Updated March 30, 2023
Introduction to Drupal Features
The following article provides an outline for Drupal Features. An operating system written in PHP that provides a web content management framework for free and having a GNU license is called Drupal. Any kind of website, be it personal or corporate, politically affiliated or government’s, Drupal supports the backend framework for most websites for free. We can call Drupal as a content management system with huge community support and open source. Written by Dries Baytaert, it was initially released in January 2001, which followed multiple updates, and now we have a standard Drupal core that manages web application framework and content management systems. It can be used as a simple website or community-generated website for content.
Various Drupal Features
Given below are the various Drupal Features:
1. Core Functionalities
When we enable core features in Drupal, several features like workflow tools, RSS feed, multi-site support, advanced search, access statistics, custom content and access level restrictions are available. This makes the users to do several modifications like managing and displaying the contents directly in the site. Users can create forums in the site where external users can comment and ask for modifications. Also, users can improve the performance of the website with the help of cache and lazy loading of the content. Different languages are available in which Drupal has made English as its default language. Support is provided to all the available languages.
2. Query Creation
Drupal helps users create queries without SQL, which is written in an abstraction layer. Drupal helps in data cleansing, creating tables and generating SQL queries. Here PHP data strings are used to get the queries and write on the abstraction layer. Nowadays, it supports the SQLite engine, which is based on the Microsoft SQL server. This abstraction layer helps Drupal users to run Drupal in Windows server.
3. Themes
Drupal offers color-based themes that help the users to create wonderful interfaces based on the core themes. Also, users can customize the themes based on the core themes, such as Garland and Bartick. The default theme offered is Olivero in version 9.1. There are several themes such as developer-oriented, user-based, bootstrap themes and foundation patterns. There are more than 2000 community provided themes in Drupal. Standardized formats are used to generate themes that is written by either PHPtemplate engine or Xtemplate engine, or Twig engine. Template engines are used that provides Drupal themes either in HTML or CSS and separated from PHP codes. GUI information is provided to developers of Drupal via the Devel module supported by Drupal.
4. Accessibility
The newer versions of Drupal has seen improvements in the website helping people with disabilities. Labels are added to various features, color intensity and contrast are improved, CSS display has been modified, and navigation is improved to change themes. The drag and drop feature helps the users add various features to the website, and TabbingManager helps users navigate with the help of the keyboard.
5. Notifications
Drupal informs users about new updates in the website or news related to the addition of new features in the website. Regarding security updates, Drupal informs users, and they should update the application immediately after the notification. It is to be noted that backup modules are available in Drupal, which must be taken into local before updating the application. If there is any technical glitch in the application, the user can revert the update using the backed-up module stored in the system. The drush tool is provided by Drupal to take backups of the website, which helps users do it automatically.
6. Drupal Setup
If users require a fully developed Drupal site for a specific purpose, it is provided with a full package of modules and features of the website. Initially, users needed to customize the website or download a themed version and customize the same with Drupal. Now, any configuration settings are available in this core Drupal site, allowing users to work on it directly rather than installing third-party templates or features. This kind of website can be used for static websites where there is less interaction of users.
7. Architecture
Presentation Control Architecture or PAC is used in Drupal, where input is accepted from a single source and provides requests to various sources as needed. Data is collected from all the available layers, including the abstraction layer and passes through a filter system. This filtered output is given to the presentation layer. It also works with parallel PAC systems where data is passed through different filtering mechanisms. Here the main menu acts as the controller system.
8. Modules
Several modules are available in Drupal that supports in content creation, managing private messaging and mailing groups, creating rules etc. The modules include Panels, rules, features, Content Construction Kit, services, Media, Context and views. Content Construction Kit helps administrators to create any type of content and customize it on the website. Photos can be uploaded and saved with the help of the Media. Panels enable to manage and visually design of the website. Services module provide an API with which we can work in any system with Drupal.
9. Security
When there is any security glitch is found out, it is resolved, and the issue is notified to the user. This announcement makes the users to be aware of the security patches and any vulnerabilities in the website. It is very important to make the security update within the first few hours of the announcement and to take backups before the update.
10. Community Support
As Drupal is open source, the community support is large for the same, and it is available for any new updates that appear on the website. Professional or semiprofessional meetups happen for Drupal community supporters at anywhere in the world. Drupal Camps are also arranged to encourage the users and community supporters to enhance users’ knowledge of Drupal features.
Conclusion
Drupal helps people and companies to build websites and make them look and feel much better than the conservative websites. In addition, Drupal can be used by organizations to make customers engage with the content and make them feel privileged with the customized built of the website.
Recommended Articles
This is a guide to Drupal Features. Here we discuss the introduction and various Drupal features for a better understanding. You may also have a look at the following articles to learn more –
