Here's a basic checklist of how I set up a Drupal website from scratch. I'm sure I've missed some steps, which is why I'm adding this as a wiki page. If you see anything that I've missed, or something that seems unnecessary, please make the correction and add your name by it. I'm sure there's room for debate on some of these things, and I think it might be good to discuss some of these issues here. So feel free to add a link to another discussion page for any topic.
I would like this page to be about creating a very basic website, not necessarily a specific type of site. (community, small business, etc...) But please add links to additional pages that focus on other related topics.
Assumptions
- Document root = wherever you're setting up your Drupal root (depends on your Apache configuration)
- We'll use example.com as our URL pointing to document root
-
You already understand how to use FTP / SFTP
Tools
- FTP Client (WinSCP preferred for its SSH integration)
-
Putty (optional, not all hosts support SSH)
-
Text editor (Dreamweaver, UltraEdit, TextPad, VIM, Eclipse)
Website Creation Process
Install Drupal
-
Download Drupal to your computer (~1MB)
- Copy Drupal to server via FTP/SFTP
- Create database (store db username/password and db name for next step)
- Unzip files at the document root (Putty/WinSCP)
-
Open /sites/default/default.settings.php in your text editor
- Find $db_url (line 92) and substitute the following:
- username => db username
- password => db password
- localhost => (change only if your host uses separate db server)
- databasename => db name from step 3
- Follow steps on screen
Install modules
-
Upload and unzip essential modules
- CCK
- Views
- Admin menu
- Advanced help
- Webform
-
Pathauto & token
-
FCK Editor / TinyMCE / WysiwygAPI
- Slideshow
- filefield
- imagecache
- imagefield
- imageapi
- lightbox2
- Community site
- Mollom
-
Apache SOLR
- SEO
- Google analytics
- Nodewords
-
Page Title
- CCK
- Content
- Options widgets
- Text
- Views
- Views
- Views UI
-
Core - Optional
- Contact
- Menu
- Path
- Search
-
Taxonomy
- Upload
- (all other modules in steps #1, step #2 modules are optional)
Configure Users (Administer -> User Management)
- Set user settings
-
Users -> User settings
- community sites require community account creation, corporate websites usually want account lockdown.
- Content author
Site Configuration
- Set File System to proper location for files directory
- Set file upload limits for each role
-
Configure content
- Create any new content types
- Create content pages (with greek if no content is available yet)
- Use menu settings on the Create Content forms to create site structure
- Use primary links menu for main navigation
- Administer -> Site building -> Menus -> Settings
This is not finished, but I'm out of time right now, so I'll publish it here and let others contribute...