We are now going to install and enable the Webform module in our Drupal site.
To experience the richness of Webform an existing Drupal installation is required. This could be a local installation (that is, on your own PC or laptop) or a remote installation on a web server. Visit the web page http://drupal.org/start to obtain the latest version of Drupal. A detailed installation guide for Drupal can be found at the http://drupal.org/documentation/install web address (see, in particular, the section on Local Server Setup if you plan to test Drupal and Webform on your local computer).
This book is written for Drupal 7 and that would be the recommended version for you to install. The Webform module itself is maintained for both Drupal 6 and Drupal 7 in terms of functionality, but you will find that the location of some tabs, links, and buttons vary between the two versions. Screenshot images in the pages and chapters that follow will reflect the Drupal 7 interfaces only.
- Let's download the latest Webform version from the projects home page at http://drupal.org/project/webform. Typical to most project home pages, the Webform page starts off with a brief overview of what kind of solutions the module presents and a screenshot of a sample Webform. You're welcome to read through all the information presented, perhaps even follow one or two of the links, but the bit we're interested in right now is the Downloads heading towards the bottom of the page.
- Click on the
.zip(Microsoft Windows, Linux, Mac OS) or.tar.gz(Linux, Mac OS) next to the version with 7 as its first digit (we're working on Drupal version 7). - Save the compressed file to the
/sites/all/modulesdirectory in our Drupal installation. - Once it has downloaded, we extract the compressed contents using whatever tool is available for our system (normally found by right-clicking on the compressed folder).
- A Webform folder will now be created within the
/sites/all/modulesfolder of our Drupal installation. - The curious may now enter the Webform directory, read the
README.txtfile and perhaps browse around the Webform system files and folders. We must be careful to not inadvertently change the contents of any of the files though! - Enabling plugin modules is an administrative action so we are going to need to log in to our site as administrator (the user we created when we installed Drupal) to continue the installation. Let's fire up our favorite web browser, navigate to our home page, and log in.
- In the administrator menu bar, we need to click on Modules:
- Scroll down to the very bottom of the Modules page until we get to Webform.
- Click on the checkbox next to the Module name to select it:
- Finally, click on the Save configuration button.
The page can take several seconds to re-load, but do not panic! The Webform module is busy creating database tables and identifying itself to the Drupal core system.
An aspect of Drupal that makes it such a powerful tool for constructing websites is the fact that it is extensible. The underlying core system has been put together in a way that permits developers to add plugin functionality without needing to change the core Drupal program files. It really is just a case of plug it in and switch it on!