Drupal-The Pitfalls of One Click Installation
If you are new to Drupal, or considering using Drupal for your web site or blog, the idea of using a simple one click installation from your cPanel might seem like a good idea. For the non-techie types (that would be me), one look at the Drupal installation guide is enough to send us screaming for the hills!
Many hosting companies offer one click installation, and I must admit, it was tempting enough to hook me. I have a few sites I am designing with Drupal, and a few with WordPress. I will go into detail about why I use Drupal for some and WP for others in another post.
I set up my Drupal sites using the one click install at GoDaddy. I spent the better part of this last weekend working on designing one of those sites. Everything was running smoothly-I uploaded several themes to try, customized my navigation and sidebars, created forums-it was great.
Then I decided to add some plugins to add some custom features. I downloaded the plugins, unzipped them, and prepared to FTP them to my server. Reading the install instructions, it told me to create a file in a particular section of my main Drupal file. No problem!
I logged into GoDaddy, went to open the Drupal file, and…it didn’t exist! Certain files within Drupal existed on my server, like the Themes folder was there, but there was no primary folder for Drupal. Without this folder, I could not create the sub-folder necessary to upload my plugins.
I did an online search to see if I could find a solution, and came across a discussion on the Drupal support forums. Apparently, the issue was with using the one click install. There was a long list of countless people who had experienced the same issue. It did not seem to matter which hosting company they used, if they did the simple install, they lost several necessary files.
I am not techie enough to understand why this happens, let alone explain it. Let’s just say, it happens, be aware of it, avoid it if at all possible.
The good news is, I uninstalled it, broke out the Drupal Installation Manual, and by taking it one step at a time, installed it without a problem. And in the process I learned that the manual install is not nearly as complicated as it first seemed.
The bad news is, I have other Drupal sites I did a quick install on that I am going to have to reinstall, and start all over again.
Hopefully, sharing this information will save others the frustration of getting half way through designing a site only to find it cannot be finished. At least, not if plugins are needed. If plugins are not required, the quick install option would be okay-but why tempt fate?
For help installing Drupal, you can download the Installation Guide from Drupal.org. You can also find lots of fantastic video tutorials at Learn By The Drop. This is a must visit site for anyone interested in learning Drupal.
Have you used Drupal yet? I would love to hear your thoughts.
Vickilee
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Thank you!!! This explains the problem I’ve been having. I tried everything and my plugins never showed up in my admin panel. I guess I’m going to have to bite the bullet and learn how to install it myself. I know what you mean about the installation manual. I started to read it and it seems very complicated!! Maybe I should just pay to have someone install it to start with and then I can upload the plugins and stuff myself. Thanks!