Purpose: (Proposed text) "To help "newbies" who are overwhelmed by Drupal.org. Drupal is a powerful and flexible content management tool but it is not always simple. The dynamic and organic way in which Drupal has been developed means expert programmers, coders, themers, and front end users of Drupal will rarely be able to re-live the new user experience. However, they all belong to the Drupal community and between the community and the documentation on Drupal they are there to make the experience easier for whomever expresses an interest in learning." (Original Text)To help Drupal "newbies" who seemed overwhelmed on Drupal.org at first. In order to achieve its power and flexibility, Drupal isn't always simple. And the amazing programmers who've coded Drupal weren't always experts about the user experience. But it isn't that hard. And there is a great community of people, and lots of documents, that will help you get there. You can do it. Background (Proposed Text) This handbook was developed using Drupal 5. The information here is transferrable to Drupal 6 with the following exceptions: Navigation buttons may have been renamed or moved. (Original Text) This "book" was developed based on a test-site using Drupal 5. Most of the process is the same for Drupal 6, although a few of the navigation buttons may have been renamed or moved. Important Drupal Terms Should be one sentence following the term.. with a BRIEF description after.. don't refer to other drupal terms (i.e. "path module")... I don't know what that is! Typing convention: Should add a description of the admin toolbar... since that's an essential tool that I think everyone will/should be using!!! The following text needs to be added to the Important terms or a basics section: Occasionally you will see refer to "production" or "live" sites. These terms are pretty much interchangeable. The latter term is more modern and accepted in reference to web sites and means: "the site that your end-users interact with". The former term is largely synonymous but is a more "traditional" data processing term. Need to define the difference between a "live" site and a "test" site for us dummies ;) i.e. A live site is the site accessible from the url on your server. A test site is a internally set site.. blah blah blah.. "Some preliminary advice"... jumps off a cliff.. and I don't know what I'm following anymore. All of the information is relevant and interesting.. but perhaps it's a bit too early or belongs in a different section. What I'd like to see here: Purpose Background Important Drupal Terms Basic description of how Drupal works including the important Drupal Terms discussed Links to additional information based on what is discussed here. (The information on the community and on advice.. should be moved to sections near the end of the manual). *********************************** Getting Started Page Good page - when the text moves into written in the 1st person... can you change the color of the text or put a box around it? Its useful but the flow is broken. I followed the page and installed from Acquia site!!! :) ************************************ Basic Configuration Page "Whether you run one site or several, there are some basic things you should do right now. Here's what I do right off the bat; the advantage to doing it in the "root" database is that when I make copies for my other sites this has already been done. I'd give you a link to something on the Drupal site, but I never found anything like this." WHAT? Maybe should say "The following are some basic configuration steps that should be done initially while in the "root" database. The advantage of this is when creating multiple sites (by copying settings), the copies will already be pre-configured." Perhaps leave a note re: the administration tool bar at the top of the page as well. Good.. can follow the items up to.. NEED TO MAKE A NOTE on the consequences of using different WAMP/MAMP/Acquia/Xamp - meaning in terms of drupal updates and installation... i.e. acquia installs several modules already... mamp/wamp may give a user that much more control at initial installation... break down of directories... 4. While you're there, go ahead and set what the "authenticated users" (logged in) and "anonymous user" (not logged in) can do, such as using your contact form. This is not engraved in stone; you can change it any time you want. [There is no contact form enabled at this point.. so I don't see it - looking from acquia installation of drupal 6.10] 5. Maybe explain what these things mean... and in the Acquia visitor.. it's already set to node.. does not explain why it has to be 'node' and why I can't change it to something else. 6. Maybe include a list of modules that are recommended to turn on if you're making 1. a blog, 2. a information website 3. a photo gallery... etc. Or link to something that gives you that type of advice and feedback on what works and what doesn't. Acquia seems to come with a package of modules they recommend.. If you want to disable the acquia settings.. what to do... 7. where are themes? In the Admin menu it's Sitebuilding >> Themes ... but again, what am I doing? and why? NEEDS TO BE RE-WRITTEN: FOR DRUPAL 6... AND NOTE SECURITY RISK BY TURNING ON FULL HTML. * Turn on "CLEAN URLS" to make your site more user friendly. Go to Administration >> Site configuration >> Clean URLs. At the bottom of the verbiage there is a link to run the "Clean URLs Test." If it passes, then the "Enable" radio button will un-dim. Click on that. (If the URLs stop working for some reason here are instructions to unset clean URLs.) * In order for me to create any kind of content, I go to Administration >> Site configuration >> Input formats and set "Full HTML" as the default until I get the site ready to go live. Then I still allow administrators (like my other ID) to use that format. Do this now and you will avoid a very common problem with building your site. * I don't like having "Promoted to front page" as a