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.
Web People is a group of web developers, designers and communicators at the University of Minnesota.
How-Tos
Breadcrumbsor a breadcrumb trailis a secondary navigation system that indicates to a user where they are within a site and how they got there.
Before setting a page as your homepage, you'll need the page's Drupal URL. For example, if the page you want to use is yoursite.umn.edu/content/homepage, the Drupal URL would be content/homepage.
Note for Drupal 8 Local Environments: As of November 19, 2020 no new Drupal 8 local environments can be installed.
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.
As a site administrator or developer for a Drupal Enterprise 7 or Drupal Enterprise 8 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 either the default UMN Drupal Enterprise 7 (DE7) configuration or the default UMN Drupal Enterprise 8 (DE8) configuration.
When developing a website using the University's Drupal Enterprise service, there are many best practices you should follow.
The following instructions are for websites using either the default UMN Drupal Enterprise 7 (DE7) configuration or the default UMN Drupal Enterprise 8 (DE8) configuration.
As you develop your Enterprise Drupal site, you may notice that pages load slowly. This is more likely to be true the larger or more complicated your site is.
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 instructions in this article pertain to Drupal Enterprise 7 and Drupal Enterprise 8. Your role in Drupal may not have the proper permissions to complete the task.
The following instructions are for websites using either the default UMN Drupal Enterprise 7 (DE7) configuration or the default UMN Drupal Enterprise 8 (DE8) configuration.
The following instructions are for websites using either the default UMN Drupal Enterprise 7 (DE7) configuration or the default UMN Drupal Enterprise 8 (DE8) configuration.
The following instructions are for websites using the default UMN Drupal 7 configuration.
The following instructions are for websites using the default UMN Drupal Enterprise 7 Groups configuration.
The following instructions are for websites using the default UMN Drupal Enterprise 7 configuration.
The following instructions are for websites using the default UMN Drupal Enterprise 7 configuration.
The following instructions are for websites using the default UMN Drupal Enterprise 7 Groups configuration.
The following instructions are for websites using the default UMN Drupal Enterprise 7 configuration. The ability to add users to your site is based on your role.
The following instructions are for websites using the default UMN Drupal Enterprise 7 (DE7) configuration.
The following instructions are for websites using the default UMN Drupal Enterprise 7 (DE7) configuration.
The following instructions are for websites using the default UMN Drupal Enterprise 7 configuration.
Your role in Drupal may not have the proper permissions to complete this task. Contact your site administrator for additional information.
When you receive confirmation from the Office of Information Technology that your site has been created, you will need to add yourself as a user before you can begin working on your site.
The following instructions are for websites using the default UMN Drupal Enterprise 7 configuration.
The following instructions are for websites using the default UMN Drupal Enterprise 7 configuration.
When troubleshooting problems with your Drupal site, you may want to try clearing the cache to see if that fixes the problem.
The following instructions are for websites using the default UMN Drupal Enterprise 7 configuration.
The following instructions are for websites using the default UMN Drupal Enterprise 7 configuration.
The following instructions are for websites using the default UMN Drupal Enterprise 7 (DE7) configuration.
The following instructions are for websites using the default UMN Drupal Enterprise 7 (DE7) configuration.
The following instructions are for websites using the default UMN Drupal Enterprise 7 configuration.
The following instructions are for websites using the default UMN Drupal Enterprise 7 configuration.
Drupal is highly customizable, and your site may have different steps for completing the task.
The following instructions are for websites using the default UMN Drupal Enterprise 7 configuration.
Content types are fundamental to how Drupal organizes content and controls how contributors add content t
The following instructions are for websites using the default UMN Drupal Enterprise 7 configuration.
Taxonomy is the best tool for organizing your pages and uploaded files (e.g.
The following instructions are for websites using the default UMN Drupal Enterprise 7 configuration.
Drupal is highly customizable, and your site may have different steps for completing the task.
The following instructions are for websites using the default UMN Drupal Enterprise 7 (DE7) configuration.
Drupal is highly customizable, and your site may have different steps for completing the task.
The following information is for websites using the default UMN Drupal 7 (DE7) configuration. Contact your site administrator for additional information.
The following instructions are for websites using the default UMN Drupal Enterprise 7 (DE7) configuration.
These instructions are the same for any page on your site; however, you should rarely edit the disp
The following instructions are for websites using the default UMN Drupal Enterprise 7 configuration.
The following instructions are for websites using the default UMN Drupal Enterprise 7 (DE7) configuration.
The following instructions are for websites using the default UMN Drupal Enterprise 7 Groups configuration.
The following instructions are for websites using the default UMN Drupal Enterprise 7 (DE7) configuration.
Displaying content using panels requires three things: fields, a layout, and the mapping of those f
The following instructions are for websites using the default UMN Drupal Enterprise 7 (DE7) configuration.
