Initial configuration

Preparing for add ons

The first thing I do on a new site is go to sites/all and type mkdir modules and mkdir themes. This is where all contributed modules and themes are stored. We don't want them mixed in with core because that makes upgrading much harder.

Making it easier to get around

The second thing I do is install Admin Menu. Go to http://drupal.org/project/admin_menu and find the appropriate version. Right click on the download link and copy the address. Then cd into the modules directory and type wget [paste address] and then tar -zxvf [filename]. Then go to admin/build/modules and enable it. I like the default settings but you'll want to have a look at admin/settings/admin_menu to see if there's anything you want to change.

Core settings

TODO

Demo snapshots

When building a site, you may want to try things out and experiment without wrecking what you already have. Of course, database backups are important, but another method is to use the Demo module. With this, you can take labeled snapshots as you go along.

Now that you have a basic setup, you may want to make a nice base demo snapshot.