If you're looking for an introduction to Drupal study guide, you can find one in this article. We'll go over what Drupal is, why it's popular with website designers, how to install it, and a glossary of the essential terms. Look into the topic further!
What is Drupal?
PHP-based Drupal is an open source content management system that is quite well-liked by web developers.
Early 2000 saw the creation of Drupal by a Belgian student; today, many of the most well-known websites on the internet, including WhiteHouse.gov, Weather.com, and others, use it. It is frequently viewed as a rival to CMSs like WordPress and Joomla.
Drupal VS WordPress
We will provide reasons for using Drupal through a comparison with WordPress to help you understand it better and discover its benefits (the most popular CMS that many lay people know). Here's a comparison!
Function
Many website developers believe Drupal is complicated, especially when compared to WordPress (the CMS that many lay people use). However, we believe that because of the complexity, it gives rise to useful advanced functions. Everything is determined by your requirements.
Drupal has more "rich" features and functionality than WordPress, but if you don't know how to use it, those features will be confusing and will impede your work as a website developer.
If you need multiple page templates or content types, Drupal is better equipped to handle your needs. Drupal user access flexibility is also greater than WordPress. With Drupal, you can have site admins, content editors, individual access to private content, and much more.
In this way, Drupal is able to support multiple stakeholders on one website.
Drupal is claimed to be a CMS designed by developers and for developers. If you're not comfortable developing your website in Drupal, you may not be interested in digging deeper and end up ignoring the features that really are its strengths.
Flexibility
WordPress has a number of free and paid themes and plugins that can assist you in getting started with your website. Although there are starter themes for Drupal, the majority of Drupal themes are designed for specialized or advanced development.
Because of the numerous plugins available, many website developers prefer to work with a WordPress CMS. These plugins cover a wide range of topics, from SEO to social media. The plugin version is referred to as a module in Drupal.
The modules are mostly free and include a lot of functionality that is similar to what is available on WordPress, especially for Drupal 8. However, WordPress plugins are generally easier to manage and do not require advanced development.
In Drupal, you need a developer to handle the installation or updating of any modules you want to use for your website.
WordPress was originally designed only as a blogging platform, so it can be said that it doesn't have the same capabilities as Drupal in handling massive amounts of content. Drupal can support thousands of pages and thousands of users.
Updates in Drupal 8 have also improved its page performance, including a caching feature that helps pages load faster. In general, Drupal is more powerful for handling complex projects.
Ease of Use
Drupal is not difficult to use, but it can be difficult to learn how to use it in the beginning. It requires more technical knowledge than WordPress, but Drupal can create more advanced websites.
If you have limited knowledge of website development, WordPress can be easier to understand and suitable for developing your website.
A developer will frequently build and customize a WordPress site before handing it over to the client for further website management.
You can create a blog in minutes on WordPress with just basic knowledge. There's a WYSIYWG editor and a drag-and-drop function as well, which can help you start blogging or make website updates more easily.
Both Drupal and WordPress have active user communities, producing documentation and being able to answer technical questions if developers are struggling.
In Drupal 8, the platform is easier to use for developers, including content writers and others responsible for using it.
Security
One of the primary distinctions between Drupal and WordPress is security. Many developers tout Drupal as a secure CMS capable of producing detailed security reports. Even government-owned websites function as a type of whitehouse. Drupal is also used by the government.
This demonstrates how safe it is. It is important to note that with the release of Drupal 8, Drupal 6 has been deprecated and is no longer supported. If a new security issue emerges unexpectedly, Drupal may become vulnerable.
And, in the event of a security issue or issue with the Drupal 6 you're using, the available community may not be able to provide assistance or support.
Why? Because the volunteers in the Drupal community have turned their full attention to the development of Drupal 8 and Drupal 7.
A further consequence is that there is a lack of resources to release security fixes. So, the best way to avoid security vulnerabilities is to upgrade your website from Drupal 6 to Drupal 8 as soon as possible.
Meanwhile, WordPress itself has traditionally been vulnerable to hacker attacks and other security issues. Why is WordPress security vulnerable? Because there are a lot of plugins that give WordPress a lot of attention and can also open up the system and generate potential security issues.
Even so, a hosting service provider will prioritize security and can provide you with the support you need. Find out how to determine the best and most appropriate hosting provider for your needs.
Rates
While Drupal and WordPress are free to download and install, there are still costs involved in developing websites on both platforms.
If you are a businessman or entrepreneur who is not too good at it, you definitely need to hire an outside development service, namely a paid developer. Drupal developers definitely tend to be more expensive than WordPress developers. Why? This is because there are not many and Drupal developers are hard to come by.
Drupal itself has attempted to incorporate frameworks such as Symfony, which are more common in the PHP community. Real PHP developers can definitely tell that Drupal is much easier to develop now than it could be in the past.
This can open up the market for Drupal developers, making them more attractive even for developers who are just "playing" with Drupal.
Overall, Drupal can be said to be strong and flexible. In the right hands, you can create unique and effective solutions to meet your website development needs.
But if you're creating a website to support a blog or small business, a simple and easy-to-use interface like WordPress can help you better.
How to Install Drupal
Before installing Drupal 8, you must first ensure that the hosting or server you are using meets the Drupal 8 specifications, which are as follows: On the server, Apache, Nginx, and Microsoft IIS are installed.
