Drupal - Create Pages

Drupal - Creating Content Pages

This chapter guides you through creating new content pages in Drupal, such as an ‘About Us’ or ‘Services’ page. Drupal uses ‘Content Types’ to define different kinds of content. A common one is ‘Basic page’.

Follow these steps to create a new page:

Step 1 − Navigate to ‘Add content’. In the Drupal administration menu, click on ‘Content’, then click the ‘Add content’ button.

You will see a list of available content types you can create.

Step 2 − Choose a content type. For a standard static page, click on ‘Basic page’. Other content types like ‘Article’ might be available for blog posts or news items.

This will open the content creation form for the selected content type.

Step 3 − Fill in the page details. The form will present several fields, typically including:

• Title − Enter the main title for your new page. This is usually displayed prominently.
• Body − Add the main content of your page here. Drupal provides a rich text editor (WYSIWYG) for formatting text, adding images, and links.
• Text format − Below the ‘Body’ field, you can select an input format (e.g., ‘Basic HTML’, ‘Restricted HTML’, ‘Full HTML’). This determines which HTML tags and features are allowed. For trusted users, ‘Full HTML’ offers more flexibility.
• Menu settings − (Often in a sidebar or vertical tab) Check ‘Provide a menu link’ if you want to add this page to a menu. You can then specify the ‘Menu link title’, ‘Description’, ‘Parent item’ (to create sub-menus), and ‘Weight’ (to order menu items).
• Revision log message − (Often in a sidebar or vertical tab) Enter a brief note about this version of the page, e.g., ‘Initial draft’. This is helpful for tracking changes.
• URL alias − (Often in a sidebar or vertical tab) By default, Drupal creates a path like ‘/node/123’. You can specify a custom, SEO-friendly URL alias here, like ‘/about-our-company’.
• Comment settings − (Often in a sidebar or vertical tab) Choose whether to allow comments on this page (‘Open’ or ‘Closed’).
• Authoring information − (Often in a sidebar or vertical tab) Specifies the author and the date the page was created. Usually defaults to the current user and time but can be overridden.
• Promotion options − (Often in a sidebar or vertical tab) Here you can choose to ‘Promote to front page’ or make it ‘Sticky at top of lists’ as discussed in the previous chapter.

Step 4 − Save the page. Once you have filled in all necessary details, ensure the ‘Published’ checkbox (usually at the bottom of the form or under save options in the sidebar) is checked if you want the page to be immediately live. Click the ‘Save’ button.

You can often use a ‘Preview’ button before saving to see how your page will look.

Tip: Understanding content types is key in Drupal. ‘Basic page’ is for static content. ‘Article’ is often used for time-sensitive content like news or blog posts and might have additional fields like image uploads or tags.

Real-world application: Create ‘About Us’, ‘Contact’, ‘Privacy Policy’, or service description pages using the ‘Basic page’ content type. For a company blog, you’d likely use the ‘Article’ content type.