Field Guide to Programmers

So you’re just getting started with Drupal and you’ve added a few blocks of content on your site. When you browse as the administrator everything looks fine, but as an anonymous user (or guest) the blocks are not showing up. Now what?

By default, Drupal allows the Anonymous role (i.e. guest visitors to your site) to see content and that’s it. In order to enable them to search, see feeds that you are aggregating, or a host of other features, you need to adjust permissions for the Anonymous role. This is done through Administration->User Management->Access Control.

Note, be careful when adjusting permissions. You probably don’t need me to tell you this, but the Access Control panel will allow you to give anyone full access to administer your site.

Think about the options you really want people to have. For example, do you really want unknown people to edit content? Probably not.

Once you’ve altered the permissions for the Anonymous role, the next page refresh should show all those navigation elements you’ve lovingly placed about your site.