Drupal

TopNotchThemes Quickstart Guide

BUILD A GREAT DRUPAL WEBSITE
with your new theme from

You + Drupal + TopNotchThemes = Win!.....1
Before you start… How we’ll build the website A note about this guide

Creating content ..........................................9
The front page Contact page Posting blog entries Categorizing content Making HTML-styled pages with images Making customcontent types Creating CCK content

The basics ....................................................2
Installing your TNT theme What if I want to rename my theme? One more thing…

Manipulating content display....................16 Configuring your site ...................................4
Basic site configuration Theme configuration options Installing recommended modules
Copyright 2009,TopNotchThemes

Blocks and block regions Menus Views

How can I get more help from TNT? ..........24 Gallery of TNT themes ...............................24

TopNotchThemes Quickstart Guide: Build a great Drupal website with your new theme from TopNotchThemes

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You + Drupal + TopNotchThemes = Win!
Congratulations on your decision to use a TNT theme for your website! Your choice may have savedyou dozens of hours over creating a Drupal theme from scratch or tweaking a non-Premium theme from another source. But in building any website, you’ll need certain skills to make it work the way you want. Specifically, you need to know: • How to install Drupal modules and themes; • How to configure your site’s basic information; • How to add content (nodes) to your site; • How to change contentappearance through blocks, views, and other tools. This guide will show you what you need to know to create a website similar to our screenshots using any of our themes, including the free Acquia Marina (available at drupal.org/project/acquia_marina). It is not, however, a full Drupal tutorial. If you need help and don’t find the answer here, we recommend trying the resources at drupal.org/supportfirst. Still having trouble? TopNotchThemes provides up to an hour of oneon-one help to our customers: See our contact information at the end of this guide for details.

Before you start…
Just about anyone with patience and problem-solving ability can build an attractive, functional, dynamic site with Drupal and TNT themes. But you will need some resources already in place before you dive in. •Basic computer skills. Specifically, this guide assumes that you’re familiar with using webbased applications that require you to navigate from screen to screen, enter information in forms, and understand such concepts as user permissions and links. You’ll also need access to your web server through FTP or SSH to install modules and the theme, and may also need additional skills to build your fullwebsite, notably with graphic design programs and payment systems. Those skills are beyond the scope of this guide. • Drupal installed and running. All of TNT’s themes run on Drupal: We currently don’t offer designs for other CMSes such as WordPress or Joomla. • Administrative access to your Drupal installation. Ideally you would be the superuser — that is, the first account created when youinstall Drupal, and which has all-access permissions to administer a Drupal site. At the very least you’ll need permission to create content and administer content types, views, blocks, and themes. • Firefox or Internet Explorer 7 (or later). While our themes look good in all major browsers, these are the ones that most visitors will be using, so using them yourself guarantees that your experience ofthe site comes closest to theirs.

Copyright 2009, TopNotchThemes, All Rights Reserved

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TopNotchThemes.com

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Revised: 5 January 2009

TopNotchThemes Quickstart Guide: Build a great Drupal website with your new theme from TopNotchThemes

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But enough prologue. Let’s get cracking!

How we’ll build the website
We’ll build the site in four stages: 1. Basic configuration of...