Jean Gazis Copywriting & Content Services

For Drupal 5

Log In
To do anything, you have to log in first. You can click the link from your account notification email. Otherwise, your username is your full name, and you can click the forgot password link to get another email.

Site Information
To change your site name or logo, or your slogan, mission, or footer messages, go to
Administer
Site configuration
Site information
then fill in the boxes

Site "look"
To change your color scheme or design theme, go to
Administer
Site Building
Themes
Enabled means you can allow users to choose that theme, Default means it is the theme you choose overall, and Configure allows you to turn the logo, slogan, mission on and off and to upload your own logo or icon. Some of the themes (Garland) also allow you to change the color scheme here.

To create a blog entry or other content
Choose "create Content" from the menu
Choose the type of content.
Enter your content
At the bottom,
File attachments - open this to attach a file
Comment settings - you can allow or block comments here
Menu settings - if you want the entry to have its own menu item, put it in here
Authoring info - if you want to enter something other than your username and today's date
Publishing options - promoted to front page means it goes to the top of the home page, "sticky at top of lists" means it stays at the top of the front page even when newer entries are promoted

Menus and Blocks
To work with menus, go to
Administer
Site Building
Menus
Here you can turn menu items on and off and move them around.

Each menu or item in the sidebars is a "block". When you create a new menu, you also have to go to
Administer
Site Building
Blocks
and turn on the block for that menu to make it show. You can set a block to show on the right, the left, or elsewhere on the page, and you can set it to show only on certain pages. Don't turn off the login block or you will lock yourself out of your site. (If this happens, type http://blogname.com/user in your browser location window and you should get a login page.)

You can also create your own blocks if you want to put your own content in a block.

I hope that the above tips will get you started.