In this chapter we talk about the powerful and flexible user system in Drupal. We'll create new users and roles, and walk through how the permissions work with them.
In this chapter, we look at the Drupal file system configuration, and we set up our site to give us private file storage. We'll talk about what that means, and the benefits and drawbacks to Drupal's private files.
In this chapter Joe covers two really important tools for most sites: cron and search. We start by explaining what cron is, and how core provides us with a basic cron tool. We also walk through how to set up your own custom cron if the core settings don't suit you. Next we look at Drupal's core search and the various ways you can configure that.
In this chapter we're going to go through a launch checklist to make sure we have a few things all set up before we actually put our site out there. We discuss:
- error reporting settings
- 403 and 404 pages
- performance optimization and caching
- reviewing the status reports
- disabling unnecessary modules
This screencast gives miscellaneous tips when writing Rules plugins, such as:
- Some words on declaring new data types for Rules
- How to restrict access to plugins
- How to form alter plugin configuration forms
- How to provide additional form validation
- How to use the "base" property to provide a non-default callback function
- How to invoke events programmatically with all arguments in a single array
- How to use drupal_static() to share variables/values with other parts of Drupal
In this chapter we talk about Drupal's taxonomy system, which is a way to organize our content. We'll walk through the steps to create a new vocabulary, add some terms, and then use it with our Press Release content type.
This screencast shows how to add parameters to your actions, for example to allow site builders to select which user object an action should work with.
In this chapter, we talk all about changing the look and feel of your site with themes. We start by reviewing the settings that come with our default core theme, Bartik. Then we go to Drupal.org to look at available contributed themes, how to look for themes, and discuss what a base theme is. We'll finish up by actually installing a new contributed theme, Zero Point, and making some configuration changes.
This screencast shows:
- How to declare that an action provides new data objects to Rules
- How to actually send the created data to Rules
- How to save parameters that are manipulated by the action (but not created by it)
The example used creates an action that returns the number of hits in a selected view.
This screencast shows how to:
- Use text as an input parameter for an action
- Provide your action configuration with a customized select list
- Restrict input for a parameter to "direct input" (and not data selection)
This screencast shows how to create a condition plugin for Rules:
- How to declare new conditions for Rules
- How to provide the condition callbacks with parameters to act on
- The big similarities and the few differences between actions and conditions
In the example, a condition is built to check which view type a provided view has.
This screencast shows how to:
- Invoke a Rules event
- Send parameter data to a Rules event
This is shown by an event triggered every time a view is being rendered, sending the name of the view as a parameter.
This screencast shows how to:
- Declare a Rules event
- Declare the data provided by the event
- Use that data in a rule
The example used creates an event "View is being rendered", passing along information about which view is being used.
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 video shows the basic syntax for creating form dependencies with the states system. For a more information about the states system, then be sure to check out JavaScript form dependencies with the States System.
Note: There is a typo in the code used in this video. The function form_fun_states_form() is missing a parameter, and should be: function form_fun_states_form($form, &$form_state).
When writing code for the web it is very important that you pay attention to security. Drupal provides many tools to help you out and in this presentation we'll look at what those are and how to make sure you use them properly.
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.