Creating Content - I just don't get it!

By zenthoef on 22 Oct 2012 at 03:32 UTC

So I've been messing around with Drupal on my local machine to get familiar with it so I can switch my website to Drupal. Drupal will really be a good fit for managing my site and I really see the power behind it.

I've been reading a lot on Drupal.org about Drupal concepts. I understand Drupal in theory, but I just don't know how to apply that theory. I have a couple Drupal books coming from the library both "Using Drupal" and "The Definitive Guide to Drupal 7". However, I am impatient and I really want to create something on the site I have locally before the books arrive!

I think my big issue is in creating content. I know I can click on the "Create Content" link to create new content. That seems to give me the option to just write in HTML or text. However, I can't possibly do that to transition the thousands of pages on my existing site! Not should I even think about doing it... I am sure there is a better way.

Any tips on how I should think about creating content? Do I use modules to output my content? I'm honestly not even quite sure what to ask to solve my problem. It seems like there are a lot of options, but I'm not sure what the best option is to get to where I want to go. Maybe someone can point me in the right direction?

Thanks!

Comments

Is your existing content

nevets commented 22 October 2012 at 05:16

Is your existing content already in database tables or will the pages need to scraped?

Yes, all of my content is

zenthoef commented 22 October 2012 at 14:44

Yes, all of my content is currently in a database. I have images and other multimedia where the files are not in the database, but the file names of those images multimedia are in the database. So that should be good enough.

I image that each page of content I have will become a node in the Drupal database. The good news is that each piece of content I have has a unique ID number, so that should map directly to the node ID number. What do I do with other fields in my existing database that don't match up with the node fields? Do I create another table to put them in?

Once I have that figured out, do I then create or use modules to access that information in the database to then display the content in a block?

You can make content types

nevets commented 22 October 2012 at 16:32

You can make content types with any number of fields (you can do this with the UI or code) and there are modules to help you migrate/map the data over.

If you use a content type (or types), the manage display tab for each content type allows you to select which fields are displayed and in which order. The display suite module extends the manage display tab adding among other things layouts. The panels module is an alternate way to control the layout. And one can always create content type specific node.tpl,php files. Being content types you can use views for making lists of content in a variety of ways.

If I've got this all right,

zenthoef commented 22 October 2012 at 21:41

If I've got this all right, I'll define my content type to have all the fields I want. Next, if I use some migration module, then I will be able to tell it how to map my existing database to the Drupal database?

Then, to get that data to actually display I will use a panel module or create a node.tpl.php file? Sorry to ask that if it seems basic, I just want to make sure I fully understand what you told me. Do you happen to know where the documentation on how to write files like node.tpl.php to pull the data from the database? Or maybe some examples?

Thanks!

Correct on the migration

nevets commented 22 October 2012 at 23:50

Correct on the migration part.

You do not need panels or a custom node.tpl.php. Each content type has a "manage display" tab. Display suite, panels and custom node.tpl.php extend what you can do.