In this video we'll start talking about the structure of content on the site by explaining what a content type is and how to create our own custom content types. First we review the two content types that are provided by Drupal core, Article and Basic Page, and then we dive into creating our own new content type, a Press Release. We also add a few fields and review configuring the field display.
For more instruction on using Fields and Image styles, check out these other series:
Intro to Fields for Site Builders
Image Styles
In this video we walk through two methods for downloading and installing new modules. First we use the administrative interface on our site to install a new module with a URL, and then we download a module directly from Drupal.org and place the files in the proper location in our Drupal files. We also talk about some best practices for organizing your modules in your file system.
Installing Drupal 7
FreeTo get things started in this series we'll install Drupal 7. We start in Drupal.org to download the code, review some important points to watch for when copying the files, then we show how to set up a database using PHPMyAdmin before we dive into the Drupal installer.
Additional resources
This screencast covers the following topics:
- Manual import/export of Page manager settings.
- Import/export using Features.
- Some words about the custom rulesets module.
- Some words about the custom content panes module.
- Some words about the stylizer module.
- Some words (but not enough!) about mini panels.
- Some words about Panels everywhere.
- Some words and a quick demonstration of Panels in-place editor.
The Views Context
FreeThis screencast covers the following topics:
- Creating a Context display type in Views.
- Placing individual View rows in your custom page.
- Displaying other View render elements in your custom page (such as the pager or header).
- Using the View context to load further contextual object.
This screencast covers the following topics:
- Adding new contextual objects with manual selection.
- Adding new contextual objects with relationships.
- Chaining contextual objects, with the example of loading a node term, and then loading the term top level parent (or not).
This tutorial covers the following topics:
- The Contextual Administration module and variant type.
- Auto-populating node reference fields for new nodes.
- A quick glance at other functionality in Contextual Administration: vocabulary administration pages, user administration pages, quick content handling pages, and more.
- Using the local actions menu type.
This screencast covers the following topics:
- Rearranging the node edit form with Panels.
- Some words about how the render arrays in Drupal 7 makes this possible.
This screencast covers the following topics:
- Creating custom paths with Page manager
- Defining required and optional wildcards in a path
- Loading contextual objects from path arguments
- Creating access rules for custom pages
- Creating menu tabs, local actions and other visible menu items
- Making menu items only show in certain circumstances, such as only on selected node types
Panel Pane Settings
FreeThis screencast covers the following topics:
- Using visibility rules to determine when panes should show
- Using per-pane or per-page caching
- Setting caching granularity to per context or per argument
- Editing basic pane settings
- Moving panes between different panel regions
- Some layout settings for panes
More View Panes
FreeThis screencast covers the following topics:
- Setting name, description and category for view panes
- Overriding the title of the view
- Overriding the number of items to display
- Some other override options
- The "context is optional" setting for argument input/contextual filter value input
This screencast covers the following topics:
- What is Panels?
- Selecting Panels layout
- Disabling block regions on a panel page
- Adding content to a panel
- Outputting individual node fields in a panel page
- Manually setting the title on a panel page
- Inheriting page title from a panel pane
This screencast covers the following topics:
- How to create additional variants to a custom page
- How to set selection rules with more than one condition
- Why the order of variants is important, and how to change their order
This screencast covers the following topics about the Page Manager module, which is a module included within CTools.
- The basic framework of Page manager – creating custom paths and assigning content/reactions to them
- Mentioning some modules that can be used with Page manager, such as Panels and Contextual administration
- Overriding node templates to allow customized content/reaction
- Introduction to variants
- Introduction to selection rules
- Using the HTTP response code variant type, and using it for redirections
- Introduction to context or contextual objects
This screencast shows how to use fields when scheduling Rules components. In the example we are also using the Flag module, to allow people to sign up for reminder e-mails 24 hours before an event starts. The screencast covers:
- Using flags to load user lists in Rules
- Scheduling a rules component from a triggered rule
- Some words about rescheduling the evaluation if the event date should change
- Using conditions to make fields available in Rules configuration
- Using a date field to set evaluation time
- Adding an offset to the evaluation (-1 day)
- Verifying the configuration by executing the action set manually
Note: It would have been smarter to use the “Before saving content” event for this rule – to make it act on both new nodes and updates of existing ones. If combined with a check to see that the event is in the future, you would actually have pretty good notification system!
Additional resources
Rules guide (Drupal.org)
This video walks through the new interface in Drupal 7 for enabling themes, setting them to be the default, and configuring the administration theme. It also walks through the process of downloading a contributed theme, and where to store it. Finally, it walks through the theme settings pages that provide a user interface for turning on and off specific options for a theme.
Additional resources
Flag is a module used for marking nodes, comments or users with an on/off marker, for example for flagging spam comments, selecting content to promote to a sidebar, or marking other users as friends. What makes Flag useful is primarily its integration with the Views and Rules modules, and this series will make sure to cover those important pieces, too.
Field Templates
FreeIn this lesson we cover how you can do some powerful things with Display Suite in regards to field templates. Using the Display Suite GUI there are lots of configurations and offerings to get the markup just the way you want.
Additional resources
Lists and Loops
FreeThis tutorial shows how to manage lists in Rules – data types corresponding to arrays of other data types. It covers:
- How to loop through multiple-value data in Rules, to act on each individual data entry
- That lists are their own data types in Rules
- That each primary data type automatically gets a list type as well
- How to add data to lists
- How to only add data if it is not already present
- How to select whether to add new data to the start or end of the list
- How to load new entities into Rules (by id)
- A few words about other ways of fetching entities, such as by property or with Views (through VBO or Rules Bonus Pack)
- That Rules configuration are actually entities
- How to disable reaction rules
Additional resources
Rules guide (Drupal.org)
Flag and Rules
FreeThis screencast covers the following topics:
- Where to find and how to apply the patch currently necessary to use Rules with Flag
- How to have a rule react on flagging/unflagging a piece of content
- As an example: How to change access to a node based on flagging status
If you need a refresher on Rules, check out the Learning the Rules framework series.