An Overview of Drupal Structure

In the previous article, Content was established as the menu for creating pages. Structure is the menu covered here — where you configure page composition and overall site structure.

Structure

Menu Structure

Looking at the Structure menu, you'll find it covers virtually everything needed to build a website. Comment types, Content types, and Block types are items directly related to page creation — think of them as menus for creating and editing the templates for pages and blocks used in the Content menu.

While menus with "type" in the name are used secondarily — after editing or creation — in page creation, Contact forms, Taxonomy, and Menus are items you use directly once creation and editing are complete.

Display modes and Views are menus for editing and creating list-related page content. Views is an excellent feature that lets you create list pages flexibly under a wide range of conditions. The ability to turn categories and tags configured in Taxonomy into list pages is also handled through Views settings.

Block layout is the feature for inserting blocks into base pages. It lets you freely configure the page structure — header, sidebar, footer — and by specifying conditions based on content type, vocabulary, or URL, you can freely compose the page layout to suit each page's purpose.

The Structure menu is organized as follows.

Common to all items in the Structure menu is that features are managed through fields, for both creating new items and editing existing ones.

Common basic settings across all menu items

1. [ Add XXX type ] — creates a new type
2. Existing [ XXX types ] are shown in a list — select one and click Edit or Fields to configure it

Depending on the item, new and existing configuration is done by editing [Edit], [Manage fields], [Manage form display], [Manage display], and in some menus [Manage permissions]. Everything managed under these four items relates to field configuration and display.

1. Edit // Configure label, administrative comment, and machine name
2. Manage fields // Manage and configure the fields in use
3. Manage form display // Manage display in the admin console
4. Manage display // Manage display of published content

With the menu structure now understood, I'll go through each item. There are nine items in total, covered below in three groups.

1. Menu group:

1. Comment types
2. Contact forms
3. Content types

2. Menu group

1. Taxonomy
2. Display modes
3. Views

3. Menu group

1. Block types
2. Block layout
3. Menus

Here I'll cover Comment types, Contact forms, and Content types.

1-1. Comment types

This is where you configure what appears when a comment section is displayed on an article. An editor for entering comments is provided by default, but images, files, and other options can be added as needed. The most common use is blog-style comments, but by adding multiple fields you can also create articles structured as themed surveys or discussions.

1-2. Contact forms

This is where you configure contact forms. Settings include the fields that make up the form — name, subject, email address, and so on — the recipient address for messages submitted through the contact form, sending a message after submission, and displaying a confirmation message on the page after submission.

You can create multiple forms and use them for different purposes — for example, an inquiry form and a survey form — giving you the flexibility to create forms suited to your operational goals.

1-3. Content types

Content types were introduced in the previous article. This is where you create and edit the content types used for page creation in the Content menu. Using Add field, you can add elements not provided by default — such as tags and publication dates. Manage display lets you freely configure where added fields appear. Selecting an image field also lets you configure the display image size.

It helps to think of the settings here as configuring a template for the page type used in the Content menu. This is the menu for freely adding fields to the template you're using and rearranging them — fields being the content elements you want displayed on the page, such as tags, images, and text.

Here I'll cover Taxonomy, Display modes, and Views.

2-1. Taxonomy

In Drupal, the concepts of tags and categories as used in Taxonomy don't exist as such — instead, a parent element called a vocabulary and the terms placed within that vocabulary are used as tags and categories.

Since Drupal doesn't have a native concept of tags, a term configured as a tag can be used in a category-like way, and a category can be used in a tag-like way. The benefit of Drupal's term concept connects to the flexibility of filter conditions in Views, described below — by setting up taxonomy terms thoughtfully, the pages you create can be used in multiple ways.

While there's a basic concept of creating pages in the Content menu, taxonomy terms can also be used directly as list pages — which gives a sense of just how flexibly Drupal handles information organization.

Vocabulary settings are where you configure the fields to display on terms. By using the fields configured in the vocabulary, terms can be given HTML content and used as list pages.

