Drupal CMS - An Open Source Content Management System in PHP/MySQL
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Ranked #804 in Tech & Geek, #20,369 overall
What Is Drupal? A Brief Introduction
Drupal is a modular content management system and blogging engine which was originally written by Dries Buytaert as a bulletin board system.
After almost 6 years of existence, Drupal has reached a good level of maturity. It is used by many high-traffic websites, including The Onion, Spread Firefox, and Ourmedia (this CMS is particularly popular for building online communities).
Drupal's main characteristics :
- Open Source software written in PHP/MySQL.
- Very flexible structure: extra features are added by means of modules (Drupal word for "plugins"); lots of them are available.
- Layout completely customisable with themes (Drupal word for "templates"), several of them being 100% XHTML-compliant.
- Its community is vibrant.
- As of Nov 1st 2006, the current version is Drupal 4.7.4. Drupal 5.0 should be available in the coming months (Drupal 5.0 beta 1 was released on Oct 31st 2006).
Note: The image on the left is the official Drupal icon, called the "Druplicon". It represents a stylised drop with the infinity eyes, a round nose and a mischievous smile.
Drupal Reference Websites
- Drupal.org
- That's the "mother site", or the official Drupal website. This is where you should - and will - go for most of your Drupal needs like :
- downloading the latest version of Drupal
- downloading new templates ("themes" in Drupal jargon) or plugins ("modules" in Drupal jargon) for your Drupal website
- getting support from the Drupal community - Drupal API Reference
- That's the Drupal developer's documentation. It provides both conceptual information on the various components of Drupal, heavily-documented code examples, and of course a detailed description of every function and file used in the Drupal system.
- Drupal - Wikipedia
- In case you still don't know what Drupal is. :)
- DrupalFrance
- DrupalFrance is a starting point for the French-speaking users interested in Drupal and willing to learn more. The site has several introductory articles about Drupal and a blog to announce Drupal events and news.
Best Drupal Blogs & Articles
Here is a list of excellent Drupal blogs/resources that I check on a regular basis. Highly recommended to improve your Drupal knowledge and stay current on Drupal matters.
- Lullabot
- Blog of Lullabot, a US company specialised in professional Drupal services. Contains excellent articles and numerous podcasts about Drupal.
- Dries Buytaert
- Personal weblog of Drupal Founder Dries Buytaert. Regular posts about Drupal.
- Using open source software to design, develop, and deploy a collaborative Web site
- An excellent series in 9 installments on IBM DeveloperWorks which abundantly speaks of Drupal. A must read if you want to learn Drupal nuts and bolts.
The series as a whole is about open source tools, including Drupal, MySQL, PHP, Apache, Eclipse, and CVS and how to use them to develop a Web site. - D'Arcy Norman dot net
- D'Arcy has switched from WordPress to Drupal and has written numerous posts about it: why he switched, how difficult it was, what new tricks he learned with Drupal, and in the end... why he loves it! :)
- Nick Lewis: The Blog
- Blog of professional Drupal developer Nick Lewis. Drupal tutorials published on a regular basis.
- Drupal | Development Seed Blog
- Blog of Development Seed, a US company providing professional Drupal services (direct link to all Drupal articles in the blog).
The articles are quite technical and not for the newbie. - Drupal - Webschuur Blog
- Blog of Webschuur, a Dutch company providing professional Drupal services (direct link to all Drupal articles in the blog).
- Bryght Blog
- Blog of Bryght, a Canadian company specialised in professional Drupal services.
- Drupal | The Baheyeldin Dynasty
- Blog of professional Drupal developer Khalid M. Baheyeldin (direct link to all Drupal articles in the blog).
- RobsHouse
- Blog of Robert T. Douglass, author of "Building Online Communities With Drupal, phpBB, and WordPress".
- Pages tagged with "drupal" on del.icio.us
- Useful to find fresh or popular content about Drupal.
