Drupal 101 - Getting Started

Drupal can be a little daunting when your first getting started. The CMS uses weird words and has kind of a weird way of doing things. Half the battle is learning how to learn about Drupal. This guide will take you through some key aspects of Drupal culture that will save you hours of frustration.

• Menus and Blocks: I'm not going to walk your through everything about menus and blocks. A lot of this is just experimenting until you get it. When you configure a block look at the options at the bottom of the config page. You can control which pages show up on which blocks. This will give you local navigation where you need it.
• Views and CCK: CCK and Views are the backbone of Drupal. 80 percent of the Ah Ha coolness comes from these two modules. You need to read up on these two modules to understand them. Read about CCK here, and read about Views here. If you understand how these modules work, then you have a pretty good understanding of Drupal.
• How to Get Help: Every Drupal noob gets stuck and the first thing they do is go to the main forum and post some crazy question, and nobody responds. It's not because the people at Drupal are jerks, it's because you've posted in the wrong area. If you have a question about how a module works, post in the issue que for that module. For instance, if you are having problems with image field, you need to post your issue in the issue que for image field. On every module page there is a link that says "view pending support request." That's where you go to get help. They are much more responsive, and especially so for the major modules.