Streamlined Installation Procedure

Proposed by Dries.
Fleshed out by benc (Ruben Canlas Jr).

Why we need a streamlined install procedure

The goal of this enhancement is to further simplify the installation and configuration of a Drupal website. Although the install process has greatly improved in version 5.0, there is still a gap in the process. Right now, after installation, the default website merely displays a Welcome page that contains additional steps to input your basic site information (Site Name, Slogan, Mission, and even a simple footer). This simple feature is available to most of the good standalone web authoring applications.

Although seemingly trivial, the additional fuss needed to go to the right page and input the information is still annoying. Logically, populating the default install with basic site information belongs to the installation process. It will also improve the Drupal users' out of the box experience (OOBE). The streamlined install procedure will solve this problem.

Note: this may be related to the Wizard proposal by chx.

Overview

The ideal install procedure would be one that includes step-by-step forms (or wizards) that asks for a set of information. This information will in turn be used to build a basic website.

Expected Results

No more Drupal welcome page. Instead the user will be given a set of forms that need to be filled up. Upon submitting, this information is automatically stored and generated for the site. The end result is a basic website with Primary links that include Home, About Us, and FAQs. Details:

• User 1 Form. Prompts the user to input the first user, explaining that this user account will have admin privileges.
• Basic Site Info. Asks the user to input basic site information.
• Default home.This is a static page (or story) that could be auto-generated from the basic site information. Eg, Welcome to Site Name. We are a Site MissionAlternatively, the user can also input a couple of paragraphs that will serve as web text for the default home page. The page also contains an explanation that the user can change the text later by clicking this link.
• Home | About Us/Me | FAQs . This will be an auto-generated menu item in the Primary navigation menu. The purpose of this is to demonstrate to the user how to quickly generate a basic site with links. The Home link is just a link that was created from the Default home wizard (above). The About Us/Me can contain a sentence like "Here you can input stuff about yourself. To change this text, click this link. The FAQs can contain basic questions on Drupal, again with a link to how the text could be changed.

Dries said:

Remove the Drupal welcome page, and replace it by additional installation steps in the installer. The additional installation steps should query the user for basic site settings (i.e. site name, site slogan), and should provide a dedicated and simpler user interface to create the administrative user account. I'd also like to ship core with an optional install profile optimized at jump starting your installation -- for example, one that sets up a working contact form and creates a dummy about page with a clean and human-readable URL.