Installing Drupal 5 For A Podcast

drupliconSetting up a podcast site with drupal is fairly simple. Once you have your sites information architecture under way it's time to install drupal and a handful of contributed modules that make the magic happen.

Before we install drupal let's make sure we have a server that can run drupal. Drupal requires PHP, a database like MySQL, and a web server. We often hear of running drupal on a LAMP stack but that isn't a requirement. For example, Spike Source recently certified Drupal to run on Windows.

If you want to install drupal on a PC or a Mac to test drive or build a site with before taking it live check out MAMP, WAMP, of XAMPP.

Installing Drupal

Installing drupal core only takes a few minutes. The folks at Lulabot put together a video that walks though it. Over at Geeks and God we posted a podcast episode that walked through installing drupal. And, drupal.org provides a step by step instruction guide.

Contributed Modules

Once you have drupal core installed there are a handful of contributed modules to download and install that turn your basic drupal install into a podcasting site. They are:

  • Audio Module - This module provides the audio content type, the flash player for the audio, the ID3 integration, and other essentials for a podcast.
  • Captcha Module - This module provides captchas for your site.
  • CCK - The CCK module gives us the ability to add additional fields to our content types. This is where we get to customize our content.
  • Comment Info Module - This provides a means for anonymous users to have their name, email, and homepage remembered on comments.
  • Pathauto Module - Pathauto allows us automatically generate smart, pretty, search engine friendly URLs.
  • Update Status Module - Update status checks drupal.org for updates to modules and notifies us when there is an update.
  • Views Module - The views module is a smart query builder. It allows us to create smart lists of our content.
  • XML Sitemap - The XML Sitemap module generates an XML file with your sites pages listed on it. It can, also, submit this list to Google and other sites.

To install these modules download the newest stable versions, uncompress the files, and place the folders in the drupal directory /sites/all/modules, /sites/default/modules, or /sites/yoursitename.com/modules. The first is the one I recommend.

Next up, configuring the site. This is where building a site starts to get interesting.

Good so far... waiting for

Good so far...
waiting for the next bits ;-)

after new year

After the new year I'll continue this out.....

podcast

will this tutorial ever be continued? it showed promise...