Drupal At A Glance

Visual aids are always a plus when trying to convey complex ideas.  While toiling away on some documentation for a client I created a nifty little graphic that I had to share here.  It's actually a pretty good representation of a typical Drupal installation.

Simple and To The Point

At the core of every Drupal site is (of course) Drupal core which provides all basic CMS functionality.  However, every Drupal site will also be complimented by certain contributed (and/or custom) Modules and Themes.  These additional elements provide extended functionality and customization of a standard Drupal site. The bottom half of our graphic is therefore dedicated entirely to the form and function of a typical implementation.

Finally, on top of everything else, we add our content...the whole reason for creating a site in the first place.  This element is of the utmost importance when managing the site on a day-to-day basis, hence its position at the top.  This is the part that is most important to the client or a content manager.

Thanks to failry mature API, Drupal does an excellent job of allowing these different elements to interact with each other in a reliable and efficient manner.  In this case, our graphic fails to illustrate the potential of how much greater the whole is than the sum of the parts.  When all of these elements are come together on a website, the benefits are profound and can be overwhelming for folks who are new to Drupal and CMS based websites.

The Result

Time is money...allowing clients to manage their own content in a simple and straightforward fashion allows them to save money.  A well designed Drupal site does a great job of achieving this goal.  I reckon that's why the content element in the diagram is green, eh?  I say "yes", but that's just my two cents.

Study Up

• Content Management Systems on Wikipedia
• The Drupal Overview on Drupal.org
• Drupal API on api.drupal.org
• Synergy on Wikipedia