Drupal is highly customizable, and your site may have different steps for completing the task.
The following instructions are for websites using the default UMN Drupal Enterprise 7 configuration.
Drupal is highly customizable, and your site may have different steps for completing the task.
Roles are how Drupal manages permissions. When you make major changes to your site (e.g.
The following instructions are for websites using the default UMN Drupal Enterprise 7 configuration.
The following instructions are for websites using the default UMN Drupal Enterprise 7 (DE7) configuration.
This article explains how to enable breadcrumbs for your Drupal 7 Enterprise site.
This article describes how to use panels to do wild card redirects. The following instructions are for websites using the default UMN Drupal Enterprise 7 configuration.
When developing Drupal sites locally, you might need to log in to the local site. The following instructions are for websites using the default UMN Drupal Enterprise 7 configuration.
The following instructions are for websites using the default UMN Drupal Enterprise 7 (DE7) configuration.
Description
On its own, Drupal produces a brand new copy of each webpage every time that page is viewed.
The following instructions are for websites using the default UMN Drupal Enterprise 7 (DE7) configuration.
The following instructions are for websites using the default UMN Drupal Enterprise 7 configuration.
The following instructions are for websites using the default UMN Drupal Enterprise 7 configuration.
The following instructions are for websites using the default UMN Drupal Enterprise 7 configuration.
The following instructions are for websites using the default UMN Drupal Enterprise 7 configuration.
The following instructions are for websites using the default UMN Drupal Enterprise 7 configuration.
Your role in Drupal may not have the proper permissions to complete the task.
This article describes how to set up Drupal Enterprise 7 local environments for development work using Acquia Dev Desktop.
These instructions are only for those using Drupal Enterprise 7.
This article contains instructions for using the Superfish and Block modules to create Navigation menus in Drupal 7 Enterprise.
Owners of sites in the University's enterprise Drupal Enterprise 7 (DE7) service can set up the WYSIWYG editor so contributors can add CSS styles to images.
Updating a content file (e.g. an image, a pdf, a Microsoft Office document) is the best way to simultaneously update that file wherever it appears on your site.
The following instructions are for websites using the default UMN Drupal Enterprise 7 configuration.
This article describes how to use anchors in a UMN-Drupal site. The following instructions are for websites using the default UMN Drupal Enterprise 7 configuration.
The Flex Slider module will allow you to have a hero image slide show on a landing page. The following instructions are for websites using the default UMN Drupal Enterprise 7 configuration.
Your Drupal site will consist of three environments:
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.
These steps detail how to restrict access to selected content on your Drupal 7 site.
Determine content to be restricted
Before following these steps, you must first determine:
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.
Drupal.org site's Drupal Overview page explains the basics of how Drupal works.
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.
Each content type has default content and layout. You can easily add additional content to a page.
When a change is made to a Drupal Lite 7 page using the Customize this page button (which is at the bottom of the page), those changes are queued by the Drupal module Purger when the
Each Drupal Lite site will have its own unique storage for files that are uploaded. You can upload nearly any type of file.
Issue
Known Error: "You are not authorized to access this page" message in a Drupal Lite 7 site after clicking "Customize this page" button
The main content region of a page consists of different sub-content regions. The number of regions and their layout is defined by the Page Layout.
There are three categories of content on your site:
This article applies to Drupal Lite 8 and 9.
There are four types of hyperlinks you can create when editing text in a field that has the formatting toolbar.
This article applies to Drupal Lite 8 and 9.
Folwell Tabs Wrappers can be used to create a tabbed interface on a page. Using Tabs Wrappers can make the content easier to navigate.
From its introduction to the University community, a number of features have been developed for Drupal Lite that may not be enabled on all sites.
The Colorbox feature provides a modal (pop-up) image gallery that allows you to display thumbnails of images that site visitors can click to view the full size in a carousel.
The Slider Image content type is for setting up images to be used in a rotating slider.
The following instructions are for websites using the default UMN Drupal configuration.
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 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.
[email protected] 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 [email protected] 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 7 Enterprise, Drupal 8 Enterprise, or Drupal Lite.
The Google Custom Search Engine module will be available for Drupal Lite sites on December 12, 2018.
Planned Changes
In June 2020, Acquia notified the University that Drupal.org has extended support for Drupal 7 by one year to November 2022.
Resources
It's important to debrief with your team at the end of the project to find out what went well and where things went wrong, to celebrate great performances, and to document your findings.
This article from copyblogger.com outlines thirteen questions you can use to help you draft your content strategy.
A self-help guide to plan, write, and manage content at the federal level
Clear steps to consider during content strategy audit stage
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.
ExpirationWhen your certificate nears its expiration date, you will get email notifications of the impending expiration starting 30 days prior.
