Jump to content

Drupal

From Niidae Wiki
Revision as of 18:12, 7 May 2025 by 148.59.194.34 (talk)
(diff) ← Older revision | Latest revision (diff) | Newer revision → (diff)

Template:Short description Template:Use dmy dates Template:Infobox softwareTemplate:Primary sources Drupal (Template:IPAc-en)<ref>A query on DrupalTemplate:'s official website in March 2009: How does one pronounce "Drupal"? (accessed 19 June 2013)</ref> is a free and open-source web content management system (CMS) written in PHP and distributed under the GNU General Public License.<ref name=licensingfaq>Template:Cite web</ref><ref name=over>Template:Cite web</ref><ref name="reqs">Template:Cite web</ref> Drupal provides an open-source back-end framework for at least 14% of the top 10,000 websites worldwide<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> and 1.2% of the top 10 million websites<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>—ranging from personal blogs to corporate, political, and government sites.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> Drupal can also be used for knowledge management and for business collaboration.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

Template:As of, the Drupal community had more than 1.39 million members,<ref>Template:Cite web</ref><ref>Template:Cite web</ref><ref>Template:Cite web</ref> including 124,000 users actively contributing,<ref name="dohome">Template:Cite web </ref> resulting in more than 50,000 free modules that extend and customize Drupal functionality,<ref name=":0" /> over 3,000 free themes that change the look and feel of Drupal,<ref name=":1" /> and at least 1,400 free distributions that allow users to quickly and easily set up a complex, use-specific Drupal in fewer steps.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

The base of Drupal is known as Drupal core, contains basic features common to content-management systems. These include user account registration and maintenance, menu management, RSS feeds, taxonomy, page layout customization, and system administration. The Drupal core installation can serve as a simple website, a single- or multi-user blog, an Internet forum, or a community website providing for user-generated content.

Drupal also describes itself as a web application framework.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> When compared with notable frameworks, Drupal meets most of the generally accepted feature requirements for such web frameworks.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref><ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

Although Drupal offers a sophisticated API for developers, basic Web-site installation and administration of the framework require no programming skills.<ref name=features/>

Drupal runs on any computing platform that supports both a web server capable of running PHP and a database to store content and configuration.

In 2023/2024, Drupal received over 250,000 Euros from Germany's Sovereign Tech Fund.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

History

[edit]
Latest major and supported releases<ref name="Celebrating 20 years of Drupal">Template:Cite web</ref>
Version Release date
Template:Version Template:Wikidata
Template:Version Template:Wikidata
Template:Version 4 December 2024<ref name="Drupal-7-Releases">Template:Cite web</ref>
Template:Version 20 September 2023<ref name="Drupal-9-Releases">Template:Cite web</ref>
Template:Version 17 December 2021 <ref name="Drupal-8-Releases">Template:Cite web</ref>
Template:Version 24 February 2016<ref name="Drupal-6-Releases">Template:Cite web</ref>
Template:Version 11 August 2010<ref name="Drupal-5-Releases">Template:Cite web</ref>
Template:Version 10 January 2008<ref name="Drupal-4-Releases">Template:Cite web</ref>
Template:Version 15 September 2001<ref name="Drupal-3-Releases">Template:Cite web</ref>
Template:Version 15 March 2001<ref name="Drupal-2-Releases">Template:Cite web</ref>
Template:Version 15 January 2001<ref name="Drupal-1-Releases">Template:Cite web</ref>
Template:VersionTemplate:Version

Drupal was originally written by Dries Buytaert as a message board for his friends to communicate in their dorms while working on his Master's degree at the University of Antwerp.<ref name=":3">Template:Cite web</ref><ref>Template:Cite web</ref> After graduation, Buytaert moved the site to the public internet and named it Drop.org.<ref name=":3" /> Between 2003 and 2008 Dries Buytaert worked towards a PhD degree at Ghent University.<ref>Template:Cite thesis</ref>

