Advanced Web Design: Content Management Solution - Drupal 4.6
Advanced Web Design: Content Management Solution - Drupal 4.6
Content Management
Page Creation
Adding content is the biggest challenge webmasters face. With Drupal, a user with permissions (See
User Capabilities) can create a new web page through a simple form. Just enter the title and fill in the
body text and click submit. The page is created, stored in the database and a link to the page is
automatically inserted in to the navigation menu. Based on how the website is configured and other
features that may have been added, other entries and selections may be available.
Menu Management
Items can be added, deleted or moved within the menu system through the menu administration area.
A user with permissions can create an unlimited number of menus, submenus and menu items. With
the Drupal taxonomy system (see Category Management below), menus can be generated based on
categories and be split into separate navigation blocks.
Category Management
The taxonomy system allows for a great deal of flexibility in a Drupal website. Users with permissions
can administer an unlimited number of categories and subcategories. Categories can be limited to
certain content types and/or certain content types can be required to belong to a category. Each
category can be made public, private or accessible by subscription (see E-commerce). Categories can
also be split off into customized menus.
Forum Management
A discussion forum is a great way to get users involved in your website. Users with permissions can
create and manage forums and sub-forums. Forums can be public or private. Discussion may also be
limited to certain users. Managing a forum can be a headache, but Drupal has tools available to prevent
forum abuse (See Security Features).
Comments System
All pages, stories and other content may or may not have the ability to have comments posted to them.
This is an option that can be configured into the system and/or chosen when the content is created.
The website owner can set which users have permissions to post comments. Comments can be public
or private. A comment can also be an update to an article, a testimonial or product review.
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Recipes (Upgrade)
A special content type allows users with permissions to create and share recipes. Useful for a food
related site. Recipes can be categorized within the Drupal taxonomy system (see Category
Management). Recipes may be public or private.
User Capabilities
Role Based Permissions
A user could be the website owner, company employee, member of a group or a visitor who registers at
the website. Users in turn, belong to roles. Those roles can then be granted or denied permissions to
access content or perform tasks (eg. add a page). For example, anonymous users can view content, but
only registered users may post comments, while only website administrators may edit a page. Users
can also pay to subscribe to a role (See E-commerce). An unlimited number of roles can be created with
different permissions for each.
User Registration
Users may register themselves (See Security Features) or public registration may be turned off and the
website owner can register users manually. Users are placed in a default role. The website owner or
another high-level user can assign them to a higher role manually. Alternatively, a user can subscribe
to a particular role (see E-commerce).
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User Profiles
Users with permissions can maintain a public or private profile. Profiles can be configured to include
information such as name, address, URL, hobbies, etc. This information may or may not be required
upon registration. A user profile could be a member profile or an employee profile as well.
User Blogs
A blog is a personal web page to which a user can post content. The blog will keep an archived list of
teasers. Visitors can click to read more. With Drupal, users with permissions can own and post to their
own blogs. Blogs can be public or private.
Security Features
Private Pages & Categories
Pages, contact lists (See Contact Management), categories, etc. can be made private to be accessed by
the website owner or members of the organization. Access to private areas may also be granted by
subscription (see E-commerce).
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Community Collaboration
Book Collaboration
Allows users with permissions to collaboratively edit a book. A book could be a manual, business
proposal, etc.
Content Moderation
Certain users can have the ability to approve content including comments, forum posts and pages,
which have been submitted by other users. For example, an employee submits an article, but an editor
must approve it before it is displayed to the public.
Contact Management
Feedback Forms
One or more feedback forms can be created to allow visitors to contact the website owner or other user
with permissions.
Newsletters (Upgrade)
The website owner or other user with permissions can send an email newsletter to registered users.
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Website Information
Full Website Search
Visitors can search the web site.
Access Statistics
Access statistics are logged and can be viewed by users with permissions. Statistics can be filtered to
not log certain users such as the website owner.
Glossary (Upgrade)
The glossary feature scans content for glossary terms set up by the website owner or other user with
permissions. Any glossary terms are then turned into an indicator depending on the site settings. By
hovering or clicking the indicator, users may learn the definition of that term.
Hall of Fame (Upgrade)
Displays a summary of site statistics for public view.
Advertising Tools
Google AdSense Support (Upgrade)
Displaying AdSense Ads on your website allows some revenue to be earned from visitors. Drupal
provides support for displaying AdSense ads within the website theme.
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Ecommerce
Website Subscription (Upgrade)
When a user purchases a subscription to the website they are granted permissions that allow access to
certain areas of the website, ability to upload and manage banner ads, etc. Subscriptions can be daily,
monthly, yearly or unlimited. A notification can be sent to the subscriber when the subscription is
about to expire.
