Building a Drupal web site from scratch and need help?
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Despite it's name, Build a Module.com is an excellent resource even if you're totally new to Drupal or web site building in general. The Build Your First Drupal 7 Web Site collection contains over 200 videos (11 hours) to take you through the process of building a fully functioning Drupal web site from the ground up.
As you may have discovered already, Drupal is fairly deep. If you have a difficult time wrapping your mind around Drupal, you're not alone. Because it solves so many of the problems that site builders of all levels face, it means there is a lot of functionality to get familiar with, and a lot of moving pieces that all connect in unique ways.
A great way to begin to understand Drupal is to just dive in and start building a site, clicking around and trying to figure out how everything works. But an even better way is to look over the shoulder of an experienced site builder and watch them accomplish common tasks like building a contact form, adding new menu items or adding new fields to a content type.
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The Build Your First Drupal 7 Web Site collection allows you do to just that (but it's even better because you can rewind!). The collection is carefully crafted to cover the most important concepts and techniques you need as a Drupal site builder. Even though the entire collection is 11 hours long, no time is wasted. Each bite-sized video is highly focused, and by the time you're done, you'll be able to do any of the following and a lot, lot more:
- Install Drupal in minutes without having to set up a local server
- Evaluate and install modules
- Create and repair Views (Views are lists of content)
- Create content type structures and link them up with references
- Build vocabularies and use terms to aggregate content
- Dynamically modify user-uploaded images
- Create meaningful and search-engine friendly paths for your content, and modify them later
- Adjust the look and feel of any page
- Create and modify menus and blocks
A super practical site-building project
Even though we'll be covering a ton of material, it is done so in the framework of a single hypothetical project, where we've been hired by an adventure company called MagnifAscent to build a site that matches a set of mockups we've been provided. This example is very similar to what you will find in the real world of site building, and we make sure to take every opportunity to introduce you to practical techniques for solving difficult problems along the way.
In the course of building our site, things don't always go smoothly. We run into errors and install modules that don't quite work the way we hoped. But, we work through the errors and give you a set of techniques you can use when you run into similar problems on other projects.
In the end, you will have built a multi-page, dynamic site that includes a calendar, several different content types, a custom contact form and more.
Learn more about the "Build Your First Drupal 7 Web Site" collection.
Extending your site building skills with essential theming tips
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Once you're comfortable working with Drupal on the front end, you will probably need to get familiar with Drupal's theming layer so you can adjust the look and feel of your site in a sustainable way. In Drupal 7 Theming Essentials, we demonstrate a ton of techniques for customizing the look of your theme. We show you how easy it is to build a theme from scratch, and then continue on to demonstrate the more common scenarios of creating a sub-theme and modifying an existing theme directly.
When theming in Drupal, there is some basic PHP coding that is required to follow along. If you're new to PHP or it kind of freaks you out, there are a few videos in the Drupal 6 Development and Tools collection that will help you out with working with PHP arrays and creating functions.
A membership is an affordable way to get access to the entire video library, streaming on the Build a Module.com site. You get access both to the existing video tutorials and new ones as they come out, and new videos are usually added every week.
As a member, you also get access to other resources, including:
- Automatically tracking which videos you've completed
- Downloadable source code to follow along
- The ability to build playlists of videos you want to track
Memberships start at just $23 / month.
If you'd like to view the videos offline or want to view them at a higher resolution than you see on the site, then purchasing a download is a great option. Downloads can be imported into any media management software, like iTunes, to sync with tablets (they look great on an iPad) and other mobile devices.
Downloads come in Standard and High Definition formats. The Standard format is what you see streaming on the site. It's a perfect resolution (960 x 600) for mobile devices. The High Definition format is recorded at full resolution (1280 x 800) and at a much smoother frame rate, so it's nicer when using a computer monitor to view.
DVDs contain both the Standard and High Definition formats of the videos, so you can use them freely on mobile devices AND high-resolution monitors. They also include the resource pack on-disk (with free upgrades available on the site) so they're an all-in-one package. A DVD is also nice for a hands-on library, since you can easily stack it next to your other reference material.
If you have a slow or unreliable internet connection, a DVD can also save you some trouble since the downloads can be rather large.
DVDs are also shipped for FREE worldwide!