The name Drupal represents an English rendering of the Dutch word druppel, which means "drop" (as in a water droplet).<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> The name came from the now-defunct Drop.org, whose code slowly evolved into Drupal. Buytaert wanted to call the site "dorp" (Dutch for "village") for its community aspects, but mistyped it when checking the domain name and thought the error sounded better.<ref name="history">Template:Cite web</ref>

Drupal became an open source project in 2001.<ref name="history" /> Interest in Drupal got a significant boost in 2003 when it helped build "DeanSpace" for Howard Dean, one of the candidates in the U.S. Democratic Party's primary campaign for the 2004 U.S. presidential election. DeanSpace used open-source sharing of Drupal to support a decentralized network of approximately 50 disparate, unofficial pro-Dean websites that allowed users to communicate directly with one another as well as with the campaign.<ref name="Melançon2012">Template:Cite book</ref> After Dean ended his campaign, members of his Web team continued to pursue their interest in developing a Web platform that could aid political activism by launching CivicSpace Labs in July 2004, "...the first company with full-time employees that was developing and distributing Drupal technology."<ref name=Critchley>Template:Cite web</ref> Other companies also began to specialize in Drupal development.<ref name=Kreiss>Template:Cite web</ref><ref name=Shapiro>Samantha M. Shapiro, "The Dean Connection", The New York Times 7 December 2003, accessed 27 May 2012.</ref>

By 2013, the Drupal website listed hundreds of vendors that offered Drupal-related services.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

Template:As of, Drupal is developed by a community.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>Template:Update needed From July 2007 to June 2008, the Drupal.org site provided more than 1.4 million downloads of Drupal software, an increase of approximately 125% from the previous year.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref><ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

Template:As of more than 1,180,000 sites use Drupal.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> These include hundreds of well-known organizations,<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> including corporations, media and publishing companies, governments, non-profits,<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> schools,<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> and individuals. Drupal has won several Packt Open Source CMS Awards<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> and won the Webware 100 Template:Clarify three times in a row.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref><ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

Drupal 6 was released on 13 February 2008,<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> on 5 March 2009, Buytaert announced a code freeze for Drupal 7 for 1 September 2009.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> Drupal 7 was released on 5 January 2011, with release parties in several countries.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> After that, maintenance on Drupal 5 stopped, with only Drupal 7 and Drupal 6 maintained.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

Drupal 7's end-of-life was scheduled for November 2021, but given the impact of COVID-19, and the continuing wide usage, the end of life was pushed back until 1 November 2023.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> This was extended once more as of June 2023 and was finally set for 5 January 2025.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

In October 2022, Drupal released an open source headless CMS accelerator, allowing the front end to be managed outside of the core system.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref><ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

Drupal Core

[edit]

In the Drupal community, "core" refers to the collaboratively built codebase that can be extended through contributory modules and—for versions prior to Drupal 8—is kept outside of the "sites" folder of a Drupal installation.<ref name="drupal1">Template:Cite web</ref> (Starting with version 8, the core is kept in its own 'core' sub-directory.) Drupal core is the stock element of Drupal. Common Drupal-specific libraries, as well as the bootstrap process, are defined as Drupal core; all other functionality is defined as Drupal modules including the system module itself.

In a Drupal website's default configuration, authors can contribute content as either registered or anonymous users (at the discretion of the administrator). This content is accessible to web visitors through a variety of selectable criteria. As of Drupal 8, Drupal has adopted some Symfony libraries into Drupal core.

Core modules also include a hierarchical taxonomy system, which lets developers categorize content or tag with keywords for easier access.<ref name=features>Template:Cite web</ref>

Core modules

[edit]

Drupal core includes modules that can be enabled by the administrator to extend the functionality of the core website.<ref name=coremodules>Template:Cite web</ref><ref name=ecommercemodules>Template:Cite web</ref>

The core Drupal distribution provides a number of features, including:<ref name=coremodules/> Template:Columns-list

Core themes

[edit]

Drupal includes core themes, which customize the "look and feel" of Drupal sites,<ref name="coretheme">Template:Cite web</ref> for example, Garland and Bartik.

