Drupal Platform Features

Apache or IIS, Unix/ Linux/ BND/ Solaris/ Windows / Mac OS Support –

Drupal comes with a multi-platform support facilitating users to make best use of it with either Apache or Microsoft IIS. Also the feature supports and Drupal easily runs on Windows, Mac OS X, Linux, BSD, Solaris and other major platforms.

Database Independence – Drupal allows users to program in different database servers apart from SQL using the same code base. In other words, it offers the exceptional people from the majority who use Drupal on MySQL to embed their code easily. It is built on top of Database Abstraction Layer which enables the users to create a matching SQL scheme with a supporting backend containing fourteen functions.

Multi-Language – For the wider purpose of reaching users worldwide with your website, Drupal offers a multi-language support from the default language English. Content in different languages can be translated using a Graphical User Interface (GUI) either by importing existing translation or using tools such as GNU get text. With Drupal, a multi-lingual website, blog, community application or a content management system can be designed with the full framework

Drupal Blogging Features

Blogger API support – Users can now post and update content on their Drupal site using different external GUI applications such as blog tools for customized action. The blogger API lets you modify and update content using non-web browser tools that offer a more user friendly editing environment.

Content Syndication – For easier use of access for users across to gather and get notified of the contents posted, Drupal exports the content in RSS/ RDF format with which any user having a News Aggregator can browse the site feeds and be up-to-date.

News Aggregator – A powerful built-in News Aggregator is embedded with Drupal which will let you get news from other websites and blogging news in common formats such as RDF and RSS. It’s easy to embed a feed with News Aggregator in your Drupal site which will cache articles to MySQL database with user configured cache time.

Permalinks – The entire content loaded in a Drupal site is connected with each other using permanent links or Permalink. It will ensure users can browse through all the pages without being obstructed by broken links.

Drupal Content Management Features

Polls – The admin and users will be able to create polls with the help of poll module embedded within Drupal which is an easy feature used to setup a poll, set the base vote counts and the number of votes on each topic including the duration of the poll. Drupal will automatically tally the number of votes and the module will also allow users to see results, post polls based on the administrative privileges enabled.

Templating – Allowing you to customize and have control over the look of the Drupal site, the templating option distinguishes between presentation and the content. For easy access, the templates are made from standard HTML and PHP coding which saves your time spent in the learning curve to get the hang of a proprietary templating language.

Threaded Comments – Adding to the list of features is the threaded comment model offered by Drupal, a hierarchical module which groups up the comments posted on different blogs, pages, content into one similar to that of a newsgroup or forum. The powerful threaded comments enable users to publish comment, notified with updates and allow admin to segregate them.

Version Control –Drupal’s Version Control feature will help you keep track of your website by enabling a detailed page regarding the content updates, modifications done along with the date and time. It also has the feature to let you know who updated the content, who edited it and what changes they made with date and time. Version control has a reversal option by keeping track of the changes through a comment log so that you can roll back the content to an earlier version.

Drupal General Features

Collaborative Book – Coming latest in the list is the ‘Collaborative Book’ feature that enables to create a ‘book’ in the hierarchical which will contain titles, content, sub sections facilitating authorized users to create, write or edit the content. It is useful when it comes to creating guidelines, Frequently Asked Questions and information manuals.

Friendly URLs – The new Drupal program is improvised with the Apache’s mod_rewrite enabling the modification of URLs which is user friendly and optimized at its level best for search engines.

Modules – The contributed modules which are compatible with the latest Drupal 6 are plug-in that extends, build or enhance the Drupal core functionality.

Online Help – Rendering the best support to help you regarding queries, the reliable online help system built into the core text help will be available at the site created for you and works efficient despite the shortcomings found in support offered for all open source projects.

Open Source – Under the terms of GNU General Public License 2 (GPL), source code of Drupal is distributed for free which is open to be customized or extended as required unlike those of proprietary blogging or content management systems.

Personalization – With ultimate control to personalize based on individual user requirements, Drupal is embedded with a robust personalization environment enabling users to change both the content and presentation accordingly.

Role Based Permission System – Authoring the permission to operate, modify or change Drupal settings can now be done without the tedious process of assigning it individually. Administrators can setup permission based on assigned roles and group them into one for easy access.

Searching – Make better use of the search module which helps you in finding all the contents of Drupal which are completely indexed and searchable whenever required.