End user guide

Welcome! This guide describes how to get started with a Drupal-powered web-site. The guide covers basic topics such as registering for an account, logging in, changing your account settings, and creating content.

Drupal is a content management system. Its goal is to help users compose and present web-site content such as articles, photos, and other content types. Drupal is a "dynamic" system - rather than forcing users to specify a fixed, pre-declared arrangement of content, Drupal takes care of the details of how information is arranged and presentated, and lets users focus on the actual content to be displayed.

Most of the content on a Drupal-based site - the text of this page, for example - is stored in a database. Text and images are submitted by filling in forms via a web-browser. When visitors view a page, Drupal gets the relevant bits of content from the database and composes all of the components of the page in a template. This makes it easy to quickly add or change content, without requiring knowledge of HTML or other web-technologies on the part of the person providing the content.

Depending on the configuration of the Drupal site and the user-roles you play with respect to that site, you may be allowed to contribute or edit content. Fortunately, Drupal is designed to make this relatively easy. Very little technical knowledge is assumed. Though details may vary with a site's configuration, the basic process involves these steps:
• register with the site
• log in by typing the user name and password supplied you in the registration step, and
• create content (e.g., articles, stories) into forms.
This user guide will explain these steps and familiarize you with the basic information you need to use Drupal successfully.
This section can also serve as a foundation for a set of instructions customized to your sites specific needs.

Registering as a user

To add or edit content on a Drupal site, usually you have to first be registered as a user. (Sometimes the site administrator has chosen to enable "anonymous" posts of things like comments, in which case you can post them without registering.)
In some cases, a site administrator will add you as a user. If so, they will send you a user name and password that you can use to log on.
Otherwise, look for a small form called “User login” on the main page of the site you want to register with (usually on the right or the left of the page). Click the link that says "Create new account".

The next page that comes up will generally have some information on the site's policies for registration. After reading them, to register, enter a user name of your choice and an email address to which you have access and hit "submit". Then check your email account. Within a few minutes, you should get an automatically-generated email confirming your registration and giving you an initial password to use. Now you're ready to log in.

Logging in

Before you can add or edit content, you usually need to log in. If you haven't already done so, register as a user, see above (or, if applicable, request that your site administrator register you). Then hit the main page of the site you're wishing to use and look for a "User login" form. This will typically be on the left or right side of the page (it is a "block" in Drupal talk). Enter your user name and password and hit "submit".

Assuming everything's working as planned, when the new page loads it will include a new block with your user name at the top. This is the menu you use to start entering and editing content.

Changing your account settings

Once you have registered with a Drupal-based site, you can change settings to control information about yourself and also your use and experience of a Drupal site. To see what tweaks you can make to your account, log in and then click on my account in the navigation block (that's the one titled with your user name). Click on the edit tab.
Account Settings. You may see a different collection of settings than is presented here, depending on what features have been enabled on your site.

password

Enter in a new password in both fields to set it. Drupal sends you a default password that is often hard to remember, so it is recommended that you change your password to something you can easily remember.

block configuration

The site administrator may make some blocks (chunks of content that are usually displayed in a left and/or right column) optional. You can enable and disable the display of these blocks by checking and unchecking the boxes next to them.
signature
If comments are enabled, you will be able to set a default signature. This will be copied into new comments for you automatically, but may still be edited.
time zone
Your site administrator may allow users to set their time zone. This will cause all dated content on the site to display in local time, according to the offset you enter here.

theme

A "theme" is the basic look and feel of a Drupal site. Sometimes a particular site will have more than one theme installed. If the site administrator has made more than one theme available, you will be able to select what you would like the default theme to be for your account.

As mentioned earlier, different site-settings will cause different fields to be displayed on your user account page. See the documentation for individual modules for instructions on how to use these additional options.
Additional Information. Aside from the account settings tab, you may also see additional tabs, titled according to the information they contain. Some examples might include "Personal Information", "Workplace", etc. These are controlled by the profile module, and allows you to enter more information about yourself. Please see the profile module for more information on this.

Creating new content

Once you have logged-in, you're ready to start posting content.
At the top of your personal menu, you'll find a link called "create content". Click this and you'll see a list of the types of content you can create. This list reflects the privileges assigned to your user account or to the group ("role") your account is part of.
There are several contributed modules which can assist with more complex content creation within this framework, such as spellchecking, image embedding, and file attachment uploading.