The Color Module, introduced in Drupal core 5.0, allows administrators to change the color scheme of certain themes via a browser interface.<ref name=colormodule>Template:Cite web</ref>

Drupal CMS

[edit]

At DrupalCon Portland in 2024, Dries Buytaert called for the Drupal Community to create a new, modernized Drupal experience. The project was initially called Starshot<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> and it was an effort to reframe how people think of Drupal. The project aims to deliver a more user-friendly and out-of-the-box version of Drupal, with a focus on ease of use, faster onboarding, and a polished default experience. In 2025, this project was launched as Drupal CMS. This represents a shift toward making Drupal more accessible to non-developers while retaining its powerful, flexible core architecture.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

Drupal CMS also includes many new [Artificial Intelligence] features.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> Drupal is now more easily able to create an open source, no code/low code alternative.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

Localization

[edit]

As of September 2022, Drupal is available in 100 languages including English (the default).<ref>Template:Cite web</ref><ref name=":2">Template:Cite web</ref> Support is included for right-to-left languages such as Arabic, Persian, and Hebrew.<ref name=sixnewfeatures>Template:Cite web</ref>

Drupal localization is built on top of gettext, the GNU internationalization and localization (i18n) library.

Auto-update notification

[edit]

Drupal can automatically notify the administrator about new versions of modules, themes, or the Drupal core.<ref name=sixnewfeatures/> It's important to update quickly after security updates are released.

Before updating it is highly recommended to take backup of core, modules, theme, files and database. If there is any error shown after update or if the new update is not compatible with a module, then it can be quickly replaced by a backup. There are several backup modules available in Drupal.

On 15 October 2014, an SQL injection vulnerability was announced and update was released.<ref name="sql-injection-vulnerability">Template:Cite web</ref> Two weeks later the Drupal security team released an advisory explaining that everyone should act under the assumption that any site not updated within 7 hours of the announcement was compromised by automated attacks.<ref name="sql-injection-exploited">Template:Cite web</ref> Thus, it can be extremely important to apply these updates quickly and usage of a tool like drush to make this process easier is highly recommended.

Database abstraction

[edit]

Prior to version 7, Drupal had functions that performed tasks related to databases, such as SQL query cleansing, multi-site table name prefixing, and generating proper SQL queries. In particular, Drupal 6 introduced an abstraction layer that allowed programmers to create SQL queries without writing SQL.

Drupal 9 extends the data abstraction layer so that a programmer no longer needs to write SQL queries as text strings. It uses PHP Data Objects to abstract the database. Microsoft has written a database driver for their SQL Server. Drupal 7 supports the file-based SQLite database engine, which is part of the standard PHP distribution.

Windows development

[edit]

With Drupal 9's new database abstraction layer, and ability to run on the Windows web server IIS, it is now easier for Windows developers to participate in the Drupal community.

A group on Drupal.org is dedicated to Windows issues.<ref name=drupal-windows>Template:Cite web</ref>

Accessibility

[edit]

Since the release of Drupal 7, Web accessibility has been constantly improving in the Drupal community.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> Drupal is a good framework for building sites accessible to people with disabilities, because many of the best practices have been incorporated into Drupal Core.

Drupal 8 saw many improvements from the Authoring Tool Accessibility Guidelines (ATAG) 2.0 guidelines which support both an accessible authoring environment as well as support for authors to produce more accessible content.

The accessibility team is carrying on the work of identifying and resolving accessibility barriers and raising awareness within the community.

