Let’s extend our Workbench implementation with one of the more advanced features our client has asked for. We’ll build upon the structure we’ve created with the Taxonomy module (the “News sections” vocabulary), and use that to grant users with specific roles access to content tagged with one of the “News sections” terms. In this lesson we’ll start with a little preparation work by creating new roles and users so we can test our access control to make sure it is working as expected.
Additional resources
As you’ve probably guessed by now, we’ll create an access control mechanism that grants users with the “national editor” role editorial access to content tagged with the term “national news.” Users that have the role “cultural editor” will eventually get editorial access to content that has the term “culture” attached. In this lesson we'll limit our users to the correct section by configuring Workbench Access, setting the correct permissions, and then assigning our content to sections. This will get everything in place to finish up our access control.
Additional resources
With so much information, and so many products, on the web today, people often want to get an opinion to help rank and rate things. Should I buy this widget? Should I watch this movie? In this series, we’re going to use a handful of Drupal modules to build a product review website that lets community members give their opinions, along with a way to rate their review as well. To kick things off, in this lesson we will:
- Review the Super Duper Chefs case study
- Discuss our implementation
Additional resources
To get started, we'll need to create a content type to use for our product reviews. Based on the Super Duper Chefs requirements, in this lesson we'll:
- Create the Product Review Content Type
- Add a Field group
- Set permissions
Additional resources
Amazon.com is one of a large number of web-based businesses that have opened up their product information databases for other sites to access. In the case of Super Duper Chefs, we want to retrieve useful data like product photos, pricing, and manufacturer information for display on our own website. The Amazon module for Drupal allows us to do just that. In this lesson we'll take a look at the Amazon module, by starting with:
- What’s Included?
- Locale
- Referral settings
- Amazon keys
Additional resources
In a previous lesson in this series, we set up a content type for our product reviews. Now, we’re ready to add a field to store a link to the product on Amazon.com. In this lesson we'll:
- Enable and configure the Amazon module
- Get our Amazon key
- Add the Product Field
Note that Amazon changes the way they manage keys over time, so the way they are generated in the lesson may have changed. Please review the official AWS Product Advertising API documentation for current key generation instructions.
Additional resources
Giving visitors a chance to evaluate and rate content is an extremely common pattern on content-rich websites. In addition to giving visitors a way to jump to the best content, it can give you a way to determine what content on your site is most effective. In this lesson we'll discuss:
- Voting API module
- Fivestar module
Additional resources
For the Super Duper Chefs site, we’ll be using both of the Fivestar module’s unique features: adding a static Rating field to the “Product review” content type for the editors to use, and attaching a voting widget to the comment form on each review for the site readers to use. That approach will keep the official rating on each review separate from the reader ratings. In this lesson we'll:
- Add the Product Rating Field
- Add the Reader Rating Field
Additional resources
Drupal’s theming system gives designers complete control over how a site’s content is rendered for a web browser, and custom themes can give any site a distinctive look. But sometimes it’s useful to make minor tweaks to a site’s appearance using nothing but CSS rules. They allow designers to tweak font sizes, colors, and so on without altering the underlying HTML that defines the site’s structure. In this lesson we'll look at:
- CSS Injector module
- Explain how this works
Additional resources
Although our “Product review” content type has all of the data we need, the individual reviews still look a bit untidy. In this lesson, we’ll do some final tweaking to make the review display look nice and tidy.
- Setting Field Display Options
- Configuring CSS Injector
Additional resources
Now that we have a few products, we really ought to add a listing page that lets visitors look over all of the products that have been reviewed, comparing official ratings with visitor ratings and sorting by various criteria. This is a perfect job for Views. In this lesson:
- Create a Product Finder view
- Display Amazon information
- Display voting results
Additional resources
Now that you’ve manually created a new variant for your front page, this lesson will teach you a much faster way to duplicate an existing variant. This technique is useful if your variants are very similar to one another.
Panels and the Page manager module allow you to create different versions of the same page (called variants) under different circumstances. In this lesson you will learn how to build two different versions of the content on your home page. People who are logged in to your site will see a different home page than people who are not.
Drupal would like to assume that every page on your website will use the same layout. As it turns out, this is often not the case. The home page of your site, in particular, regularly uses a different layout. In this lesson we will demonstrate how you can use Panels to build a unique home page layout for your site.
Additional resources
In this lesson we bring everything we have learned in this series and just round it out with some tips and tricks now that we have images in our content.
Additional resources
In this lesson we go a little deeper on working with Text Formats and having the ability to create different WYSIWYG editor situations for different users/roles. We also go over the process of using and editor and best practices when doing so.
In this lesson we cover the IMCE Module and utilizing it to get images into your content. We cover the configurations that are unique to this module such as user upload paths and different per role restrictions when it comes to uploading images. We discuss how this module integrates perfectly with your editors "Image" button and creates a pretty easy work flow for the average web user.
Additional resources
In this lesson we cover using the Media Module and how it works for both methods of getting images into your content. The Media Module has the ability to be a widget for the image field or a button inside your editor. We discuss the pros and cons of these methods and you could get the best out of both with just a little tip.
Additional resources
Display Suite for Drupal 7
Course
This lesson covers all the updates/differences in the latest 2.x version versus other Drupal 7 releases. The new 2.x version of Display Suite is still in active development at the time that this video was published, but we want to make sure you know the changes that are coming when the new version is finally released. This video is very important to view if you are using Display Suite version 2 for the first time and have watched other videos in this series. It covers UI changes/updates as well as feature differences.