use of drupal & other cmss for knowledge build up on ... · which cms is easier to begin with...

Use of Drupal & Other CMSs

for a

Site on Decentralization

by

K Rajasekharan

Kerala Institute of Local Administration(KILA)

KLA National Seminar, 14-16 July 2011, Thiruvananthapuram

It is all about a siteon Local Governance http://decwatch.org

built on Drupal & Other CMSs


http://decwatch.org/

It looks like this


A Section is on High Court Judgment


There are pages for E Documents with Search


Act , Rules & Others are put with easy Navigation


Free E Journals with Custom Search


It adds a News Archive using Blogger


A Video Repository using Blogger is there


It integrates an Article Archive


Maintains A Mail Group for Discussions


E Learning Site using Moodle is linked to


Software Used for the Site

• Drupal : One of the best, useful for many uses

• Wordpress : Very popular, easy to use, beautiful

• Moodle : one of the best E-Learning tool

• Blogger : Popular blog site

• Google Groups: for email discussions

• Scribd.com & Such sites linked to it to bring in

outside content


How to Build a Drupal Site


Mc Master University Library’s Drupal Site


How the Drupal Installation is

• On Apache, MySQL, PhP (LAMP/WAMP)

• XAMPP contains all the three configured

• Copy the contents of the CMS into the htdocs of

the web server


Go to phpMyAdmin


Create a MySQL Database


Drupal Installation : Opening Screen


Configure Database


Configure Site


Add functionality to Site


Site Administration Page : to do other things


Theme : to Change the Look


Regions & Blocks for Content Placing


Module Enabling Page


Modules : Configuring


Navigation Menu : Editing


How to Give Permission to Users


Easy to Creating a Page


How to Upload a Live Site

• Get a url & web space from a provider

• Create a database using the Cpanel

• Upload the CMS to server by using filezilla/ftp

application

• Type url (http://sitename.com) on a browser

• Configure to make the site


http://sitename.com/

What to be Taken Care of

• Planning the site is critical

• the Design to be cute

• think quality of contents

• Pages to be added with links to more resources

• Use slide share, flicker etc to support

• Use free archiving space to ease out


What to Know When Building

• Keep users in mind

• Content is the King

• Comparative knowledge on equivalent Software

• Emerging media types, players, uses etc

• Ways to promote sites use


A CMS Site Builder requires

Content worth-delivering

Craft

Creativity &

Technology


What make

a site exciting


Information Architecture (IA)

Structuring, Organization,

Categorization, labeling,

search, and navigation for

Information Usability


Graphic Design

Use Design Principles

length, breadth, grid

etc to make the Site

Attractive


The Art of Typography

The contrast between

fonts & between text,

blocks & surroundings.

A film is there on

typography, design & visual

culture


Integrated Use of Colours

Colours can set a mood,

attract attention &

use of content easier.

Learn Principles of

Colour Use


Which CMS is easier to begin with

• Wordpress is, perhaps, the easiest & nice looking

• Joomla is popular as is being used by CDIT

• Drupal is an advanced one with many utilities

• Moodle installation is CMS like

• Bogger & Wordpress are good blog sites to begin

with


Library Laws & Use of CMS

CMS helps in Inclusive library

service so as to make digital

information reach users, the

reverse and easy growth of

knowledge