2-2. Display modes

This menu configures which display modes are available for content and forms. There are view modes and form modes. View modes include menus for Content, Content blocks, Comments, Contact messages, Taxonomy terms, and User; form modes include User.

At first, I couldn't understand the purpose or necessity of Display modes settings because the results of those settings weren't visible within Display modes itself. What made it click was the Views menu, described below — when creating a list page from pages built as articles, you can select the teaser or full content display mode configured in Display modes as the display format for the list. That made the purpose and necessity of Display modes settings fall into place.

The reason Display modes settings and their necessity weren't clear initially was that the content teaser and full content display are selected by default — so teaser and full content display worked without any initial configuration.

Since the content teaser and full content display that need to be configured in Display modes are already set by default, there's no need to change or add them — but this becomes the menu to visit if you later want to display view modes in a different form.

2-3. Views

Manages customized lists of content. Creates list pages from pages built as articles. By specifying a content type or taxonomy tag, you can create a list containing only the pages that meet the required conditions. Views can turn extracted lists into pages or blocks, which means Views is also a menu with page-creation capabilities.

Since you can create pages and blocks, the display format for the extracted page list can be selected from the teaser or full content display modes configured in Display modes.

Display format options are:

1. Grid
2. HTML list
3. Responsive grid
4. Table
5. Unformatted list

The design can be customized by registering a CSS class in the custom class setting.

Views is one of the key advantages of using Drupal. It lets you sort created pages by purpose and display them flexibly where needed — so you can highlight a specific article for users, or relate articles to each other and surface them together, giving you the flexibility to build the kind of website you're after. Creating category list pages and auto-generating list pages sorted by taxonomy term are all handled through Views settings.

Views configuration is one of the important points in building a website with Drupal, so I'm hoping to cover it in more detail with practical examples in a separate article.

Here I'll cover Block types, Block layout, and Menus.

3-1. Block types

Block types is the block equivalent of Content types from section 1-3. This is where you create and configure the block types used in Content. By default, Basic block and Search block are provided. It's the menu for creating new block types and configuring existing ones. Actual configuration is done at the field level — adding and configuring fields — with the settings covering the functions assigned to each selected field.

3-2. Block layout

Configures block content displayed in the site's sidebars and other regions. This is another feature that's one of the advantages of using Drupal — it lets you freely configure the layout of blocks displayed on pages. The layout varies by theme, but typically includes sections for the header (top, middle, and bottom), main content, left and right sidebars, and footer (also split into top, middle, and bottom). You insert specified blocks into the location where you want them to appear. These locations — header, footer, and so on — are called regions, and you insert blocks by specifying a region.

If you want to check the actual display, there's a Show block regions feature that lets you view the layout of regions like the header and footer.

To insert a new block, select the appropriate region, click Place block, and select the block you want from the menu. The blocks displayed here include blocks created in Content, blocks Drupal provides by default, and blocks provided by the theme — select whichever suits your purpose.

Block settings include a Pages option where you can specify a path to show a block only on a specific page, or conversely to not show it on a specific page — giving you the flexibility to configure the page layout across the site to suit your goals.

Block layout settings are also an important part of building a website with Drupal, so I hope to cover them in more detail with practical examples in a separate article.

3-3. Menus

Manages menu links and menus. This is where you add and configure menus such as the navigation menu displayed in the page header and the admin menu used in the admin console. A navigation menu for the theme and an administration menu for the admin console are provided by default.

The default navigation menu is responsive, so I use it as-is. I select the menu I want to use, add the items to display in the menu, and configure the display name and link for each.

Conclude.

Following the Content menu overview in the previous article, this article has covered an overview of the Structure menu. Since it brings together all the configuration needed to build a site with Drupal, writing it out has turned into a substantial volume.

The reason I've devoted two articles to Content and Structure is that when creating and publishing pages in Drupal — including design and layout — configuration needs to be done in a separate place from page creation itself. It's a necessary process if you want pages and site structure to turn out the way you intend.

Explaining this concept has resulted in this much content. Since I haven't quite managed to distill the key points cleanly, I'm hoping to write a summary of these two articles in the next one.