Preface

by Gisle Hannemyr

This preface introduces this set of note and describes its target audience. It also introduces the conventions and notations used in these notes.

Introduction
Who these notes are for
Conventions
Reader feedback and errata

Introduction

This is the first installment in an evolving set of notes about designing interactive websites using the Drupal WCMS that is maintained by Hannemyr Nye Medier AS. Please note that at the current stage, this set of notes are far from complete, so readers need to refer to othere resources as well to learn about Drupal and website design. These notes are not login protected, but the index page URL has only been given to a limited audience consisting of the technical staff of the GUIDed project and customers that we train and support, and a few “beta readers” that has expressed interest in the project.

Who these notes are for

These notes are general in scope but its primary audience is our own staff for our internal training courses. It may also be of interest for a wider audience, including customers we train and support, and others that are interested in learning more about designing interactive websites by means of the Drupal WCMS.

Readers are assumed to have some general knowledge about HTML, CSS, JavaScript, PHP and SQL, and also know how to use standard command line interface tools such as tar and bash under Unix or Gnu/Linux. (The command line interface is often abbreviated “CLI”.)

If you work through the chapters of these notes, they will tell you how to install and set up a basic Drupal site, and how you adapt, configure and extend the functionality of a standard site using GUI site builkding tools, various content management tools, and taxonomies. It will also introduce one of Drupal's most popular features, the Fields module that let administrators create new content types. Finally, these notes will explain to extend the visual presentation and functionality of a basic Drupal site through contributed projects (modules and themes), and to extend it even further by adding your own custom modules and themes to the site.

Conventions

In these note, you will find a number of styles of text that distinguish between different kind of information. Here are some examples of styles and an explanation of their meaning.

Names of Drupal projects and modules, Wordpress and Photoshop plugins are presented in bold typeface (e.g.: Views, Andromeda Cutline).

Names of websites, products, languages, fonts, standards and similar, are presented in an italic typeface (e.g.: Drupal.org, MS Office).

Breadcrumbs showing how to navigate to reach a particular page are shown in a sans-serif greenish font with a right pointing double guillemet between the elements (e.g.: Structure » Content types » Add content type). The initial Home » Administration that always starts out a Drupal administrative menu breadcrumb is omitted for brevity.

Clickable words (links) that you see on the screen, in menus and dialogue boxes are quoted (e.g.: Click “Next” to navigate to the next item).

Strings and symbols to look for when navigating the GUI are also shown inside quotes. Example:

Locate the icon for the “Image tool” on the “Current toolbar” and move it down to the “Available buttons” toolbar.

Abbreviations for often linked websites:

Typography:

A mono-spaced typeface are used for filenames (e.g.: update.php), directory names, and variables.

A mono-spaced typeface is also used for function names. An empty opening and closing parenthesis are appended to the function name, but the list of arguments is not reproduced (e.g. the function dpm() is useful for debugging).

Keystrokes are shown inside a frame: (e.g.: Ctrl+Shift+V, Spacebar).

Blocks showing detailed settings in some program are separated from the running text in a box, like this:

Blend Mode: Normal
Opacity: 100%
Color: R 255 G 60 B 60 (faded red)

Blocks showing interactions with the CLI, program code, SQL queries, scripts or markup are also separated from the running text in a box with a tan background, like this:

SELECT u.uid, u.name, u.mail, n.status, n.node, n.teasers, n.comment
FROM {users} u
LEFT JOIN {notify} n
ON u.uid = n.uid
WHERE u.uid = :uid AND u.status = :status

In a box showing how to use the CLI, what is typed by the user is black, while prompts and response from the computer is grey:

Unix:

$ pwd
/var/www

MS Windows:

PS C:\Users> cd ..
PS C:\>

SQL shell:

mysql> use mysql;
mysql> update user set password=PASSWORD("NewPass") where User='root';
mysql> flush privileges;
mysql> quit

Example domain will be “example.com” and example IP-address will be “192.0.2.0” (re: RFC5737). Example username will be “bob”.

There are also breakout-boxes marked with nifty little icons that denote special contents:

Additional technical details – read on only if you have a pocket protector.

tip Tips and tricks – perhaps a shortcut or a little-used command that is a great help.

note Important notes and caveats. This information may help you avert disaster.

Make a special note to make sure you remember this.

See also Links to additional material that may expand on the topic discussed.

Since this is a work in progress, some sections may still be unwritten. This is indicated with a placeholder with the letters “TBA” (To Be Added) in square brackets. Example:

[TBA]

Reader feedback and errata

Feedback from my readers is always welcome. Let me know what you think about this material – both what you liked and what you disliked. The project is still under development and reader feedback is important to me in order to improve the material.

In particular, if you think you've spotted an error or omission in this material, or an area where the treatment can be improved, please let me know! As long as this draft exists on the web, any errors will be corrected as soon as they are spotted.

You can use this form both to provide general feedback, and to report errors.

Last update: 2020-09-25 [gh].

Preface

Table of contents

Introduction

Who these notes are for

Conventions

Reader feedback and errata