Drupal Demo: Chingri Maachh-like community site (multi-user blogs, forums, calendar, etc.) - part 2a

For this Drupal walkthrough, you will need your own Drupal install.

Goal

Create a community website, like Chingri Maach, so that members may:

  • register and receive their password by email
  • login and create their own blogs
  • members and guests may comment, add to forums, events calendar, and classifieds
  • publish read-only city-specific community information including:
    • residential neighbourhoods
    • shopping locations
    • schools
    • etc

Functional Requirements

  • The site will consist of the following sections:
    • City-specific informational pages
    • Drupal community geocoded tutorial walkthrough
    • Per-member blogs
    • Drupal community blog tutorial walkthrough
    • Events calendar
    • Drupal community calendar tutorial walkthrough
    • Classifieds
    • Drupal community classifieds tutorial walkthrough
    • Forums
    • Drupal community forum tutorial walkthrough
  • Member features and user permissions
    • Access levels will enable guests, members, and editors to add specific content types. For example:
      • Guests will be able to comment
      • Members will be able to add blog entries
      • Editors will be able to add informational pages
    • During registration, members are required to entire profile information (city, interests, etc.) and agree to the site's terms, conditions, and policies.
    • Members are able to create their own networks/buddy lists.
  • Informational pages: Geocoding city shops and other locations
    • Informational pages are city specific and allow for geocoded city shop information

Technical Requirements

  • Drupal install
  • Drupal modules (add-ons)*: Full list
  • Drupalspeak: The Drupal tasks accomplished during this walkthrough:
    • Configuring Drupal core modules
    • Configuring Drupal contributed modules
    • Creating a new node type: Store
    • Creating views to display filtered lists of nodes: Stores by state

* Installation steps described below

The following notation convention will be used to differentiate between navigating your file system (<folder>/<subfolder>) and navigating Drupal via a web browser (admin >> content).

Implementation steps

Parta 2a of this Drupal Demo will include the implementation steps for the core Drupal modules, and the remaining implementation steps will be concluded in a subsequent blog entry.

  1. Enable the following core modules: admin >> site building >> modules
    1. Display external feeds on your site: Aggregator
    2. Per-member blogs: Blog
    3. Comment
    4. Email submission via a site form: Contact
    5. Forum
    6. Help
    7. Customize site navgiation: Menu
    8. Meaningful URLs (By default Drupal URLs look like this:
      http://web-two-oh.com.au/?q=node/1
      Enable the core Path module to enable meaningful paths such as http://web-two-oh.com.au/?q=aboutus)
      Path
    9. Conduct member surveys and collect votes: Poll
    10. Request additional information from registered members: Profile
    11. Search
    12. Allow tagging of content: Taxonomy
    13. View a recent updates list: Tracker
  2. Edit the site's meta data: admin >> site configuration >> site information:
    Name = Aussie Web 2.0 Community
    Email = contact@web-two-oh.com.au
    Slogan = The Aussie Web 2.0 community
    Mission = Providing a Web 2.0 space for members of the Aussie Web 2.0 community.
    Footer = Copyright © 2007 Aussie Web 2.0 Community
  3. Clean URLs: By default Drupal URLs look like this:
    http://web-two-oh.com.au/?q=node/1
    By enabling the core Path module and clean URLs, allow URLs such as
    http://web-two-oh.com.au/aboutus
    admin >> site configuration >> clean URLs >> run test and enable clean URLs
  4. Aggregate external news feeds: admin >> content management >> news aggregatorDrupal rss feed aggregator tutorial walkthrough
  5. Create a main bulletin board/discussion forum: admin >> content management >> forums
    Drupal forum tutorial walkthrough
  6. User access levels/permissions: admin >> user managemet >> access control
    Enable the pre-determined user rules:
    • Guests will be able to comment
    • Members will be able to add blog entries
    • Editors will be able to add informational pages

    Drupal user access level permissions tutorial walkthrough

  7. The menu/navigational configurations will be added when content is added

... to be continued in part 2b