Drupal 7 Visual QuickStart Guide

The free and open-source package Drupal is one of the most user-friendly and popular web content management systems (CMSes) available. Sites built on it are highly visible and include The Onion and Amnesty International. Its web-based interface allows those with little or no experience to create professional-looking sites quickly while its flexibility gives them access to such features as blogs, polls, and forums. This Visual QuickStart uses plenty of screen shots and step-by-step instructions to walk a reader through the process of building a site using Drupal. It starts with installation and initial configuration, discusses content and user management in depth, and concludes with ways to improve your new site's appearance and interactivity.

Tom Geller (Oberlin, OH) is a full-time freelance writer whose recent clients have included Apple, IEEE, ACM, Nature.com, The San Francisco Chronicle, Safari Books Online, and Lynda.com.

Introduction 

Chapter 1 Getting Drupal Up and Running 
Fulfilling Drupal’s Requirements
Downloading and Unpacking Drupal
Creating the MySQL Database 
Using phpMyAdmin 
Installing Drupal

Chapter 2 Establishing Your Drupal Site 
Using the New Administrative Interfaces in Drupal 7
Turning on Built-In Features 
Giving Your Site Its Identity 
Selecting a Visual Theme
Monitoring Your Drupal Site 
Packaging Your Drupal Site 

Chapter 3 Creating and Managing Content
Gaining More Control of Individual Nodes
Creating Other Types of Content 
Finding, Editing, and Deleting Content

Chapter 4 Customizing Content  
Defining Custom Types of Content
Putting Images and Styled Text in Content

Chapter 5 Making Content Interactive 
Enabling Interactive Content Types 
Categorizing Content with Taxonomies 
Mastering Text Formats 
Mastering Image Styles 

Chapter 6 Improving Access to Content
Making Content Searchable
Directing Traffic with Menus 
Laying Out Your Site with Blocks 

Chapter 7 Wrangling Users
Managing User Accounts  
Controlling How Users Interact with Their Accounts 
Defining User Roles and Permissions 
Building and Protecting Your User Community 

Chapter 8 Customizing Drupal’s Look and Feel
Creating a New Theme
Changing Theme Graphics and Typography with CSS

Chapter 9 Extending Drupal with Modules
Using Modules 
Modules: The Drupal 7 Challenge
Resources for Evaluating Modules
Appendix Getting (and Giving) Help 
Glossary Drupal Terms and Culture

 Index