Drupal For Dummies®

Chapter 8. Building Blocks and Managing Menus

In This Chapter

• Understanding regions

• Using blocks

• Creating and administering menus

Themes are customizable. A theme can be modified, for example, to put the primary menu on the left side of the Web page rather than across the top. In this chapter, I extend the discussion of themes and take a closer look at how they can be manipulated from their default appearances.

I also discuss menus in more detail. In this chapter, I look at secondary menus and custom menus. (Chapter 5 covers primary menus.) Finally, I discuss creating a dynamic menu that changes when you post new content.

Understanding Blocks, Regions, and Menus

You need to understand three Drupal terms before diving in to this chapter: menus, blocks, and regions.

• Menu: You probably have a pretty good idea of what a menu is. It's a set of links to Web pages. In Drupal, that basically describes a menu, but links can also point to Drupal nodes, such as stories and pages. When a link to a story or page node is clicked on from a menu, a Web page opens with the story or page node content presented as though it were an actual Web page.

• Block: A block is a container that holds a chunk of code. The menu you see on the left is in a single block. Drupal organizes menus and other chunks of code into blocks. This makes it easier to move them around as you redesign the look of your site.

• Region: A region is a location on your Web page. For example, the Header region is located at the top of all your site ...