Following is basic information about the technology behind this xolotl.org blogging website. This page will be updated as the site continues to evolve.
LAMP Platform
- Linux: 2.6.9-55.0.9.ELsmp (other *nix should be ok)
- Apache: 1.3.37 (Apache 2 should be ok)
- MySQL: 5.0.27 (MySQL 4 should be ok)
- PHP: 5.2.1 (PHP 4.4.x should be ok)
Drupal Content Management System
- Drupal: 5.6
Drupal Installation
- Procure a LAMP webserver environment similar to the one described above. Other platforms are possible (eg, LAPP, WAMP, WIMP, etc), but will not be discussed here. Read Drupal's system requirements for more information.
- Follow the standard Drupal installation procedures.
- Once Drupal is installed, check your site's system status (at [your domain]/admin/logs/status) to make sure you have properly and completely installed Drupal. Fix any reported issues.
Drupal Configuration
- Complete the basic Drupal site configuration.
- For basic settings, I recommend using clean URLs. You might wait to enable caching and/or disabling on-screen error reporting until you are ready to make your site live.
- Enable the core modules listed below.
- Install and enable the theme listed below, or choose another existing theme (I recommend using PHPTemplate themes), or design your own Drupal theme (Zen is a good theme on which to base a new design).
- Install and enable the contributed modules listed below. Any specific installation issues will be noted under each module listing.
- Set up a cron task that will visit your Drupal site on a regular basis to do basic housekeeping tasks automatically (eg, rebuilding the search index).
- Establish an OpenID identity with a provider (eg, myopenid.com) and use it to log in to your Drupal site. (Note: I don't recommend using Drupal's root administrative user as your daily blogging identity.)
- Start blogging!
Core Modules
Ultimately, all these core modules are optional, but some provide basic functionality you won't want to blog without.
- aggregator 5.6
Enables you to expose feeds (eg, RSS) from other sites on your site. - blog: 5.6
Blog enables multi-user blogging. If only one person will ever blog on your site, you don't need the blog module. However, even though I may be the only blogger on xolotl.org, I've enabled blog to establish handy navigation to my blog, and other modules may add useful functionality directly to blog. - comment 5.6
Enables you or other users to comment on your blog entries (or other content). - contact 5.6
Provides general site contact form. - help 5.6
Provides online help for Drupal features. - menu 5.6
Enables your site to have navigation menus. - path 5.6
Enables you to make URLs on your site more human and search-engine friendly. - ping 5.6
Alerts other sites when your site has been updated via ping-o-matic. - poll 5.6
Enables simple polling functionality. I'll occasionally be asking my blog readers to vote on simple polls. - search 5.6
Enables Drupal's built-in content search functionality. - statistics 5.6
Enables Drupal's built-in usage statistics functionality. - taxonomy 5.6
Enables you to categorize content with your own custom tags. - upload 5.6
Enables you to attach/upload files (eg, images, PDFs, etc) to content items.
Contributed Modules
- openid: 5.x-1.0
Enables OpenID authentication. Note that I did some user login, login block, register and password form templating to override stock forms provided by Drupal and this OpenID module. My goal: allow only OpenID authentication. - service_links: 5.x-1.x-dev
Automatically adds Digg, del.icio.us, reddit, Technorati etc. links to content items. - tagadelic: 5.x-1.x-dev
Tagadelic makes weighted tag clouds from your taxonomy terms. See the one in the column to the right. - trackback: 5.x-1.1 [currently disabled due to spam]
Automatically adds trackback links to content items. I'll use trackback at least until someone writes a Drupal pingback module. - wymeditor: 5.x-1.x
Enables a "what you mean is what you get" alternative to WYSIWYG editors. All the WYSIWYG editors have their pluses and minuses; maybe wymeditor is the answer.
Theme
- framework: 5.x-1.6
I'm using a slightly modified version of the Framework theme by Andre Griffin. My modifications are only to incorporate my own custom random image header and to default to OpenID authentication.
