Understanding Drupal
FreeLearn the essential terminology of Drupal in this overview of content nodes, blocks, theming, menu system and modules. In Understanding Drupal, the first in The Lullabot Learning Series, the Lullabot team provides an overview of Drupal as a content management system, as a PHP web application framework, and as a developer community. Its documentary-style exploration covers all the terminology and fundamental concepts for both site administrators and developers. If you've ever been confused by Drupal or are still trying to wrap your head around the community and platform, then this video is a roadmap to accelerate your journey up the Drupal learning curve. Topics include:
- How content is entered and managed
- How users and user permissions are handled
- What blocks are and what they can do
- The concepts and capabilities of Drupal's powerful module system
- How Drupal handles navigation and its menu system
- How themes alter the site layout, design, and presentation
- Site configuration and administrative messages and settings
This video uses Drupal 6 for examples, however it is more focused on general Drupal concepts rather than version-specific how-tos.
In this introductory video we go over what you should already know to get the most out of this series. We also describe topics covered in each of the 13 episodes – over 2 hours in total.
Each episode covers just one concept, when possible, so you can get the most out of them without getting overwhelmed.
If you need to brush up on Views, you can watch our Intro to Views for Drupal 7 series.
This screencast covers the following topics:
- Setting up contextual filters with Views Content Panes
- Getting argument input (contextual filter value) to a Views Content Pane
- Embedding a Views content pane in a panel
In this first series of Panels videos on Drupalize.me you will learn how to use the Panels module to take your Drupal website to the next level. When you reach the limits of what Drupal alone allows you to do with its layouts, adding Panels to your site enables you to create more sophisticated displays of your content. Here are just a few things the Panels module makes easy:
- Divide the display of your content into multiple columns
- Place blocks into the center of your pages
- Use different layouts on the same page, under different circumstances
Because Panels works with the Page Manager module in ctools, you get all the benefits of the page manager, as well as complex control of your layouts. Page manager allows you to take over many of the ‘default’ displays in Drupal, including the display of content (nodes), profiles (users), category listings (taxonomy), and also the edit forms for each of these entities.
Additional resources
In this Drupal Commerce series, Ryan Szrama takes you through the process of creating your own Drupal e-commerce site using Drupal Commerce for Drupal 7. The series starts by getting the basics installed with the Commerce Kickstart project, and then works through working with products, taxes, discounts, checkout, and general configuration of our store.
We kick off the Commerce Basics series with a look at the LB Robotics store site that we will be building. Ryan gives a quick tour of the site and discusses the main topics we will be focusing on, like products, taxes, discounts, checkout, and general configuration of our store. Drupal Commerce relies heavily on the Views and Rules modules for many of its features, which allow you a lot of customization. If you need a refresher on these two modules, you can watch these other Drupalize.Me series:
In this lesson we cover how one can use view modes and display suite to allow multiple options of layouts for content display. This allows a user to have a different layout of the same content for different scenarios of the site. Combining this with views and you can start to see the power of display suite in action.
Additional resources
In this lesson we cover the basics of using Display Suite to modify the layout of a particular content type. We cover all the potential templates, adding classes to regions, and lots of configurations to set to taylor the layout to your needs. We also discuss how you can create your own template files and layouts for your own customizations.
Additional resources
Though Panels comes with several built-in layouts for you to choose from, you’ll find that these don’t always suit your needs. Fortunately, there’s also a layout designer that anyone can use to create a new layout with Panels. In this lesson you will learn how to use the Panels layout designer for rapid prototyping.
Additional resources
Lightboxes and Drupal 7
CourseA Lightbox brings content to the user's attention.
To decide which Lightbox module you should use for your Drupal project, think about what you will use it for. Do you need to handle images and video? HTML? Integration with other modules? Various browsers?
Once you choose one to meet your needs, we’ll show you how to go about using it.
Additional resources
In this lesson we will cover the configuration pages for the Lightbox2 module. This module offers a ton of options and the configuration page can be daunting. Later in the series, as we get into using Lightbox2, we will demonstrate how to apply some of these configurations.
Additional resources
Modules Needed
In this lesson, we will take a look at the Colorbox module and its configuration page. We also will discuss some other helper modules that work great with Colorbox. Later in the series, we will demonstrate some uses of Colorbox and techniques to make the most of it.
Additional resources
Modules Needed
External
Install Git
FreeIn this video we walk through getting Git version control installed, and then show how to do a few basic things, including how to get a copy of the latest Drupal development code. This video follows the instructions found in the Install Git lesson on learndrupal.org.
This video is installing Git on Windows, because it has the most steps involved. Installation on Mac and Linux is very simple, in that they do not have a wizard to walk through, so they are not demonstrated. All commands used on the command line in the video work on Windows, Mac, and Linux, because Windows is using the Git Bash shell which is part of the Git installation.
Additional resources
In this step we turn our attention to Drupal.org and the community issue queue. This is where all of the active work for Drupal core takes place. We will look at the queue and create our issue to see how it works. This video follows the instructions for the Getting started in the issue queue lesson on learndrupal.org.
Test Patches
FreeIn this video we will walk through the process of testing existing patches in the Drupal.org issue queue. We will read an issue, download and apply the patch with Git, and then test it to see if it works. This video follows the instructions on the Test patches lesson on learndrupal.org.
The lines that I have in my .bash_profile (shown at the end of this video) to add the Git branch to my command line prompt is:
function parse_git_branch {
git branch --no-color 2> /dev/null | sed -e '/^[^*]/d' -e 's/* \(.*\)/(\1)/'
}
export PS1="\h:\W \u\$(parse_git_branch)\$ "
I'm using a Mac, so your mileage may vary on other systems.
Write a Patch
FreeIn this video we will write our own patch to resolve an issue. We will take a screenshot of the issue before and after our patch, and upload the images and patch to the Drupal.org issue queue. This video follows the instructions in the Write a patch lesson on drupalladder.org.
In this lesson we will use both the Lightbox2 and Colorbox modules in actual real world uses. We will demonstrate how to use each module or helper modules to use with images, create slideshows and galleries.
In this lesson we will cover using Lightbox2 and Colorbox with content in your site. Taking a lightbox beyond just enlarging images, we will demonstrate displaying nodes and using Views with a lightbox.
The Views Bulk Operations (VBO) module is a great extension for the Views module, which allows you to add bulk operation checkboxes and actions to any view. You often see bulk operations on various Drupal core administration pages, like the content administration screen, which lets you select multiple pieces of content, and then perform an action, like publishing or deleting, on all items at the same time. VBO lets you add this to your administrative screens, which allows you to create very customized reports that also have time-saving actions available to them as well.
Additional resources
The Entity Views Attachment (EVA) module extends the Views module to allow you to attach a view to any entities on your site. Views on its own will let you create a page for your view, with its own URL, and it also lets you attach multiple views to the same Views page, but it doesn't let you do something like attach a view to a node, or a user. This lesson walks through a simple example of creating a basic view listing published articles on a site, and then using EVA to attach that view to user profiles, and making sure that we only list the published articles for that user, using a contextual filter.