Basic Drupal Configuration (An Overview of Drupal’s Capabilities)

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• It’s true that Drupal is not the easiest CMS in the world, especially for new users without programming experience. However, if you invest the time to learn the logic of Drupal—especially the various settings in the admin menu—you will soon become a Drupal expert.

Overview of the Administration Page

To access Drupal's main administration page, just click on "Administration" in the navigation menu located in the left sidebar on your site's homepage (http://localhost/Drupal). Usually, when a user first visits this page, they see a lot of menu items, submenus, options, and descriptions—and might think Drupal is very complicated.

I'm sure you're feeling overwhelmed too—but don’t worry. Take a deep breath. Over the next few steps, you’ll see that this page is organized logically, with several main sections, each containing related configuration groups.

Content Management

• Comments: Here you can view, publish, unpublish, or delete comments submitted by users. You can return to the admin homepage via the Administration menu on the left.

Content: This section lets you manage your content. You can filter items, publish/unpublish, promote to front page, or delete them. You cannot create new content here—use "Create Content" from the left-hand menu for that.

Content Types: By default, Drupal includes two content types: Page (for static content) and Story (for dynamic content). New modules (like Blog or Image) may add more. You can also define custom content types manually using the CCK module, add fields, and control how they’re displayed.

• Post Settings: Configure basic post settings like how many items appear on the front page, teaser length, and preview options before publishing.
• RSS Publishing: Enables your users to subscribe to your content via RSS readers. Set the number of items per feed and customize channel settings.

Taxonomy: Define categories and tags for your content and products. We'll cover taxonomy in a future lesson.

Site Structure

• Blocks: Code units used to display content in specific site regions. Created by modules or manually. You can add, configure, assign, or delete blocks.

Menus: Manage the site's navigation. Default menus include Navigation, Main Links, and Secondary Links. You can add more menus as needed and define their structure.

To add a menu item:

1. Path: URL for the page linked to this menu item. Use internal or external paths.
2. Menu Link Title: The visible label for this item.
3. Description: Tooltip shown when hovering over the link.
4. Enabled: Enables visibility in the menu.
5. Expanded: Always display children if selected.
6. Parent Item: Defines the parent link if nested.
7. Weight: Controls position—lighter items appear higher.

Click Save to store your new menu item.

• Modules: Learn more in this article: How to Install a Module in Drupal.
• Themes: Learn more in this article: Installing Themes in Drupal.
• URL Aliases: Instead of Drupal’s default "node/x" format, define human-readable and SEO-friendly URLs here.

Site Configuration

This section contains key settings for editing default site values. Some are defined during installation, while others appear with new modules. Let’s focus on the most essential ones:

• Date and Time: Set the default timezone, first day of the week, etc. Click Save Configuration to apply changes.
• Date Formats: Define how short, medium, and long date formats are displayed. You can create custom formats using PHP date functions.
• File System:
  • File System Path: Set the directory where uploaded files are stored.
  • Temporary Directory: Used during uploads—usually doesn’t need changing.
  • Download Method: Choose public or private access (public is recommended for most sites).

Click Save Configuration when done.

• Input Formats: Define rules for user-submitted text. Default formats include Filtered HTML (safe, limited HTML) and Full HTML (all tags). You can configure or create new formats, especially useful with rich media content.
• Performance: Optimize your site for speed:
  • Page Caching: Serve pre-rendered pages to anonymous users to reduce load.
  • Minimum Cache Lifetime: Extend cache duration for improved performance.
  • Page Compression: Reduce page size and load time by enabling gzip.
  • Block Caching: Cache individual blocks for efficiency.
  • CSS/JS Aggregation: Combine and compress files for faster delivery.
  • Clear Cache: Use this to manually clear cached data, useful during development.

Click Save Configuration to apply performance settings.

• Site Information: Set your site name, email, slogan, mission statement, footer message, anonymous user label, and homepage URL.