To create content in Drupal you will need to fill out a form that provides information about how the system should handle and display your data. Here are some examples of important fields that occur on almost all forms.

Required, but not always displayed. You should use meaningful text for this field even when it isn't displayed to users, since it will show up in your content lists where you select items to edit.

A field that lets you describe what kind of content you are creating. The task instructions will tell you when you need to choose an option from the Meta field.

Local Vocabulary / Free Tags let you add uncontrolled taxonomy terms to your content. When you type a term, if you pause you'll see a list of any entries that match what you are typing. If a term you want to use is already present, make sure to select it from the list so it fills in the input field - this will prevent inadvertent creation of duplicate terms that differ only by capitalization or punctuation.

You can use multiple terms, separating each with a comma followed by a space.

This field contains text for pages, blog posts, and other kinds of content. There is a toolbar above this field that provide shortcuts for formatting text and other tasks. Click on the question mark icon at the right to get brief information about what each icon does.

Specially note the "eye" button, which allows you to preview the Body content in place.

The input format allows you to choose how much HTML you want to include in the body of your content. The default setting is Filtered HTML which allows a minimum set of HTML tags and included some helpful helpful features such as automatic line breaks and hyperlinks. If you are proficient with HTML, you can choose the Full HTML option for more formatting flexibility.

Filtered HTML keeps your line breaks as you entered them in the on-screen editor, and automatically converts URLs and email addresses into links. HTML tags allow you to add simple formatting and create lists.

Filtered HTML+ does all the above, plus allows you to insert other Drupal content into your posts.

Full HTML allows complete control over formatting. This option will require you to manually add p or br tags to create line breaks, and manually create a tags for URLs and email addresses. Use this option if you want to insert an HTML table into your page.

PHP code is for advanced users only.

This controls which Drupal "groups" your content is assigned to so that it is visible within the groups' pages. Your own group is selected by default and should always remain selected. Occasionally, you may have reasons for adding other groups as part of the audience.

Drupal will initially create a logical URL extension for your content that includes the name of your library or department followed by all the title words separated by dashes. (example: engineering-library/new-engineering-books ) It is important that you leave the "automatic alias" box checked when you save your content for the first time. This will ensure that the name of your library or department will populate that entry field. After you save the content, you can then go back and adjust the URL node title portion to something more meaningful or easy to remember (example: engineering-library/new-books ).

This controls whether your content is visible only to you (Published option is unchecked) or to everyone who has permission to see it (Published option is checked). The default is usually, but not always, to have Published checked. In general, you don't have to worry about other options in this section, which should all be unchecked. You should verify that the publishing options are correct before you submit your content.

Pages can include static HTML or content that's dynamically generated from data in the Drupal site.

1. When you are logged in to the account that created your group and viewing your group home page, choose Create Page from the menu on the left side of the screen.

2. Fill in the Title field, which is required.

3. Applying Description to your content:
Subject: select one or more relevant Subject entries.
Meta: this will determine where on the screen your content will appear.
Libraries and Collections: select your department or library.
Library/Department Vocabulary: (example: "Engineering Vocabulary:") enter specific free tags for your page. These should only be terms that are NOT part of your global taxonomy.

4. Fill in the Body field.

5. Leave the "automatic URL" checked until after save the content for the first time. Then, if you want a custom URL extension, you can go back and uncheck this box and create one. Make sure not to change the library or department portion of this URL extension.

6. Change optional settings or add other data if you wish.

7. Click submit when you are finished editing your content.

What determines where your page will appear?

• If you chose the Group Menu tag in the Meta list, the page will be linked to your group menu in the left column of your site.
• If you have created a Tabbed Sub-Page that includes dynamically-generated content "by taxonomy term", then entering the matching Free Tag for this page will cause it to appear on that Tabbed Sub-Page.
• You can display a page directly by adding Node Content to a Panel or Tabbed Sub-Pageand referring to the page by its name or Node ID.

Blog entries allow you to easily update your site with current news and events. Blog entries shouldn't be used for permanent or static content (use a Page instead).

1. Click Create Blog Entry from the menu on the left side of the screen:

You will see an input form.

2. Fill in the Title field, which is required.
This will appear as the post's title on your blog page, and will serve as a link to the full blog entry.

3. Applying Description to your content:
Subject: select one or more relevant Subject entries.
Libraries and Collections: select your department or library.
Library/Department Vocabulary: (example: "Engineering Vocabulary:") enter specific free tags for your page separated by a comma. These should only be terms that are NOT part of your global taxonomy.

4. Fill in the Body field.
You can enter plain text and HTML in this field, including HTML that references images, videos and the like. Remember, however, that blog entries may appear in different contexts and some content may not fit well in some contexts.

If you do enter HTML tags, check under Input Format to see whether you might need to change the default input setting for this blog entry.

You can click the break button:

to define what portion of the content you want to appear as the "teaser" when the user sees it in a list, such the River of News. The complete entry will be displayed when the user clicks on the node title.

5. Change optional settings or add other data in these fields if you wish:

Groups/Audience — lets you make this blog entry visible to groups other than your own.

URL Path Settings -- Leave the "automatic URL" checked until after save the content for the first time. Then, if you want a custom URL extension, you can go back and uncheck this box and create one. Make sure not to change the library or department portion of this URL extension.

File attachments — lets you upload a file (such as a PDF) from your local system and attach it to this blog entry.

6. Click submit when you are finished editing your content.

If you're using a template that automatically places blog entries on your group home page, you should now see the new entry there.

Drupal gives you various ways to find and edit (or delete) the content you've created.

Note: you must be logged in to see these options.

To see all your posts, click the "My Groups Posts" link on the left navigation bar below your account identifier.

This will show you a list of content in your group, arranged in reverse chronological order.

When you navigate to a piece of content (also called a "node") that you have created such as a page, blog post, etc., you will see an "Edit" button up in the tab navigation bar.

Or if you are on a page that is constructed of several nodes (such as a Research Guide), hover your mouse pointer just above the first word in the body of that node. An "[Edit node]" link should appear. Click on it to go directly to that node's edit page.

Editing content is just like entering it for the first time. Make your changes, and click Submit to save them.

To delete content, navigate to the piece of content and click the "Edit" on the tab navigation bar. Scroll to the bottom of the form and click the "Delete" button. You'll be asked to confirm the deletion. Click "Delete" again to completely remove that piece of content from the database.

In order to keep a group private from the outside world, follow the following steps.

On the edit screen for your group as a whole:

1. In the Membership section of the edit screen select the option "closed - membership is exclusively managed by an administrator"

2. Below that check the Private group check box.

3. In the publishing options at the bottom of the page, un-check the Published check box.

4. Click Save.

This will make sure that your group does not show up in the groups directory. If a user manages to figure out the URL to your site (or any child pages) they will receive an Access Denied error.