where you will place your content. This can consist of the elements that are allowed by your hosting company and the modules that are installed with Drupal.

Most web sites based on Drupal comes with a WYSIWYG editor that lets you work with the body/content as if you were using Word. Personally I prefer to use CKeditor for editing content, but there are a couple of others for Drupal. The picture below shows a toolbar for CKeditor.

As you can see this is very similar to toolbars in other text editors and it is very easy to use.

Input format

This is a choice for you to consider if it is accessible. The web master might have created other options than the two standard ones. If you have only text and a few links, use Filtered HTML. If you need to display images, video or other multimedia, use Full HTML. Full HTML might not be available for you because of security. Talk to the web master if you really need it. Otherwise, contribute to the security of the site and use Filtered HTML.

Menu settings / Book outline

Menu and books are both used for organizing content on the site. Books are basically organizing larger amounts of content the way you read a book (as these pages) and you can go forth and back between the "chapters".

Menues are less flexible and you will place your page in one menu. They are great for one page content like my Web Design page on the left.

How these are used depends on the site and how they are configured. Most sites will only allow editors or administrators to add content to menues or books, but companies might decide to let people create and update books for their departments.

Meta tags

Meta tags like keywords, description and copyright is not so much used now as they were earlier, but internally on a web site they can be important in order to find content later.

Publishing options

This menu let you decide whether to publish the content you just created or not. You can also choose to place it on the front page or make it "sticky" on the top of the page. Very handy if you want to make an intro to your site and then have other content below it.

If you choose not to publish what you wrote, and you decide to go back and work on it, please go to content, find your master piece and click on edit. That way you can continue where you left off. I normally save what I am working on every 5 minutes and then go back in and continue.

Comment settings

You can decide if you want people to comment on your content or not, if you are allowed to decide this.

File attachments

This migth be available to you if you have the right to upload images or other files. The web master/owner of the site might have decided to say no unless you are an editor/staff/administrator of the site.

Edit Content (body) in Drupal

The best way to learn how to create content is to do it. Personally I found that writing about 3-5 articles/blog entries and forum articles was my turning point on editing and working online.

The picture below shows an example of the filtered toolbar for FCKeditor.

As you can see this is very similar to toolbars in other text editors and it is very simple to use. I am not going through the most obvious like regret, select all, bold, italic and underscore etc.

Source is an interesting one choice. When you click on it, you will see the HTML code that make the page look the way you want it to. Click on source again and it will come back to WYSIWYG editing.

There are three icons for pasting on the top left. The first will paste whatever is in the clipboard. The second will paste plain text. That is the one that I am using if I have written something in Word or similar. The last is to be used as a minimum when you have written something in Word and want to paste it in to a web site.

The anchor is for creating a special point within the web page. Often used when you have one page with frequently asked questions on one page. Then each of the questions (down the page) will be marked as an anchor and you link to them from the top of the page where the questions will be listed.

Tables are one of the most used functions to display groups of data and you work with it in Drupal the same way as in desktop programs.

Horizontal lines are important on many web pages to separate content.

What is a modern website without the possibility to create a smiley?

Very often you want to insert special characters on a web site and there is a table for it, but it is no fun. This is a fast and easy way to get the most important ones.

Images, flash and links will be in separate chapters.

 

Insert images (or upload files)

Please remember to create a copy of your photo and then resize the copy before uploading the copy to the website. Otherwise it can take a long time to download your page.

Images

When you click on the button you will have this screen come up in your browser. Remember that you will see the files on the web server (not your personal computer). To make images available to viewers of your web site, you have to upload the image(s) to the web site first.

The URL field is the one you use to show the image. Click on Browse server and it will take you to the window that is below.

I will give a short description of the rest of these fields.

Alternative Text: It is recommended that you give the picture an alternative text in case the user has disabled showing pictures or can't see them.

Width: The width you want the picture to have.

Height: Your specified height. The rounded arrow is used if you want to reset back to the image's original size.

Border: Specify width of border if you want one.

Align: Do you want the image to be placed on the left or the right in the content area (as I have done here?)

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The window below comes up when you click on browse server in the window above. It shows you the files on the web server. If you see your image there, just click on it and it will take you back to the window shown above.

I normally like to create a folder for the topics that I am working on so that I can keep things organized.

I want to point out the Resource type on the upper left corner of the window below. Drupal organizes content based on the file ending.

If the image/file you want is not listed do the following:

1. Click on browse and select the file on your computer that you want to upload.
2. You will come back to the window below. Click on upload.
3. After you have done that, the file will show up in the list below. It is now on the web server and you can click on it to insert it into your document.

 

Drupal Installation

Drupal is today one of the most used CMSs (Content Management System) that is used around the world. Whitehouse.gov relaunched their web site in October 2009 using Drupal as the basis for their web site. One of the reasons for the popularity is that it can handle a lot of simultanous users, it is secure and you can change it to your liking. You can add and remove modules as you need. Creating a site with blogs, forums, online store, organic groups and other features.

Automated installation

There are several options for installing Drupal on a web site. The easiest is if your hosting company has a control panel that has Simple scripts or Fantastico. Then you push the button for installing Drupal, tell it where to install and the site is ready to work on. Remember that if you install to the root folder of the site, it might remove your front page so be aware of what you want to do.

Manual installation

The manual installation of the core is simple if you know how to use an ftp-client, a browser and know how to create a database on your domain. The following is a brief walk through on how to do the install after you have uploaded the files. There are other guides on the internet as well that are more thorough and cover the specifics for each hosting company.

Go to drupal.org and download verson 6.xx. Version 5 is still maintained, but I recommend that you go for the latest version. Version 7 is coming soon, but I normally wait a couple of months after release to make sure the software is stable.

 

Once you have that downloaded, unpack it and upload it to your web site using an ftp-client. Filezilla is one that is very popular, but there are many others.

While the ftp-client is uploading the files you can create the database that is needed for the installation. For most web sites a database based on MySQL is sufficient, but if you are going for a bigger site with thousands of users and a lot of content, look into using PostgreSQL. The information that is important is servername, database name, username and password. The username and password should NOT be the same as your normal login, and they should contain letters, numbers and other characters.

When all the files are uploaded, use your ftp-client and go to the following directory on the server: sites/default and copy the file default.settings.php to settings.php. Make sure the file is readable by changing the security to 777 (or read, write and execute for everyone).

Use your internet browser (Internet explorer, Firefox, Opera or Safari) and type in the url to your web site. You will now see the screen below. Click on Install Drupal in English.

 

You should now see the following screen if everything is working the way it should:

I have highlighted the options that is necessary. Most times the Advanced options is not necessary to look at as Drupal will figure out the database server/host. For some databases it might be necessary to add a table prefix in case you have other data in there. I use drup_ on some of my installations.

The next screen will be for you to add the name of the site (normally your business name), a system administrator username and password and you are ready to go. Have your site use clean urls if possible. It gives you an option to use friendly names on the information you are posting.

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Important last step:

Use your ftp-client and change the security of settings.php to 444 (on some servers it will be 644) and you are ready to explore what Drupal can offer you. Most likely you will like to add modules and change the theme/template of the site.