Looking to create a website? We have a few different tools for you to build a website - anything from a basic blog for a class assignment to a sophisticated department portal.
Resources
Comparisons
Experts & Communities
A dynamic and responsive group of Drupal users world-wide communicate regularly in the Drupal.org community forums.
Drupal Lite User Group is a Google Group used for announcements to site owners and contributors on Drupal Lite.
Users of the UMN Drupal platform can use the #drupal and #drupal8 channels in tech-people Slack.
Drupal UMN is a Google Group used for announcements to Drupal Enterprise site owners and contributors.
A discussion list for University of Minnesota Drupal users, administrators, and developers.
The Enterprise Drupal Advisory Board represents the shared interests of University of Minnesota enterprise Drupal platform users and makes recommendations to the Collaboration & Web Content Service Director regard
The Folwell Web Theme User Group is where you'll find news and updates about the Folwell theme for Drupal Enterprise, Drupal Lite, and the Pattern Library. This is an open and unmoderated list.
Web People is a group of web developers, designers and communicators at the University of Minnesota.
How-Tos
This article describes a known issue in Drupal Enterprise and Drupal Lite.
Drupal Enterprise and Drupal Lite have five default user roles:
There are many avenues for getting assistance with your Drupal site.
Vocabularies include terms. Terms add organizational data to pages and uploaded files, often referred to as metadata.
Your role in Drupal may not have the proper permissions to complete this task. Contact your site administrator for additional information.
As a site administrator or developer for a Drupal Enterprise website, you can add a link to your site's footer for users to report a website accessibility concern.
This article applies to websites built using the default UMN Drupal Enterprise configuration.
When developing a website using the University's Drupal Enterprise service, there are many best practices you should follow.
Folwell is an evolving design system made up of modular components that can be combined in numerous ways to make creative and consistent University websites.
The University's standard Drupal installation includes a number of modules that you can enable and disable in the Drupal interface.
Your Drupal site will consist of three environments:
University of Minnesota site owners who want to move their sites to the University of Minnesota Drupal service need to complete some tasks before the move can occur.
The second step in planning to move a website to the University's Drupal service is to perform a content audit.
The third step in planning to move a website to the University's Drupal service is to review your site's design.
The first step in planning your site to the University's Enterprise Drupal service is to document your requirements.
The final step in planning to move a website to the University's Drupal service is to schedule the content migration. Steps for scheduling a move from external content management systems to Drupal are below.
The following instructions are for websites using the default UMN Drupal Enterprise configuration.
The following instructions are for websites using the default UMN Drupal Enterprise configuration .Your role in Drupal may not have the proper permissions to complete the task.
View displays have three categories of criteria for generating an automated list: Filter criteria, Sort criteria, and Display criteria.
The following instructions are for websites using the default UMN Drupal Enterprise or Drupal Lite configuration.
For some Drupal developers at UMN, no local development environment is necessary to work on their site.
The following instructions are for websites using the default UMN Drupal Enterprise configuration.
Database
Acquia Cloud makes a daily backup of each database and keeps it for three days.
Drupal.org site's Drupal Overview page explains the basics of how Drupal works.
The instructions in this article pertain to Drupal Enterprise. Your role in Drupal may not have the proper permissions to complete the task. Contact your site administrator for additional information.
This article applies to websites built using the default UMN Drupal Enterprise configuration.
The following instructions are for websites using the default UMN Drupal Enterprise configuration.
A Google Slide can be embedded in a page. The Slides need to be published to the web so that visitors can view the presentation on the page.
This article applies to Drupal Lite.
This article applies to Drupal Lite.
A small Google Map can be added to a page using a Custom Block.
You must have the Contributor role to add custom blocks to a page.
This article applies to Drupal Lite.
Vocabularies include terms. Terms add organizational data to pages and uploaded files, often referred to as metadata.
Layout Builder is a tool that is used to change the layout of a page and / or rearrange the default content blocks.
