Note that despite its name the blog module is not necessary for a single-user blog. Blog module is used to create blogs for multiple users.

The purpose of this recipe is to have you end up with a basic single user blog using primarily core modules to start you off with a solid foundation. When complete, you will have a place for blog posts with integrated rss feeds, an image gallery and be more familiar with the basic configuration settings of Drupal. Using this as a starting point, you will be able to customize your site by adding additional modules as you see fit.

If you haven't already, please take a moment to review the best practices guide, particularly the importance of backups and test sites.

  1. Download and install the latest stable version of Drupal on your server.
  2. Click the create new user account to create your first user account.
  3. Call it siteadmin (or whatever), enter an email address then click the login button and set your password.
  4. You may want to set your timezone now, as well.

Modules

Go to administer > modules, and enable the following core modules (some may already be enabled):

Note that in 5.x page and story are no longer modules but are default content types that can be configured at ?q=admin/content/types.

From contributed modules download and install the following

Settings
In 4.7, click on administer > settings. In 5.x, administer > site information.

There are some fields that you need to change, so put your site name and slogan. In the email address, put a sending email address (no-reply@example.com) and if you have a slogan put it here. Set your file system path and temporary directory for your site. Save your settings.

Access Control

  1. Click on administer > access control
  2. Click on the roles tab. Note: In version 5.x, roles are at administer > roles and access control is at administer > access control.
  3. Create a role, we'll call it blogger. The rights you give it depend on how you use your site. For now, we'll select a few options.
  • administer and create images
  • administer menu
  • access content and administer nodes
  • create pages and edit own page
  • create url aliases
  • access statistics
  • create and edit own stories
  • access administration pages
  • administer taxonomy
  • Click on administrator > users (administer > user settings in 5.x)
  • Click the configure tab and choose Only site administrators can create new user accounts. (single user blog remember?)
  • Click the add user tab and create a user account you will blog with. Assign it the role you created earlier.
  • Themes

    1. Click on administrator > themes.
    2. Select the configure tab.
    3. Scroll down to Display post information on and uncheck the box next to Page.
    4. In Toggle display and make sure that Site name, slogan and mission statement are checked. The nice thing about Drupal is that you can change the look and feel of your site without changing the links to the content at any time.

    workflow

    1. Click on administer > content (adminster > content types in 5.x)
    2. Click the configure tab and then content types.
    3. Click on page
    4. In the Workflow remove the check next to Promoted to front page. Save and do the same for Image as well.
    5. This will set only story type content to be automatically promoted to the front page.

    Content

    Now we can add content. Log out of your siteadmin account and log on with the account you created (we'll call ours joeuser). Go ahead and create a story page, something simple like first blog post. If you go to your home page, you will see that the default Drupal new site message is now gone and your post is in place.

    For content types, it is suggested that you use Page type for more permanent type content (such as an About Me page) and create a new menu to link to it.

    Comments

    fabius’s picture

    Whoever is doing this new form of help, you have it right!

    Information, properly organised, complete, understandable, comprehensive, that can be found*.

    This is every bit as valuable as the excellent functionality.

    * I wish I had time to help. I believe search would be greatly enhanced if it could be confined (by the user or by the context) to some basic areas such as:
    documentation
    forum
    code and development
    etc.

    alexfisher’s picture

    I wrote up a little more complex, but step-by-step guide on how to create a Drupal 6 blog on a page other than the front page of your site:

    http://www.commercialprogression.com/blog/how-to-create-blog-with-drupal

    nmanela’s picture

    I added a post with some details on how to create the WordPress-like widgets on the sidebar, i.e. 'Recent Posts', 'Tag Cloud', 'Blog Archive' etc. using Views & Blocks: http://analoggirlindigitalworld.blogspot.com/2012/05/home-recipe-for-drupal-6-single-site.html

    latostadora’s picture

    Thank you very much. I poured a lot of help!