Configure your website

When the install script succeeds, you will be directed to the "Welcome" page. This page outlines, in brief, the basic steps to setup and configure your Drupal site. Take a moment to review them.

These are the basic steps to setup and configure your Drupal site. This message will stay on your front page until you promote something to it (default behavior) or change the front page setting.

At this time you have no configured accounts on your site. The first account you create on step one is the super admin account (you may also see this referred to as UID1). This account will always have access to your entire site so do not share it's password. Later, when testing regular account access, you should use a different account.

Create the first account

In "step one" click "create the first account" link. At the user account creation page, enter you details and click 'create new account'.

This will take you to the user account page for UID1. Don't forget that UID1 is your sites super user. While on the screen you can make note of your randomly generated password, or just enter one you will remember.

You may want to set your accounts timezone here as well and click submit.

Basic configuration

The next few pages will introduce you to some common administrative tasks in your Drupal site. It is not meant to be a comprehensive configuration guide but an introduction to help familiarize you with where things are located and configured.

Click that Administrator link. This takes you to the administrative section. We will explore more deeply later, for now just an overview on some basic tasks. Note the scary red notice about problems. This is normal at this point and if you follow along we'll show you how to finish configuring your site.

Status Report

The Status Report contains basic information about your site.

At the status report page, you will generally have two errors. One regarding Cron is not configured and the other regarding the file system. Configuring cron will be done later, for now click the run cron manually link to clear the error.

File System

The file system is where all uploaded content is stored. If you use CSS aggregation, then it stores those files there as well. You can do one of two things...

Create it yourself at the root of your site OR Click the link in the 'file system settings page' and Drupal will attempt to create the files directory
automatically.

If you are still on the Status Report page, you can click the file system settings page link or browse to administer > site configuration > file system manually.

Download method refers to how you control access to your files.

Site Information

Let's change some basic information now. Currently your site name is Drupal and you have the smiling face of Druplicon. While a nice starting point, let's personalize a bit.

In your menu under Administer > Site configuration we will go through some of the available options.

Select Site information;

1. Set the name of your site.

2. Set the email address for your site. (for out going only
   noreply@sample.com works)

3. Set a slogan for your site

4. The mission statement is options. The mission statement is
   available to some themes and only displays o the front page when
   enabled

5. A footer message if you need one

6. Default name for anonymous users if you allow anonymous
   user posting

7. Default front page. By default it is set to node. With it
   set to 'node', it displays, in order, all posts with 'Promote to
   front page' checked. You can set it to a specific node for a
   static front page (i.e. node/4)

8. Date and time. Set the default time zone for your site.
   Review the other options while you are here

Theme Settings

Now that you have your site information a little personalized, let's work a little on the theme. In them menu go to Administer > Site building and select
Themes.

In a new install, Garland is enabled and the default theme. Click the Configure tab next to List and you will see the Global settings for themes. For now, un-check Logo and check Site Slogan and
Save configuration. Take a look at other options available here as well, this is where you can upload your own custom 'favicon' to replace the smiling Druplicon. We like Druplicon but your site should display your identity.

Next to the Global settings sub tab is a list of enabled themes. On a new install only Garland will be listed. Select Garland now. Assuming you have chosen to use public files earlier, you will see the color selector. You can choose from some existing color sets or choose your own colors using the color picker or HTML color code's. Feel free to experiment.

User Management

Under the Administer menu go to user management. Go to User Settings and set user registration as appropriate to your site.

In the User Management menu, select Roles. You will see that there are two default roles.

Let's add a role called 'administrator'. Next Edit permissions of the new role and check all the boxes except Use PHP for block visibility and administer filters. Save permissions.

Go to Users and select the Add user tab. Choose a user name and fill in the information. Do not assign a role at this time. Log out and log back in with your new account. See what the menu looks like. When you are done, log back with your first user account, add the administer role to your test account and repeat. See what's different.

Don't get hung up on the user id. number with two exceptions, it's just a sequential number that the account was created on. The only important ones are;