This article applies to Drupal Lite.
There are three content types in Drupal Lite: Biography, General, and News/Blog. Each has a set of default fields and layout.
In Drupal Lite, you can add any page to navigation menu that appears at the top of a page.
To manage people on a site, you must have the Access Manager role. If you do not see People in the admin menu, contact the site owner.
This article applies to Drupal Lite.
Only the Site Owner role has the ability to change the site name.
The Google Custom Search Engine module will be available for Drupal Lite sites on December 12, 2018.
Curious where your site's traffic is coming from or how people navigate around your site? You can add Google Analytics to your site to help monitor its traffic.
Curious where your site's traffic is coming from or how people navigate around your site? You can add Google Analytics to your site to help monitor its traffic.
This article applies to Drupal Lite.
This article applies to Drupal Lite.
There are three default content types in Drupal Lite:
This article applies to Drupal Lite.
A General Page is one of the default content types in Drupal Lite.
A News/Blog is one of the default content types in Drupal Lite.
Many sites on the internet publish their content as news feeds. In your Drupal Lite site, you can define a source for a feed and add it as custom content to a page.
A Google Doc can be embedded in a page. The Doc needs to be published to the web so that visitors can view the presentation on the page. Sharing does not need to be enabled.
A Google Sheet can be embedded in a page. The Sheet needs to be published to the web so that visitors can view the presentation on the page. Sharing does not need to be enabled.
In Drupal Lite, Folwell Components are configured blocks that use the Folwell design system.
To log in to your Drupal Lite site, use either:
[yoursitename].umn.edu/saml_login
[yoursitename].umn.edu/login
(where "yoursitename" is the name of your site)
This article contains information about:
Access to edit the display of a content type requires the following roles:
Breadcrumbs or a breadcrumb trail is a secondary navigation system that indicates to a user where they are within a site and how they got there.
Anyone that has the role Content Type Manager can edit the content types for a site. To remove a field from a content type, it must be removed from the layout editor for the content type first.
Anyone who has the Access Manager role can cancel any account.
This article applies to Drupal Lite.
When your site is created, it does not have a default homepage. You can set any page to be your site's home page.
Folwell Tabs Wrappers can be used to create a tabbed interface on a page. Using Tabs Wrappers can make the content easier to navigate.
Tables are used to organize and display data sets grouped in rows.
Each content type has a default layout for presenting the fields. Using Layout Builder allows for the customization of any page. Layout Builder can be used to:
Tags are added to content to classify it.
Applies to Drupal Enterprise and Drupal Lite.
The following instructions are for websites using the default UMN Drupal configuration.
The following instructions are for websites using the default UMN Drupal Enterprise or Drupal Lite configuration. The ability to add users to your site is based on your role.
University units moving to Drupal will be able to hire consultants through University-wide contracts.
This article contains instructions for UMN Drupal site editors and site owners to perform URL redirects on their UMN Drupal site.
When you are ready to move a site in the University's Drupal Enterprise environment from DEV to STG and PRD, we recommend you use different branches for different environments.
There are four types of hyperlinks you can create when editing text in a field that has the formatting toolbar.
This article will help you determine which version of Drupal your site is in. As of June 2019, there are four possibilities at the University of Minnesota:
Paragraphs is a module in Drupal. It is included in the University's Enterprise Drupal 8.
The following instructions are for OIT Drupal websites that want to use a custom code repository.
The following instructions are for websites using the default UMN Drupal Enterprise or Drupal Lite configuration.
The following instructions are for websites using the default UMN Drupal Enterprise or Drupal Lite configuration.
The Media Browser allows you to reuse existing media on your website, upload new media, or embed media from an external website. The Media Browser appears wherever you can add media to a page.
On its own, Drupal produces a brand new copy of each webpage every time that page is viewed.
Description
All media uploaded via the Drupal interface is stored in your site's files. Because of this, you can easily re-use images and other media on many pages.
