It's great that we can list our audio files in our albums, but a link to download isn't a great way for people to experience the music. Media module is helpful to get the music up there, but it doesn't provide any players for audio and video files. We need to add our own player to make the audio experience nice and slick. In this lesson, we'll review the following players:
- MediaElement
- MediaFront
- jPlayer
Note: This series is covering Media Module version 1.x. To learn about Media Module 2.x, check out our Using Drupal Chapter 4: Media Management series.
Additional resources
In this lesson we already have albums and a nice player all set up, now we just need to make them easy to find and play. We're going to use the clone feature of the Views module to create a music listing page and then get a music block on the home page, next to the Photos block we already have. Using Views' clone feature will make this a pretty quick process for us.
Note: This series is covering Media Module version 1.x. To learn about Media Module 2.x, check out our Using Drupal Chapter 4: Media Management series.
Additional resources
Embed YouTube Videos
FreeOur band has been capturing stuff on videos for a while, and it's super easy for them to put them up on YouTube. YouTube has been perfect for them, and they want to keep using that, but they also want people to be able to find those videos on their site. In this lesson we'll create a new video content type and set it up to use remote media with the Media Internet Sources module, which comes with the Media package. When we add our video field to the content type we will not be configuring it for upload, which is what we used for the audio files on our albums. This configuration, with Media Internet Sources and the Media YouTube module, will allow our users to simply copy and paste in a YouTube URL or embed code to get a playable video on our site. In the process of working with the Media YouTube module, we'll also take our first dip into the Media file type display settings to make sure our video preview doesn't break our editing experience.
Note: This series is covering Media Module version 1.x. To learn about Media Module 2.x, check out our Using Drupal Chapter 4: Media Management series.
Additional resources
We have our video content type created, and we can get our videos on the site. The final step to completing this website is to create our video listing page and front page block. Like we did with the music views, we will clone an existing view to speed our work. To get our videos to display properly though we're going to have to dive deeper into our file type display settings, and in particular we will look at both a file type field setting, and the actual file display to get a custom-sized embedded video player on our listing page.
Note: This series is covering Media Module version 1.x. To learn about Media Module 2.x, check out our Using Drupal Chapter 4: Media Management series.
We've built a pretty great, and media-rich, site for our band. We nailed all of the requirements they had, and learned a lot about media in Drupal in the process. In this wrap-up lesson we're going to take a tour of the completed site to review how we built it, and step through the modules we used and how. Then we look froward by taking a quick look at some other useful modules to explore: oEmbed and File Lock.
Note: This series is covering Media Module version 1.x. To learn about Media Module 2.x, check out our Using Drupal Chapter 4: Media Management series.
Additional resources
When you’re uploading photos to a website, it’s important to ensure that they are displayed at the right size. Otherwise, when you upload an exceptionally large image, chances are good that it will break your site’s layout. To prevent this, you’ll want to scale these images so that they’re a consistent size, and create thumbnails for use in listing pages. Image styles are a feature that’s part of Drupal core’s Image module, and it provides these options and many more for displaying images. In this lesson we'll get an overview of the core image styles feature so that we understand how it works, which styles and effects we have to work with, and some tips for troubleshooting when your images don't display properly.
Additional resources
In this lesson, we take a look at our Band Wagon case study, and then we'll go through our implementation plan and see how we're going to tackle this one. In our case study, John and Lisa decide to make a website to share information about all the music they love, including videos, photos and reviews, and they want their friends have a voice on the site as well.
First of all, they need to be able to upload images to the site, and have an image that's small in one location but full-sized in other locations. We'll want to embed some videos, as well.
Their friends don't know how to write HTML, so we let them use a simple form to select media, and maybe reuse other people's images. We want to provide them with a WYSIWYG tool bar, an editor that helps them write HTML without coding.
How will this work? We'll use Drupal Core's Image Module and image styles, and expand the Media Module. For our WYSIWYG editor we're going to use the WYSIWYG Module, and then we're going to need to get an editor that we can plug into it.
Additional resources
In this lesson, we are going to see how the book relates to each of the series we have, and how each of the individual series are organized. We will end up with thirteen series to cover the entire book. Then we will take a look at how you should use the videos with the book. If you don't have the book, not to worry, as the book would only act as supplementary material to the video lessons. You don't need the book to successfully follow these series. If you do have the book however, we want to make sure you understand how the lessons and book relate to each other.
