CMS Pt2: Adding Themes & Modules

by | Nov 25, 2009 | WebSite, CMS

Welcome to the second part of the Series “CMS: Do They Really Work?“.  In the last post we Installed and set-up a Drupal CMS ready to be turned into a Website. The Site is still in its Vanilla Install state, No work has been done yet to the site.  We are now going to see how easy it is to add Themes & Modules to the system ready for the work of actually building the site.

So to start off, Go to your Website and log in with the Administer account you created during the install process.

Adding Additional Themes.

Before we Add extra Themes take a second to look at the ones that came with the base install. There could be one there that suits your needs, meaning you do not have to add any additional ones.

Administer -> Site building -> Themes

You will see that Drupal comes with Six default themes for your use.

For a look at the Vast selection of additional Themes go to  http://drupal.org/project/themes and spend some time finding the one or ones that suit the style you want for your site. I’m going to add “Deco, Absynthe, & Dropshadow“. Simply download the themes you like and upload to your site.

Themes should be placed in their own subdirectory of the sites/all/themes
directory. For multisite installations, they can also be placed in a subdirectory
under /sites/{sitename}/themes/, where {sitename} is the name of your site.

unzip/tar the Downloaded file.

tar -zxf Filename  ie: tar -zxf absynthe-6.x-1.4.tar.gz

Now if you go back to your list of installed Themes under Site building, you will notice the one you just uploaded. Tick the Enabled box and its up and running. Yes. Its that simple!

Adding Additional Modules.

This is exactly the same procedure as adding Themes (Nice and Simple) The only differences are :-

Administer -> Site building -> Modules

http://drupal.org/project/modules

Modules should be placed in their own subdirectory of the sites/all/modules
directory. For multisite installations, they can also be placed in a subdirectory
under /sites/{sitename}/modules/, where {sitename} is the name of your site.

  • CMS Pt1: Setting up the Site

I have always been an Old School Coder, doing 99.9% of all my web work using the Text Editor of my choice. I used to scorn at those who used dream-weaver, front-page, or even the basic CMS’s. Did they do so because they lacked Code Monkey Skills? Why was VI,Notepad,etc not good enough for them?

But those days are gone, I am more mellow in my old days, less eliteist.  And since I joined the Three-Ninjas as resident TechyBod I have been happily using this site, and am quite impressed with the backend (Word-press) So have decided to try out

CMS Pt1: Setting up the Site

by | Oct 9, 2009 | VPS, WebSite, CMS

I have always been an Old School Coder, doing 99.9% of all my web work using the Text Editor of my choice. I used to scorn at those who used dream-weaver, front-page, or even the basic CMS’s. Did they do so because they lacked Code Monkey Skills? Why was VI,Notepad,etc not good enough for them?

But those days are gone, I am more mellow in my old days, less eliteist.  And since I joined the Three-Ninjas as resident TechyBod I have been happily using this site, and am quite impressed with the backend (Word-press) So have decided to try out a CMS and see how they have evolved, and if its easy to knock up a decent website with one. And to see how easy it is.

So I am going to make a site using a CMS, and document my progress in a series of blog posts. Who know maybe these will be helpful to someone else who wants to make a site?

STEP 1: Deciding on the CMS

drupal

There are way to many CMS’s out there, from the very basic ones to the very complicated expensive ones. I want to use a free one, since that way others can use it at no cost.  After a long discussion with colleague DemonP (who has used/tested a wide number of different CMS’s over the years) I have decided on using Drupal. DemonP says its free, it has lots of plugins, an API for making your own plugins, And since he got back from a UKUUG weekend conference he has a book for it.

STEP 2: Domain Name/Hosting

Easy one, I have a VPS, And a LARGE collection of projects waiting for me to work on, So I’ll skip this step since everyones Hosting solutions will be different. And Since I have yet to release my WebHosting Console no one elses procedure will match mine :0)

STEP 3: The actual Basic SETUP

Here we go. Are you ready? Ok lets start.

  1. Download a copy from drupal.org. I’m using Drupal 6.14
  2. unzip (and if you downloaded locally upload files to hosting area)
  3. Point your web browser at your domain name. Choose language (I’m using english)
  4. Correct any Permission errors, dependencies
  5. Copy the ./sites/default/default.settings.php file to ./sites/default/settings.php
  6. Enter your Database connection details (DBname,user,pass)
  7. WAIT :0) Yes this is a step
  8. Fill in basic site details, Site name, email, admin user account, etc
  9. Finished

And there you have it, You have a CMS set up ready for you to start using and adding content, style, etc.  Which will be in article 2 in this series.