This article applies to Drupal Enterprise and Drupal Lite. This action is only available to people with certain roles on the site. If you do not see the Content Type menu item, contact the Site Owner.
There are several ways to add images to a page. These instructions are for contributors who need to add an image within a field that has the HTML editor toolbar.
GitHub is a web service that allows you to share your code with others. The University of Minnesota offers a free-to-use GitHub server for current University faculty, students, or staff.
GitHub@UMN authenticates using Active Directory's LDAP, which holds accounts for active students, staff, and faculty.
Description
GitHub is a web-based code hosting and revision control system.
This article contains the steps to transfer GitHub@UMN repositories (also known as "repos") to an account that is not hosted by UMN (such as a personal Github.com account).
When configuring your search settings, consider which CSE configuration would best benefit your users.
There are three options for configuring your search:
Duplicate search results can be caused by two different issues.
The UMN Search Settings module comes with default configurations on all Drupal Lite sites. There are also some configuration options available to customize the search experience on your site.
What will happen with my GSA keymatches?
The Google Custom Search Engine uses promotions instead of keymatches. Because the CSE uses the main Google search algorithm, keymatches are seen as unnecessary.
If your site is either
A common reason that pages are not appearing in search results is the presence of the attribute rel="nofollow" in page links.
Certain types of Web pages typically have little to no value in a search index.
For your unit to show up near the top of search results in both Google and on the U's search, website developers and content contributors need to use SEO techniques to optimize their content for indexing.
People visit pages on your site via many methods: a bookmark, a link, or by searching. Knowing what searches drives people to your site provides a lot of valuable information to you.
The UMN Search Settings module comes with default configurations on all sites that use Drupal Enterprise and Drupal Lite.
Curious where your site's traffic is coming from or how people navigate around your site? You can add Google Analytics to your site to help monitor its traffic.
Curious where your site's traffic is coming from or how people navigate around your site? You can add Google Analytics to your site to help monitor its traffic.
Planned Changes
Drupal 7 will retire in November 2022 (see extended support details below) and Drupal 8 was retired for the University at the end of July 2021.
Overview
Google is retiring classic Sites and replacing it with the new Google Sites.
Resources
This article from copyblogger.com outlines thirteen questions you can use to help you draft your content strategy.
Ethan Marcotte will explore CSS techniques and design principles, including fluid grids, flexible images, and more
This article from the Buffer.com social media blog reviews the results of the content audit that they conducted on their site. The article provides a number of tips and takeaways on how to conduct a content audit.
This resource shows an inaccessible website and a retrofitted version that illustrates radical redesign is not needed to meet accessibility standards.
Card sorting helps you to understand how your users think you should organize your content. From this information you can create a site structure that enables your users to find what they are looking for.
This article from MeetContent.com, they have compiled some of the content types commonly encountered in higher ed and some special considerations for managing them effectively.
The Computer Accommodations Program (CAP) works to ensure equitable access for all individuals to Web content, Web applications, digital materials, environments and services associated with administration, courses, pr
In this video Karen McGrane will discuss why you need to deliver content wherever your customer wants to consume it — and what the risks are when you don’t make content accessible to mobile users.
Overview from Google on how to create Google+ Events, including how to add a Google Video Call (Hangout) to a Google+ Event.
The Usability Lab is located in the basement of Walter Library, 117 Pleasant Street SE, Minneapolis, MN 55455 on the East Bank of
UMN Drupal Training Opportunities
Drupal Working Labs
We offer working sessions that allow participants to bring their own Drupal Enterprise 7, Drupal Enterprise 9, and Drupal Lite projects into a
Modules are certain add-ons that you can use within your website to extend the functionality of Drupal.
Smaller and local Drupal community conference
Drupal Lite sites are automatically backed up on a nightly basis.
