Drupal 6 Content Administration

195 Pages·2009·10.898 MB·English

by  J. Ayen Green

Drupal 6 Content Administration
Maintain, add, and edit the content of your Drupal site
with ease
J. Ayen Green
BIRMINGHAM - MUMBAI
This material is copyright and is licensed for the sole use by Paul Corcorran on 5th July 2009
8601 ave. p #1, , lubbock, , 79423
Drupal 6 Content Administration
Copyright © 2009 Packt Publishing
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval
system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, without the prior written
permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embedded in
critical articles or reviews.
Every effort has been made in the preparation of this book to ensure the accuracy of
the information presented. However, the information contained in this book is sold
without warranty, either express or implied. Neither the author, Packt Publishing,
nor its dealers or distributors will be held liable for any damages caused or alleged
to be caused directly or indirectly by this book.
Packt Publishing has endeavored to provide trademark information about all the
companies and products mentioned in this book by the appropriate use of capitals.
However, Packt Publishing cannot guarantee the accuracy of this information.
First published: June 2009
Production Reference: 1190609
Published by Packt Publishing Ltd.
32 Lincoln Road
Olton
Birmingham, B27 6PA, UK.
ISBN 978-1-847198-56-3
www.packtpub.com
Cover Image by Parag Kadam ([email protected])
This material is copyright and is licensed for the sole use by Paul Corcorran on 5th July 2009
8601 ave. p #1, , lubbock, , 79423
Credits
Author Editorial Team Leader
J. Ayen Green Akshara Aware
Reviewers Project Team Leader
Edward Peters Priya Mukherji
John K. Murphy
Project Coordinator
Zainab Bagasrawala
Acquisition Editor
David Barnes
Proofreader
Dirk Manuel
Development Editor
Dilip Venkatesh
Production Coordinator
Shantanu Zagade
Technical Editor
Hithesh Uchil
Cover Work
Shantanu Zagade
Copy Editor
Leonard D'Silva
Indexer
Monica Ajmera
This material is copyright and is licensed for the sole use by Paul Corcorran on 5th July 2009
8601 ave. p #1, , lubbock, , 79423
About the Author
J. Ayen Green is a software and web site developer, writer, and poet. He is the
chief software architect at Ayen Designs. He and his wife, Sofía-Aileen, make their
home in New York City.
Some might look at writing a technical book as paint-by-numbers
as compared to the oil painting of a novel. With no intention of
minimizing the talent needed for the latter, I have to argue that
keeping a reader's interest is far easier when writing about a serial
killer appearing in a doorway, than it is while writing about HTML
tags. That said, it's been an enjoyable experience, and I'd like to take
the time to thank the people responsible for that.

My wife, Sofia-Aileen, handled her near-widow status over the
past several months with an aplomb that created a stress-free work
environment for me. I hope she didn't get too used to being 'single'.

The experience of working with Frank Bozak, the owner of the web
site MusicToHealBy.com, the example in this book, was what one
dares to hope for from a composer of music for the soul. He's been
patient, enthusiastic, and receptive, eagerly anticipating the climax.
It takes much longer to finish when you have to stop and write about
each step along the way.

The staff at Packt are a delight to work with. In addition to the
nameless army out there who make things happen, my thanks go
out to David Barnes, Dilip Venkatesh, Zainab Bagasrawala, Abhijeet
Deobhakta, and Hithesh Uchil for their dedication to producing the
best product while keeping the writer alive, as well as to John K.
Murphy and Edward Peters for a great job as technical reviewers.