Additional resources
Using Drupal comes with source code intended to be used throughout the lessons to make following the lessons much easier. In this lesson we're going to take a look at what that source code provides for us, where we can get a copy of, and how to use it. We'll go through the installation process, as well as see how we can switch between chapters in the source code without destroying work you've done on previous chapters. It is important to note that using the source code is very important if you want the lessons to match what is in the lessons. Drupal modules can change a lot over time, and the source code is designed to exactly match what is covered in the lessons. Once you've learned the basics of a chapter by working through the source code, you can upgrade your modules and explore the differences in newer versions, with the base understanding you've gained from the lesson.
Warning: Since this Drupal code is several years old, you must use PHP 5.3. PHP 5.4 or higher will not work. You will need to make sure your server is using PHP 5.3 in order to use this code properly. Many all-in-one servers, like WAMP, MAMP, and XAMPP provide older versions of PHP and a way to switch back and forth between versions.
Additional resources
The Using Drupal series of lessons walks through the O'Reilly book, Using Drupal, written by Angie Byron, Addison Berry, and Bruno de Bondt. We use the second edition, which covers Drupal 7. The book starts off with taking a look at Drupal Core and then works through various case studies using a wide range of contributed modules from the Drupal project.
The video series follows along with what's in the book, so if you have the book, the videos are really great supplemental material. Even without the book, you’ll get the full lessons here in the videos.
This series is intended for people who have worked with the web and understand how a website gets delivered, and in particular, how to get a website onto a web server so that people can actually see it and use it. The rest of this introductory series we have here will look at how the book relates to the video series we're going to be creating, and how you can use those 2 together.
Additional resources
Once you have met all of the requirements and gathered the information you need, you can get down to the installation. This lesson assumes that you have already downloaded Drupal, placed the extracted files on your web server, and are able to create your database.
Additional resources
It’s not enough to just get Drupal installed; you also need to make sure to keep it up-to-date. New releases of modules and Drupal core come out periodically, most of which fix problems, some of which add new whiz-bang features, and some of which address critical security problems. In this lesson we will review Drupal version numbers and what they mean, review the core Update Status module, and then discuss using maintenance mode, and the update.php script.
Note: Not mentioned in the video is the fact that in addition to the user 1 account, you can also log in with any account that has the "administer software updates" permission enabled to run the update.php script.
Additional resources
Updating your site often sounds much scarier than the actual experience is. The most important step to remember is creating and testing backups of your site. In this lesson, we will create our backups, download a new version of Drupal core, and go through the process of updating our files and running the update.php script.
Note: Not mentioned in the video is the fact that in addition to the user 1 account, you can also log in with any account that has the "administer software updates" permission enabled to run the update.php script.
Additional resources
Drupal's contributed projects tend to move more quickly than Drupal core and there- fore require more updates within a Drupal version's life cycle. You can upgrade multiple modules at the same time, although it's best to do one at a time to reduce the chance of errors, and to allow you to isolate problems that might come up during an upgrade. In this lesson we will look at our Available Updates report, and use the Update Manager to upgrade a few of our contributed modules.
Additional resources
Drupal.org Upgrade Documentation
Drupalize.Me Guide: Using Drupal Book by O'Reilly Media
Up next: Using Drupal Appendix B: Choosing the Right Modules
Prior to installing Drupal, it’s important to make sure that you can actually do so, and understand a bit about how Drupal is structured. The first lesson provides a checklist of Drupal’s requirements, and also highlights important things in the Drupal file structure that are worth knowing before diving into the installation process. We also explain and take a quick look at how you can use Drupal to run multiple sites from the code base, known in Drupal as a multisite installation.
Additional resources
Drupal installation requirements
What Is Drupal?
FreeTo learn more about how to get started with Drupal, also see our Introduction to Drupal guide.
In this lesson we take a look at Drupal, the open source Content Management System. We learn about the major components of a Drupal site and the library of constantly evolving tools available for working with Drupal. We find out how to see who uses it, by looking at DrupalShowcase.com and Drupal case studies on Drupal.org, among others. We look at Drupal's major features, such as Modules.
With this overview we have some context as we move forward into the series.