This tutorial will walk you through, step-by-step, how to update your Drupal module to a new version.
Please make sure you have fully backed up your site before proceeding.
Download and Extract the New Module
Go to http://drupal.org/project/modules and download the new version of the module, then extract the module folder. For more detailed instruction on how to download and extract, please visit the first few steps of our How to Install a Drupal Module tutorial.
How to Install a Drupal Module
This tutorial will show you how to install a module in order to add new functionality to your Drupal site. Modules are user contributed add-ons for Drupal which allow you to extend Drupal’s core functionality. Let's get started!
Post by Email to Your WordPress Blog
By default WordPress allows you to write posts on your WordPress blog simply by sending an email.
However, as the video below makes clear, that default feature is fairly limited.
In this tutorial we'll show you how to set up your blog so that creating your posts by email is both fun and easy. The solution is the Postie plugin.
Placing a Drupal Block Inside a Node
This tutorial will show you how to take a block and place it inside a Drupal node.
Often this is done through one of two methods:
- With modules such as Panels or Context which allows you to easily place blocks and many other Drupal items inside nodes.
- With PHP code snippets.
However, sometimes Panels and PHP are too complex and you need a quicker and easier solution. Enter the "Insert Block" module. Here's how to use it:
200 Classes and Free Training for Students in Joomla and Drupal
Last year in early December we reached a key milestone in our growth: 100 live classes.
That landmark coincided with the holiday season so we celebrated by giving back: we held a free class for 16 non-profit organizations in Atlanta.
Fast forward almost a year and last week we hit another milestone: 200 live classes!
Those Joomla and Drupal classes were held all across North America and England, from Los Angeles to London and from Vancouver to Miami.
This year's landmark also coincided with the holiday season and so we've decided to give back again, only bigger and better:
Alphabetical Sorting of Drupal Nodes Using Views
This tutorial is designed to do two things:
- Show you how to sort Drupal nodes alphabetically
- Introduce you to the Views module
Views is, without question, the most important Drupal module that is not in the core. It allows you to use a graphical interface to sort and organize all your nodes. It a powerful but also complex module and it can take a lot of time to learn all its features. This tutorial will only help you get your feet wet.
This particular tutorial was inspired by a site member who had the contact details of many employees stored as nodes. They wanted to make an alphabetical directory of all the staff members.
Node Gallery: Photo Gallery in Drupal
Creating a photo gallery is the same as with most things in Drupal: there are many different ways to reach your goal.
In this tutorial we're going to show you the quickest and easiest way: using the Node Gallery module.
How to Move a WordPress Site
This tutorial will show you how to move a WordPress site from one folder to another.
In our example we're going to move the WP site from a folder called /blog/ and place it in the root of our site. That means that instead of accessing the site from http://example.com/blog/ we can now go directly to http://example.com.
Managing Your WordPress Multisites
In Part 1 of our WordPress Multisites tutorial we showed you how to enable multisites for your WordPress installation.
Here in Part 2 we're going to show you how to build your network, managing users, themes and plugins. By the end of this tutorial your users will be able to freely create and manage their own blogs:
WordPress Pagebreaks and How to Use Them
This tutorial will show you how to split a long WordPress post or page into several sections. People will click 1, 2, 3 to go to the first, second or third page respectively.
Open Up A Post or Page
In order to split a post or page, we need to edit it directly. Go ahead and open up the post or page and then clck HTML in the top right corner.
Insert the Pagebreak Code
Insert this code into the article anywhere you want a pagebreak:
Save the post or page and visit the front of your site. You should that pagination has now been created at the bottom of the article.
Drupal File Manager - Filedepot
One of the most frequent questions we've had in our Drupal training classes is ... "Does Drupal have a good file manager?".
The class attendees had often found solutions, but they were cobbled together from an assortment of modules and often lacked common features in file managers.
Our answer is Filedepot, which is an advanced file manager that works right out of the box and relies only on the CCK and Filefield modules.
Finding Broken Images in Drupal
One of our students was having problems finding why some images were visible on her site and others weren't. There's no one-size-fits-all answer to this problem, but here is one way to start closing in on the answer.
Install the Web Developer Toolbar for Firefox
If you haven't done so already, install Firefox on your computer. You can download it from http://www.mozilla.com/firefox/
Then, with Firefox open, search Google for "webdeveloper toolbar".
Click "Add to Firefox" and you'll be able install the Web Developer toolbar. It will look like the image below.
Troubleshooting Your Site
The image above is a sample Drupal node. It is meant to have two images but one is missing. Here's how we'd start to look for the error:
Click "Images" and then "Find Broken Images". You'll see a result like the one below:
In this case the problem is obvious - I've written http://drul.org instead of http://drupal.org. However if your problem is more difficult, this technique will still tell you where Drupal is looking for the file and hopefully it will give you enough hints to fix the problem.
Move Your Drupal Site to a New Location
This tutorial will show you how to move your Drupal site from one server to another. This example uses two live servers, however the same principles also apply for moving to or from a local server.
Your Drupal Site
I'm going to move a straight-forward Drupal install to a new location. Each Drupal site has two halves - the files and the database. We're going to move one and then the other. Finally we'll make sure they can talk to each other.
Download the Files to Your Desktop
Step 1 is to download all of your Drupal site's files to your desktop.
