My Introduction to Drupal 101

July marked the start of my time as the newest Project Manager at Evolving Web. My first task was to learn as much as possible about Drupal. As a newbie, I couldn’t have asked for a better system to familiarize myself with. I’m not a technical person by nature, so having to learn about web-based programs and languages was a daunting task. But the wealth of information available on Drupal, on everything from installing the program to configuring modules, was reassuring.

First step: studying the rather weighty Drupal 6 manual by David Mercer. Now, I am a Political Science graduate, so reading through 100+ page pdf’s is nothing new. But this book is taking me (yes, its an ongoing process) forever to get through. Thankfully, the awesome developers at Evolving Web created a Drupal site for me to play around with to complement my reading. With my administrator privileges, I am learning more about the site’s themes, can play around with blocks and, my favourite, figuring out the intricacies of views.

I have also been following a few videos presented at various DrupalCons. Doug Vann’s Beginning Drupal presentation is an easy, step-by-step guide to creating a drupal blog. My favourite so far is a presentation by Vanessa Turke on managing client expectations and delivering value. Vanessa’s easy style makes for an interesting hour of pointers on how to ensure client satisfaction on a tight budget and time frame. While her presentation is not as technical as Doug’s, it directly addressed some of the issues I will face as a project manager.

Other resources I found helpful include the instruction videos on Lullabot, Dries’ informative State of Drupal address at DrupalCon SF and, of course, the forums at drupal.org. Wikipedia has also become my new best friend, with me searching terms from the obvious (pagination) to the slightly less obvious (OPML...eh?)

So, while my learning curve is still pretty steep, I’m learning new things everyday and am getting more comfortable with Drupal. It certainly helps to have an active community like that at drupal.org as a resource during this process!