A non-technical beginners guide to Drupal doesn’t seem to exist. My clients always need some help get started and I always end up writing an introduction over and over again so I decided I should make short guide that could easily be deployed when receiving the site. Feel free to comment or give some tips. I usually deploy with Garland as the admin theme so the tutorial will be built on this.
Short Drupal user manual
by Martin Hjelm ::: aufundab.se
Logging in
To be able to administer the site you need to be logged in. To log in go to: your URL /user. Fill in the user name and password.
Publishing content
Create content -> Content type -> Preview -> Publish
To publish content click the create content link after logging in or if on the admin pages click the create content link in the left menu. After clicking choose what kind of content you wish to create. A description of the content is shown underneath the specific type. After choosing a content type you will be given a form with specific fields for that content type. Fill in the form. Preview if you want, then click publish when satisfied.
Editing / Administering content
Admin -> Content Management -> Content
When you want to edit content. Be sure to be logged in. Navigate to the specific content type and click the edit tab. Make your changes and click save.
If your in the admin pages click Content Management and then Content. You will be presented with a form for filtering content and a list of the content for the specific filter options. You can filter by status, content type, category and language. Play around with the filter and you will understand. In the list there is a edit link click that to edit that specific post.
Administering comments
Admin -> Content Management -> Comments
Sometimes it is necessary to edit comments or even delete them. Navigate to the specific post and at every comment there is link for deleting and editing.
On the administering pages there is a listing much alike the content listing. To get to it click Content Management and then Comments.
Changing the contact form
Admin -> Site building -> Contact form
To make change in the contact form or set up a new category for a specific contact type, on the administering pages click Site Building and then Contact form. There is a good guide how to handle it from there.
Administering the Menu
Admin -> Site building -> Menus -> Primary links
The menu in Drupal can be handled in different ways. The main menu lays in something called Primary Links and Secondary Links. A page/post can be added to the menu when creating/editing the content. In editing mode of the content type you want to add to the menu there is a Menu settings link. Click it and a drop down form will show. Choose menu title, parent item and weight. The parent item specifies where your menu link will go i.e. into which menu. This means that you can create sub menu items as well. The weight option sets the position of the item within the menu. Heavier items will sink and lighter items will be put nearer to the top.
Sometimes you want to edit the menus more extensively. On administering pages click Site building, Menus and Primary links to edit the main menu. There will be a list of the current menu items from where you can do different operations like changing name, description, order and disable, enable.
Administering Blocks
Admin -> Site building -> Blocks
Blocks can be thought of as boxes of content generated by specific modules(where modules are pieces of code inserted to your web site to enhance it). You can also create your own boxes and fill them with content and choose where they are to be placed. To administer blocks, on the administering pages click Site Building and Blocks.
On the block pages you can edit a specific block or choose in which region it is to be placed or enable/disable it. To set region just click the drop down select box for the specific block you want to move around and choose the region, click save. To edit a block click Configure. There you can change things as block visibility for specific roles, on which pages the blocks should be shown and so on.
Administering Views
Admin -> Site building -> Views
Views are a lot of things but most of the time a pages that lists some specific content. To edit a view, on the administering pages click Site building and Views. Click edit in the list of views to edit a specific view. There is loads of options that you can change. To change the introductory text click Header. You can preview the View at the bottom. Do not forget to click save when your done doing the changes.