Drupal 8 has good semantic support for rich web applications through WAI-ARIA. There have been many improvements to both the visitor and administrator sides of Drupal, especially:

  • Drag and drop functionality
  • Improved color contrast and intensity
  • Adding skip navigation to core themes
  • Adding labels by default for input forms
  • Fixing CSS display:none with consistent methods for hiding and exposing text on focus
  • Adding support for ARIA Live Regions with Drupal.announce
  • Adding a TabbingManager to support better keyboard navigation<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

The community also added an accessibility gate for core issues in Drupal 8.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

Extending the core

[edit]

Drupal core is modular, defining a system of hooks and callbacks, which are accessed internally via an API.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> This design allows third-party contributed modules and themes to extend or override Drupal's default behaviors without changing Drupal core's code.

Drupal isolates core files from contributed modules and themes. This increases flexibility and security and allows administrators to cleanly upgrade to new releases without overwriting their site's customizations.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> The Drupal community has the saying, "Never hack core," a strong recommendation that site developers do not change core files.<ref name="drupal1"/>

Modules

[edit]

Contributed modules offer such additional or alternate features as image galleries, custom content types and content listings, WYSIWYG editors, private messaging, third-party integration tools,<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> integrating with BPM portals,<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> and more. Template:As of the Drupal website lists more than 44,000 free modules.<ref name=":0">Template:Cite web</ref>

Some of the most commonly used contributed modules include:<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

  • Content Construction Kit (CCK): Allows site administrators to dynamically create content types by extending the database schema. "Content type" describes the kind of information. Content types include, but are not limited to, events, invitations, reviews, articles, and products. The CCK Fields API is in Drupal core in Drupal 7.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref><ref>Template:Cite web</ref>
  • Views: Facilitates the retrieval and presentation, through a database abstraction system, of content to site visitors. Basic views functionality has been added to core of Drupal 8.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>
  • Panels: Drag and drop layout manager that allows site administrators to visually design their site.
  • Rules: Conditionally executed actions based on recurring events.
  • Features: Enables the capture and management of features (entities, views, fields, configuration, etc.) into custom modules.
  • Context: Allows the definition of sections of site where Drupal features can be conditionally activated
  • Media: Makes photo uploading and media management easier
  • Services: Provides an API for Drupal.

Themes

[edit]

Template:As of, there are more than 2,800 free community-contributed themes.<ref name=":1">Template:Cite web</ref> Themes adapt or replace a Drupal site's default look and feel.

Drupal themes use standardized formats that may be generated by common third-party theme design engines. Many are written in the PHPTemplate engine<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> or, to a lesser extent, the XTemplate engine.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> Some templates use hard-coded PHP. Drupal 8 and future versions of Drupal integrate the Twig templating engine.<ref name=":5">Template:Cite web</ref>

The inclusion of the PHPTemplate and XTemplate engines in Drupal addressed user concerns about flexibility and complexity.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> The Drupal theming system utilizes a template engine to further separate HTML/CSS from PHP. A popular Drupal contributed module called 'Devel' provides GUI information to developers and themers about the page build.

Community-contributed themes on the Drupal website are released under a free GPL license.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref><ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

Distributions

[edit]

In the past, those wanting a fully customized installation of Drupal had to download a pre-tailored version separately from the official Drupal core. Today, however, a distribution defines a packaged version of Drupal that upon installation, provides a website or application built for a specific purpose.

The distributions offer the benefit of a new Drupal site without having to manually seek out and install third-party contributed modules or adjust configuration settings.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> They are collections of modules, themes, and associated configuration settings that prepare Drupal for custom operation. For example, a distribution could configure Drupal as a "brochure" site rather than a news site or online store.

Architecture

[edit]

Drupal is based on the Presentation Abstraction Control architecture, or PAC.

The menu system acts as the Controller. It accepts input via a single source (HTTP GET and POST), routes requests to the appropriate helper functions, pulls data out of the Abstraction (nodes and, from Drupal 5 onwards, forms), and then pushes it through a filter to get a Presentation of it (the theme system).