- Pages tagged with "drupal" on Technorati
- See all blog posts tagged with drupal on Technorati.
Is Drupal right for me?
Drupal Reviews and Comparison with other CMS
Still trying to decide whether Drupal is right for you? The following Drupal reviews and comparisons will point you in the right direction.
Disclaimer: the article selection may be biased towards Drupal, but you knew that by now, didn't you? ;-)
Disclaimer: the article selection may be biased towards Drupal, but you knew that by now, didn't you? ;-)
- Professional Blog Software Reviews - Drupal
- This article belong to a series of blog software reviews by Performancing. It looks at how well Drupal performs as a blog.
- Blog Software Review: Drupal
- Concise review of Drupal.
The Bottom Line: "Installation and configuration can be very tricky with Drupal. Getting modules and themes to work can also be challenging. But, once you have the whole set up in place, Drupal provides a great tool for web authors/publishers. After all, it's not just a blogging software - it's a content management system." - Drupal vs Joomla: popularity
- Google trends is a tool that analyzes Google web searches and that can visualize search trends over time using so called "search-volume graphs". These graphs usually provide a good mechanism to compare the popularity of two or more products.
This is the search-volume graph that compares Drupal and Joomla.
(Check out the other articles comparing Drupal and Joomla on this site.) - On moving from WordPress to Drupal
- D'Arcy Norman wrote "I've been spending so much time in Drupal lately that I've been contemplating moving my blog from WordPress to Drupal to take advantage of some of the flexibility in Drupal. I've even gone as far as migrating a copy of this blog, and it's basically working now".
He finally made the switch. Check out the article to see how it went. - How to choose an open-source CMS
- Seth Gottlieb, content management practice lead at Optaros, explains how one should go about selecting an open-source content management system.
It mentions Drupal, but not exclusively. - The CMS Matrix
- Check the CMS you want to compare in the list and hit Compare. You get a side-by-side table of the features provided by the CMS you selected.
Best Drupal Books
Even though you'll find lots of Drupal articles on the Web, sometimes you need an overall view, especially when you're just beginning. The following books will introduce you gently to Drupal and give you the big picture.
Building Online Communities With Drupal, phpBB, and WordPress
I highly recommend it to anyone new (and no so new) to Drupal: it will give you a very clear idea of what Drupal is about, what you can do with it, and how it is organised. The only sad thing about this book is that only 1/3 of it is dedicated to Drupal (the rest being about WordPress and phpBB).
Drupal: Creating Blogs, Forums, Portals, And Community Website
Very good introductory book as well. And this time, it's 100% Drupal! :-)
Additional Books
I added some other references to a general web content management book (not specifically Drupal) and a PHP book. If found both of them very helpful to build CMS-based websites.
Building Online Communities With Drupal, phpBB, and WordPress
I highly recommend it to anyone new (and no so new) to Drupal: it will give you a very clear idea of what Drupal is about, what you can do with it, and how it is organised. The only sad thing about this book is that only 1/3 of it is dedicated to Drupal (the rest being about WordPress and phpBB).
Drupal: Creating Blogs, Forums, Portals, And Community Website
Very good introductory book as well. And this time, it's 100% Drupal! :-)
Additional Books
I added some other references to a general web content management book (not specifically Drupal) and a PHP book. If found both of them very helpful to build CMS-based websites.
Building Online Communities With Drupal, phpBB, and WordPress
Amazon Price: $40.45 (as of 07/11/2009) 
Drupal: Creating Blogs, Forums, Portals, and Community Websites: How to setup, configure and customise this powerful PHP/MySQL based Open Source CMS
Amazon Price: $35.99 (as of 07/11/2009)
Beginning PHP and MySQL 5: From Novice to Professional, Second Edition (Beginning from Novice to Professional)
Amazon Price: $26.18 (as of 07/11/2009)
Content Management for Dynamic Web Delivery
Amazon Price: $45.76 (as of 07/11/2009)
Get Drupal Support
Inevitably there will come a time when you need help, especially in the beginning. Don't fear, the Drupal community provides plenty of options.
