Services

Beginner's guide to Drupal

This guide functions as a portal to instructional content for new editors. Here you will learn about the basic structure of aalto.fi, its content management system Drupal, and find links to other tutorials.

Illustration that shows how aalto.fi is built on independent hubs and pages and doesn't have a hierarchy. — Aalto.fi is not a hierarchal website, instead it's built around hubs.

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Aalto.fi is structured around hubs

Aalto.fi doesn’t have a hierarchical page structure. Instead, the website is structured around something called hubs, each with their own main page. The hubs focus on a specific topic and user group, for example, the School of Business or Research & Art.

Aalto.fi site structure

Screenshot of aalto.fi in editor mode with the Manage-menu shown on the left and the option Content highlighted.

Adding content

To add new content to aalto.fi, you need to be logged in. A black bar appears at the top of the browser with a menu icon and the text "Manage" next to it. Click the text and then "Content" in the grey side bar that appears. This will lead you to a search menu for all aalto.fi content. There is also a blue button on the page that reads "+ Add content". Click it and choose the page type that you want to create. The most common ones are Article, News, Events, Research groups and Services.

Learn the basics of each page type

Page restrictions

When you have chosen page type, you should decide whether your page should be public or visible for the Aalto Community only, meaning that only logged-in users can see the content. If you choose to make your page public, the content will appear for anyone searching the web. For news and events, this is done by choosing between "Visible only to Aalto Community" and "Public for everyone" at the top. For articles, you can lock the content for Aalto Community by adding a role restriction, Aalto Autentikoitu, at the bottom. This can also be done for specific components on the page, for example, an internal news feed. The selection done at then end of each component.

Language versions

By default, the page is created in the language version that you chose for aalto.fi, but you can change language at the top to any of Finnish, Swedish and English. Once you have created one language version, we recommend to add one or two translations. Note that you can add components only to the original language version and then translate any text in them in the translation.

How to translate your content

Tagging your content

Every new page needs metadata. This section looks slightly different for different content types, but simply put in data that best describes your webpage. This will have an immediate effect when it comes to filter content in advanced searches and automatic liftups.

Utilise content tagging

Adding images

Pages at aalto.fi can have a main image. You can either select a pre-existing image or upload a new one.

There are some tricks and tips to consider when you want to add your own image to Drupal. The website is adapted to work on different devices and for a diversity of users. As editors, we need to make sure our images are accessible and add value to the content. For example, all images should have an alternative text that describes the image and fit different devices. Alternative text describes what the image contains: do not write here the file name or add caption, as that is done in a separate caption field.

Also, make sure that your images aren't larger than needed. Large images take longer to load and eat up server space. Normally 1 mb in size is enough.

How to get good results when adding images

Get to know the aalto.fi components for creating versatility and visuality when delivering your content.

Services

Here, you will find a short description of and a link to the different liftup components available to you at aalto.fi. With them, you can visualise and highlight the versatile content on the site.

Services

Links and attachments

When creating web content, it’s vital to link to other content at aalto.fi or elsewhere on the web. However, there are a few things to consider when adding a link, like checking that it works after publishing. Attachments should normally be in .pdf format. Also, don’t miss the document storage guidelines that all editors need to follow.

Tips on using links, liftups and attachments

Document storage guidelines for aalto.fi