default for content, so I go to Administration >> Content management >> Content types and turn that off - in each format. * While you're there, decide on your default comment mode. Go to Administration >> Content management >> Comments >> Settings (Administration >> Content management >> Post settings in Drupal 6) and set the comments to be entered on a "separate page" and make sure that "Preview comment" is set to "Required." * Now, let's turn on the Contact form so your users can send you a message. Go to Administration >> Site building >> Menus and locate the "Contact" item (it should listed be under the "Navigation" menu). Click on the "enable" link. Remember that later on you will want to go to Administration >> Site building >> Contact form and finish setting that up. Add a note re: Cron and what it does.. what it's for.. and that you will see a message about cron not having run.. link to page explaining it all. *************************** Creating Multiple Sites On a Local Computer *** Maybe move to near the end of the cookbook... because I'm too much of a newbie and I haven't even made content yet!!! - did not follow or try out as a result of not needing it. ************************** Error pages Again... tell me how to make content first!!! Also, activating modules gave me errors.... what's up with that? ************************* Setting up cron... doesn't really answer anything but relates the author's experience. The drupal site pages are helpful in saying what it's for... but yeah... still don't get it. ************************** Accessing Your Test Site(s) ----- Add1sun reports this is only pertaining to that particular stack... after I asked based on acquia's intallation... ************************ Adding Modules & Themes Let me first say that a newbie shouldn't worry a lot about adding modules and themes at first. Work on the basics of your site first, then worry about add-ons. [NEED more clarification... why shouldn't a newbie worry? what if the basics I want are an image file.. or gallery? I'm not content with just a story etc. ] I'd prefer if this was more expanded on.. maybe multiple links to some basic functions of websites that are expected right away and the tools-pathway to getting module(s) working together to get what you want (i.e. blog, image gallery, comments, newsfeed)... Its very opinionated... I would reword it... (Suggested) "Themes define the general lay-out and look of the website. Fixed width means the content of the page is always within a fixed width whereas "Fluid" means the content can move pending the size of the browser window. Initially, a newbie may want to add content prior to modifying themes or modules as this assists with seeing the resultant changes in layout. Themes are independent of content; therefore, they can be changed at any time point during a given project. Modules are object oriented "mini-applications" which allow you to introduce additional features or functions to your website. (Insert list of recommended tried tested and true modules and possible links to pages discussing the best practices with regards to them)." (Original)"Let me first say that a newbie shouldn't worry a lot about adding modules and themes at first. Work on the basics of your site first, then worry about add-ons. Themes are largely a matter of taste. For example, I have no idea why anyone would use a "fixed width" theme, but lots of people do. One nice thing about themes are they are pretty much independent of your content (later on you can look at the many submissions that are dependent on content). Contributed modules are ways to add or extend functionality of your site. The only module I, personally, consider necessary is the Nodewords (a.k.a Meta Tags) module; in my opinion, it should be promoted to "core" status. This one allows you to add the "content," "keywords," and "robots" meta tags to your pages. This is useful if you're interested in your search engine rankings. You will also find that many contributed modules also require the Views module; I go ahead and make that a standard one for my sites. Now, if you experiment with different themes and modules, as I know you will, despite my suggestions, you should also look at the Update Status (core in D6) and Site Documentation modules to make sure you are current and to document and clean up the mess your experimentation will make. Here are some suggestions on choosing the release: Strong stomach?" Themes _ pertains to the windows environment... couldn't find it initially in the acquia environment.. found it in the /sites directory... Modules_ neither this nor the drupal module documentation that is linked tells you what to do if you need to download an update to a module/theme... and what to do (i.e. delete the original and put in the new) Note: Acquia adds some of its own but its essentially the same once you find their preinstalled modules (in the directory above the directory for new modules). Modules page ___ Need to add spaces for clarity with the >> >> You can make it more step by steph... take out the extraneous words.. but overall, can follow and makes sense. How do content types, input formats, categories... **************************** Adding Images to your text Went to instal IMCE... but the following appears dated since I flagged TinyMCE on the project page! ;) 3. IMCE( demo at http://ufku.com/drupal/imce/demo). Provides facilities to upload and search for images on the server. Functionally similar to the Image_Assist/drupalimage combination, but the integration with TinyMCE is neater for inserting images, and there is more control over the attributes of the image once inserted. BUT the image filing and select window does not look so nice – to the point of affecting usability, and there are bad things on the Blogs about the associated gallery function. I'd say this page needs a lot of revision work! Include a comparison of what's good, what's bad, what's ugly... or just link to the page that does. ****************************