Upload the Files to Your New Server
Step 2 is to upload them all your new server.
Export Your Old Database
For accesing the Drupal database I'm using phpMyAdmin which is commonly used by hosting companies and localhost setps. Find your site's database and click on "Export".
You'll need to export your database as SQL. I've chosen to also compress it using Gzip so that the process is a little quicker. Finally click Go.
Import to the New Database
I'm also using phpMyAdmin at the new site. Click "Import".
Choose the file that you just exported and click "Go" to import it into the new database.
Check to make sure that all the tables have imported sucessfully.
Change Settings.php
Finally we need to make sure that our files and database can talk to each other.
Login to your site's files and go to /sites/default/ and open settings.php. There are two things you'll need to change.
On line 92, chang the $db_url line to reflect the new database name, username and password.
On line 125, change $base_url to reflect the location of your new site.
That's it. Visit your Drupal site in it's new location and it should be live.
How to Install WordPress Locally on a P.C.
This tutorial will show you how to install WordPress locally on your P.C..
We're going to use WAMP for this task. WAMP stands for "Windows, Apache, MySQL, PHP" which are the different elements that allow you to run WordPress on your computer.
Here's how you do it:
Video on How to Install WordPress Locally on a P.C.
Step 1: Install WAMP
Download WAMP to your computer.- Run through the WAMP installation process.
- In your taskbar, down the by the date in the bottom-right hand corner of your screen, look for the WAMP icon. Click on that icon.
- You should see a popup. Click "Start All Services" and then click "Localhost."
- Hopefully you'll see a white screen with the Wampserver logo in the top-left corner.
Step 2: Download WordPress
Go to WordPress.org and click on the blue button saying "Download WordPress 3.0.x".- The file you download should have a name like wordpress-3.0.1.zip
Step 3: Move WordPress to WAMP
- Click on the WAMP icon in your taskbar again and now click "www directory". This will take you to the folder where WAMP stores its websites.
- Move your WordPress folder from Step 2 into this directory.
- Extract the WordPress folder.
- It will be confusing to keep accessing the website through a folder called /wordpress-3.0.1/ so rename the folder to something simple such as /wordpress/
Step 4: Set up our database
- Click on the WAMP icon in your taskbar again and now click "phpMyAdmin". This will take you to the software where WordPress's databases are managed.
- Find the field labelled "Create new database" and enter "wordpress". Click "Create".
- Hopefully you'll see the name "wordpress" appear in the left column.
Step 5: Install WordPress
In your browser, visit this address: http://localhost/wordpress. You'll see the the WordPress installation screen as below:
Installation Step 1
On the first screen, simply click "Create a Configuration File".
Installation Step 2
On the second screen, simply click "Let's Go!".
Installation Step 3
Here you will need to enter the database information:
- Host Name: Localhost
- Username: root
- Password: [leave this blank]
- Database: wordpress
Installation Step 4
Simply click "Run the install".
Installation Step 5
Enter the name of your site plus the password and email you'd like to use.
Installation Step 6
You should now have a shiny new installation of WordPress on your P.C. where you can develop your website securely in your local environment.
Using Rokbox in Wordpress
Rokbox is a popular plugin made by Rockettheme for Joomla. It allows you to display images inside a stylish pop-up. You can see the Joomla version of this tutorial by clicking here.
However, there is also a WordPress version available and here's how to use it:
Download Rokbox and Upload to Your Site
Click here to download the Rokbox plugin for WordPress. You'll then need to extract the folder onto your desktop. Upload it to the /wp-content/plugins/ folder on your site
Activate Rokbox
In your WordPress site admin area, go to the Plugins and click "Activate" next to RokBox Gallery
Add an Image to a Post
Go to one of your WordPress posts and click the "Add an image" button. Insert an image into your post. It end result should look like it does below:
View the HTML
Click the "HTML" tab in the top-right of your post.
Insert the RokBox Code
Insert rel="rokbox" into the HTML. The best place to do this is right after the opening
Find and Edit Drupal CSS Problems
The purpose of this tutorial is to show you how to find and fix problems with your Drupal templates. We're going to focus on CSS issues such as fonts, colors and padding.
Download and Install Firefox
No question about it, Firefox is the best tool you can find for fixing problem on your website. Download from http://www.mozilla.com/firefox and install.
Install the Web Developer Plugin
Firefox is useful for the same reason as Joomla ... it has 1000s of amazing addons. The one we're going to use is called "Web Developer". Visit https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/60 in your Firefox browser and click "Add to Firefox".
Visit Your Joomla Site
We're going to use a default Drual install for this tutorial.
Diagonse Your Problem
In this example, our welcome message is too small. We'd like to have "Welcome to your new Drupal website!" in larger text.
Start the Webdeveloper toolbar
Click "CSS" in the toolbar and then click "View Style Information"
Click the item you want to edit
Hover your mouse over any part of the page and a red box will appear around it. Click on that area.
See the CSS Code at the bottom of the page
At the bottom of the page you'll get a lot of information about why that item on your site looks like it does. Here's what's controlling the "Welcome to the Frontpage" line:
1: The file with it's exact location
2: The exact line number inside that file
3: The code at that line number
In this case you can see that the font-size is 170%. We now know exactly which line in which file to edit.