The Administator Menu

All the control you need to create new web pages, upload images, set up forums, is available in the Administrator Menu, which appears in the upper right sidebar when you are logged in.

With Drupal, you don't need to know HTML code and you don't need to know how to ftp content up to your site. It does everything through simple forms you fill out.

The first couple times you use Drupal, navigating it can be a bit difficult. That's especially true if you've never built a web site before or have only done them through html coding (either by hand or using software like Front Page or Dreamweaver) and uploading by FTP.

With Drupal, FTP access is rarely needed. Most activities that might required ftp access are done for you by the DPO. This includes things like initial set up , module upgrades and changes, and changing the theme. Everything else is done in your browser.

When you create HTML code in a page, you use a simple WORD-like toolbar that lets you apply styles, make lists, add links, create tables, and more. You see the results of your changes on the page, not the code behind it. (Note: the WYSIWYG (What You See Is What You Get) editor does not work correctly with Mac Safari. So if you are on a Mac, you'll want to use Firefox instead.)

(Click for larger image)
Note: Your WYSIWYG bar may look different than the one shown above. There are a variety of options available, which can be set by the site webmaster by editing the TinyMCE settings.

First, you'll need to be logged into your web site in order to do anything. So log on with the information that has been provided to you.

Now you can begin work on your site.

Common Questions

Chances are, your first couple of questions are:

Using the links above you can find more detailed information on those questions.

How do I navigate my site? Where do I go? What do I do?

Chances are you're going to be using two links from your Navigation Menu more often than anything else: Create Content and Administer.

Create Content

This is where you go if you want to add content to your site. From here you can add pages, books (different from a page in that you can create child pages that automatically link to each other and the parent page), events, etc.

Administer

This is where you control how your site looks and operates, as well as view the logs.

Note: If you see a red box that appears at the top of your page that looks like the following, don't worry. This shows up when a module or other item has a newer version available. It will be taken care of by the system administrator. Sometimes we wait to do upgrades because of a bug found in a newer version. As such, this will sometimes appear for an extended period of time.

There are six sections under Administer. They are listed below with the most common actions you'd take under each.

When working with items listed as Advanced, you should take caution. Changing these items can drastically change the way your site works. You may want additional help before changing any of these options.

Content management

This is where you can:

See a listing of everything on the site- Content
Change how content behaves, such as whether it automatically promotesto the front page, are comments allowed, etc. - Content Types
How comments are handled, including dealing with those in moderation - Comments
Creat forums - Forums
Create image galleries - Image Galleries
Pull in a rss feed from elsewhere, such as the DNC - News aggregator

Advanced options: Content Templates and the tabs that show up on the Content Types page.

Site building

This is where you can:

Change what shows up in the sidebars - Blocks
Change your menus, including the drop-down menu at the top - Menu
Change aspects of your theme, such as whether the Slogan shows up, whether who submitted an item shows up under the page title, etc. - Themes
Change the URL alias for pages, or add additional ones to pages - URL aliases

Advanced options: Views, Modules

Site Configuration

Almost all the options on this part would fall under Advanced. The one you'll use the most is Site Information, which is explained here.

User Management

This allows you to:

Create new users and see which users are already on your site - Users
Change whether registration is allowed, closed, or if new users have to be approved - User Settings

Advanced options: Access Control, Access Rules, Roles

Logs

Here you can see what errors people are getting, what are the most viewed pages, etc.

These logs are simple logs.

Help

Here you can find some information on how to work with your site.