Editing Drupal (section)

==Drupal Core==
In the Drupal community, "core" refers to the collaboratively built codebase that can be extended through contributory modules and—for versions prior to Drupal 8—is kept outside of the "sites" folder of a Drupal installation.<ref name="drupal1">{{Cite web | url=http://drupal.org/node/144376 | title=Never hack core | work=drupal.org| date=16 May 2007 }}</ref> (Starting with version 8, the core is kept in its own 'core' sub-directory.) Drupal core is the stock element of Drupal. Common Drupal-specific libraries, as well as the bootstrap process, are defined as Drupal core; all other functionality is defined as Drupal modules including the system module itself.

In a Drupal website's default configuration, authors can contribute content as either registered or anonymous users (at the discretion of the administrator). This content is accessible to web visitors through a variety of selectable criteria. As of Drupal 8, Drupal has adopted some [[Symfony]] libraries into Drupal core.

Core modules also include a hierarchical [[Taxonomy (general)|taxonomy]] system, which lets developers categorize content or [[Tag (metadata)|tag]] with keywords for easier access.<ref name=features>{{Cite web | url=http://drupal.org/features | title=Features | work=drupal.org | access-date=8 April 2009}}</ref>

===Core modules===
Drupal core includes modules that can be enabled by the administrator to extend the functionality of the core website.<ref name=coremodules>{{Cite web | url=https://www.drupal.org/docs/core-modules-and-themes | title=Documentation: Core modules and themes | work=drupal.org | date=4 November 2016 | access-date=22 January 2021}}</ref><ref name=ecommercemodules>{{Cite web | url=https://www.lnwebworks.com/Insight/5-modules-to-integrate-ecommerce-with-drupal-website | title=Documentation: Core Modules and eCommerce | work=lnwebworks.com }}</ref>

The core Drupal distribution provides a number of features, including:<ref name=coremodules/>
{{columns-list|colwidth=22em|
* Access statistics and logging
* Advanced search
* Books, comments, and forums
* Caching, lazy-loading content (using BigPipe) and feature throttling for improved performance
* Custom content type and fields, and user interface to create, manage, and display lists of content.
* Descriptive URLs
* Multi-level menu system
* Multi-site support<ref name=multisite>{{Cite web | url=https://www.drupal.org/docs/multisite-drupal | title=Documentation: Multisite Drupal | date=17 August 2016 }}</ref>
* Multi-user content creation and editing
* RSS feed and feed aggregator
* Security and new release update notification
* User profiles
* Various access control restrictions (user roles, IP addresses, email)
* Workflow tools (triggers and actions)
}}

===Core themes===
Drupal includes core themes, which customize the "look and feel" of Drupal sites,<ref name="coretheme">{{Cite web |last=Buytaert |first=Dries |date=30 October 2006 |title=Garland, the new default core theme |url=http://drupal.org/node/91964 |access-date=8 April 2009 |work=drupal.org}}</ref> for example, Garland and Bartik.

The Color Module, introduced in Drupal core 5.0, allows administrators to change the color scheme of certain themes via a browser interface.<ref name=colormodule>{{Cite web | url=http://drupal.org/handbook/modules/color | title=Color: Allows the user to change the color scheme of certain themes | work=drupal.org | date=8 October 2007 | access-date=8 April 2009}}</ref>

===Drupal CMS===

At DrupalCon Portland in 2024, [[Dries Buytaert]] called for the Drupal Community to create a new, modernized Drupal experience. The project was initially called Starshot<ref>{{Cite web |last=Quinlan |first=Keely |date=10 May 2024 |title=Drupal announces 'Starshot' release for less-technical users |url=https://statescoop.com/drupal-starshot-state-government-2024/ |access-date=10 April 2025 |website=StateScoop |language=en-US}}</ref> and it was an effort to reframe how people think of Drupal. The project aims to deliver a more user-friendly and out-of-the-box version of Drupal, with a focus on ease of use, faster onboarding, and a polished default experience. In 2025, this project was launched as Drupal CMS. This represents a shift toward making Drupal more accessible to non-developers while retaining its powerful, flexible core architecture.<ref>{{Cite web |last=Dees |first=Mels |date=17 January 2025 |title=Drupal launches no-code CMS |url=https://www.techzine.eu/news/applications/127906/drupal-launches-no-code-cms/ |access-date=10 April 2025 |website=Techzine Global |language=en}}</ref>

[https://www.drupal.org/project/cms Drupal CMS ] also includes many new [Artificial Intelligence] features.<ref>{{Cite web |date=31 January 2025 |title=Drupal: Power, Flexibility, Freedom, and Now Smarter with AI |url=https://www.thedroptimes.com/interview/45813/drupal-power-flexibility-freedom-and-now-smarter-with-ai |access-date=10 April 2025 |website=www.thedroptimes.com |language=en}}</ref> Drupal is now more easily able to create an open source, no code/low code alternative.<ref>{{Cite web |date=27 June 2024 |title=Recipes, Starshot, and the future of Drupal {{!}} TheDropTimes |url=https://www.thedroptimes.com/events/40731/recipes-starshot-and-future-drupal |access-date=10 April 2025 |website=www.thedroptimes.com |language=en}}</ref> 

