What is a node?

You'll notice that throughout your Drupal installation, and these tips, that the word "node" is used a lot.

With Content Management Systems (CMS) like Drupal, nodes are the actual content within the site. They can be pages, events, forum postings, and more.

Drupal and its modules come with several node types - web page, book page, event, forum topic, and blog included.

Advanced users can also create their own node types. This is used on the DPO site where we have it set so you can submit a biography, resolution, etc. and they are automatically added to the correct pages. The items on the form are customized to meet the needs of the node.

For example, the resolutions node type collects the resolution's sponsor, date approved, and a "teaser" for the resolution.

A "teaser" is a shorter version of the full node. When a block for a teaser is available on the node creation page, it allows the user to have full control over the content of the teaser. This is often a synopsis of the page or the first few lines/paragraphs copied from the body.