Drupal is a free, open-source web publishing platform. It is maintained and developed by a community of over 1,000,000 users. It is programmed in PHP language. The software package provides excellent capabilities to
- Organize & find content
- Schedule and publish content
- Allow multiple users to collaborate and administer content.
- Design and display content beautifully.
- Extend the core functionality offered by Drupal by using modules
An introduction to Drupal :– Drupal was developed by programmer “Dries Buytaert” in 1999 as a message board. Soon it became an Open Source project and in 2001 Drupal.org was formed. Drupal is an altered form of the Dutch word “druppel” which means “drop”.
Features of Drupal
- Open source Software
- Multi-user System
- Power to host and promote content
- Highly secured
- Designs flexibility.
General concepts: –
1-Node (Content)
All content in Drupal is stored and treated as a node. A node can be a page, article, forum topic or a blog entry. Treating content as nodes provides the flexibility of adding new content types to Drupal. Nodes are also very helpful in making changes to content types.
2-Module
A module is an add-on that extends the functionality offered by Drupal. Very simply explained modules are code blocks that can be added to Drupal to enhance the default functionality provided by Drupal. We can classify modules into three categories:
Core Modules: – Some general modules such as blog, book, Taxonomy, Poll are known as basic or core modules. These core modules can be turned off or on.
Contributed Modules: – Along with core modules there are some optional modules available on Drupal.org better known as contributed modules, you can download them from Modules download section. For example Metatag, include panels.
Custom Modules: – Custom or bespoke made modules are coded for the requirements and specifications of an individual or business. They provided specific functionality and are not of use for masses. Coding custom modules required in depth coding knowledge of PHP & Drupal.
3-Regions & Blocks
A Drupal page is composed of Regions. Regions can contain the sidebars, header, footer, and base content regions.
Blocks are used to display specific content in regions for example “user Login”, it can present distinct information that is displayed in the regions (such as header or footer) of your web page.
4-Menus
Menus are primarily represented as a hierarchical list of links. There are four typical menus in Drupal:
- Main Menu
- Administrative Menu
- Navigation Menu
- User menu
We can modify menus as well, by rearranging menu items and fixing their “weight, renaming menus and replacing the link title.
Reasons to choose Drupal for your website
Factor 1: –
The flexibility to modify the core functions make Drupal an outstanding Framework. Popular E-commerce CMS Joomla has only one content type. While in Drupal, you can develop your own content types. Options to add custom content types gives Drupal an edge over other content management systems.
Video that guides you to create your own content type in Drupal
Factor 2: –
The sign of good search engine optimized website is based on creating the best user experience for your online visitor. Drupal does not include any heavy elements or heavy plugins to interfere with your website performance. You can also improve the SEO status of your website with powerful plugins and extensions. Drupal is very effective in organizing huge amount of content. It offers extensive customization with Website & URLs structure than any other same sized CMS.
Factor 3:
Drupal is a very powerful CMS and some very prestigious companies of the world use Drupal. Drupal positions itself for broader applications requirements that are outside the scope of more narrowly focused applications. Following are some great organizations that use Drupal.
- Adobe
- CNN
- FedEx
- NASA
- Sony
- McDonalds
- Fox
- Yahoo
- Examiner
- The White House
- The Economist
Drupal based websites showcase
Factor 4: –
Last and most important reason for selecting Drupal over any other CMS is the inbuilt security and management features. Drupal can be used for a simple blog to a sophisticated content portal used by big organizations.
If you are looking for expert consultation about your specific Drupal issue. You can Contact us by using contact form below.