- Drupal Online Documentation
- That's the place to go to learn more about Drupal or if you need help installing Drupal.
A list of common problems and their solutions can be found in the Troubleshooting FAQ.
The Drupal handbooks offer a complete reference for those interested in Drupal, both novice and experienced Drupal administrators, Drupal users and Drupal developers. - Drupal Forums
- If you haven't found the answers in the Drupal handbooks, ask in the Drupal forums.
Remember that participants in the forums are all volunteers who get involved during their free time. Please search the Drupal forums before posting (your answer might be there already), ask kindly and be patient. - Drupal IRC
- For real-time support (and urgent issues), join #drupal-support on the FreeNode IRC network (irc.freenode.net). There you will be able to speak with a professional Drupal developer (remember that all people on IRC are volunteers; they do not "have to" help you).
NOTE : IRC is a form of realtime internet chat. It is mainly designed for group (many-to-many) communication in discussion forums called channels, but also allows one-to-one communication via private message. In order to use IRC, you will need an IRC client. See the WikiPedia IRC entry for more details. - SitePoint Forums
- Still have questions? It may be time to go a general webmasters forum like SitePoint.
Depending on the topic of your question, post it in the most appropriate SitePoint forum (CSS, PHP...). - People that provide Drupal services
- If it's really too complicated, if you're not interested in "getting your hands dirty", if you have some money to spead, or all of the above, then why not get someone to do the work for you?
You'll find a list of service providers (see link above) and a Paid Drupal Services forum at Drupal.org. You can also check out my short list of Drupal service providers below.
Best Drupal Service Providers
Who am I to say they're the "best"? :)
I haven't tried them out but I can say most of these guys have a huge involvement in the Drupal community and are regularly praised for the quality of their work, be it providing support in the Drupal forums, contributing modules or code to Drupal, or publishing quality Drupal material on their websites.
The list is in alphabetical order.
I haven't tried them out but I can say most of these guys have a huge involvement in the Drupal community and are regularly praised for the quality of their work, be it providing support in the Drupal forums, contributing modules or code to Drupal, or publishing quality Drupal material on their websites.
The list is in alphabetical order.
Some Drupal Pictures
Drupal Founder Dries Buytaert (from Amsterdam Drupalcon 2005)
Hand waving with some Drupal figures.
Drupal 5th birthday cake
Drupal clock
Some attendees at Drupalcon Brussels 2006
Drupal 5.0 beta1: web-based install and new default theme
Drupal 5.0 user management
Wireframe illustrating how form_autovalidate ajax textfield might work in Drupal...
A Drupal joke. All you can eat smorgasbord of metadata!
Latest News from Drupal.org
Fetching RSS feed... please stand byWho Created Drupal?
Presentation of Drupal Founder Dries Buytaert
Dries Buytaert (19 November 1978 -) is an open-source software programmer and the founder of the Drupal CMS. He still heads the Drupal project.He resides in Belgium and as of 2003 he is a PhD student in Computer Science at the University of Ghent.
From 1999-2000 he was the maintainer of the GNU/Linux WLAN FAQ.
Create a website
It's still difficult to find Drupal-related items on eBay, although there's Drupal mugs and T-shirts. Apparently, Drupalers don't want to sell them. :)
Fetching new data from eBay now... please stand by
Drupal poll
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New Guestbook
BobSteen wrote...
Hi there, I recently created a new group and was wondering if you would add your Drupal Lens to it. Hope you consider it!
http://www.squidoo.com/group/create_lens/everythingdata/331a44a6b795e0ff8398880fad0eae11
Thanks.
Bob.
Posted May 22, 2007
by vincedo
Hello, I'm a professional Web developer and I have specialised in building websites with Drupal. I live in Lille, a city in the north of France, about... (more)
