Leveraging Drupal®: Getting Your Site Done Right

Chapter 1. Keeping It Simple

"Keep It Simple" is really a synonym for "Get a Grip."

If you are reading this book, you probably have some degree of responsibility in getting a website application up and running. If you are reading this chapter and you are searching for a series of steps you can actually assimilate and follow toward fulfilling that goal, then you are in the right place.

First of all, in a software project (and because of its complexity, that is what a website application is), you are either controlled by circumstances or you succeed — but only if you can maintain your grip on things. That's only if, after receiving all the advice, you are able to fashion your own means of zooming into detail, return to the overview, keep it going, and know at all times where your bookmarks are...and if you can pilot the process of each layer making up the project, on every front: the purpose, the design, the usability, the navigation, the function, the data, the push and pull and flow of actions and results, the emission and reception of messages, the completion of tasks, the updating, the classification, and relation of content.

Which is to say, if you keep it simple and keep it all in view, or at least know where to look for it, then you can marshal your own approach to truly leveraging a powerful, open-ranging, and dynamically productive framework such as Drupal, the "Community Plumbing" Content Management System framework middleware powerhouse, featuring:

• Significant off-the-shelf ...