www.it-ebooks.info ffirs.indd iiffirs.indd ii 6/20/2011 7:26:24 PM6/20/2011 7:26:24 PM www.it-ebooks.info DRUPAL ® : THE GUIDE TO PLANNING AND BUILDING WEBSITES FOREWORD . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xix INTRODUCTION . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xxi PART I PLANNING YOUR WEBSITE CHAPTER 1 Introduction to Drupal Planning . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3 CHAPTER 2 Managing Open Source Projects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .15 CHAPTER 3 Conducting a Needs Analysis . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 49 CHAPTER 4 Collecting Requirements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .61 CHAPTER 5 Creating a Design Plan . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 175 PART II BUILDING AND SUSTAINING YOUR WEBSITE CHAPTER 6 Planning Development . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 267 CHAPTER 7 Coordinating Implementation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 333 CHAPTER 8 Sustaining the Site . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 359 PART III AN EXAMPLE SITE CHAPTER 9 An Example Plan . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 379 CHAPTER 10 Example Build Recipes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 433 INDEX . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 469 ffirs.indd iffirs.indd i 6/20/2011 9:12:40 PM6/20/2011 9:12:40 PM www.it-ebooks.info ffirs.indd iiffirs.indd ii 6/20/2011 7:26:24 PM6/20/2011 7:26:24 PM www.it-ebooks.info Drupal ® THE GUIDE TO PLANNING AND BUILDING WEBSITES Cindy McCourt ffirs.indd iiiffirs.indd iii 6/20/2011 7:26:25 PM www.it-ebooks.info Drupal®: The Guide to Planning and Building Websites Published by Wiley Publishing, Inc. 10475 Crosspoint Boulevard Indianapolis, IN 46256 www.wiley.com Copyright © 2011 by Cindy McCourt Published by Wiley Publishing, Inc., Indianapolis, Indiana Published simultaneously in Canada ISBN: 978-1-118-06686-7 ISBN: 978-1-118-14983-6 (ebk) ISBN: 978-1-118-14982-9 (ebk) ISBN: 978-1-118-14981-2 (ebk) Manufactured in the United States of America 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, scanning or otherwise, except as permitted under Sections 107 or 108 of the 1976 United States Copyright Act, without either the prior written permission of the Publisher, or authorization through payment of the appropriate per-copy fee to the Copyright Clearance Center, 222 Rosewood Drive, Danvers, MA 01923, (978) 750-8400, fax (978) 646-8600. 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Wiley Publishing, Inc., is not associated with any product or ven- dor mentioned in this book. ffirs.indd ivffirs.indd iv 6/20/2011 7:26:27 PM6/20/2011 7:26:27 PM www.it-ebooks.info This book is dedicated to my family: to my husband, BJ, who encourages me to continuously learn; to my dad, Joe, who helped shape my understanding of the many aspects of management and business ethics; to my mother, Barbara, and brother, David, who are always there for me; and, fi nally, to Codi, who made sure to remind me when it was time for me to go for a walk. — Cindy McCourt ffirs.indd vffirs.indd v 6/20/2011 7:26:27 PM6/20/2011 7:26:27 PM www.it-ebooks.info EXECUTIVE EDITOR Carol Long PROJECT EDITOR John Sleeva TECHNICAL EDITOR Doug Vann PRODUCTION EDITOR Kathleen Wisor COPY EDITOR Paula Lowell EDITORIAL DIRECTOR Robyn B. Siesky EDITORIAL MANAGER Mary Beth Wakefi eld FREELANCER EDITORIAL MANAGER Rosemarie Graham MARKETING MANAGER Ashley Zurcher PRODUCTION MANAGER Tim Tate VICE PRESIDENT AND EXECUTIVE GROUP PUBLISHER Richard Swadley VICE PRESIDENT AND EXECUTIVE PUBLISHER Barry Pruett ASSOCIATE PUBLISHER Jim Minatel PROJECT COORDINATOR, COVER Katie Crocker PROOFREADERS Lynne Burke, Word One, New York Paul Sagan, Word One, New York INDEXER Johnna VanHoose Dinse COVER DESIGNER Ryan Sneed COVER IMAGE © Martin Strmko / iStockPhoto CREDITS ffirs.indd viffirs.indd vi 6/20/2011 7:26:27 PM6/20/2011 7:26:27 PM www.it-ebooks.info ABOUT THE AUTHOR CINDY MCCOURT has been a freelance website planner and builder, instructional designer and instructor, project manager, and facilitator, and has taken part in planning and building numerous Drupal and non-Drupal websites and web-based systems over the past 14 years. In 2005, she built her fi rst Drupal website using Drupal 4.6 and has been using Drupal on her website development projects ever since. Over the past 20 years, Cindy has been designing, developing, and delivering workshops and courses on technology- and non-technology-based subjects for both corporate and higher educa- tion organizations. She has also written technical papers on many topics for governmental and private-sector clients. Cindy maintains a close relationship with the Drupal community through her blog ( http://idcminnovations.com), by speaking at Drupal events, and by offering Drupal training. She has been described by some in the Drupal community as a professional cat herder ( http://rocktreesky.com/professional-cat-herder-win). Cindy started acquiring many of her skills in 1985, when she went to work for TRW. Her 12 years at this worldwide contractor provided her with signifi cant insights into project management and the many tasks associated with the lifecycle of a project. She was also an early TQM facilitator and trainer, and has made process analyses, design, and improvement tools in her web development toolbox. Cindy built her fi rst website for George Mason University’s Graduate School of Education in 1997 and maintained the site until she graduated in 2000 with a Masters degree in Education. She went to work for GMU in 1999 and continued to build her web development skills by developing several more department websites, as well as by designing and coordinating the development of the online Workshop and Events Management System (WEMS), which is still used today by GMU’s Division of Instructional Technology. She has also taught Instructional Design, Project