Crossing Drupal

There has been a lot of buzz floating around the web regarding the content management system called Drupal.  Over the next couple of weeks I am going to investigate this growing platform from the perspective of a FileMaker developer.  Drupal is not a Filemaker replacement, but there are definite use cases where Drupal is an ideal content management choice. Instead of my regular posts about filemaker techniques, I will explore how Drupal is similar and different from my platform of choice.  With a nod to a good movie about exploring other cultures (Crossing Delancey) I am calling this series Crossing Drupal.

In this first installment I would like to simply lay out some simple terms, so we can all speak the same language.  A rosetta stone if you will.

First, let’s talk about what Drupal is.

What exactly is Drupal?

Drupal is a framework that lets you build a web site with dynamic content.  The web site happens to be built using PHP and the database is MySQL.  But you don’t really need to know that to get off the ground.  Drupal, like its cousin WordPress, is a tool to build websites.

I’m not a PHP or SQL expert how can I understand how to use this tool?

As a FileMaker developer, I typically think in terms of Tables, Fields, Relationships and Layouts.  Drupal has some of these things but they are not named the same.  Let’s mark out some places where these FileMaker terms have analogues in Drupal.

Drupal is a essentially a content management platform.  Content comes in different types.  A content type is similar to a FileMaker table.  On the default Drupal installation there are two content types: Pages and Stories.

Let’s take the default installation as an example.  You can think of this set of two content types as a two table file, in which each table contains two fields: title and body.  It’s possible to add more fields through the CCK (Core Construction Kit) module, but you always have the two ‘default’ fields to start with.  You can also add more Content Types.  Need to track Authors?  Make it a Content Type.  You can also enable a number of basic definedContent Types (Forum, Poll, Book Page, Comment, Blog Entry) that are disabled with the default install.. Just like using FileMaker, the purpose of the database will dictate the form that the database takes.  A Drupal site will be dependent on the purpose.  For a company that sells books, you might see the following content types:

• Books
• Authors
• Salespersons Blogs

For a community group you might see these content types:

• Members
• Committees
• Teams
• Group Blog (i.e. What’s New)
• Committee Minutes

The big message here is “Content Type” is like a FileMaker Table – at least conceptually. Put in more generic ERD terms, Content Types are Entities. Don’t be misled by this, however; if you look at the back end database a Drupal site creates, you will not find a Books table or a Members table.  All of this is abstracted away.  It is important to use the Drupal Tools provided, until you know what you are doing.

Next Steps

Over the next couple of entries I am going to demonstrate the power of this platform by building a simple web site for a fictitious store.  Our web site will have products listed and a Blog section.  The features include:

• Users of the site will be able to browse and search a product catalog.
• Users of the site will be able to read a blog where specific products are highlighted.

Once this is built I will show how to make simple links from the ‘public facing’ web site to a ‘back end’ FileMaker database.  The database will pull in product info from the FileMaker database.

Continue reading the next installment of this series.