The Paragraphs module is a fairly new addition to the Drupal project, but when it comes to content creation, it offers a rapid and straightforward path towards improving the quality of your products.
We offer a number of courses for those who want to learn more about the Drupal content management system. Training sessions may be requested for groups of 7 or more.
Acquia Dev Desktop 2 allows you to install, test, and build Drupal sites locally on your Mac or Windows PC.
This information pertains to groups that are planning to do custom development within Drupal. Custom development includes:
Information on the Drupal Conference and larger Drupal community
Simple steps for embedding video, images, and spreadsheets into Google sites.
Focus groups help you generate ideas by listening to your current and prospective users discuss their experiences and expectations with one another. Focus groups can provide:
Use this currated list of resources to find free web asseccibility tools.
Basic overview of branching and merging in Git.
Git Checkout allows you to move between branches.
In your github fork, you need to keep your master branch clean, by clean I mean without any changes, like that you can create at any time a branch from your master.
Show changes between the working tree and the index or a tree, changes between the index and a tree, changes between two trees, changes between two blob objects, or changes between two files on disk.
Instructions for installing Git for Linux, Mac, and Windows.
This is the manual page for the gitignore command.
A well documented article covering the topic of handling conflicts in Git
This tutorial will teach you how to create two branches (master and develop) and how to merge code from the development stage to production.
Join two or more development histories together
How to resolve merge conflicts in Git
The git status command displays t
Learn how to use Git by reviewing the basic concepts of Git version control. Try out this introductory course that was created with GitHub.
Version control is a system that records changes to a file or set of files over time so that you can recall specific versions later.
GitHub Flow is a lightweight, branch-based workflow that supports teams and projects where deployments are made regularly. This guide explains how and why GitHub Flow works.
Adding other users to your GitHub organization. The other users must have logged in to GitHub before you can add them.
You can create a new organization by either setting up a new organization or converting an existing personal account into an organization.
More detailed instructions for creating an organization in GitHub.
Instructions for generating SSH keys on your computer and then adding the public key to your GitHub account.
Pulling code from GitHub (aka syncing)
Pushing code to your GitHub
Blog for Google Analytics users
Find support information for Google Currents on Google's help site.
Google Currents brand pages offer ways for organizations to reach out to followers, fans, and customers on Google.
Google Help Center for Google Sites
You can prevent a page from appearing in Google Search by including a noindex meta tag in the page's HTML code.
A robots.txt file is a file at the root of your site that indicates those parts of your site you don’t want accessed by search engine crawlers.
Our current Search Appliance license allows us to index 3 million documents. We would quickly reach this limit if we did not exclude problematic Web pages from the index.
Get more information about higher educational institutions that have faced liability for inaccessible web content and technologies.
This article offers a great explanation of how disabilities can affect use of the web.
This article from uxmastery.com review the process of conducting a content audit including what to include and where to begin.
While many would describe web accessibility differently, from a coding perspective, the goal is to code a POUR website or web application.
This article from Moz.com illustrates the "long tail" of search demands. This helps people decide what to keep, what to expand on, and stuff tha
Purchasing Teams
You’re purchasing something that needs to be easy for the whole University community to use. We can:
This guide is based on Fugu version 1.2.
You can download Fugu.
You are now ready to transfer files from your computer to your University of Minnesota server space.
By performing the following steps you will ensure that all future files to be transferred to your web-docs will automatically have the permissions you specify.By performing the following steps you will ensure that all
When you are connected to your file space, locate the web-docs folder in the remote directory, and enter it.
Once you have connected to Fugu, you will see the main window. The left half of the main window shows the local filesystem on your computer.
Members of the University of Minnesota community who use Drupal Lite may request enhancements or changes to the Drupal Lite platform, base theme, modules, support site documentation, or communications
University Relation's website on University of Minnesota brand standards for web and print.