Finally, I must not fail to mention the enormously talented designers,
coders, and technical writers who continue to make Drupal one of
the best software titles ever released.
This material is copyright and is licensed for the sole use by Paul Corcorran on 5th July 2009
8601 ave. p #1, , lubbock, , 79423
About the Reviewers
Edward Peters has worked for all of his adult life with Initiatives of Change
(IofC), an international trust-building network (www.iofc.org). Between 2002
and 2008 he managed IofC's global Internet operation, servicing the needs of
activists in many countries and many languages. In 2008, he oversaw the move
of the organization's proprietary Web CMS into the Drupal framework—a
technically-challenging task, given the objective of achieving a multi-lingual,
multi-site system running off one codebase and one database, with user and
content sharing across all sites.
Edward also does freelance web development work for a number of small clients
(www.edwardpeters.co.uk) and is moving several of them into the Drupal
framework. He attended DrupalCons in Boston and Washington D.C., and is
enthusiastic about Drupal and the Drupal community.
He served as a technical reviewer for another Packt publication, Learning Drupal 6,
by Matt Butcher.
John K. Murphy is a graduate of the University of West Virginia and has been
wrapped up in computers and software development since the 1980's. When he is
not buried in a book or jumping out of an airplane, he works as an IT consultant.
John lives with his wife and two children in Pittsburgh, PA and is currently
obsessing about the Internet of Things.
This material is copyright and is licensed for the sole use by Paul Corcorran on 5th July 2009
8601 ave. p #1, , lubbock, , 79423
This material is copyright and is licensed for the sole use by Paul Corcorran on 5th July 2009
8601 ave. p #1, , lubbock, , 79423
This book is dedicated to Scott Corley, one of those people who can see the forest for
the trees. He's rescued me more than once, but most notably the first time, in college,
when, with his gentle and diplomatic flair, he remarked, "Hey [expletive deleted],
have you noticed that you're busting your butt in chemistry, and meanwhile you're acing
the computer stuff without studying?"
Thanks, Fonzo.
This material is copyright and is licensed for the sole use by Paul Corcorran on 5th July 2009
8601 ave. p #1, , lubbock, , 79423
This material is copyright and is licensed for the sole use by Paul Corcorran on 5th July 2009
8601 ave. p #1, , lubbock, , 79423
Table of Contents
Preface 1
Chapter 1: The Grand Tour 7
What will I learn? 7
What is Drupal? 7
What is a Content Management System? 8
Who is the target reader? 8
What will I do in the chapters? 9
A guided tour of Drupal 9
The Drupal front end 10
The Drupal back end 12
Create content 13
Content management 13
User management 14
Reports 15
Site building 15
Site configuration 16
Summary 16
Chapter 2: Content Creation 17
What you will learn 17
What you will do 18
Understanding content in Drupal 18
What is content? 18
Node Content types—the Story 19
Activity 2.1: Creating a Story 20
Activity 2.2: Editing Node Content 24
Content creation form fields 26
This material is copyright and is licensed for the sole use by Paul Corcorran on 5th July 2009
8601 ave. p #1, , lubbock, , 79423
Table of Contents
Node Content types—Page 29
Activity 2.3: Creating a Drupal Page with a Rich Text Editor 29
Permissions in Drupal 33
Summary 34
Chapter 3: Content Seasoning 35
What you will learn 35
What you will do 35
Understanding Teasers 36
Activity 3.1: Creating a Teaser 36
Activity 3.2: Creating an external text link 42
The anatomy of a link 44
Using images in content 45
Activity 3.3: Working with images in content 45
Activity 3.3a: Uploading and embedding an image 46
Inserting an image if you don't have an editor 49
Activity 3.3b: Creating an image link 50
Embedding audio in Node Content 52
Activity 3.4: Adding audio content 52
Linking to downloadable content 55
Activity 3.5: Providing a link to downloadable content 55
Embedding video in Node Content 60
Activity 3.6: Adding video content 60
Summary 62
Chapter 4: Advanced Content Editing 63
What you will learn 63
What you will do 64
Enhancing layouts with HTML and CSS 64
HTML and tables 64
CSS in Drupal 65
Activity 4.1: Adding a CSS file to a theme 66
Activity 4.2: Creating a CSS file 66
Activity 4.3: Creating an 'include' file 67
Activity 4.4: Creating the Node Content header 70
Activity 4.5: Creating the Node Content Body 73
Revisions 80
Activity 4.6: Creating a Revision 80
Summary 82
Chapter 5: Making Content Findable 83
What you will learn 83
What you will do 84
[ ii ]
This material is copyright and is licensed for the sole use by Paul Corcorran on 5th July 2009
8601 ave. p #1, , lubbock, , 79423