Installing and Configuring Drupal 6.1

By Michael J. Ross
2008-03-24


Basic Site Customization

The majority of the default site configuration values do not need to be altered. However, you should set a new name for your site, and maybe a site slogan. To do so, go to Administer > Site configuration > Site information, and change the values there. In our example, we changed the name of the site from "localhost" to "Drupal Sample Site", and made other simple changes. When you are done, click the "Save configuration" button at the bottom of the page, as is done for all administrative pages.

In order to confirm that your modifications were properly saved, go to your site's homepage, by clicking on the site name, at the top of the page.

The appearance of a Drupal site is determined by the "theme" that is currently set as the default. To see this value, and possibly change it, go to Administer > Site building > Themes. There you will see the six initial themes packaged into Drupal 6.1.

By default, the "Garland" theme is the only one enabled, and is the current one. Let's change the theme to "Bluemarine", by enabling it and setting it as the default. As soon as you save your choice of Bluemarine, your administrative interface should change just as did the homepage, because it inherited the homepage's theme. You can always override this via Administer > Site configuration > Administration theme.

Let's now add some sample content, known within Drupal as "stories". Go to Create content > Story, and enter a name and some content for your first story. Underneath the large content text field, five expanding menus allow you to change the story's input format, revision information, comment settings, authoring information, and publishing options.

After adding the new content, go to the site's homepage again, and you should see all of the customizations made earlier, including the new story, as well as the change to the site's theme. Also, the RSS feed icon will be visible, because now the site has some content that can be syndicated. Notice also that the welcome message seen earlier during installation, has been replaced by your new story.

Tutorial Pages:
» Installing and Configuring Drupal 6.1
» Drupal
» System Requirements
» Downloading Drupal
» Installing Drupal
» Configuring Drupal
» Administering Drupal
» Basic Site Customization
» More Resources

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