• A step-by-step example
• Controlling Teaser Location
• Types of content
• Topics, categories and terms
• Permissions
• Moderation and the submission queue
• Creating comments
• Alternative ways to enter content

A step-by-step example

We will assume that you have selected create content and chosen "story" as a content type.
You should be looking at a form with the title "Submit story". From here, it is just a matter of filling in the form and posting it.

Administrative options

At the top of the form you may see some administrative options. For example, there is a box with the heading User comments. Drupal supports discussion/comments on postings--but such comments are not always appropriate. If your article is one that could be usefully commented on, keep the default settings: "Read/write". Otherwise, choose "Disabled".

Title

The title is straightforward enough. Try to be descriptive and catchy.
Topic: (may not be visible if you do not have categories defined)
Next comes the "Topic" menu. This is the section your article will go in--or in the technical language of Drupal, its ("taxonomy categories"). This list presents all the sections available on the website, with their structure. So, choose the appropriate section or sections for your story and continue down the form to supply the body of your text.

Body

The "body" field is where you put the main content of the page. If you've typed this into a word processor or HTML editor, just copy and paste it into this field. Alternately you can just type straight in. For the most basic page, just type and leave a blank line (i.e., hit "enter" twice) at the and of each paragraph.
You can optionally format your entry in friendly old HTML. But hey, if you're a novice, don't worry--it's not as difficult as it sounds. Here's a quick primer:
If you want something to be bold, just enclose it in "b" or "strong" tags, like this:

This text is bold

This text is bold

Note that there is always an opening tag (no forward slash) and a closing tag (a forward slash before the tag name, indicating that you are "turning it off").

To make something italic, put it in "i" or "em" tags:

This is in italics

This is emphasized

To put things nicely in paragraphs, enclose them in "p" tags:

This is a paragraph.

To make a bulleted list, first open a list with a "ul" tag (that stands for "unordered list"), then put each list item in "li" (yes, for "list") tags. Don't forget at the end to close off your list with a closing "/ul" tag. Here's how it looks:

• This is the first bulleted item
• This is the second bulleted item

That wasn't too painful, was it?

Decide where you want the "teaser" (the part of the main text used in links to the article) to end. If you do nothing, Drupal will choose a breaking point for you--but it's better to decide yourself, to make sure the breaking point is appropriate. You do this by typing in a where the teaser is to end.
And you're set! You can preview the page you've prepared by hitting "Preview" (recommended, and sometimes required) or you can bravely or recklessly just go ahead and publish it by hitting "Submit".

Controlling Teaser Location

You can cause the teaser to end at the point of your choosing by adding the following tag to your content body:

!--break--

Everything above this tag will appear in the teaser (unless you place it beyond the point at which Drupal automatically breaks the content).

Notes

• Make sure there are no spaces in the tag or it will be ignored.
• You can place the tag in the middle of a paragraph. The full text will not notice the tag so the paragraph will look normal, but the paragraph will be cut short in the teaser

Types of content

There are various types of content that you can post using Drupal. Many of these are organized into what are called "nodes". Basically, you can think of a node as the content of a page. This might be, for instance, an article. Content is added or updated through web page forms. So to add an article, you bring up a form, enter text into it (like the title and content of an article), and hit a button to submit the form.

Topics, categories and terms

Content on Drupal websites is usually organized using categories through a system called "taxonomy". A taxonomy has different "terms" that are used as categories for articles. When you're adding an article, you might find a drop-down list of topics. By selecting one, you choose where on the site to categorize your article. If this seems hard to relate to, you can think of topics as being like folders on your hard drive--they help to organize content, so that you can find similar things in the same place.

Permissions

What types of content you can create or edit depends on the privileges assigned to the "role" or user group that you're a member of. In general, to find out what you can do:

• On your user menu (the collection of links that has your user name as a title), look for a link that says "create content". Click this to get a listing of the types of content you have permission to post.

• On a particular page, look for links at the bottom of an article. These links say things like "12 comments" (if there are comments that have been made on the article) and "read more" (if you're looking at a short version of an article). If one of these links say "administer" or something like "edit this page", you have permissions to edit that type of content.

Moderation and the submission queue

Some Drupal sites are set up so that when you submit content it goes into a "submission queue". Content in this queue is read by other users who have a moderator role on the site. They will review the content and, if it is accepted, "publish" your contribution.

