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By roitee on
Actually I am very new to drupal and know very less, and I don't know even the general of questions.
First of all, well I have wamp, and it showed no gd library, I am planning to do some image stuffs, so is there any other servers like wamp with everything preinstalled and with gd library? Also which is better drupal 5.x or 4.x? I installed 5.x but there seems more modules and themes for 4.x..
Secondly, since I am very new, don't know where I build the site, in my computer or in the server itself, the most likely thing is to build in my comp and transfer it on the web but till now have no idea how to. What happens to the database?? Also I am working on a free server and the ftp is mostly busy, would I have problem uploading?
The other problem is with the site itself, which actually is the home page, I mean if my site is say example.com and I placed the drupal directory in the root, then my site will be example.com/drupal, how do I correct it?
Actually I have many other problems, like with the themes and inserting pictures in the contents etc etc... but maybe I'll save that to later.
And sorry if I am asking repeated questions, couldn't search the forums.
Comments
answers
I'm far from being a Drupal expert but these would be my answers to some of your questions...
Yes you can use wamp to run Drupal. I have wamp5 running on my notebook as localhost and it works fine. If you want to activate the GD library using wamp try editing the php.ini file (/wamp/apache/php.ini) and uncomment (remove the ';') from the line 'extension=php_gd2.dll', mine is at line 550.
If you're starting fresh I would use the latest version of Drupal, 5.2. It will more than likely receive support longer than an older version and is more secure.
Personally I would install wamp on your own computer and build your site there. Then when you are happy with it you can move it over to a web server. There are instructions available on how to do this.
Drupal will be installed in the root and you create your homepage from within Drupal.
If you want more information try the 'handbooks' area of drupal.org and use Google as a search tool to look for Drupal answers. Most of the hits seem to lead back to this site anyway.
Hope this helps a bit.
ZH.
Thanx a lot
Hello there thanx a lot,
Actually I was trying to work on that gd thing in wamp for months, with no sucess of course.
As for the drupal thing, I downloaded a book by David Menser, and I went through it upto chapter 8 in fairly quick time, but still I am not getting it. Actually I want to build a fairly static page, I am not thinking about putting forums or allow multiple users to post the articles, maybe later but not now. I think I would want it just as I do with the blog, its a three column theme, I downloaded, with a big image header(see http://f1crazee.co.nr if u want, still working on that too). Of course I want to build a site this time. Actually I am pretty unfamiliar with this xml/css themes, I just tweak the things I want changed. I'd love to build my own theme too, but I don't really have much spare time.
Well thanks once again,
Roit
just hang in there...
... it can be confusing at first but you will get around. It took me a year to understand Drupal and I really like it compared to other CMS.
I was in your shoes too. I read that book and other books. Spent countless hours on the forum and other sites. Asked questions and got my site up and running just last month. I even did my first core update.
Check this out http://drupal.org/videocasts
Good Luck.
Those videos were gr8
I really have to say thanks for the wonderful link, really helped me esp, the dudertown videos. Actually, I have a very slow internet connection, no high speed internet here. Still I managed to download all the sites' videos and few others, I had problem with one about 125mb and took me whole nite and still there was no sound and the video itself was not showing properly. Still I think all those were worth it, I have now a pretty good idea abt the way things goes.
I though still have confusions(mostly cuz I always think big than doing simple), like the front page, I don't want it to be like the front page of the blog, maybe with four columns unlike other pages, with the recent updates, featured articles maybe maybe, like that. Also I want the other users to contribute(see I have changed minds in just few days), but how can I manage all those links?, I mean I want to build a site about my country, I have many frens from different parts of the country in my college, I want them to contribute and add new places. Maybe I'd have to make sth that asks for the zone, district the place lies and have them put in navigation, is it close?
Maybe there are modules for such things already, rite, I heard of some front page modules, but haven't gotten time. Also there are much too many modules. Can you recommend me some modules or sth, that you may have used, that I may wanna know, or just anything.
Bye for now,
Roit
my site is simple
my site is simple, I just use the core and maybe 10 contributed modules with minor modification. It really depends on what functionality your site wants to offer. That's why I recommend putting together a list of functions your site will need, for example, do you want to create your custom form, then look at CCK...
here are a few of modules that I use
1. CCK + other CCK modules. - I use CCK to create my own content type (content types = page, book, blog,). With this module I created my custom form.
2. Privatemsg - I use this for my sites internal messaging system. to cut down on spamming and protect the user's email address from other users.
3. User Registration Notification. This modules notifies me via email that there is a new user.
4. Login destination - I use this module to redirect users to the front page instead of the default user account
5. Poormanscron - I use this to specify how frequent cron should run.
6. Views - I use this to give users the option to filter out contents by date and location.
work on getting the functions you need up and running, then work on the design, look into themes. I just wanted a simple look for my site so I downloaded the zen theme and did a few modifications via CSS and modifying the node.php and page.php
Good Luck,
Mark