Drupal
Drupal Site Building Checklist
Before you launch a Drupal site, how do you make sure that you haven't missed anything and that your site is ready to launch? If someone else is going to be maintaining the site, how do you make sure the site can be easily maintained? While Drupal provides lots of functionality out-of-the box, even the simplest website requires configuration, installing contributed modules, and the checking of checkboxes.
Why have a checklist?
Plans change between design & launch Site building is an iterative process, so things change and get inconsistent. Avoid last minute fixes the week after launch, or when the site admin starts adding content Your checklist can serve as documentation.
What's on the checklist?
Content types & Views SEO Admin tools User Accounts Content Pre-Launch checklist
Content Types
Delete unused content types Manage display: consistent the ordering/format of fields for content display Manage fields: consistent ordering/labels for content creation Content type settings are consistent and make sense for each type of content All content types have been tested (drupal.org/project/devel and with real content)
Views
Delete Views that aren’t being used Document your Views Consistent formatting across View Check permissions on administrative Views
Seo Tools
Google Analytics (drupal.org/project/google_analytics) Configure URL Alias Patterns (Configuration > Search and metadata > URL Aliases > Settings > Patterns) Fix navigation on 404 pages (drupal.org/project/navigation404) Set custom error pages (Configuration > System > Site Information) Set page titles for key pages (drupal.org/project/page_title) Configure the Mollom module to prevent spam (drupal.org/project/mollom) Add social media tools (drupal.org/project/sharethis)
Content Editing
Enable and configure an editor (drupal.org/project/wysiwyg or drupal.org/project/bueditor) Text formats are ordered and configured correctly (Configuration > Content authoring > Text formats) Images can be embedded in the body text (drupal.org/project/insert and drupal.org/project/image_resize_filter)
For the Administrator
Administration Views are in place (drupal.org/project/admin_views) Views items can be reordered as necessary (drupal.org/project/draggable_views) Administrators have a menu that they can access (drupal.org/project/admin_menu)
Emails
Webforms are configured to send to the correct email address (Content > Webforms) Email notifications for registration have been tested (Configuration > People)
User Accounts
Roles have been created and tested (drupal.org/project/masquerade) Registration is limited if necessary (Configuration > People > Account Settings) Anonymous users have permissions to access/search content (People > Permissions)
Content
Remove all test content from the site (drupal.org/project/views_bulk_operations) No required fields are missing from legacy content Image styles have been tested with different sizes (drupal.org/project/imagecache_proportions)
Theming
Load images based on device size (drupal.org/project/adaptive_image drupal.org/project/resp_img) Check that the viewport meta tag is in place (drupal.org/project/viewport or http://drupal.org/node/1 888028) Make sure there’s a favicon (Appearance > Settings)
Multilingual Items
Date formats are localized (Configuration > Regional and language > Date and time > Localize) Emails are translated (Configuration > People) Transliteration of path aliases(drupal.org/project/transliteration) Run translation updates (drupal.org/project/i18n)
Pre-Launch
Check that aliases have been updated (Configuration > Search and metadata > URL Aliases > Settings > Update) Set update action for URL aliases (Configuration > Search and metadata > URL Aliases > Settings) Disable, uninstall, and remove contrib modules that you don’t use Disable core modules that you don’t use (i.e. overlay, toolbar, color, comments, search, dashboard) Disable modules for development (i.e. masquerade, devel) Make sure that your modules are up-to-date (Configuration > Modules > Update) Change the administrative password (Go to /user/1 /edit ) Disable error logging (Configuration > Development > Logging and errors) Enable caching and aggregation (Configuration > Development > Performance) Do a security review (drupal.org/project/security_review)
Post-Launch
Paths are working correctly (the .htaccess file is correct) Emails are being sent Multilingual domains are set up Files can be uploaded (permissions and file upload limit are correct) Backup your site. Back up both the database and the files on the web server. Test your backups! If you don't test them, you have no idea if your backup will actually work when you need it.
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