This book is designed to be an absolute beginners' step-by-step guide to learning Drupal 8.
Our aim was to write a book that explains what Drupal is and how to use it completely from scratch. We do not assume that the reader is familiar with any previous versions of Drupal, and we won't be referring to terms such as "Schema" and "MVC" in the assumption that the reader is necessarily already a web developer.
We have made every effort to keep the language as simple as humanly possible to illustrate every single step of the way so as to speed the would-be Drupal site builder on your way to building real state-of-the-art sites.
Chapter 1, Introduction, gives background information on Drupal and content management systems in general. Also some history on the Drupal project itself and how we got here.
Chapter 2, Installation, shows how to obtain a copy of Drupal 8 and install it on your own computer so you can get started on the rest of the chapters in this book.
Chapter 3, Basic Concepts, shows us each of the components to provide a better foundation for learning Drupal. This chapter also defines the terminology you will come across.
Chapter 4, Getting Started with the UI, walks you through the key parts of the standard Drupal 8 user interface (UI) focusing our on the Toolbar, the Administration menu and Shortcuts. This chapter is intended to provide you with a quick overview and much more detail and guided tutorial assignments will follow in later chapters.
Chapter 5, Basic Content, discusses basic content types defined in a standard Drupal 8 installation and how they can be used for a simple website.
Chapter 6, Structure, discusses how content can be structured once it has been created.
Chapter 7, Advanced Content, shows how to extend the basic concepts and create new content types, and why you might want to do this.
Chapter 8, Configuration, explains in detail each configuration option available in the standard Drupal 8 installation.
Chapter 9, Users and Access Control, shows how to control access to different areas of your Drupal site.
Chapter 10, Optional Features, presents various features of Drupal switched off in the default installation. This chapter explains what they are and what they do.
Chapter 11, Reports, shows the reports available in the standard installation and how you can use the data presented in it.
Chapter 12, Extending Drupal, discusses the modular nature of Drupal and how you can extend it to add more functionality.
Chapter 13, Theming Drupal, gives an introduction to theming a Drupal site.
Chapter 14, Getting Support, shows how the Open Source Drupal Community works now that we have reached the end of the instructional part of the book. However Drupal 8 is an extensive software framework and you should not expect to find all of the answers in a "Learning" book. In this chapter we discuss how the Open Source Drupal Community works and how you can engage with the community to get help and support for your Drupal project.
In order to follow along with this book you will need to install Drupal on your own development environment. The steps to do this are given in Chapter 2, Installation. A laptop or desktop machine should be sufficient, you will not need a commercial web server to complete the exercises detailed in the chapters to follow. Drupal works in any modern browser. You will not need to edit any PHP code to complete the chapters in this book.
If you want to learn Drupal 8 for the first time, or you are transitioning over from a previous version of Drupal, this is the book for you. The knowledge of PHP, MySQL, or HTML is not required.
In this book, you will find a number of text styles that distinguish between different kinds of information. Here are some examples of these styles and an explanation of their meaning.
Code words in text, database table names, folder names, filenames, file extensions, pathnames, dummy URLs, user input, and Twitter handles are shown as follows: "The site-specific settings file is called settings.php and can be found in the default folder."
New terms and important words are shown in bold. Words that you see on the screen, for example, in menus or dialog boxes, appear in the text like this: "Select the language you want to install and click on Save and continue."
Feedback from our readers is always welcome. Let us know what you think about this book—what you liked or disliked. Reader feedback is important for us as it helps us develop titles that you will really get the most out of.
To send us general feedback, simply e-mail <[email protected]>, and mention the book's title in the subject of your message.
If there is a topic that you have expertise in and you are interested in either writing or contributing to a book, see our author guide at www.packtpub.com/authors.
Now that you are the proud owner of a Packt book, we have a number of things to help you to get the most from your purchase.
We also provide you with a PDF file that has color images of the screenshots/diagrams used in this book. The color images will help you better understand the changes in the output. You can download this file from http://www.packtpub.com/sites/default/files/downloads/Learning_Drupal_8_ColoredImages.pdf.
Although we have taken every care to ensure the accuracy of our content, mistakes do happen. If you find a mistake in one of our books—maybe a mistake in the text or the code—we would be grateful if you could report this to us. By doing so, you can save other readers from frustration and help us improve subsequent versions of this book. If you find any errata, please report them by visiting http://www.packtpub.com/submit-errata, selecting your book, clicking on the Errata Submission Form link, and entering the details of your errata. Once your errata are verified, your submission will be accepted and the errata will be uploaded to our website or added to any list of existing errata under the Errata section of that title.
To view the previously submitted errata, go to https://www.packtpub.com/books/content/support and enter the name of the book in the search field. The required information will appear under the Errata section.
Piracy of copyrighted material on the Internet is an ongoing problem across all media. At Packt, we take the protection of our copyright and licenses very seriously. If you come across any illegal copies of our works in any form on the Internet, please provide us with the location address or website name immediately so that we can pursue a remedy.
Please contact us at <[email protected]> with a link to the suspected pirated material.
We appreciate your help in protecting our authors and our ability to bring you valuable content.
Did you know that Packt offers eBook versions of every book published, with PDF and ePub files available? You can upgrade to the eBook version at www.PacktPub.com and as a print book customer, you are entitled to a discount on the eBook copy. Get in touch with us at <[email protected]> for more details.
At www.PacktPub.com, you can also read a collection of free technical articles, sign up for a range of free newsletters, and receive exclusive discounts and offers on Packt books and eBooks.
If you have a problem with any aspect of this book, you can contact us at <[email protected]>, and we will do our best to address the problem.