Terminology

  • Administrator
    The individual(s) responsible for managing a Drupal Web site, including the presentation of its content. Administrators can change the theme, modules, design, and content of a site.
     
  • Anonymous User
    Individuals who do not have an account on a specific Drupal site or who have not logged in. (A default role on every Drupal site.)
     
  • Authenticated User
    Individuals who have an account on a specific Drupal site. (A default role on every Drupal site.)
     
  • Blocks
    Blocks are boxes of content that are visible in different regions of a site. For example, blocks can be placed in the left- and right-hand sidebars of a site. The location of a block depends upon the modules and theme used. You can also create custom blocks to place them on a page.
     
  • Blog
    A blog (weblog) is an online journal. The Drupal blog module allows every registered site user to post blog entries. Entries are time-stamped and appear with the most recent item at the top of the list.
     
  • Book
    A Drupal book is a sequential set of pages that can have its own navigation block for moving around within the content. You can set permissions so that users with certain roles can contribute to the book. On each book page, Drupal automatically includes links to the previous and next page. A book also features an automatic contents page. 
     
  • Content Provider
    A role designed for people who will be adding information to or editing content on a Drupal Web site.
     
  • Content Type
    All content in a Drupal site is associated with a particular type. Every Drupal site contains two default content types: page and story. Each content type has its own settings, which a site administrator can change. As you add modules to a site, other content types become available. In addition, you can create your own content types to customize a site.
     
  • CSS
    A Cascading Style Sheet (CSS) is a styling language that allows you to add styles (e.g., font selection, colors, font sizes, etc.) to a Drupal site. Using a CSS, you can customize the Drupal theme you use.
     
  • Input Formats
    When you edit a Drupal page, Input format is one of the options immediately under the editing box. Clicking Input format produces two options: Filtered HTML and Full HTML. Each option is followed by a list of features. A more extensive description of each option is available through a link at the bottom of the Input format box.
     
  • Menus
    A Drupal menu is a navigation system. Menus may appear as lists of links or as tabs, depending upon the theme used. Every Drupal site contains three menus by default: Navigation, Primary links, and Secondary links. The Navigation menu contains links for navigating a site and appears in the left or right sidebar. Primary and Secondary links are displayed in either the header or footer of each page. Placement of the menus is determined by the site's theme. You can also create menus and submenus and link to items both within a Drupal site and external to it. Once you've created a menu, it is placed in a block which you can move to different locations on a site.
     
  • Modules
    A module is software (code) that extends Drupal's features and functionality. "Core" modules are those included with the every download of Drupal. "Contributed" modules can be downloaded to further extend the functionality of a Drupal site. After modules are downloaded, the site administrator must enable them and assign privileges for the site participants to be able to use them.
     
  • Node
    All Drupal content is stored as a node. Each node is classified as a type. For example, a story, an image, and a book page are all types of nodes.
     
  • Page
    A Drupal page is a content type that contains static content (e.g., "Contact Us" and "About Us" sections) and, most often, menu items. When you select Page from the "Create Content" menu, you will see a form on which you are required to enter a title for a page. You type the content in the body section of the form, formatting it with HTML codes or using a WYSIWYG editor.
     
  • Permissions
    After you enable a Drupal module, you must assign the privileges each of the roles in a site will have for that module.

  • Preview
    The Preview button, located at the bottom of the editing window, lets you see what a Drupal page will look like when it is published. You will see a "trimmed version" and a "full version" of the page. The trimmed version shows what a page or post looks like when it is promoted to the main page or exported for syndication. The full version shows an entire page or post.
     
  • Preview Changes
    The Preview Changes button, located at the bottom of the editing window, lets you compare changes you have made to Drupal pages or posts. On the left side of the window, the original version is highlighted in yellow with words you've changed in red text. On the right side of the window, the changed version is highlighted in green with changes you've made in red text.
     
  • Publish
    For people to see content you add to a Drupal site, you must first publish it. The Publishing options link at the bottom of the editing window allows you to select how content will be published. Options are "Published," "Promoted to front page," and "Sticky at top of lists." If you select "Promoted to front page," the teaser for the content will appear on the site's first page. If you select "Sticky at top of lists," the content will always appear at the top of the site.
     
  • Publisher
    A role designed so that a Web site can have a "publisher" who approves a content provider's submissions before they are published on the site.
     
  • Region
    A region is a area of a Drupal site. A site might contain header, footer, sidebars, and content regions. Within regions, blocks contain the menus and content for a site.
     
  • Roles
    Roles are sets of permissions that can be applied to individual users. An individual can have more than one role. Two roles, authenticated users and anonymous users, are included in every Drupal site, and additional roles can be defined. The UDrupal service has five pre-defined roles.
     
  • RSS
    RSS (Really Simple Syndication) is a Web feed format used to publish frequently updated content such as blog entries and news headlines. An RSS document, called a feed, contains either a summary of content (teaser) from a Web site or the full text. Drupal allows you to install a module to generate RSS feeds for a site.
     
  • Story
    A Drupal story is a content type that features a title, teaser, and a body. A story contains time-sensitive information like announcements or news. It is analogous to an article. The teaser for a story appears on the site's home page.
     
  • Tag
    A term used to describe a piece of content. Depending upon how the site is constructed, you may choose tags from a list or create them yourself.
     
  • Taxonomy
    Taxonomy is a classification scheme. Drupal allows you to use taxonomies to categorize information on a site. Drupal uses vocabularies of tags to build the site organization. Vocabularies can contain tags for basic site orgainzation, hierarchical organization, or "free" terms provided by those who are writing the content.

  • Theme
    A theme is a collection of files that define the look and feel of a Drupal site. You can also create variations on a theme (i.e., a sub-theme).
     
  • UD Core
    UD core is the name given to the basic Drupal modules that are included in the UDrupal installation.
     
  • ud-drupal-admin
    ud-drupal-admin is the name of the super-user role for the UDrupal server. This role has all permissions turned on for all the server's content.
     
  • URL
    The Uniform Resource Locator (URL) is the address that identifies the location of a site on the Internet.
     
  • View(s)
    A contributed module that provides site developers a simple graphical interface for changing the way content is presented. Views permit selection of specific fields to display, filtration for node attributes, basic layout options (e.g., list, full nodes, teasers, etc.), and other advanced features.

  • Weight
    Weight defines the priority (or order) in which a function is processed or a block or node is displayed. A lower weight value (-10) will float to the top of a list, while a heavier weight (+10) will float closer to the bottom of a list.

  • Workflow
    A workflow allows content to travel a preset path before it is published to the world. For example, a story might have a draft stage, a review stage, and an approval stage that would be required before the information would be published.
     
  • WYSIWYG
    WYSIWYG is an acronym for "What You See is What You Get." A WYSIWYG editor allows you to format text using menu items. Drupal offers several editors that can be enabled by a site administrator.