Drupal Crash Course

Mon Jan 11 thru Fri Jan 15, 10am-12:00pm

• Enrollment limited: If you haven't signed up, show up in the first class
• Participants requested to attend all sessions (non-series)
• Location : 1-277
• Prereq: Experience with Web 2.0, PHP, and MYSQL recommended

Drupal is a free and open source Content Management System (CMS) written in PHP. It is used as a back-end system for many different types of websites, ranging from small personal blogs to Enterprise 2.0 collaboration and knowledge management uses to large corporate and political sites. Many great webservices have been deployed using Drupal as backend. It currently powers Whitehouse and CSAIL

This is a week long intermediate course into Drupal, developing for Drupal, and hacking Drupal. The expected outcome of this course is to become comfortable in installing, managing, developing and troubleshooting with/for Drupal. The course will involve pre-reading (from Drupal handbooks - support pages, source code, etc) and homework (design and coding), and participants are expected to allocate at least 2 hours on this in addition to the class time.

Should bring a laptop (with webserver installed).

(will guide in the first class, but trying yourself before coming to class is desired)

• A laptop of your own is essential to get hands on experience.
• I will setup remote server for access (only through http) and hence many of the examples could be checked without installing a webserver.
• However you will need to install a webserver at least XAMPP, to practice yourself, debug code, etc

You might want to check before coming to class:

• INSTALL XAMPP (APACHE, PHP AND MYSQL) : http://www.apachefriends.org
  
• INSTALL ECLIPSE with XDEBUG : Tutorial
  (I know it is posted on Joomla.org - a competitor of Drupal, but it is one of the best tutorial I have seen for setting up xdebug with Eclipse, after all, all these are open source tools)
• READ GETTING STARTED : Handbooks
  

Reading Material :

• Drupal Handbooks
  
• Drupal Books
  Particularly
  1. Building Powerful and Robust Websites with Drupal 6 by David Mercer Packt Publishing Citation ISBN:9781847192974 | Online (through MIT libraries)
  2. Pro Drupal Development, Second Edition by John K. VanDyk | Online (through MIT libraries)
  3. Learning Drupal 6 Module Development: by Matt Butcher Packt Publishing CitationISBN:9781847194442 | Online (through MIT libraries)
• Source code - remember it is open source

Slides and Videos :

Day 01/02
Day 03
Day 04
Day 05

Tentative Schedule :

Day 01:

Installing and managing

• Introduction to CMS
  |  Websites in General
  |  Frameworks in General
  |  What is a CMS
• Introduction to Drupal
  |  Drupal
  |  Features
  |  What can you do with Drupal
• Installing Drupal
  |  Single Domain installation
  |  Module Installation
  |  Theme configuration
  |  Site configuration
  |  General Management

• Multi-site installation

Day 02 :

1. Building Powerful and Robust Websites with Drupal 6 by David Mercer Packt Publishing Citation ISBN:9781847192974 | Online (through MIT libraries)
2. Pro Drupal Development, Second Edition by John K. VanDyk | Online (through MIT libraries)

Using modules and themes.

• Delve into modules
  |  Taxonomy
  |  Views
  |  Fields - CCK
  |  Themes - Acquia Marina (15 mins)
• Intro into modules
  | Devel
  | Path | Pathauto
  | Print
  | Image

1. You will know how to install built in modules
2. You will know how to innstall contributed party modules
3. You will have a working site with the following modules installed and configured : Taxonomy, Views, Fields - CCK, Devel, Path, Pathauto, Print, Tagadelic, Image, Token, Lightbox, Fivestar

Day 03 :

1. Pro Drupal Development, Second Edition by John K. VanDyk | Online (through MIT libraries)
2. Learning Drupal 6 Module Development: by Matt Butcher Packt Publishing CitationISBN:9781847194442 | Online (through MIT libraries)

Hacking and developing

• Hacking
  |  Module Hacking
  |  Theme Hacking
  |  Never ever hack the core
• Module Development - a simple module
  |  Design
  |  Architecture
  |  Development
  |  Coding style

Day 04 :

1. Pro Drupal Development, Second Edition by John K. VanDyk | Online (through MIT libraries)
2. Learning Drupal 6 Module Development: by Matt Butcher Packt Publishing CitationISBN:9781847194442 | Online (through MIT libraries)

Advanced module development

Day 05  :

1. Learning Drupal 6 Module Development: by Matt Butcher Packt Publishing CitationISBN:9781847194442 | Online (through MIT libraries)

• Module development continued
• Trouble shooting
• Contributing back
• CVS access

1. You will have a properly installed, configured site on Drupal
2. You will know how to manage a Drupal based site
3. You would have developed a module
4. You will know who to troubleshoot, contribute back and gain CVS access at Drupal.org

Contact: Gartheeban Ganeshapillai, garthee AT mit DOT edu, http://theebgar.net
Sponsor: Electrical Engineering and Computer Science.