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Drupal Development 101

Drupal 101

Drupal

What is Drupal?

Drupal is an open source CMS framework, written in PHP and supported by a community of open source developers around the world. It can be used, like WordPress, to power a blog - but in generally it is a larger more flexible system. Drupal is supported by a community of open source developers around the world. The PHP source code is available at absolutely no licensing costs, which saves both time and money on almost any website needing a CMS.

Here are few thoughts comparing Drupal to a custom build CMS.

What Features does Drupal include?

In its "standard" form, a Drupal site can include:

  • Full control of site navigation
  • Full control of site content
  • Blogs
  • Forums
  • Image upload
  • User sign in
  • Site search
  • RSS feeds

But that's really just the tip of the iceburg. The Drupal platform is extensible and has a huge community. Because of it's popularity there are literally thousands of Drupal Modules available for use, free of charge. And when existing modules aren't a good fit, a good Drupal development company can always build their own.

Who's using Drupal?

Currently it powers a number of different types of sites, from corporate level news and information sites (Sony, the Emmys, FastCompany.com, TheOnion.com, etc.), to small community based nonprofit organizations. Drupal has proven itself to be both flexible and scalable which makes it an excellent choice for all kinds of businesses.

This is a more complete list of companies using Drupal.

Drupal themes

What is a Theme? If you've heard of or worked around a CMS then you've probably heard the word "theme" or "theming" come up. At their core, themes are fundamentally HTML, but more specifically themes are a collection of HTML+PHP template files that are used to determine what a website looks like.

In order to get a site to match your designs, you need to create a custom Drupal theme or find a ready to use theme.

What are ready-made themes?

If you're not ready for a custom theme, you can browse some of the readily available ones at the theme garden (this assumes you have at least a Drupal6 installation). Ready-made themes can be great for companies on a budget, but they still often take some expertise to implement. Going with something out-of-the-box can also lead to sites that look "Drupally", which historically has given this CMS a reputation that all sites built with it look the same. This is not the case at all, but it can take significant amounts of theming work to get things looking just right.

Can I customize Drupal?

Yes. With Drupal you can choose from any number of preexisting themes, or our designers can create a custom theme that reflects your branding and message requirements. In addition to custom themes you can also use existing modules to include to reach your business goals. Via readily available modules, a site's functionality can be modified to include:

  • Video integration
  • Polls
  • WYSIWYG editor
  • eCommerce
  • Books/Articles
  • Photo galleries
  • Event calendars/registration
  • Social bookmarking
  • Member profiles
  • and more...

...and doesn't stop there. If your site needs some kind of functionality that doesn't exist in a module format, you can customize the PHP code or even build your own module.

Have more questions about Drupal?