Drupal tutorials for complete beginners. Installation, customization, and maintenance for the Drupal newbie.
Modules
To extend the functionality of your basic Drupal install, you'll use what Drupal calls "Modules". A module is a package of files that adds functionality to Drupal without tampering with any core code. This is important, because it allows you to install security updates and such to the Drupal core code independent of any modules you have installed.
Drupal has a number of modules packaged with it, and not all of them are enabled by default. To see these, navigate to Administer -> Modules
Click "Modules" and you'll see a list of checkboxes, each one representing a Drupal module. Check the ones you want enabled, then scroll down and click "Save Configuration" to apply your changes.
Eventually you'll want to do something that the default set of modules aren't capable of. If you head over to Drupal.org, you'll see a link in the upper right callout box for "modules" (alternatively you can click the "download" tab, then navigate to modules). For this example we'll be installing the Image Module (http://drupal.org/project/image), which will, among other things, let us easily upload images to our site.
Download the latest 6.xx version, then upload it and extract it to your modules directory, in our case this is at public_html/modules.
If you're using cPanel, upload the file to /modules, then select the archive and extract it.
Once you've clicked "Extract", you're done. As always, you could also do the extraction via SSH, or you could extract it first, then upload it to /modules.
Now, if you return to your drupal site, and navigate back to Administer -> Modules, scroll down to the bottom and you'll see the new Image Module.
Let's check off "Image" then click "Save Configuration".
This short video clip details the remainder of configuring the Image Module.
Drupal has a number of modules packaged with it, and not all of them are enabled by default. To see these, navigate to Administer -> Modules
Click "Modules" and you'll see a list of checkboxes, each one representing a Drupal module. Check the ones you want enabled, then scroll down and click "Save Configuration" to apply your changes.
Eventually you'll want to do something that the default set of modules aren't capable of. If you head over to Drupal.org, you'll see a link in the upper right callout box for "modules" (alternatively you can click the "download" tab, then navigate to modules). For this example we'll be installing the Image Module (http://drupal.org/project/image), which will, among other things, let us easily upload images to our site.
Download the latest 6.xx version, then upload it and extract it to your modules directory, in our case this is at public_html/modules.
If you're using cPanel, upload the file to /modules, then select the archive and extract it.
Once you've clicked "Extract", you're done. As always, you could also do the extraction via SSH, or you could extract it first, then upload it to /modules.
Now, if you return to your drupal site, and navigate back to Administer -> Modules, scroll down to the bottom and you'll see the new Image Module.
Let's check off "Image" then click "Save Configuration".
This short video clip details the remainder of configuring the Image Module.
Get the Flash Player to see this player.
