Getting Started

You have just finished installing your new Drupal website - now what?

Now, you are the supreme ruler of your website. Now, you must manage your site and manage it well. But first, you need to know where things are, how to get there, and what they do. Then we need to take your site off-line in order to play with it while no one is watching.

Let's take a quick look at the administration page.

Administration:

Log into your site - click on the Administer link.

You should see a screen that looks like the one below.

Take a few minutes to read the caption below each link. Don't panic if you have no clue what each item means. We are going to walk through each one as the book progresses.

...[waiting]...[waiting]...Okay, if you read the captions on the Administer page, than you are good to go.

At this time, if you have a notice to that says, "One or more problems were detected with your Drupal installation. Check the status report for more information." Go ahead and click the link to status report.

Next, click the link that says, "run cron manually".

If your installation went well, your status report should be green.

Jumping In:

I'm a big believer in, "Jumping In". You know, giving it a try, not hesitating, just doing it - that sort of thing. That's the approach we are going to take. We are going to be logical about it but I want you to get started on building your site.

Use this guide as you go but try-try and try again.

First, thing first - take your site offline.

1. Click on Administer
2. Click on Site Configuration
3. Click on Site Maintenance

To take your site offline:
1. Click "off-line"
2. Edit the caption - your caption will still be visible to site visitors.
3. Save Configuration

Hurray! You've installed Drupal, ran cron - whatever that is - and taken your site off-line. Now that no one can see what you are doing, it is time to play.