Products (Upgrade)
The addition of a product is as easy as uploading the product image and filling in the description and
price. The system is ideal for a small number of products. Features include the ability to:
• Sell products or collections of various products as a single item
• Manage inventory
• The system can use PayPal, authorize.net, C.O.D or you can roll your own.
• Generate Invoices and shipping notifications
• Customize the shopping cart and product 'look and feel'
• View transaction reports and sales summaries
• View transaction and payment workflow
• Allow customers to review their order history
• Dynamically adjust item prices for a given group of users
• Run an auction site with the contributed auction module
Donations (Upgrade)
Donations can be accepted through the website.
Events
Events Listing (Upgrade)
Users can create events, which are stored and displayed to users.
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Drupal Review
http://www.advancedwebdesign.com/cms-review-drupal.html - We have prepared an article discussing
some advantages and drawbacks of using Drupal to power your website.
OpensourceCMS
http://www.opernsourcecms.com - This website provides information on various content management
systems with live demos to try. Drupal can be found under the “Portal” category.
Optional Requirements
To use XML-based services such as the Blogger API, Jabber, RSS syndication, you will need PHP's XML
extension. This extension is enabled by default in standard PHP4 installations.- if you want support for
clean URLs, you'll need mod_rewrite and the ability to use local .htaccess files.
More information can be found in the Drupal handbook on drupal.org.
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Preamble
The licenses for most software are designed to take away your freedom to share and change it. By
contrast, the GNU General Public License is intended to guarantee your freedom to share and change
free software--to make sure the software is free for all its users. This General Public License applies to
most of the Free Software Foundation's software and to any other program whose authors commit to
using it. (Some other Free Software Foundation software is covered by the GNU Library General Public
License instead.) You can apply it to your programs, too.
When we speak of free software, we are referring to freedom, not price. Our General Public Licenses are
designed to make sure that you have the freedom to distribute copies of free software (and charge for
this service if you wish), that you receive source code or can get it if you want it, that you can change
the software or use pieces of it in new free programs; and that you know you can do these things.
To protect your rights, we need to make restrictions that forbid anyone to deny you these rights or to
ask you to surrender the rights. These restrictions translate to certain responsibilities for you if you
distribute copies of the software, or if you modify it. For example, if you distribute copies of such a
program, whether gratis or for a fee, you must give the recipients all the rights that you have. You
must make sure that they, too, receive or can get the source code. And you must show them these
terms so they know their rights.
We protect your rights with two steps: (1) copyright the software, and (2) offer you this license which
gives you legal permission to copy, distribute and/or modify the software. Also, for each author's
protection and ours, we want to make certain that everyone understands that there is no warranty for
this free software. If the software is modified by someone else and passed on, we want its recipients to
know that what they have is not the original, so that any problems introduced by others will not reflect
on the original authors' reputations.
Finally, any free program is threatened constantly by software patents. We wish to avoid the danger
that redistributors of a free program will individually obtain patent licenses, in effect making the
program proprietary. To prevent this, we have made it clear that any patent must be licensed for
everyone's free use or not licensed at all.
The precise terms and conditions for copying, distribution and modification follow.
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Each licensee is addressed as "you". Activities other than copying, distribution and modification are not
covered by this License; they are outside its scope. The act of running the Program is not restricted,
and the output from the Program is covered only if its contents constitute a work based on the
Program (independent of having been made by running the Program). Whether that is true depends on
what the Program does.
1. You may copy and distribute verbatim copies of the Program's source code as you receive it, in any
medium, provided that you conspicuously and appropriately publish on each copy an appropriate
copyright notice and disclaimer of warranty; keep intact all the notices that refer to this License and to
the absence of any warranty; and give any other recipients of the Program a copy of this License along
with the Program.
You may charge a fee for the physical act of transferring a copy, and you may at your option offer
warranty protection in exchange for a fee.
2. You may modify your copy or copies of the Program or any portion of it, thus forming a work
based on the Program, and copy and distribute such modifications or work under the terms of Section
1 above, provided that you also meet all of these conditions:
a) You must cause the modified files to carry prominent notices stating that you changed the files
and the date of any change.
b) You must cause any work that you distribute or publish, that in whole or in part contains or is
derived from the Program or any part thereof, to be licensed as a whole at no charge to all third parties
under the terms of this License.
c) If the modified program normally reads commands interactively when run, you must cause it,
when started running for such interactive use in the most ordinary way, to print or display an
announcement including an appropriate copyright notice and a notice that there is no warranty (or
else, saying that you provide a warranty) and that users may redistribute the program under these
conditions, and telling the user how to view a copy of this License. (Exception: if the Program itself is
interactive but does not normally print such an announcement, your work based on the Program is not
required to print an announcement.)