Creating comments

Comments allow users to interact with the content on a site, to respond to an article, offer their own ideas, make additions, or supply a critique.
Leaving comments

When you bring up an article to read, look for comment-related links at the bottom of the article. If you're not logged in, this might read "login or register to post comments". When you do log in, you should see something like "Add new comment". Click on the link and you're ready to comment away.

Etiquette

Comments can be a great way of enriching a community site--but they can also lead to unfriendly, even harassing exchanges. As with any communication, it's important to try to ensure that your comments are respectful and constructive.

"Threaded" comments

Comments on a Drupal web-site are "threaded". This means you can comment directly on an article--or you can reply to an existing comment. If you reply, your comment will be indented to show that it is part of that discussion.

Alternative ways to enter content

Drupal's built-in form-based content editing approach is fine for many applications, but if you have a lot of text to create, or you wish to convert existing content, or if you are using a specialized content type such as a blog, it may be more convenient to use other approaches to enter content into your Drupal-based site.

Preparing your content offline suggests some ways to use familiar software on your computer to create or edit content before submitting it to Drupal.
Depending on what's available on your site, you might even be able to enter new articles without ever logging on to the site.

Drupal includes functionality for "blogging"--creating "blogs" or web-based journals. If this functionality is enabled on your site, you may be able to input and edit content using one of a number of desktop "blog" software packages. These allow you to simply type in content, hit a "post" button, and have your content automatically loaded onto your site.

In fact, blogging software can be used for more than blogs--it can allow you to post content easily and quickly to almost any part of a website. One such program is described below in Posting and editing content with w.bloggar

Before trying out one of the blogging programes, you might want to check with your site's maintainer to make sure it accepts blog posts. The key question to ask is: "Is the bloggerapi enabled?" If the answer is yes, you're ready to roll. If not, you could request that it be enabled to allow you quick updates.

HOWTO:

Posting and editing blog entries with TextMate

Textmate is an editor for Apple Macintosh computers. The included Blogging bundle let you post and edit blog entries in your Drupal blog.

As of writing to use the Blogging bundle you need to have the latest "cutting edge" release of Textmate (Version 1.5.2 (1112)). Get it by choosing "Cutting-Edge" in the TextMate menu TextMate > Preferences > Software Update and pressing "Check now".

1. Setup the Blogging bundle for your blog: Open a blank window and select Bundles > Blogging > Setup Blogs. Enter the URL of your blog. Insert your username and append xmlrpc.php to the URL, for example http://user@yourdomain/yourpath/xmlrpc.php. Save the file.

Note: You are able to insert more than one blog entry.

2. Test the blog setup: Bundles > Blogging > Fetch post. TextMate will ask you for your Drupal password first time you connect to the blog. It will be saved in the keychain so you have to enter it only once. Next Textmate will present you with the last 20 blog entries you may choose from.

3. New blog entry: File > New From Template > Blogging > Weblog Post. Write your text and select Bundles > Blogging > Post To Blog to finally post the blog entry.

4. Choose Input Filter: the "Format:" header correlates to the Drupal Input Filters. Put a 3 there and the blog entry will use the third Input Filter.

5. Trimmed version (Teaser): Insert where you want to end the trimmed version of the blog entry.

For a longer explanation have a look at the screencast at Blogging from Textmate.

Problems so far:

• Image files: insert image files into your text by dropping them in the TextMate window. They will instantly uploaded to the blog and referenced in the text. Alas they do not appear at the blog entry, at least not at the authors blog.

• Taxonomy and vocabulary terms: It seems there is no way to insert vocabulary terms in the blog entry yet.

Posting and editing content with w.bloggar

w.bloggar is a gratis software for Windows designed for "blogs" (web-based journals).
If you've confirmed that blog support is enabled, here's some steps to get going:

• Download the software from http://www.wbloggar.com/ and install.

• Set up a new account. This is explained in the w.bloggar help files.

o When it comes time to set the "Blog Tool" selection, choose "MovableType" (and not "Drupal"). This is because (at time of writing) the Drupal support in w.bloggar is outdated.

o For "Host" put the domain of the website you're using, then for "Path" put the rest of the address, if any, followed by "/xmlrpc.php". So if the address was "http://www.gworks.ca/site/" you would put "www.gworks.ca" for host and "site/xmlrpc.php" for Path. The "xmlrpc.php" part is the Drupal file that handles the blogging input.

