Ric Shreves - Drupal 7 Bible

Drupal 7 Bible

Ric Shreves

Brice Dunwoodie

Drupal 7 Bible

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Copyright 2011 by Wiley Publishing, Inc., Indianapolis, Indiana

Published by Wiley Publishing, Inc., Indianapolis, Indiana

Published simultaneously in Canada

ISBN: 978-0-470-53030-6

Manufactured in the United States of America

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About the Authors

Ric Shreves is a partner at water&stone ( www.waterandstone.com ), a digital agency focused on open-source technologies and new media. He's been building Web sites professionally since 1999 and writing about technology for almost as long. He's published several books on open-source content management systems, including titles on Mambo, Joomla!, and Drupal. This is his fourth title with Wiley, having previously released Mambo Visual Blueprint, Ubuntu Visual Blueprint, and Joomla! Bible.

Ric is an American who has lived in Asia since 1995. He currently resides in Bali, Indonesia, with his wife Nalisa. You can learn more about Ric and his most recent work by visiting his Web site at http://RicShreves.net .

Brice Dunwoodie is the founder of Simpler Media Group, Inc., and the publisher of CMSWire ( www.cmswire.com ), a niche online magazine focused on information management, enterprise collaboration, and Web publishing. He is also the co-founder of Cylogy, Inc. ( www.cylogy.com ), an information technology consulting firm based in San Francisco, California, since 2001.

Brice started his career at Oracle Corporation in the mid-1990's and worked with San Francisco-based start-ups and Macromedia during the Internet boom before taking a more entrepreneurial path. For the past 15 years, he has consulted with a broad range of international clients, including Singapore Telecom, IBM, France Telecom, Gawker Media, Union Bank of Switzerland, the United Nations, SX2 Media Labs, and the U.S. Federal Reserve. He currently splits his time among San Francisco, Budapest, and Paris.

Few outside of the open-source world realize how many people it takes to create and support a project like Drupal. Without the (largely anonymous!) efforts of these people, Drupal would never have achieved the success it enjoys today. We'd like to dedicate this book to the many volunteers who have put in innumerable hours building the Drupal system and creating the community that is the heart of the project.

Credits

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Vice President and Executive Publisher

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Introduction

Welcome to Drupal 7 Bible. Like all books in the Bible series, you can expect to find both hands-on tutorials and real-world practical applications, as well as reference and background information that provide a context for what you are learning. This book is a fairly comprehensive resource on the Drupal open-source content management system. By the time you have completed Drupal 7 Bible, you will be well prepared to build and maintain a Drupal-based Web site.

Drupal is in the forefront of one of the most dynamic trends in open-source software: the rise of the open-source content management system (CMS). Historically, a Web content management system was a very expensive investment. Open source has changed all that. A number of options now allow site developers and site owners to tap into the power of building CMS-powered Web sites.

Of all the options that exist in the market today, perhaps none is more powerful and flexible than Drupal. Although the system can be used for simple sites, it is also suitable for highly customized and complex Web sites; indeed, with its open API and support for a variety of databases, it has many of the attributes of a Web applications framework.

If you are a designer looking to build functional Web sites for your clients, Drupal is an excellent tool. If you are a developer looking for a system upon which to develop custom functionality, Drupal can meet your needs. And if you are simply a Web site owner who wants to take control of your Web site, then you need look no further than Drupal.