About Drupal

Drupal is an open source Content Management System (CMS) comprising freesoftware that has a core set of technologies and is fully extensible via the use of additional modules. Drupal web sites can be built to suit a variety of purposes from personal blogs to large corporate structures. A wide range of functionalities from blogging and podcasting through to resource management and e-commerce can also be incorporated.

"Born" in 2001, Drupal has won the 2007 and 2008 "Best Overall Open Source CMS Award", as well as being inducted into the Hall of Fame in the 2009 Open Source CMS Awards. A lot of the development and maintenance of Drupal is done by volunteers.

Some Basic Drupal Concepts

Drupal allows users to create a range of content, referred to as "nodes" in Drupal lingo. Nodes are like "lumps" of information and content and can range in type from basic blog-like entries, to video and audio players and playlists, to polls, to tag clouds and more.

What you can create on a Dupal system depends on your user level. On soundhouse.org.au there are currently 2 levels of subscriber users - Authenticated User and sma2web2 member. The content or references to the content (in the case of uploaded images, for example) are stored in a database. Depending on the type of content created, the options selected by the user during the content creation, administrative settings and module functionality, the "node" of content may be displayed in a variety of methods. For example, a single image post may appear in thumbnail format in the "Latest Image" block, as a preview in the image post summary listing, as a preview in the actual post or as the actual original when someone browsing the site clicks "original" link at the bottom of the Image Post.

For an extensive list of Drupal terms you can visit the Terminology section of the Drupal.org web site.