What is Drupal

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Drupal is a free and open source modular framework and Content Management System (CMS) written in the programming language PHP. Drupal is one of the best Content Management Systems around. Drupal is written in PHP and requires a MySQL database. Its basic installation can be easily turned into many different types of web pages - from simple web blogs to large online communities. Drupal is an English rendering of the Dutch word “druppel”, which means “drop” (as in “a water droplet”).

Drupal is a web-based content management system. Text and pointers to other kinds of content are stored in a database, dynamically retrieved and composed, and presented to a user in response to a request sent via a web-browser.

The name was taken from the now-defunct Drop.org website, whose code slowly evolved into Drupal. Buytaert wanted to call the site “dorp” (Dutch for “village”, referring to its community aspects), but made a typo when checking the domain name and thought it sounded better. From May 2007 to April 2008, Drupal was downloaded from the Drupal.org website more than 1.4 million times, an increase of approximately 125% from the previous year. A large community now helps develop Drupal.

Why people use Drupal?

• Easy to use (even if you don't know html, php...)
• Lots of modules
• Lots of themes
• Great established user community
• You can make a website in terms of hours, even minutes

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Drupal core

Drupal core is the "stock" installation of Drupal, which can be optionally extended by third party contributions. In Drupal's default configuration, Web site content can be contributed by either registered or anonymous users (at the discretion of the administrator) and made accessible to Web visitors by a variety of selectable criteria including by date, category, searches, etc. Drupal core also includes a hierarchical taxonomy system, which allows content to be categorized or "tagged" with key words for easier access.

The Color Module, introduced in Drupal core 5.0, allows administrators to change the color scheme of certain themes via a Web-browser interface. This feature was added to allow a higher level of customization for the average non-coder.

The core Drupal distribution provides a number of features

• Access statistics and logging
• Advanced search functions
• Caching and feature throttling for improved performance under load
• Comments, forums, and polls
• Descriptive URLs
• Multi-level menu system
• Multi-site support
• Multi-user content creation and editing
• OpenID support
• RSS Feed and Feed Aggregator
• Security/new release update notification
• User profiles
• Various access control restrictions (user roles, IP addresses, email)
• Workflow tools (Triggers and Actions)

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Features Of Drupal

Collaborative Book
unique collaborative book feature lets you setup a "book" and then authorize other individuals to contribute content.

A book is a set of pages tied together in sequence, perhaps with chapters, sections, subsections, and so on. You can use books for manuals, site resource guides, Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs), or whatever you'd like.

Users who have permission can create a book and write, review, modify, or rearrange the pages. Many users can work together on a book. You can allow or disallow collaboration, to whatever extent you want.

Apart from this, you can also add a books link to any of your menus. This link will take users to a list of your books. You add the link by enabling the books menu item on the menus page (administer >> menus). You'll find this item there under "Navigation." You can also add this link to any menu you want. (Click "add menu item," and when you fill in the "path" field on the dialogue page just enter "book.")

The "books" link takes users to your books. The "book navigation" block helps users move around inside your books.


Friendly URLs

Drupal uses Apache's mod_rewrite to enable customizable URLs that are both user and search engine friendly.

Modules

The Drupal community has contributed many modules which provide functionality that extend Drupal core. Contributed (contrib) modules are plugins for Drupal that extend, build or enhance Drupal core functionality. Use matching versions (modules released for Drupal 5.x will not work for Drupal 6.x). Contributed modules are not part of Drupal core releases and may or may not have optimized code/functionality.

Online help
Like many Open Source projects, we can't say that our online help is perfect but have built a robust online help system built into the core help text. Available to you on your own site.

Open source

The source code of Drupal is freely available under the terms of the GNU General Public License 2 (GPL). Unlike proprietary blogging or content management systems, Drupal's feature set is fully available to extend or customize as needed.

Personalization

A robust personalization environment is at the core of Drupal. Both the content and the presentation can be individualized based on user-defined preferences.

Role based permission system

Drupal administrators don't have to tediously setup permissions for each user. Instead, they assign permissions to roles and then group like users into a role group. The user module supports user roles, which can be set up with fine-grained permissions allowing each role to do only what the administrator permits. Each user is assigned one or more roles. By default there are two roles: anonymous (a user who has not logged in) and authenticated (a user who has signed up and been authorized).

Searching

All content in Drupal is fully indexed and searchable at all times if you take advantage of the built in search module.

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Distributed authentication

One of most dreaded obstacles users are confronted with these days is the need to continually create new accounts for themselves at every website they come across. Logging into a website to check out it's features should be a fun process, not a chore. Forcing each visiting user to create a new account by filling out your carefully crafted registration form is tedious, boring, and repulsive. Luckily for Drupal users, there's a built in system that removes a lot of this drudgery. It's called Distributed Authentication, and it's built into the core.

For example, on groups.drupal.org, you do not have to fill out a registration form if you are already a member of drupal.org. This capability is fantastic for getting users to instantaneously interact with your site if they happen to already be a member of a sister site.

How to enable this feature

To enable this feature, turn on the 'drupal' module at Administer > Site Building > Modules (D5), and configure it at Administer > Site Configuration > Distributed authentication.

Settings

Authentication service: Enabled
Default authentication server: (the URL of the master authentication server)
Only allow authentication from default server: Enabled

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Platform

• Apache or IIS, Unix / Linux / BSD / Solaris / Windows / Mac OS X support
  - Drupal was designed from the start to be multi-platform. Not only can you use it with either Apache or Microsoft IIS but we also have Drupal running on Linux, BSD, Solaris, Windows, and Mac OS X platforms.
  
  Drupal has been deployed successfully on both Apache and IIS.
  
  Apache
  
  Drupal will work on Apache 1.3 or Apache 2.x hosted on UNIX/Linux, OS X, or Windows. The majority of Drupal development and deployment is done on Apache so there is more community experience and testing performed. You can use the Apache 'mod_rewrite' extension to allow for clean URLs.
  
  Microsoft IIS
  
  Drupal core will work using IIS 5 or IIS 6 if PHP is configured correctly. In view of Microsoft's support lifecycle it is suggested you use IIS 6 or IIS 7. To achieve clean URLs you may need to use a third party product. If you use IIS 7 you can try the Microsoft URL Rewrite Module for IIS 7.0 CTP1. When using Drupal on IIS 7 with fastcgi you must install Hotfix kb954946 or wait until the hotfix appears in a package update (recommended).
  
  Drupal is being developed to be web server independent but we have limited or no reports of successful use on web servers not listed here.
  
  
• Database independence
  
  While many of our users run Drupal with MySQL, we knew that MySQL wasn't the solution for everyone. Drupal is built on top of a database abstraction layer that enables you to use Drupal with MySQL and PostgreSQL. Other SQL databases can be supported by writing a supporting database backend containing fourteen functions and creating a matching SQL database scheme.
  
• Multi-language
  
  Drupal is designed to meet the requirements of an international audience and provides a full framework to create a multi-lingual website, blog, content management system or community application. All text can be translated using a graphical user interface, by importing existing translations, or by integrating with other translation tools such as the GNU gettext.