This site, maintained by University Relations (URelations), provides downloadable files containing offical University of Minnesota logos, wordmarks ("Driven to Discover"), seals, and other official branding elements s
University Relation's web page on University of Minnesota web standards, and usability and accessibility related to the Univesity of Minnesota web templates.
This site, maintained by University Relations (URelations), provides downloadable images for social networking services such as Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and Google+; as well as common icons for RSS feeds and
Learn about United States laws that require that State and local governments (including the University) give people with disabilities an equal opportunity to benefit from all of their programs, services, and act
A template for creating page tables.
Personas help you get out of your own head when you are writing content and designing your product. Personas are:
Use this RACI chart template for your project
Rapid prototyping is a helpful approach when you want feedback on an early design. At this stage, the design can be on paper or screen.
Before completing the Drupal Site Request Form for a Drupal Enterprise site, please think through the following considerations.
University of Minnesota departments and colleges may use the University's Drupal Lite content management platform to publish and maintain web content related to conducting official University business.
A collection of resources about the various aspects of responsive web design.
Section 504 bars any entity that receives federal funding from discriminating against individuals with disabilities based on their disability status.
WebAIM (Web Accessibility in Mind) provides standards excerpted from Section 508 of the Rehabilitation Act. It can help you understand how to apply the law in a web content setting.
Section 508 is important because it established the first web accessibility standard.
When you use WinSCP to transfer files, by default they are not accessible by / viewable on the web.
This article explains how the Web affects the lives of people with disabilities.
A definition of what "soft launch" entails.
This comprehensive checklist is organized to support your upcoming semester preparation. Work through these topics to confirm your Canvas course site is ready and shared with students.
Task-based Usability Evaluations are useful when your design is getting close to being fully functional but you still have some ability to change the interface or content.
In academia, we’re notorious for using older, “fancy”, ten-dollar words, when plain language would be clearer and more effective.
This rubric is intended for Drupal Enterprise sites. Testing should be conducted in the stage environment.
Themes make Drupal websites beautiful – and Themes are the bridge between the science of code and the art of design.
Tree testing helps you to learn if your proposed site structure is going to make sense to your users, before you start designing your interface.
Instructions and downloads that enable you to use University branding when creating a site on the new version of Google Sites.
Developers create the systems for publishing web pages. These systems could be a server and file structure or a content management system. They may also set up the basic template to be used with each page.
To "get" or "download" a file, drag it from the remote window to the Finder. Fugu will automatically detect the file type.
"User research focuses on understanding user behaviors, needs, and motivations through observation techniques, task analysis, and other feedback methodologies." This article from usability.gov reviews the variou
Examples of simple, precise words and phrases you might substitute in your writing
An overview of using keymatches in the google search appliance, including instructions for how to implement them.
Developed by WebAIM.org, this tool provides visual feedback about the accessibility of your web content by injecting icons and indicators into your page.
If you are a website designer. this simple checklist is a great reference that's worth posting in your workspace.
Your content is the most important part of your site.
Utah State University's Center for Persons with Disabilities' WebAIM Program provides an impressive slate of accessibility tools.
This checklist is a simplified version of the full Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.0 for the layperson.
A scrolldeck.js presentation by Chicago Web Developer John Polacek.
Anyone on the Internet may search for University Web pages using Web search.
Part of a research-based guide that covers writing actionable content
Self-Help Guides
Content is one of the main components of a great user experience. This self-help guide walks you through the process of planning the right content to meet your website's goals.
Content is one of the main components of a great user experience. This self-help guide walks you through the process of planning the right content to meet your website's goals.
This self-help guide is for building a site in Drupal Lite, including requesting and configuring your site, adding content to your site, and managing your site.
This Self-Help Guide is intended to assist developers that are going to develop within the University of Minnesota Drupal environment.
This Self-Help Guide is intended to assist developers that are going to develop within the University of Minnesota Drupal environment.
This guide is for configuring and using Google Custom Search Engine with University websites. Frequently Asked Questions about the transition to Googl