Management, and Web Design for GMU’s Graduate School of Education, and provided technology workshops to GMU’s faculty and staff. Cindy’s extensive project list can be found at http://idcminnovations.com/projects/ listall-projects . ffirs.indd viiffirs.indd vii 6/20/2011 7:26:27 PM6/20/2011 7:26:27 PM www.it-ebooks.info ABOUT THE TECHNICAL EDITOR DOUG VANN is an independent Drupal Developer and Trainer. Doug entered Geekdom as a fi fth grader in 1983 with a Commodore 64 and a 300-baud connection to CompuServe. Twenty-eight years later, he leads the Indiana Drupal Users Group and is a full-time provider of Drupal Training and Drupal Development. Doug believes in the power of Drupal to meet complex business needs in a rapid-deployment system. Catch his blog at www.dougvann.com. Google “Drupal Song,” and you’re likely to fi nd a few videos of Doug, jamming on the guitar, unabashedly proclaiming his passion for Drupal! His love for learning and experimenting in Drupal is overshadowed only by his love for teaching and evangelizing it. He has presented in Minneapolis, Toronto, Houston, Indianapolis, multiple LinuxFests, DoItWithDrupal, and DrupalCamps in Dallas, Madison, Atlanta, Chicago, Orlando, Nashville, Denver, Los Angeles, South Carolina, and DC. You can often fi nd Doug on the FREENODE IRC Network in Drupal-support helping people get through the steep learning curve of Drupal. Doug, his wife of 14 years, and their four children reside in Indianapolis. ffirs.indd viiiffirs.indd viii 6/20/2011 7:26:27 PM6/20/2011 7:26:27 PM www.it-ebooks.info [...]... attention of executive editor Carol Long; to Carol Long, for reaching out to me and for convincing Wrox to give me a chance; to project editor John Sleeva, copy editor Paula Lowell, and technical editor Doug Vann, for all your efforts editing the chapters and for helping me improve my writing and the book’s content — your energy and enthusiasm were incredible; and to all the people in the graphics department,... modules ‰ Custom modules ‰ The theme (or base theme) ‰ A subtheme (if a base theme is used) When Drupal loads a page, it looks for instructions on how to display the content in a specific order It starts with the subtheme (if used) and works its way back from there: subtheme, base theme, and then to various modules you have enabled, including Drupal’s core modules If you don’t like what the theme code... in the theme itself If you are planning a site, why do you need to know about theming? There are costs associated with theme development that are not always easy to predict The more features your site has, the higher the probability that your theme will need more than the basics you fi nd in many free themes Your Drupal themer will need your comps, your style guide, and wireframes to get started To. .. and to help the team communicate If you are going to be a builder, developer, or themer, this short introduction is a must-read THEMER A themer is someone who develops the PHP, HTML, and CSS that defi ne the page structure and appearance Drupal Components You do not need to know how to build the site in order to plan what you want, but the more you know about what Drupal can do and how it does it, the. .. on the Web If you would like to have new messages from a particular forum emailed to you, click the Subscribe to this Forum icon by the forum name in the forum listing For more information about how to use the Wrox P2P, be sure to read the P2P FAQs for answers to questions about how the forum software works, as well as many common questions specific to P2P and Wrox books To read the FAQs, click the. .. experts, and information architects, to name a few All these roles have their own perspectives of how a site should look and come together Their individual experiences and skills associated with planning sites influence what is included in the site, how it is built, and how it is maintained Their planning processes will emphasize their strengths, and typically, there isn’t anything wrong with that Unless the. .. field on the form; you go to the next field and type the article; maybe you assign the article to a menu and tag it with some predefi ned terms or add a few of your own terms The title, body, menu, and terms are data that get stored in the database Other data get stored as well, such as the date when you created the article and your username All these bits of data are associated with the article or node you... place where the node appears, and other components, such as Drupal’s primary and secondary menus You can’t interact with Drupal unless you have a theme enabled Garland is the Drupal 6 default theme Bartik is the Drupal 7 default theme User A term used to represent a person who “uses” the site Views The term Views can refer to the module called Views or to a display generated by the Views module The Views... Drupal Data in the database is only part of your storage needs If you have any media fi les or documents that you want to upload to the site, Drupal stores those fi les, by default, in a directory on the server associated with the site If you have sites sharing the Drupal installation, the fi les will be kept separate from each other unless the sites have been configured to do otherwise The setting that... is the feature that enables you to place content into categories, which you can use when organizing and describing your nodes Term The words or phrases contained within a taxonomy vocabulary Terms are used to categorize content Terms are applied to nodes Theme The feature in Drupal used to display a page and all its components The theme is how you create the look and feel of the site It defines the . THE GUIDE TO PLANNING AND BUILDING WEBSITES Cindy McCourt ffirs.indd iiiffirs.indd iii 6/20/2011 7:26:25 PM www.it-ebooks.info Drupal®: The Guide to Planning. planner and builder, instructional designer and instructor, project manager, and facilitator, and has taken part in planning and building numerous Drupal and