Now you're ready to start posting. In doing so, you can take advantage of the text formatting functionality w.bloggar offers. When correctly set up, posting a web page from w.bloggar is as simple as opening the program, typing in some text, selecting a category (the "taxonomy term" to use) and hitting post.

Preparing content offline

Before posting directly to a site, you may want to start in a word processing program. Potential advantages include:

• Saving time online. This is a particular consideration if you're on dial-up.

• Access to spell-check and other editing features.
Depending on how much formatting you wish to do, you could also consider using an HTML editor. These include, for instance, the "composer" that comes with Mozilla and Netscape. Here are the steps involved:

• Type or copy and paste your text into the HTML editor.

• Apply formatting as desired (e.g., bold, italics).

• Bring up the HTML (encoded) view of the text.

This HTML is what you'll copy and paste into Drupal's input form, to have formatted copy.

Editing and deleting content

To edit or delete existing content, log in and then bring up the page you wish to edit. Look on the page for an "edit" tab. Depending on your user permissions, you might see this on all pages or only on certain ones (e.g., those that you yourself submitted).

Clicking the edit tab will bring up a page with a form for changing the page. Here you can change the text and settings. Once you have the text and settings in a suitable form, click on the "Submit" button on the bottom of the form. Note that certain sites may be set up to require you to "Preview" the page before you can submit your changes.
If you wish to delete the page (and you have appropriate permissions), click on the "delete" button near the bottom of the form. You'll get a second chance to confirm that you wish to delete the page--or to change your mind!

Note: Because Drupal is very configurable, there may be additional ways of editing and managing content. Please check the documentation for your installation, ask the Drupal administrator, or consult with another user for details.

Search

The search facility is turned on or off by your site administrator. If it is on, you will see a box for entering your search terms and a button labelled "Search". it will be on the header of the page, or in one of the blocks on either side of the page.
Like most search facilities, enter a word or words you want to search for and click the button.

The wild card * performs the usual function of searching for “everything that starts with”

Multiple words are searched as A or B, i.e. it returns pages that have one or more of the words. There is no search only for pages that have both A and B.
The search engine gives greater weight to words used in headings or highlighted. It does this by assigning weights (multipliers) for scores of words inside certain HTML tags.
Header h1 => 21
Header h2 => 18
Header h3 => 15
Header h4 => 12
inside a link => 10
Header h5 => 9
Header h6 => 6
underlined, bold, italics => 5
You can only search on individual words, not phrases in quotes. There is no sorting by date or other parameters.

When searching for numerical data such as dates, IP addresses or version numbers, it considers a group of numerical characters separated only by punctuation characters to be one piece. This also means that searching for e.g. '20/03/1984' also returns results with '20-03-1984' in them.

The dot, underscore and dash are simply removed. This allows meaningful search behaviour with acronyms and URLs.
With the exception of the rules above, search considers all punctuation, marks, spacers, etc, to be a word boundary.
You might also consider using Google. Start your query with "site:example.com", so you would enter
site:example.com my search query
or use the "Search this site" button on the Google toolbar.

Beyond the basics

Drupal is designed to support many different types of website. Many changes to a Drupal site's functionality, appearance, and modes of interaction are easy to make via Drupal's configuration and extension mechanisms.

• Drupal is highly configurable. The administrator of a site can enable different capabilities and change many settings that affect the look and functionality of a site.

• Drupal has a system of privileges that makes it possible to create different user roles - for instance, member, staff, partner. Each type of user can see and do different things on the site.

• Drupal is designed to be easily extended through modules. A module is just a fancy term for additional software you can activate or "plug in" to your web site to provide extra features and functions. For example, you might activate the poll module to let users easily create web-based polls. Some modules, called "core" modules, come pre-packaged with every Drupal installation. Third party modules, called "contributed" modules, can be downloaded separately from the Drupal website and installed on your server.

• The look and feel of a Drupal site can be changed through different "themes". As with modules, there are both core and contributed themes.
Hence, what you see on a particular Drupal site, and what you can do there, depends to a high degree on what the site administrator(s) have chosen to present. If you require more in-depth information about changing the way in which information is presented or how its appearance may be configured, please see the Administrator's guide at http://drupal.org/handbook and the Drupal forums.