Drupal

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Drupal
Developer: Dries Buytaert
Latest release: 5.1 / January 29, 2007
OS: Cross-platform
Use: content management framework, content management system, community and blog software
License: GPL
Website: http://drupal.org

Drupal is a free modular content management framework, content management system and blogging engine which was originally written by Dries Buytaert as a bulletin board system. Today, it is used by many high-traffic websites, including The Onion, Spread Firefox (CivicSpace, see below), Ourmedia, KernelTrap, and the Defective by Design campaign. It is particularly popular for building online communities, and has the tag line "Community plumbing". Drupal is written in PHP. As of January 29, 2007, the current version was 5.1.

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Drupal is an English transliteration of the Dutch word “druppel” which means “drop” (as in, “a drop of water”). The name was taken from the now defunct Drop.org website, whose code slowly evolved into Drupal. Dries wanted to call the site “dorp” (Dutch for “village”, referring to its community aspects), but made a typo when checking the domain name and thought it sounded better. The project was started in 2000.

Drupal has a basic layer, or core, which supports pluggable modules which enable additional behaviors. The modules available for Drupal provide a wide assortment of features, including e-commerce systems such as the Amazon Items module[1], work-flow, photo galleries, mailing list management, and CVS integration.

Drupal's modular design and well-documented, clean codebase make it easier for individuals with knowledge of PHP to write code for additional features. Drupal is often used to build sites that focus on user communities.

Drupal's taxonomy[2] (or categorization system) enables the site administrator to determine how content is classified. Once set up, the taxonomy module can “automatically classify new content”. This flexibility without the need for coding differentiates Drupal from similar systems; however it also renders the configuration more demanding and in some cases more time consuming.

The Actions and Workflow modules provide an example of the high degree of automation possible with Drupal. This requires the two modules to be set up using features from both. Extensive support documentation and videos are available to help configure the Workflow and Actions modules[3] to achieve tasks such as sending out notices of new content.

Drupal achieves clean integration between the core and the modules via a system of hooks, or callbacks, to allow modules to insert functions into Drupal's path of execution. Drupal core provides protection against many of the usual security problems, like SQL injection.

Most themes for Drupal are written in the PHPTemplate engine[4] or the XTemplate engine[5]. Earlier templates used hard-coded PHP.

Earlier versions of Drupal's theming system were criticized [6] as being less design-oriented and more complicated than the systems for Mambo and Plone. The inclusion of the PHPTemplate and XTemplate engines in Drupal has addressed some of these criticisms.

Some of the roles that Drupal has filled include company intranets, online classrooms, art communities, and project management. Sample applications that use Drupal include:

  • The Ann Arbor District Library[7] used Drupal in building an award-winning website[8] including custom-added features such as enabling library patrons to create personalized card catalogs.
  • Various political campaigns, such as the Jack Carter for Senate campaign in Nevada, have created Drupal-based campaign websites.
  • CiviCRM, a constituent relationship management system that integrates with Drupal, has made Drupal an attractive platform for nonprofit organizations. [9]
  • Drupal has been used to create hyperlocal citizen journalism websites in towns such as Bluffton, South Carolina[10] and Watertown, Massachusetts[11].
  • Drupal has been used to establish the 43things-type web site Change Everything.
  • With the advent of the Revision Moderation module, applications like school websites run by "Advanced Web" classes becomes more feasible.

Drupal requires the user installing the program to have the ability to assign certain high-level privileges to the database user-administrator, including SELECT, INSERT, UPDATE, DELETE, CREATE, DROP, INDEX, ALTER, and LOCK TABLES. Many of these privileges, such as CREATE and ALTER, are necessary for automated installation and upgrade scripts to function without manual user execution of SQL queries; others, such as LOCK TABLES, are needed to prevent common problems that can occur in a multi-user environment.

As with other content management systems the initial database can be setup using the command line[1] or with phpMyAdmin/PhpPgAdmin.

Drupal has been considered by some[12] to have a somewhat steeper learning curve and a slightly more difficult installation procedure compared to some simple CMS programs or basic blogging tools such as WordPress. Drupal 5.0, released January 15, 2007, is packaged with a web-based installer to partly answer these criticisms[13]. Another useful reference is the Drupal Cookbook (for New Drupallers)[14].

Drupal 4.2 [15] was the basis for DeanSpace, a content management system used to power many independent websites supporting the 2004 presidential campaign of Howard Dean. After the Dean campaign ended, the DeanSpace project grew into CivicSpace, a Drupal-based "grassroots organizing platform that empowers collective action inside communities and cohesively connects remote groups of supporters." CivicSpace[16] includes CiviCRM and other features useful on websites for nonprofit organizations and political campaigns.

There are several other customized Drupal distributions. Most are simply Drupal repackaged with third party modules, but some also include modifications to the core. An example of such distribution is vbDrupal, which is Drupal integrated with vBulletin.

Drupal has been discussed in several books:

Notable websites using Drupal or one of its distributions include:

  1. ^ Amazon Items drupal module
  2. ^ Taxonomy, Drupal's category management system
  3. ^ videos to help configure the Workflow and Actions modules
  4. ^ "PHPTemplate theme engine", Drupal.org.
  5. ^ "XTemplate theme engine", Drupal.org.
  6. ^ "How does Drupal compare to Mambo?" discussion thread, Drupal.org.
  7. ^ Ann Arbor District Library's award-winning website
  8. ^ "American Library Association Awards Ann Arbor District Library Website Best of Show" (news release), June 13, 2006.
  9. ^ Greenpeace UK CMS Selection
  10. ^ Bluffton, South Carolina
  11. ^ Watertown, Massachusetts
  12. ^ Alister Lewis-Bowen et al., "Using open source software to design, develop, and deploy a collaborative Web site," IBM, July 11, 2006.
  13. ^ Drupal 5.0 Feature List January 15, 2007. Accessed January 15, 2007.
  14. ^ Wichmann, Nancy. Drupal Cookbook (for New Drupallers). Drupal.org. Retrieved on March 3, 2007. “No Experience Necessary - Tell Newbies NOT to Give Up!”
  15. ^ http://drupal.org/node/4877#comment-7552
  16. ^ CivicSpace, a significant contributor to the Drupal project

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