It even has multiple, parallel PAC agents in the form of blocks that push data out to a common canvas (page.tpl.php).<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

Community

[edit]

Drupal.org has a large community of users and developers who provide active community support by coming up with new updates to help improve the functionality of Drupal.<ref>Drupal - CMS Grew Overnight By MAAN Softwares, Retrieved, 8 June 2017</ref> Template:As of more than 105,400 users are actively contributing.<ref name="dohome"/> The semiannual DrupalCon conference alternates between North America, Europe and Asia.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> Attendance at DrupalCon grew from 500 at Szeged in August 2008, to over 3,700 people at Austin, Texas, in June 2014.

Smaller events, known as "Drupal Camps" or DrupalCamp, occur throughout the year all over the world.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> The annual Florida DrupalCamp brings users together for Coding for a Cause that benefits a local nonprofit organization, as does the annual GLADCamp (Greater Los Angeles Drupal Camp) event, Coders with a Cause.

The Drupal community also organizes professional and semi-professional gatherings called meetups at numerous venues around the world.

There are over 30 national communities<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> around drupal.org offering language-specific support.

Media

[edit]

There are several Drupal specific forms of Media. The most popular is podcasts. DrupalEasy, TalkingDrupal and the Lullabot Podcast all have hundreds of episodes and thousands of regular listeners.

Recently, The Drop Times<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> has become a Drupal focused media outlet, highlighting stories of relevance to the Drupal community.

Users

[edit]

Notable Drupal users include:

Security

[edit]

Drupal's policy is to announce the nature of each security vulnerability once the fix is released.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref><ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

Administrators of Drupal sites can be automatically notified of these new releases via the Update Status module (Drupal 6) or via the Update Manager (Drupal 7).<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

Drupal maintains a security announcement mailing list, a history of all security advisories, a security team home page, and an RSS feed with the most recent security advisories.<ref name="security">Template:Cite web</ref><ref>Template:Cite web</ref><ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

In mid-October 2014, Drupal issued a "highly critical" security advisory regarding an SQL injection bug in Drupal 7, also known as Drupalgeddon.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref><ref>Template:Cite web</ref><ref>Template:Cite web</ref> Downloading and installing an upgrade to Drupal 7.32 fixes the vulnerability, but does not remove any backdoor installed by hackers if the site has already been compromised.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> Attacks began soon after the vulnerability was announced. According to the Drupal security team, where a site was not patched within hours of the announcement, it should be considered compromised and taken offline by being replaced with a static HTML page while the administrator of its server must be told that other sites on the same server may also have been compromised. To solve the problem, the site must be restored using backups from before 15 October, be patched and manually updated, and anything merged from the site must be audited.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

In late March 2018, a patch for vulnerability CVE-2018-7600, also dubbed Drupalgeddon2, was released. The underlying bug allows remote attackers without special roles or permissions to take complete control of Drupal 6, 7, and 8 sites.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref><ref>Template:Cite web</ref> Drupal 6 reached end-of-life on 24 February 2016, and does not get official security updates (extended support is available from two paid Long Term Services Vendors).<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> Starting early April, large scale automated attacks against vulnerable sites were observed, and on 20 April, a high level of penetration of unpatched sites was reported.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref>

On 23 December 2019, Drupal patched an arbitrary file upload flaw. The file-upload flaw affects Drupal 8.8.x before 8.8.1 and 8.7.x before 8.7.11, and the vulnerability is listed as moderately critical by Drupal.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref><ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

In September 2022, Drupal announced two security advisories for a severe vulnerability in Twig for users of Drupal 9.3 and 9.4.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> That week, Drupal also announced a patch for the S3 File System to fix an access bypass issue.<ref name=":5" />

In January 2023, Drupal announced software updates to resolve four vulnerabilities in Drupal core and three plugins.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

See also

[edit]

Template:Portal

References

[edit]

Template:Reflist

Further reading

[edit]
[edit]

Template:Commons category

Template:Application frameworks Template:Software in the Public Interest

Template:Authority control

Retrieved from "https://wiki.niidae.com/index.php?title=Drupal&oldid=125606"