===Localization===
As of September 2022, Drupal is available in 100 languages including English (the default).<ref>{{Cite web | url=https://localize.drupal.org/translate/downloads | title=Drupal core translation downloads | work=drupal.org | access-date=30 January 2017}}</ref><ref name=":2">{{Cite web |last=Nick |first=Edward |date=7 September 2022 |title=Drupal |url=https://www.datasciencecentral.com/reasons-why-you-need-to-integrate-your-drupal-hosting-with-cloudways/ |access-date=20 September 2022 |website=Data Science Central |language=en-US}}</ref> Support is included for right-to-left languages such as [[Arabic language|Arabic]], [[Persian language|Persian]], and [[Hebrew language|Hebrew]].<ref name=sixnewfeatures>{{Cite web | url=http://drupal.org/drupal-6.0 | title=Drupal 6.0 released | work=drupal.org | date=13 February 2008 | access-date=8 April 2009}}</ref>

Drupal localization is built on top of [[gettext]], the GNU [[internationalization and localization]] (i18n) library.

===Auto-update notification===
Drupal can automatically notify the administrator about new versions of modules, themes, or the Drupal core.<ref name=sixnewfeatures/> It's important to update quickly after security updates are released.

Before updating it is highly recommended to take backup of core, modules, theme, files and database. If there is any error shown after update or if the new update is not compatible with a module, then it can be quickly replaced by a backup. There are several backup modules available in Drupal.

On 15 October 2014, an SQL injection vulnerability was announced and update was released.<ref name="sql-injection-vulnerability">{{cite web |url=https://www.drupal.org/SA-CORE-2014-005 |title=SA-CORE-2014-005 - Drupal core - SQL injection |newspaper=Https |date=15 October 2014 |access-date= 3 December 2014}}</ref> Two weeks later the Drupal security team released an advisory explaining that everyone should act under the assumption that any site not updated within 7 hours of the announcement was compromised by automated attacks.<ref name="sql-injection-exploited">{{cite web |url=https://www.drupal.org/PSA-2014-003 |title=Drupal Core - Highly Critical - Public Service announcement - PSA-2014-003 |newspaper=Https |date=29 October 2014 |access-date= 3 December 2014}}</ref> Thus, it can be extremely important to apply these updates quickly and usage of a tool like [[drush]] to make this process easier is highly recommended.

===Database abstraction===
Prior to version 7, Drupal had functions that performed tasks related to databases, such as SQL query cleansing, multi-site table name prefixing, and generating proper SQL queries. In particular, Drupal 6 introduced an abstraction layer that allowed programmers to create SQL queries without writing SQL.

Drupal 9 extends the data abstraction layer so that a programmer no longer needs to write SQL queries as text strings. It uses [[PHP Data Objects]] to abstract the database. [[Microsoft]] has written a database driver for their [[Microsoft SQL Server|SQL Server]]. Drupal 7 supports the file-based [[SQLite]] database engine, which is part of the standard PHP distribution.

===Windows development===
With Drupal 9's new database abstraction layer, and ability to run on the Windows web server [[Internet Information Services|IIS]], it is now easier for Windows developers to participate in the Drupal community.

A group on Drupal.org is dedicated to Windows issues.<ref name=drupal-windows>{{Cite web | url=http://groups.drupal.org/drupal-windows | title=Drupal on Windows Group | work=drupal.org | access-date=14 February 2011}}</ref>

===Accessibility===
Since the release of Drupal 7, [[Web accessibility]] has been constantly improving in the Drupal community.<ref>{{Cite web | url=http://drupal.org/about/accessibility | title=Accessibility statement | last=Killesreiter | first=Gerhard | work=drupal.org | date=25 February 2013 | access-date=16 April 2013}}</ref> Drupal is a good framework for building sites accessible to people with disabilities, because many of the best practices have been incorporated into Drupal Core.

Drupal 8 saw many improvements from the [[Authoring Tool Accessibility Guidelines]] (ATAG) 2.0 guidelines which support both an accessible authoring environment as well as support for authors to produce more accessible content.

The accessibility team is carrying on the work of identifying and resolving accessibility barriers and raising awareness within the community.

Drupal 8 has good semantic support for [[rich web applications]] through [[WAI-ARIA]]. There have been many improvements to both the visitor and administrator sides of Drupal, especially:
* Drag and drop functionality
* Improved color contrast and intensity
* Adding skip navigation to core themes
* Adding labels by default for input forms
* Fixing CSS display:none with consistent methods for hiding and exposing text on focus
* Adding support for ARIA Live Regions with Drupal.announce
* Adding a TabbingManager to support better keyboard navigation<ref>{{Cite web | url=https://www.drupal.org/docs/8/accessibility/drupal-8-accessibility-features | title=Drupal 8 Accessibility Features | date=27 May 2013 }}</ref>

The community also added an accessibility gate for core issues in Drupal 8.<ref>{{Cite web | url=http://drupal.org/core-gates#accessibility | title=Drupal core gates | last=Scholten | first=Roy | work=drupal.org | date=10 December 2012 | access-date=16 April 2013}}</ref>