Hey, I already have knowledge of Joomla and Wordpress but now I want to start building sites in Drupal. What are the steps to follow?
1. Install Drupal. http://drupal.org/project/drupal 2. Pick a theme. http://drupal.org/project/themes 3. Find modules for desired site functionality. http://drupal.org/project/modules
Great URLs you provided. I also want to say that Drupal is the best CMS to make a website. I've worked with many CMS systems before and after working with Drupal, I feel I have found the holy grail when it comes to CMS systems. WordPress is good for blogging, but what if I wanted to do more? Joomla I had a hard time grasping the concept, although they do have great templates. Many other CMS systems have their distinct advantages as well. Somehow Drupal seemed to be a good balance to me.
I have not gotten around Joomla yet. However, this youtube channel has many tutorial videos on the subject of drupal: https://www.youtube.com/user/LevelUpTuts/videos?query=drupal
If you want to build or test a website in Drupal, try it on a local virtual server: Acquia Dev Desktop
I also suggest you read the Drupal documentation because Drupal can be a bit challenging at first. It's a bit different than other CMS, but once you understand how it works you can make great things with it.
Drupal 7 must know modules: 1. Views 2. Display suite / Panels 3. Metatags 4. Mollom 5. Pathauto 6. Global redirect 7. Fieldgroup 8. Entity Cache 9. Boost 10. CKEditor
Also check out sites like http://buildamodule.com/ and http://drupalize.me/ which provide great video tutorials on how to learn every aspect of Drupal. I'm not affiliated with either site.
You should check the documentation first and understand the structure. How they define things like 'node', 'module', etc. You need to grasp all the basic first before you know how to build a proper website, install themes, install updates, etc. Also, there are so many versions around and you need to first decide which version you want to use. Personally, I would recommend Drupal 7 since it is new yet not too new compared to D8 which is still under active development. D6, on the other hand, is a bit outdated.
I can name 50-100 must known modules(also don't forget about i18n and commerce). Simplest is to ask when you need a specific thing. drupal.stackexchange.com has pretty big community also drupal has support irc. Drupal community is really big, jet another reason to use it.
Hello, you can check Propeople page for some inspiration and also in the blog section you can find useful articles and tutorials for Drupal development. Cheers.
You can test as you go and most good hosting packages have a quick one-click install of Drupal and other CMS options in their Control Panel. I love Drupal but it can also drive you crazy sometimes. I am trying to solve an image issue where images are not showing in IE or safari on ipad. But apart from some occassional hiccups Drupal is awesome. I am not a coder or developer. I'm just a struggling student of web life! Drupal 7 has a lot of improvements on D6 as adding modules is a breeze and no need to use file manager to place module files in module directory and unpack it. You just copy and paste the install location (right click on .tar download link) into the install location within the module area and the select "enable newly added modules" in the module area and it will take you to back to the module page to tick the newly added modules.