Drupal

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Drupal
Image:Drupl icon.png <tr><th>Developer:</th><td>Dries Buytaert</td></tr><tr><th>Latest release:</th><td>4.7.4 / October 18, 2006</td></tr><tr><th>OS:</th><td>Cross-platform</td></tr>
Use:	content management framework, content management system, community and blog software <tr><th>License:</th><td>GPL</td></tr>
Website:	http://drupal.org

Drupal is a free software modular content management framework, content management system and blogging engine which was originally written by Dries Buytaert as a bulletin board system. Today, it is used by many high-traffic websites, including The Onion, Spread Firefox (CivicSpace, see below), Ourmedia, KernelTrap, and the Defective by Design campaign. It is particularly popular for building online communities, and has the tag line "Plumbing for communities". Drupal is written in PHP. As of October 18, 2006, the current version is 4.7.4.

1 Meaning of Drupal
2 Content Management System
3 Criticism
4 Distributions
5 Books
6 Notable Sites Using Drupal
7 References
8 See also
9 External links

[edit] Meaning of Drupal

Drupal is an English transliteration of the Dutch word “druppel” which means “drop” (as in, “a drop of water”). The name was taken from the Drop.org website (now defunct), whose code slowly evolved into Drupal. Dries actually wanted to call the site “dorp” (Dutch for “village”, referring to its community aspects), but made a typo when checking the domain name and thought it sounded better. The project was started in 2000.

[edit] Content Management System

Drupal has a basic layer, or core, which supports pluggable modules that enable additional behaviors. The modules available for Drupal provide a wide assortment of features, including e-commerce systems such as the Amazon Items module<ref>Amazon Items drupal module</ref>, work-flow, photo galleries, mailing list management, and CVS integration.

Drupal's modular design and well-documented, clean codebase make it easier for individuals with knowledge of PHP to write code for additional features. Drupal is often used to build sites that focus on user communities.

[edit] Modules

Drupal's taxonomy<ref>Taxonomy, Drupal's category management system</ref> or categorization system is especially customizable as it enables any content to be classified in a way entirely determined by the site administrator. This is one feature that sets Drupal apart from similar systems with its high degree of flexibility provided without the need for coding. Once set up the taxonomy module can “automatically classify new content”. The flip side to this advantage is that the configuration is more demanding. In some cases it may take more time to create well structured setup.

A more extreme example is the high degree of automation possible with the Actions and Workflow modules. This requires the two modules to be setup using features from both. Thankfully there are extensive support documentation and videos to help configure the Workflow and Actions modules<ref>videos to help configure the Workflow and Actions modules</ref> to achieve tasks such as sending out notices of new content.

Drupal achieves clean integration between the core and the modules via a system of hooks, or callbacks, to allow modules to insert functions into Drupal's path of execution. Drupal core provides protection against many of the usual security problems, like SQL injection.

[edit] Themes

Most themes for Drupal are written in the PHPTemplate engine<ref>"PHPTemplate theme engine", Drupal.org.</ref> or the XTemplate engine<ref>"XTemplate theme engine", Drupal.org.</ref>. Earlier templates used hard-coded PHP.

In earlier versions, Drupal's theming system has been criticised <ref>"How does Drupal compare to Mambo?" discussion thread, Drupal.org.</ref> as being less design-oriented and more complicated than the systems for Mambo and Plone. With the inclusion of the PHPTemplate and XTemplate engines, these criticisms are generally no longer valid.

[edit] Drupal Examples

Some of the more specialized roles that Drupal has filled include company intranets, online classrooms, art communities, and project management. It has been used for applications including the following:

The Ann Arbor District Library<ref>Ann Arbor District Library's award-winning website</ref> used Drupal in building an award-winning website<ref>"American Library Association Awards Ann Arbor District Library Website Best of Show" (news release), June 13, 2006.</ref> that includes a number of custom-added features, such as enabling individual library patrons to create their own personalized card catalogs.
A number of political campaigns, such as the Jack Carter for Senate campaign in Nevada, have created Drupal-based campaign websites.
CiviCRM, a contact relationship management system that integrates with Drupal, has made Drupal an attractive platform for nonprofit organizations such as Greenpeace UK. <ref>Greenpeace UK CMS Selection</ref>
Drupal has also been used to create hyperlocal citizen journalism websites in towns such as Bluffton, South Carolina<ref>Bluffton, South Carolina</ref> and Watertown, Massachusetts<ref>Watertown, Massachusetts</ref>.

[edit] Criticism

Drupal has been considered by some<ref>Alister Lewis-Bowen et al., "Using open source software to design, develop, and deploy a collaborative Web site," IBM, July 11, 2006.</ref> to be more difficult to install and to configure than a CMS such as Mambo, or basic blogging tools such as WordPress or Movable Type. Drupal 5.0 will come with a web-based installer to answer these criticisms<ref>Drupal 5.0 beta 1 October 31, 2006. Accessed November 3, 2006.</ref>

Some also believe that Drupal has a very steep learning curve and that one must be proficient with databases to use it effectively. The ability to install and update the database through a GUI was added in version 4.7.

[edit] Distributions

Drupal 4.2 <ref>http://drupal.org/node/4877#comment-7552</ref> was the basis for DeanSpace, a content management system used to power many independent websites supporting the 2004 presidential campaign of Howard Dean. After the Dean campaign ended, the DeanSpace project grew into CivicSpace, a Drupal-based "grassroots organizing platform that empowers collective action inside communities and cohesively connects remote groups of supporters." CivicSpace<ref>CivicSpace, a significant contributor to the Drupal project</ref> includes CiviCRM and other features useful on websites for nonprofit organizations and political campaigns.

There are several other customized Drupal distributions. Most are simply drupal repackaged with third party modules, but some also include modifications to the core. They include:

DrupalEd, for classroom and educational use.
DrupalART, aimed at artists and musicians using Drupal.
vbDrupal, Drupal integrated with vBulletin.

[edit] Books

Drupal has been discussed in several books.

A new book called Pro Drupal Development is due out in spring 2007.

[edit] Notable Sites Using Drupal

Notable websites using Drupal or one of its distributions include:

Ain't It Cool News
The Allerian Empire, a play-by-post collaborative fiction website (using vBDrupal)
Bureaucrash, a freedom activist network
Defective by Design, a political campaign by the Free Software Foundation
Ecademy, a social networking site (modified software)
Esperanto League for North America, which is on the cutting edge of Drupal use in the Esperanto community
mariposaHD, a high definition television program distributed over the Internet
MTV.co.uk, British MTV's site
KernelTrap, a computing news website
New Democratic Party, a social-democratic political party in Canada
The Onion, a satire magazine
Ourmedia, a community media archive
Rant Media, an Internet media outlet (Drupal is used for the community section)
Spread Firefox, a campaign to increase distribution of the Firefox web browser
TWiT, a technology podcast network
Chris Pirillo former TechTV host and internet entrepreneur.