One of the most difficult things about having a website is keeping the content fresh. Updating static HTML pages is too time consuming for most sites and requires specialized skills. The answer is a Content Management System (CMS). A CMS handles the content separately from the design of the site and by adding an easy-to-use browser interface for modifying or adding content, updating can be done by anyone with an internet connection and a browser. Moving from a static page site to a CMS site can require an initial investment to move the content in to the system, but once the new system is in place, you will see a reduction in the time needed to maintain the site.
Artopa specializes in developing websites using the open-source content management platform Drupal because of it's flexibility, extensibility and strong developer support.
Drupal is a free software package that allows an individual or a community of users to easily publish, manage and organize a wide variety of content on a website.
Drupal meets the needs of different types of websites:
Community Portal Sites
Drupal excels as a platform for news sites and other communities where stories are provided by the audience. Incoming stories are automatically voted upon by the readers and the best stories are promoted to the home page. Submissions with poorer quality or of lesser interest are hidden after enough negative votes.
Campaign Sites
Due to its strong networking, collaborative, and community capabilities, Drupal is a powerful choice for grassroots political campaigns.
News Publishing
Drupal is great for newspapers and other news organizations.
Aficionado Sites
Drupal flourishes when it powers a portal website where one person shares their expertise and enthusiasm for a topic.
Intranet/Corporate Websites
Companies maintain their internal and external websites in Drupal. Drupal works well for these uses because of its flexible permissions system, and its easy web based publishing. No longer do you have to wait for a webmaster to get the word out about your latest project.
Resource Directories
If you want a central directory for a given topic, Drupal suits your needs well. Users can register and suggest new resources while editors can screen their submissions.
International Sites
When you begin using Drupal, you join a large international community of users and developers. Thanks to the localization features within Drupal, there are many Drupal sites implemented in a wide range of languages.
Educational Sites
Drupal can be used for creating dynamic learning communities to supplement the face-to-face classroom or as a platform for distance education classes. Academic professional organizations benefit from its interactive features and the ability to provide public content, member-only resources, and member subscription management.
Art, Music, Multimedia
When it comes to community art sites, Drupal is a great match. No other platform provides the rock solid foundation that is needed to make multimedia rich websites that allow users to share, distribute, and discuss their work with others. As time goes on, Drupal will only develop stronger support for audio, video, images, and playlist content for use in multimedia applications.
Personal Sites
Drupal is great for a personal website where the owner can keep a blog, publish photos, and maintain a collection of links.
Benefits of Drupal
Standards Compliant
Drupal uses standards-compliant methods such as XHTML, separation of content and layout through CSS and clean URLs to make sites accessible and to improve search engine ranking.
Stable
Drupal uses a database abstraction layer with support for several engines such as MySQL and PostgreSQL. Along with support for database table prefixes, Drupal has been extensively tested under high loads (such as a “Slashdot effect”) and also includes built-in throttling and caching for optimal performance.
Open Source
The source code of Drupal is freely available under the terms of the GNU General Public License 2 (GPL). Unlike proprietary blogging or content management systems, Drupal's feature set is fully available to extend or customize as needed.
Supported
There is an active developer and user community that participates in mailing lists, forums, and IRC. Several consultants also offer paid support and development using Drupal, and several ISPs specialize in hosting Drupal sites. This means that your site is not tied to one developer or one hosting solution like you would with a custom in-house CMS.
Here to stay
Drupal has been in continuous development for over three years. The same group of primary developers refines and improves the code and encourages more people to create additional modules, contribute patches, and write vital documentation. The growing momentum is evidenced by many new websites and projects committing to Drupal.
Drupal's Key Features
Taxonomy
Drupal does much more than implement simple categories. Instead, Drupal's flexible taxonomy system allows creation of unlimited separate classification schemes. Each of these schemes can be arranged as a simple list, as a tree, or as a tree with interconnected branches. Administrators can choose different schemes to associate with each content type, and users may then browse tagged content by its taxonomy terms.
Collaborative Book
The book feature organizes content into a nested hierarchy. It is particularly well-suited for manuals, Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs), and user-contributed documentation. Comments may be posted to book pages, previous content revisions may be provided, and pages can be moved amongst the hierarchy at any time.
Syndication
Drupal creates a syndicated RSS feed for others to gather with a “news aggregator,” such as NetNewsWire or Feed-Demon. This allows your readers to view your latest content from the comfort of their desktop. Similarly, Drupal provides its own built-in web aggregator for reading and collecting news from other sites.
Localization
The Drupal interfaces can be translated to make your Drupal website accessible in one or more languages.
Drupal Architecture
Drupal Core
The Drupal core is the glue that binds everything together. While Drupal modules focus on specific features, the core contains common functions such as content and user management. Thanks to the infrastructure provided by the core, modules integrate seamlessly into Drupal.
Drupal Modules
Drupal’s architecture is truly modular. Apart from a few core modules, all plug-ins can be switched on and off as required for the chosen setup.
Content from the Drupal Handbook's. Published under the Creative Commons License