To accommodate browser vendors' plans to phase out support for SHA-1 signed certificates, InCommon has now made available certificates signed using the SHA-2 hash family.
Offers a printable sheet about accessibility basics.
This resource shows an inaccessible website and a retrofitted version that illustrates radical redesign is not needed to meet accessibility standards.
Exploring the business reasons for creating a taxonomy
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.
Resources for planning, moderating, and assessing results of your own focus group.
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
A complete guide to Complete Guide to choosing and implementing a content calendar.
Grow your team's knowledge about content strategy with a certificate program designed to take your workflow even farther.
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.
A video to help consider the audience(s) for your content
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 OpportunitiesDrupal Working LabsWe offer working sessions that allow participants to bring their own Drupal Enterprise 7, Drupal Enterprise 8, and Drupal Lite projects into a lab
Modules are certain add-ons that you can use within your website to extend the functionality of Drupal.
Modules are certain add-ons that you can use within your website to extend the functionality of Drupal.
Drupal Lite sites are automatically backed up on a nightly basis.
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.
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
Show the accessibility benefits of plain language with this interactive online exhibit
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.
This 6-hour LinkedIn Learning course covers how to use Git, the popular open-source version control software, to manage changes to source code and text files.
This chapter of the Git Essentials training covers Branches in Git.
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.
The git log command displays committed snapshots. It lets you list the project history, filter it, and search for specific changes.
Join two or more development histories together
This LinkedIn Learning chapter from the Git Essential course covers the concept of merging code branches.
How to resolve merge conflicts in Git
The git status command displays the state of the working directory and the staging area.
Learn how to use Git by reviewing the basic concepts of Git version control. Try out this introductory course that was created with GitHub.
This LinkedIn Learning video covers how to tell Git which files to ignore.
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
University of Minnesota branded templates are available for several Google apps.
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.
Search ManagersDesigning Your Front EndLimiting Search ResultsUsing Advanced URL Patterns
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.
In this article from Buffer.com Social Media blog, Kevan Lee review the process they take to write their blog posts. They present a good process that others can follow.
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 that doesn't belong online.
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 here.
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.
This short 6-minute video provides an overview of how Drupal manages content.
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
This site, maintained by University Relations (URelations), provides requirements and guidelines surrounding the use of color and type/typography at the University of Minnesota.
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.
A github resource produced by University Relations that provides a working online page table for developing and reviewing site content. Requires a UMN login.
Personas help you get out of your own head when you are writing content and designing your product. Personas are:
Determining answers to questions of purpose, users, content, scope, and resources when planning your taxonomy project
Create an interdisciplinary team with the right mix of roles and responsibilities.
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.
A stash of headline formulas, social media updates, and more to help organize your team's content on realtime media.
Generate a Certificate Signing Request
To request a certificate, first generate a Certificate Signing Request (CSR) on your web server.
Before completing the Drupal Site Request Form for a Drupal Enterprise 7 (DE7) site, please think through the following considerations. If you have any questions regarding these considerations, contact a
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.
The following websites were created using Drupal Lite as part of a pilot testing period and offer a glimpse at the tool’s capabilities.
This article explains how the Web affects the lives of people with disabilities.
A definition of what "soft launch" entails.
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.
Check the effectiveness of your content in a couple minutes.
Find the gaps in your content and prioritize them based on feasibility.
Research on how different tones of voice on a website have measurable impacts on users’ perceptions of a brand’s friendliness, trustworthiness, and desirability.
The launch of a new blog is an event that shouldn’t go to waste.
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.
Create standards-compliant websites and applications at the University.
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.
Check links and anchors in Web pages or full Web sites
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.
There are a number of factors to consider when deciding what technologies to use to build a website. Use your answers to the questions listed below to find the best tool for your website needs.
A scrolldeck.js presentation by Chicago Web Developer John Polacek.
Anyone on the Internet may search for University Web pages using Web search.
Often times it can be easy to get ahead of yourself and jump in to a full fledged hard launch.
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 designed to assist developers that are creating sites using the University of Minnesota's Drupal Enterprise platform.
This is the self-help guide for contributing content to a University of Minnesota Enterprise Drupal site.
Learn how to build a site in Drupal Enterprise 7. Drupal Enterprise is the official web content management system of the University of Minnesota; Drupal Enterprise 7 will reach end-of-life by July 2020.
Build and manage a Drupal Lite website using the advanced tools associated with the Administrator role: Content Types, Taxonomy & Views.
This self-help guide is for building a site in Drupal Lite 7, including requesting and configuring your site, adding content to your site, and managing your site.
This self-help guide is for building a site in Drupal Lite 8 and 9, 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
Learn how Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) Certificates identify and encrypt digital communication. You can request SSL Certificates to protect data entered into your applications.