Guide on Creating a Basic Drupal Website

Creating basic contents for your website:

1.1 Create a New Page
Open your website and login with your Drupal Website username and password

Click on Add Content on the top left side of the screen, the following screen will appear.

Add content

Click on Basic Page option to create new website page. Provide Title and Body content of the
web page. In the Publishing option check the Published, Promoted to front page and Sticky at
top of lists to make this page display on the home/front page and also always at the top of all pages.

Click Save to view the changes on the front page. You can also press Preview button to see the
page.
1.2 Linking to other page/ Adding a page link to navigation menu
1. Click on Add content to open page creation page. Provide title and body content for the
page.
2. In Menu Settings option check the provide a menu link. You can provide menu link title,
description, Parent Item (Main Menu) and weight (In the menu, the heavier items will sink
and the lighter items will be positioned nearer the top).
3. In publishing option only select Published option. Save the changes to view the page
contents.
Another way to make a link to Page in a menu
Go to Structure>>Menus section of the website, and then the following screen will appear:

Click on
Add Link

Click on Add Link corresponding to the menu you want to add link to:

Provide the menu link title, paste the path (url) of the page that you want to link in the Path text
box and provide other details as required.
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Save the changes, the page will be linked to the menu link just created. Go to your website to see the
changes.
1.3 Using Weights
Weight is a term used by Drupal to define the priority or order in which a function is processed or a
block / node is displayed. Weight defines the relative rank of your menu entry. A lower weight value
(e.g. -4) will float to the top of lists, while heavier (e.g. +4) weights will appear lower in lists.
The following screen illustrates how weights work in Drupal. Pol has been assigned a weight of 0;
Pendant menu entry is assigned weight 1 and so on. The Home page is assigned Sticky at Top of the
Lists and hence, is always the first link in the menu.

Weight 2
Weight 0

1.4 Creating a Poll in the website

Go to Modules and make sure the Poll feature is enabled.
Select the Add content from the menu, and select poll option from the list, the following screen
will appear.

Select Poll

Provide poll question and choices for the user and other settings; also give publishing option
according to your requirements.

1.5 Creating a Forum in the website

Click on modules and check that Forum is enabled.

Check Forum
option

Then, go to Structure and in that select Forum. You would see the menus like, Add Container,
Add Forum and settings.
Understand the analogy, Container is like a Room, Forums are like Cupboard, Individual Form is
like a rack and discussions are like files. You can add a container first, but then a forum has to be
added to a container.
You will see the following screen:
Click on Add forum option (We are avoiding adding container at this stage), the following screen
will appear.

ar:
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Give name (Eg. Discussion Forum) to the forum, description and save.
After creating the forum, click on the Forum link in the Navigation block. If it is not visible click on
the Settings icon (gear icon) on the upper right corner of the Navigation block and select List Links.
Enable Forums in the navigation block. You can now see forums enabled in a menu in navigation
toolbar as shown below.

Click on
Forums

Click on the forum (Discusson Forum) just created.

Click on Add a New Forum Topic.
Click on Add new
Forum Topic

Provide subject. Select Discussion Forum (or the Forum that you have created) under Forums as
shown below:

Check Published in the Publishing Options. Click Save.

1.6 Add a Block
Block provides a drag-and-drop interface for assigning a block to a region, and for controlling the
order of blocks within regions.
Click on Stucture>>Blocks>>Demonstrate Block Regions to view the layout of various blocks.

Click Demonstrate
Block Regions

Click Structure>>Blocks the configure link next to each block to configure its specific title and
visibility settings. Use the add block page to create a custom block

1.7 Editing Site Information

To edit the website related information and customizing the slogan etc., go to Configuration and
choose site information option from system section as shown in figure.

System

Provide necessary details. Click on Save configuration button to see the changes
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1.8 Applying themes to your website

Go to Appearance from the following screen you can select a theme by Clicking Enable link. Click
on Save Configuration button to save the theme.

Select Appearance

Select Enable

You can also download themes from drupal.org, extract the files and paste it under
www.drupal.org/project/projecttheme.
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1.9 Create User

Go to People
Click on Add User
Click Add User

Provide Username, e-mail address, password, status-active

Provide role as Authenticated User and click on Create new account.

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1.10 Manage User Permissions

Go to People, click permissions

Click Permissions Tab

You can manage user permissions for the Authenticated User for various features of the website

Manage User
Permissions

Click Save permission.

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