MySQL 5.5.3/MariaDB 5.5.20/Percona Server 5.5.8 with PDO, InnoDB-compatible primary storage engine, PostgreSQL 9.1.2 with PDO, and SQLite 3.6.8 or higher are all supported. The PHP version is 5.5.9 or higher. Pay close attention to all of the specifications listed above, or Drupal 8 may not function properly.
However, all hosting providers already support the use of Drupal, so there's no need to be concerned. If you want to be certain, ask your hosting provider directly about these specifications.
Also, make sure you have downloaded the Drupal 8 installation file from their official website. Then do the extraction (extract) and upload the contents of the folder from Drupal 8 to your hosting. Another requirement is that you must also have a database, username, and password to access the database.
Now we'll go over how to install Drupal. Open a browser such as Google Chrome and navigate to the domain address where you uploaded the contents of the Drupal 8 folder. For instance, if you save it to the /drupal8/folder, you can access it at www.domainname.com/drupal8.
The browser will automatically navigate to the installation URL, which is www.namadomain.com/drupal8/core/install.php. If your browser does not automatically redirect to that address, go to www.yourdomain.com/drupal8/core/install.php.
The look of this install page will differ from the previous version of the Drupal install page, but the steps are essentially the same. The first page will ask you to choose a language for the installation process.
In this section, you can change or set a language other than English, but a note will appear that the website will be downloaded in the desired language. Indeed, this will take a lot of time and, of course, the cost of internet quota, but it is actually more practical than the previous version.
If you don't want to download Indonesian, you can just choose English, which is Drupal's default language.
After that, you try to click "Save" and "Continue".
We have additional info in the Indonesian version. Not all of them get the correct or correct translation. This is why we recommend that you use only the English version.
In addition to being more precise, you will also find it easier to find a guide or guide in developing a website later by mentioning it in foreign terms in Drupal.
Select "Standard" and then click "Save and continue".
Next, the installation process will review whether the hosting system you are using can meet the needs of Drupal 8 or not. If something is not correct, a notification will appear like the image we captured below:
If the error is optional (only a suggestion), then you can repair it, and continue the installation process by clicking "Continue anyway." If you want to try to fix it, please change it, and after repairing it, you can click "retry" so you can know whether all the requirements have been met or not. Next, you are asked to enter the required database info, such as database name, username, and password. It's like what you've done before in login forms or general installations; it's easy; just enter it.
If your hosting provider gives you a special address to access the database, then click "Advanced Options." Next, enter the database access address into the field with the subject "Database Host".
You can also prefix each table in the database that Drupal will install. This is actually useful if you use a single database name (this means your hosting provider only allows one database) to hold all your web applications or two Drupal installations. Enter the prefix in the table prefix column. The prefix is, for example, d8_.
Then click the "Save and continue" option.
If the information in the database you entered is correct, the website will then proceed to the database installation process as shown in the following image:
You can wait until the installation process is completed.
If the database installation process is complete, you will be asked to fill in several fields related to the website that you are currently preparing, namely: the name of the website; email address; username and password; time settings; and so on.
This username will be the first registered user who will then become the Super Administrator, who has the right to do anything on this website.
When finished, you can click the "Save and continue" button.
After that, you will be taken to the front page of the Drupal 8 site that you have installed on your server. If a message appears on your screen related to language or translation, you can just ignore it.
Learn Basic Drupal Terminology
There is some basic terminology that you should know how to use in Drupal, including:
Node or Content Type
In Drupal, a node is a general term for content on your website. A content type is assigned to each node on your website. It also has a Node ID, title, creation date, author, body (which for some content types may be ignored or omitted), and a few other properties.
"Pages in books," "Discussion topics in forums," "Entries in blogs," "News Article Stories," and other nodes are examples.
Comments
Comments are another type of content you can have on your website (if you have enabled the Comment core module). Each comment is a piece of content, which is usually the size of a small user-submitted file, attached to a specific node. For example, each discussion section is attached to a topic node on a particular forum.
User, Permission, Role
Every visitor to your website, whether they have an account to log in or visit the website anonymously, is considered a Drupal user.
Each user has a numeric user ID, and non-anonymous users also have a username and an email address. Other users on your site can be granted permissions through roles.
To do this, you must first create a role, which you might refer to as "content editor" or "member." Next, you can grant permission for that role. The permissions are actually quite flexible—you are allowed to give permissions for any task to any role.
Taxonomy
Taxonomy is a system for classifying content in Drupal that is implemented in the Taxonomy core module.
You can create your own vocabulary (taxonomic term group) and add terms to it. Vocabulary can be flat or hierarchical (in terms of structure), single or multiple selection, and "free tagging" (meaning when creating or editing content, you can add new terms quickly). Each vocabulary can then be associated with one or more types of content, allowing nodes on your website to be categorized, tagged, or classified in any other way you see fit.
Modules
Modules are software programs (code) that include Drupal features and/or functionality. Core modules are included with the main download from Drupal, and you can enable their functionality without installing additional software. The contributed module is downloaded from the modules downloads section of drupal.org and installed in your installation.
You can also create your own modules, but this requires a thorough understanding of Drupal, PHP programming, and other modules.
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