Top Drupal Resources For Beginners
Daunting, overwhelming, and frustrating are just a few of the words that come to mind when I think back to my initial experiences with Drupal. When we first made the shift to Drupal, most of us were pulling our hair out. In the past, we had developed our own CMS, used Wordpress, and toyed with SilverStripe, but Drupal was a beast. It was all so foreign and at first glance didn’t seem intuitive. Views, anyone?
After many late nights, long weekends and some initial hand holding by our CEO, it all started to click. It truly is amazing how powerful Drupal is. It does so much that the challenge becomes figuring out what you don’t want it to do. I still have much more to learn, but I’ve come a long way. The learning curve is steep, but if you really stick to it and put in the extra effort, Drupal can take you places you never thought possible without thousands of dollars in custom programming.
top Drupal resources
Drupal.org – This is where you download Drupal core, modules, themes, and all of your updates.
Lynda.com – There is a section on this site called Drupal Essential Training that covers the basics. Everything from installation to launch. It’s a great starting point.
Acquia.com – The Community section of the site has video tutorials on ImageCache, Blocks, CCK and more. Topics covered here are more advanced, but you have to learn them eventually. Some of these videos may require multiple viewings.
GotDrupal.com – Video tutorials on Workflows, Permissions, Google Analytics Module, and much more.
Lullabot.com – These are the experts. Their video tutorials (Learning CCK and Learning Views) really help explain two of the most important Drupal modules. They also have a video that provides a nice overview of Drupal called Understanding Drupal.
DrupalSN.com – A nice community site where Drupal enthusiasts exchange ideas and help each other out.
LevelTenDesign.com – We try to share our insight on everything we learn. We have basic articles on topics such as removing field names from content types, creating RSS feeds from Views, the top Drupal SEO modules, and for more advanced users, Drupal 6 node skeletons.
Let us know if you have any resources we missed and we’ll take a look at them.
