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The more pieces of information you have, the more messy they're likely to become. This is why content management systems are essential. By the time you've got hundreds of documents on your intranet, you're going to end up with an awful lot of mess — unless you have a way to organize them.

Content management system vary in features and price. A simple one will store your articles, news bulletins, and let you edit or delete them at a later stage. A more complex system will manage your entire site, from forums to newsfeeds to e-mails. A further advantage of such a system is that no knowledge of programming is required to add or edit the articles on your intranet, so staff with limited computing knowledge can feel at ease.

This series will take a look at a number of open-source content management systems that are available online, and help you decide which is the most appropriate for your intranet or Web site.

Drupal is an open-source content management system written in the programming language PHP. It is a starting point for managing a site or intranet, and is highly flexible in terms of functionality. Examples of corporate Web sites using Drupal (quoted on the project's site) are http://www.feedreader.com, http://www.tipic.com. Both appear impressive, but is it the right system for your intranet? In this article, I'll be talking a look at Drupal's main features, advantages and drawbacks.

Installation

Installation can be the first hurdle to getting a system running, and you'll need a modicum of Linux knowledge to install Drupal. It was a mostly straight-forward process, although it could have been simpler when "403 forbidden" errors started spewing out. Not having the foggiest idea what was causing this, I turned to Drupal's own forum (at drupal.org), which is a very detailed resource and to be commended. The solution was in modifying a configuration setting in the Apache Web server, although I assume this problem won't affect most people.

The documentation assumes you are able to get into Linux on the server, and download the installation file from the Drupal site. It instructs the user on extracting the files using the tar command, setting up the database and granting the relevant permissions. Clearly, this could be simpler. That said, if you're experienced with Linux, it's a breeze and requires comparatively little configuration.

Ease of Administration

Once in the admin system, one can be left feeling a little bewildered. Here are the options it provides:

• home
• blocks
• comments
• help
• content management
• site configuration
• taxonomy
• user management
• watchdog

Drupal is based on "modules" — sets of features that can be added or removed at will, depending on what you need. To take advantage of the system, you really need to set these up. One such module provides access to a forum system so your users can communicate. Setting this up isn't too hard, but would be easier if only they had used more straightforward names for parts of the system. It took a few minutes to realize, for instance, that after you've added a vocabulary to the taxonomy section, you have to then add a term to create a discussion forum. If you don't know your taxonomy from your term (which is perfectly excusable), then reading the online documentation is a must.

This is by no means the easiest content management administration system to understand at first glance, although it does have a number of advanced features. If you're just moving over from the paper world to building an intranet, then it will take time to get used to vocabularies, containers, nodes, taxonomy configuration, and a number of other functions.

The main features of the screen for adding a news story in Drupal. There are also several publishing options, such as allowing readers to submit their own comments, or to feature the news item on the front page.

There are separate administration pages for adding articles and pages to your intranet, which are far easier to use than the configuration screens I've described. The screenshot, above, shows the main features of the screen for adding a news story. There are also several publishing options, such as allowing readers to submit their own comments, or to feature the news item on the front page. This is straightforward, and easy to use even for a computer novice.

Site Design

The design of Web sites or intranets created using Drupal can be as simple or as complex as you choose, thanks to the integrated template system. Using any Web site editor, "themes" can be created to match your existing designs, corporate identity, etc. You can also allow the user to select a theme, so you could, for instance, have each department in your organization having its own color scheme. The screenshot below is from one of the included sample themes, and it doesn't look at all bad.

One of the sample themes included with Drupal. Users can create Web site themes using any HTML editor to match existing designs.

This sample theme illustrates how easily your own graphics can be integrated into the system, with the minimum of fuss.

Features

Once you come to grips with the way Drupal works, there are a number of powerful features that could be used to great effect on an intranet. These include:

• News: The most basic function of the system. You or another member of your staff can easily add content to appear on your intranet site, without needing programming knowledge. Stories can also be categorized or deleted.

• Receiving Syndicated Content: There's a module available for Drupal to receive data from other sites (in RSS format, which is based on XML). This may be useful if you want to display the latest finance news, world headlines, etc. You can also export your own RSS files, so that your organization's news or announcements could be viewed on a Web site/extranet.

• Performance: Pages are generated very quickly, and a useful de-bug feature lets you see just how long each page on the intranet takes to load. I haven't experienced anything taking more than half a second. There's also a caching system, which reduces the load on the server. Rarely, however, would this make a lot of difference on an intranet, unless it's experiencing very high traffic indeed.

A large number of man-hours have clearly gone into Drupal. It's a highly detailed system, boasting a range of features not found in rival products. That said, to set it up isn't as straight forward as it could be, and it cannot be run straight "out of the box."

What Drupal does provide is an extensible framework, especially beneficial for use on larger intranets, which will allow you to expand and improve your intranet over time. The screens for adding new articles are simple, and the administrator of the system is given the ability to veto content submitted by contributing authors. If you have the time and expertise, it's well worth getting to grips with the nitty-gritty of Drupal if you'd like to fully customize it's operation.

Drupal is a powerful system, but not alone. Its rivals are numerous. Next month I'll be reviewing one such rival, PHP-Nuke — an enormous "Web site in a box" tool.