Drupal Speak
One of the criticisms of Drupal is that it has a steep learning curve. Some of the terminology used to describe elements of Drupal can be a bit off putting and confusing to newcomers, so lets look at some of the Drupal ‘language’.
Core
Often you will come across the term ‘Core’ or ‘Drupal Core’. These terms are referring to the basic Drupal software set that was originally downloaded. This software includes a number of core modules and themes.
Modules
Modules are the building blocks of your Drupal site. I like to think of Drupal as a giant Lego set. The modules would be the various parts and bricks you put together to build your model, or in our case the web system we want. Modules extend and add extra functionality to Drupal.
There are thousands of modules available . These modules add functionality in areas such as e-commerce, user management, media, content and web 2.0 features, to name but a few. You can view all the modules that are available for download on the Drupal web site: http://drupal.org/project/modules
Nodes
For Nodes read ‘content’. A node can be a blog entry, a page or a piece of content and its associated elements that you define. All nodes have some common properties, such as an author, a title, a type of node (i.e. a page or blog post), a creation date and body content. Also, nodes can take advantage of the inner workings and functions of Drupal and other added modules to trigger other actions or displays.
Content types and CCK
Every node is an instance of a particular content type. You create a content type by using a powerful module called CCK (Content Construction Kit). CCK makes available to site developers a huge number of fields called widgets, for specific bits of data i.e. text, image and files etc. that will make up your content type.
So, for example, if you wanted to display pages on your website that display information about events, you could create a content type called ‘Events’. Within the ‘Events’ content type you would define all the required fields needed to display full information about an event to your site users.
So, when a site author wants to add information about an ‘Event’ they will be presented with an ‘Event’ form displaying fields such as ‘Event Title’, ‘Venue’, ‘Dates and Times’ etc. to fill in. Once completed and published, this content type would be displayed on your site as an node that is of an ‘Event’ type.
Themes
Themes change the look and feel of your Drupal website. Drupal ships with a number of themes but, like modules there are hundreds of themes freely available for download. Some are suited to specific types of sites like e-commerce or news web sites. You can, of course, design your own theme if you wish.
Themes have regions for the displaying of content, for instance you could have region called ‘top left’, or ‘main content area’. Site administrators can then place content (in particular ‘Blocks’- see below) in these regions.
Blocks
Blocks are small ‘boxes ‘of content that you can create and position within predefined areas or regions of your website theme. Some modules will automatically create blocks for site administrators to position.
Site administrators can define a number of conditions for blocks to be made visible. Also, blocks can be made to show only on certain pages.
Views
You won’t get far with Drupal before you need to use the Views module. Like CCK, the Views module is an incredibly powerful and important module within the Drupal landscape.
As indicated above, you use the CCK module to create forms to allow for the inputting of site content. With Views you can pull out elements of this content and create a ‘view’ of it usually in lists or table format. These views can be displayed or exported in a variety of ways including the creation of pages or blocks, RSS feeds etc. other modules can add to the displays options.
If you are familiar with Structured Query Language* you should find Views quite easy to pick up, as in essence, Views is a visual SQL query builder.
If you have no idea what SQL is please don’t worry. Just remember that the Views module allows us to query the database for ‘bits and pieces’ of content that we have added to our site (or database, in reality), against a criteria we set. It then displays this content in a way we specify.
Roles & Permissions
Roles & Permissions are part of the site user configuration options, they allow site administrators to have very detailed fine grain control on what site users can see, do and interact with.
Drupal ships with two default user roles:
1.Anonymous user (a site visitor who is not logged in)
2.Authenticated user (a site visitor who is logged in and known to the system)
Anyone who comes to your site will be assigned one or more roles. Usually, this is done when a user creates an account on your website. Anybody who does not create an account or, chooses not to log in will be assigned the Anonymous user role.
Every module you install will have a set of permissions associated with it which will need to be reviewed.
Taxonomy
A taxonomy is a classification system. The Drupal taxonomy module allows site administrators to classify site content. To create a taxonomy you create a vocabulary and add terms to that vocabulary. You can have unlimited vocabularies, each holding unlimited terms.