These requirements apply to the modified work as a whole. If identifiable sections of that work are not
derived from the Program, and can be reasonably considered independent and separate works in
themselves, then this License, and its terms, do not apply to those sections when you distribute them
as separate works. But when you distribute the same sections as part of a whole which is a work based
on the Program, the distribution of the whole must be on the terms of this License, whose permissions
for other licensees extend to the entire whole, and thus to each and every part regardless of who wrote
it.
Thus, it is not the intent of this section to claim rights or contest your rights to work written entirely
by you; rather, the intent is to exercise the right to control the distribution of derivative or collective
works based on the Program. In addition, mere aggregation of another work not based on the Program
with the Program (or with a work based on the Program) on a volume of a storage or distribution
medium does not bring the other work under the scope of this License.
3. You may copy and distribute the Program (or a work based on it, under Section 2) in object code or
executable form under the terms of Sections 1 and 2 above provided that you also do one of the
following:
a) Accompany it with the complete corresponding machine-readable source code, which must be
distributed under the terms of Sections 1 and 2 above on a medium customarily used for software
interchange; or,
b) Accompany it with a written offer, valid for at least three years, to give any third party, for a
charge no more than your cost of physically performing source distribution, a complete machine-
readable copy of the corresponding source code, to be distributed under the terms of Sections 1 and 2
above on a medium customarily used for software interchange; or,
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c) Accompany it with the information you received as to the offer to distribute corresponding source
code. (This alternative is allowed only for noncommercial distribution and only if you received the
program in object code or executable form with such an offer, in accord with Subsection b above.)
The source code for a work means the preferred form of the work for making modifications to it. For
an executable work, complete source code means all the source code for all modules it contains, plus
any associated interface definition files, plus the scripts used to control compilation and installation of
the executable. However, as a special exception, the source code distributed need not include anything
that is normally distributed (in either source or binary form) with the major components (compiler,
kernel, and so on) of the operating system on which the executable runs, unless that component itself
accompanies the executable.
If distribution of executable or object code is made by offering access to copy from a designated place,
then offering equivalent access to copy the source code from the same place counts as distribution of
the source code, even though third parties are not compelled to copy the source along with the object
code.
4. You may not copy, modify, sublicense, or distribute the Program except as expressly provided
under this License. Any attempt otherwise to copy, modify, sublicense or distribute the Program is
void, and will automatically terminate your rights under this License. However, parties who have
received copies, or rights, from you under this License will not have their licenses terminated so long
as such parties remain in full compliance.
5. You are not required to accept this License, since you have not signed it. However, nothing else
grants you permission to modify or distribute the Program or its derivative works. These actions are
prohibited by law if you do not accept this License. Therefore, by modifying or distributing the
Program (or any work based on the Program), you indicate your acceptance of this License to do so,
and all its terms and conditions for copying, distributing or modifying the Program or works based on
it.
6. Each time you redistribute the Program (or any work based on the Program), the recipient
automatically receives a license from the original licensor to copy, distribute or modify the Program
subject to these terms and conditions. You may not impose any further restrictions on the recipients'
exercise of the rights granted herein. You are not responsible for enforcing compliance by third parties
to this License.
7. If, as a consequence of a court judgment or allegation of patent infringement or for any other
reason (not limited to patent issues), conditions are imposed on you (whether by court order,
agreement or otherwise) that contradict the conditions of this License, they do not excuse you from the
conditions of this License. If you cannot distribute so as to satisfy simultaneously your obligations
under this License and any other pertinent obligations, then as a consequence you may not distribute
the Program at all. For example, if a patent license would not permit royalty-free redistribution of the
Program by all those who receive copies directly or indirectly through you, then the only way you could
satisfy both it and this License would be to refrain entirely from distribution of the Program.
If any portion of this section is held invalid or unenforceable under any particular circumstance, the
balance of the section is intended to apply and the section as a whole is intended to apply in other
circumstances.
It is not the purpose of this section to induce you to infringe any patents or other property right claims
or to contest validity of any such claims; this section has the sole purpose of protecting the integrity of
the free software distribution system, which is implemented by public license practices. Many people
have made generous contributions to the wide range of software distributed through that system in
reliance on consistent application of that system; it is up to the author/donor to decide if he or she is
willing to distribute software through any other system and a licensee cannot impose that choice.
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This section is intended to make thoroughly clear what is believed to be a consequence of the rest of
this License.
8. If the distribution and/or use of the Program is restricted in certain countries either by patents or
by copyrighted interfaces, the original copyright holder who places the Program under this License
may add an explicit geographical distribution limitation excluding those countries, so that distribution
is permitted only in or among countries not thus excluded. In such case, this License incorporates the
limitation as if written in the body of this License.
