Using Drupal as a Blogging Platform

Drupal is a content management system for websites. It can be used as a blogging platform, and I currently use it across three blog sites very successfully, including this one. I have to be honest at this point, and say that I came to use Drupal by accident! At the time I set up my first blog, I didn’t have any idea what I was doing, and my web host provider at the time had a system that allowed me to auto install either Drupal or Wordpress. I chose Drupal because it was the first one listed!

There have been times when I have cursed that decision – notably when a new easy to use plug in has come onto the market for Wordpress. And there have been times when I have been very pleased I went this way. Let’s start by looking at the differences:

Drupal Versus Wordpress

Ease of Use

Wordpress wins this area hands down. With it’s simple dashboard, most blogging tasks are easy and intuitive. Drupal is just more complicated to work from the back end, or administration section, and uses terms that don’t seem obvious.

Ability to Customize

This is an easy win for Drupal. Almost every element of Drupal is customizable, and most of it from the administration screen, which means you don’t need to get into code. Every area of every page can be changed or added to using Drupal’s block system. You can effectively create a website with every element exactly where you want it to be.

Add Ons

Wordpress wins in this section. Because so many bloggers use WP, there are always new things coming out to make life easier. The Drupal community is getting faster at playing catch up, but we are always following the lead. In the area of themes, WP has more choice as well, although Drupal themes are easier to customize.

Extendability

Huge win for Drupal here. Out of the box, it’s ready to create forums, photo galleries, chat and large memberships with full profiles for members and the ability to control exactly what they can post.

So overall, we’re evens. In summary I would say if you only ever want a blog, and only you are going to post on it, then WP is probably the way to go. If you might need to develop a community around the blog, with a forum for example, and you want to be able to totally change the way the site looks and works, then Drupal is the answer.

Working with Drupal as a blogger

As I’ve said, Drupal is eminently customizable. You can select how many columns there are on a page, where they are situated and how they look. Drupal is open source software, which means there is a thriving community out there adding things, offering modules to upgrade parts of it, and generally improving the whole experience of working with it. The trouble is, most of them are really quite technical, and it can be hard to understand what they’re telling you, if, like me, you are a layman. But over time, you’ll become something of an expert yourself!

Drupal.org is a fantastic resource for the CMS, and you’ll find hundreds of modules, lots of different themes and many tweaks you can add to your site to give you additional functionality or a new look. There’s also a terrific forum for users which is a great first stop when you need any help.

Here’s a Quick rundown of Drupal terminology:

• Modules are “add-ons” which give additional functionality. For example, see the “Post to Twitter” button at the top? I added that as a module. You simply upload any new module into the module folder on your server, then enable it in your administration panel.
• Blocks are areas on the page – see the “Join Mike’s Life” section to your right? That’s a block. I can put anything I want to in a block and I can position it anywhere on the page I want. It’s also easy to make it appear on some pages and not others.
• Views are lists of content, which you can arrange how you want. For example, you can change the view on the front page, so that posts are shown one way there and in another way on every other page. You can even create a different view for different types of user, like people signed up to your site versus guests.

Over the next few weeks, I’m going to write a detailed report, in parts, showing how to install and set up Drupal for a blog. If it’s something that is of interest to you, please join the community here at Mike’s Life, by registering using the form above right, or click to receive the RSS feed.

If you enjoyed this, try:

1/ Non Tech review of Google Chrome

2/ Windows Livewriter – The ultimate blogging tool

3/ When to start making money from your blog