Today we're continuing our Site Building with Drupal 7 series by looking at some of the major building blocks for putting a site together. Once you have a site installed, and you have the hang of adding contributed modules, you need to get into the site and start playing with the pieces. The newest videos in the series are:
In this video we take a tour of Drupal menus, and show you how you can modify existing menu items and create your own.
In this chapter we'll quickly cover how to create lists of our Press Releases to display on the site. We'll be using the Views module to create a block that can sit in the sidebar, as well as a full listing page with its own menu item. You will need to already have the Views module downloaded and enabled on your site. If you need help installing a contributed module, watch the Installing and Enabling Modules in Drupal 7 video from this series.
To get a complete tutorial on using Views, you can watch our Intro to Views for Drupal 7 series.
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.
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
The whole Drupalize.Me team was at DrupalCon this past week, and we certainly had a blast! I spent most of my time chatting with people, and handing out our sparkly pony stickers, so I didn't get to see many sessions. One session that I did go to, though, was the Boston Initiative presentation about the Drupal contribution ladder (Learn Drupal), along with one of their BoFs.
Learn Flag Series
CourseSite Building with Drupal 7
CourseIn 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.
In this video we take a look at where to find modules to add to your site, along with talking about things to look t when evaluating a module. In addition to looking at lists on Drupal.org, like http://drupal.org/project/usage, we also review a project's page to see what clues we can find, and we take a quick look at a project's issue queue.
In this chapter we take a tour of the administrative toolbar that is provided by default in Drupal 7. We quickly review the Dashboard, Content, Structure, Appearance, People, and Modules sections. Under Configuration we review some of the more important configuration screens. Then we move on to the Reports section and talk about the importance of the Status report screen. We wrap things up by showing how to use the Shortcuts bar, and a quick look at where to find your built-in help documentation.
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
In this series we will walk through the process of building a basic Drupal 7 site. We start with installation and cover all of the major pieces of site building, including content, menus, blocks, users, and adding modules and themes. Along the way we'll define all of the common Drupal terminology and at the end you will have your first Drupal site, as well as the basic building blocks to build many more sites. This video gives an overview of the series.
This screencast covers the following topics:
- How to set a flag using Rules
- Parameters used when setting a flag with Rules
- Some words about creating loop actions with Rules
If you need a refresher on Rules, check out the Learning the Rules framework series.
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.
This screencast covers the following topics:
- Creating user flags
- Using user flags in Views to limit the nodes displayed
- Using a double Views relationship to access the flagging user
- Using contextual filters on the flagging user
Non-Global Flags
FreeThis screencast covers the following topics, using the example of flagging comments as spam and then creating an admin interface to manage them:
- What non-global flags are, and how to create them
- How to create flags on comments
- How to access flag count data in Views
- How to create a simple Bulk Operations view
Global Node Flags
FreeThis screencast covers the following topics:
- What global flags are and how to create them
- How to create node flags
- How to create a view showing flagged content, using relationships
- How to use DraggableViews to sort flagged nodes manually
If you need a review of using Views relationships, you can find that in the Configuring Views relationships video.
This screencast covers the following topics:
- Installing the Flag module
- What flags are and how they are used on your website
- The default bookmarks flag, and its view
We also see a few other generally useful modules in action, though not germane to using Flag:
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.