9. The Free Software Foundation may publish revised and/or new versions of the General Public
License from time to time. Such new versions will be similar in spirit to the present version, but may
differ in detail to address new problems or concerns.
Each version is given a distinguishing version number. If the Program specifies a version number of
this License which applies to it and "any later version", you have the option of following the terms and
conditions either of that version or of any later version published by the Free Software Foundation. If
the Program does not specify a version number of this License, you may choose any version ever
published by the Free Software Foundation.
10. If you wish to incorporate parts of the Program into other free programs whose distribution
conditions are different, write to the author to ask for permission. For software which is copyrighted
by the Free Software Foundation, write to the Free Software Foundation; we sometimes make
exceptions for this. Our decision will be guided by the two goals of preserving the free status of all
derivatives of our free software and of promoting the sharing and reuse of software generally.
NO WARRANTY
11. BECAUSE THE PROGRAM IS LICENSED FREE OF CHARGE, THERE IS NO WARRANTY FOR THE
PROGRAM, TO THE EXTENT PERMITTED BY APPLICABLE LAW. EXCEPT WHEN OTHERWISE STATED IN
WRITING THE COPYRIGHT HOLDERS AND/OR OTHER PARTIES PROVIDE THE PROGRAM "AS IS"
WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, EITHER EXPRESSED OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED
TO, THE IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY AND FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE.
THE ENTIRE RISK AS TO THE QUALITY AND PERFORMANCE OF THE PROGRAM IS WITH YOU. SHOULD
THE PROGRAM PROVE DEFECTIVE, YOU ASSUME THE COST OF ALL NECESSARY SERVICING, REPAIR OR
CORRECTION.
12. IN NO EVENT UNLESS REQUIRED BY APPLICABLE LAW OR AGREED TO IN WRITING WILL ANY
COPYRIGHT HOLDER, OR ANY OTHER PARTY WHO MAY MODIFY AND/OR REDISTRIBUTE THE
PROGRAM AS PERMITTED ABOVE, BE LIABLE TO YOU FOR DAMAGES, INCLUDING ANY GENERAL,
SPECIAL, INCIDENTAL OR CONSEQUENTIAL DAMAGES ARISING OUT OF THE USE OR INABILITY TO USE
THE PROGRAM (INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO LOSS OF DATA OR DATA BEING RENDERED
INACCURATE OR LOSSES SUSTAINED BY YOU OR THIRD PARTIES OR A FAILURE OF THE PROGRAM TO
OPERATE WITH ANY OTHER PROGRAMS), EVEN IF SUCH HOLDER OR OTHER PARTY HAS BEEN
ADVISED OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH DAMAGES.
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To do so, attach the following notices to the program. It is safest to attach them to the start of each
source file to most effectively convey the exclusion of warranty; and each file should have at least the
"copyright" line and a pointer to where the full notice is found.
<one line to give the program's name and a brief idea of
what it does.>
Copyright (C) <year> <name of author>
This program is free software; you can redistribute it
and/or modify it under the terms of the GNU General
Public License as published by the Free Software
Foundation; either version 2 of the License, or (at your
option) any later version.
This program is distributed in the hope that it will be
useful, but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the
implied warranty of MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A
PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the GNU General Public License
for more details.
You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public
License along with this program; if not, write to the
Free Software Foundation, Inc., 59 Temple Place, Suite
330, Boston, MA 02111-1307 USA
Also add information on how to contact you by electronic and paper mail.
If the program is interactive, make it output a short notice like this when it starts in an interactive
mode:
Gnomovision version 69, Copyright (C) year name of author
Gnomovision comes with ABSOLUTELY NO WARRANTY; for
details type `show w'. This is free software, and you are
welcome to redistribute it under certain conditions; type
`show c' for details.
The hypothetical commands `show w' and `show c' should show the appropriate parts of the General
Public License. Of course, the commands you use may be called something other than `show w' and
`show c'; they could even be mouse-clicks or menu items--whatever suits your program.
You should also get your employer (if you work as a programmer) or your school, if any, to sign a
"copyright disclaimer" for the program, if necessary. Here is a sample; alter the names:
Yoyodyne, Inc., hereby disclaims all copyright interest
in the program `Gnomovision' (which makes passes at
compilers) written by James Hacker.
<signature of Ty Coon>, 1 April 1989
Ty Coon, President of Vice
This General Public License does not permit incorporating your program into proprietary programs. If
your program is a subroutine library, you may consider it more useful to permit linking proprietary
applications with the library. If this is what you want to do, use the GNU Library General Public License
instead of this License.
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