“Even if you’re already a seasoned Drupal user of CCK, Views, or Panels, I’ve no doubt that this book will provide you with several new techniques and methods for getting the most out of these extremely essential modules. It certainly has for me.” —Dries Buytaert, founder and project lead of Drupal, and CTO of Acquia With Drupal, Web professionals can create full-featured Web sites with just a few clicks. Drupal’s core is compact and well documented, but much of Drupal’s immense power lies elsewhere—in external modules. Drupal’s Building Blocks is an authoritative tutorial, reference, and cookbook for Drupal’s most valuable modules. The authors are Drupal insiders who’ve spent years creating and supporting these modules—Earl Miles, developer of the Views and Panels modules, and Lynette Miles, Drupal documentation team member. They’ve brought together indispensable information you won’t find anywhere else, as well as extensive sample “recipe” code designed for easy adaptation and reuse. Learn how to Use Content Construction Kit (CCK) to customize your data input forms around your needs Improve site flexibility with Drupal’s node system Add optional field types, including PHP-based fields Customize themes to display data more attractively and legibly Build powerful Views query displays Integrate with SQL databases Customize Views with relationships, arguments, and filters Optimize query performance Add custom styles with the Panels module Maintain full control over sites as you deploy into production This book will help you create more powerful, flexible, usable, and manageable Web sites—whether you’re a Web developer, designer, administrator, architect, or consultant. The accompanying Web site contains all examples, code, and themes presented in this book.
Author(s): Earl Miles, Lynette Miles
Edition: 1
Publisher: Addison-Wesley Professional
Year: 2011
Language: English
Pages: 377
Contents......Page 9
Foreword......Page 17
Preface......Page 19
Acknowledgments......Page 23
About the Authors......Page 24
I: Content Construction Kit......Page 25
The Node System......Page 27
Quest for the Grail: How CCK Was Born......Page 32
Getting Started with CCK......Page 34
Creating a New Content Type......Page 35
Summary......Page 39
The Content Type Pages......Page 41
Creating New Fields for Content......Page 48
Putting the Parts Together......Page 54
Summary......Page 62
Choosing Field Types......Page 63
Constraining Data with Widgets......Page 67
Date Module......Page 72
Computed Fields......Page 75
Link and Email Fields......Page 78
Highly Visual Media......Page 79
Summary......Page 81
Theme Basics......Page 83
CCK Specific Theming......Page 86
Helper Modules......Page 93
Summary......Page 97
Using the CCK API......Page 99
The Field Model......Page 100
Widget Type Modules......Page 109
Formatter Modules......Page 111
Creating Field Instances with the CRUD API......Page 115
Creating Data for CCK Fields......Page 119
Miscellaneous Helper Functions......Page 121
Summary......Page 122
II: Views......Page 123
Drupal, SQL, and the Emergence of Views......Page 125
The Basics of Relational Databases......Page 126
Filtering and Sorting......Page 129
From SQL to Views to Human Language......Page 131
Summary......Page 132
Views UI......Page 133
Showing Your Views to the World: Creating Displays......Page 155
Summary......Page 160
Arguments......Page 161
Exposed Filters......Page 169
Relationships......Page 172
Summary......Page 175
Classes in Views......Page 177
Template Files......Page 180
Working with Templates......Page 188
Summary......Page 199
Sticking with What Views Gives You......Page 201
When You Need More Than Views......Page 202
Summary......Page 207
Data Architecture......Page 209
The Views API......Page 223
The Life Cycle of a View......Page 225
The Database Schema and Data Hook......Page 230
Handlers Versus Plugins......Page 234
Summary......Page 237
III: Panels......Page 239
Introduction to Panels......Page 241
Modules......Page 246
Summary......Page 248
Your First Panel......Page 249
Adding Content to Panels......Page 261
Access Rules......Page 268
Overriding Core Display Pages......Page 270
Overriding Core Node Editing Pages......Page 277
Summary......Page 279
Contexts......Page 281
Arguments in Panes......Page 288
Relationships......Page 295
Summary......Page 298
Layout......Page 299
Stylizer......Page 304
CSS in the Panels UI......Page 308
CSS in Source Code......Page 309
Summary......Page 314
Configuring Your Development Environment......Page 315
Moving to Production......Page 317
Exporting Your Structures......Page 318
Helper Modules......Page 323
Summary......Page 324
IV: Appendices......Page 325
General Modules......Page 327
Views......Page 328
CCK......Page 331
Panels......Page 332
Submit a Complete Report......Page 333
Read the Documentation......Page 334
Check Other Sources......Page 335
Understand the Life Cycle of a Bug......Page 336
Be Patient......Page 337
Contribute Back......Page 338
Views Handlers......Page 339
Views Plugins......Page 341
Views Classes......Page 342
A......Page 351
B......Page 353
C......Page 354
D......Page 356
E......Page 358
F......Page 359
G......Page 360
H......Page 361
J......Page 362
M......Page 363
N......Page 364
O......Page 365
P......Page 366
Q......Page 368
R......Page 369
S......Page 370
T......Page 371
U......Page 373
V......Page 374
X......Page 376
