Preface

The Views module is a powerful and flexible tool for displaying content on a Drupal site. Views came on the Drupal scene in 2005. Developed primarily by an awesome coder named Earl Miles with much input from other Drupalers, it has revolutionized the Drupal website developer experience.

This book offers step-by-step Views recipes for use by Drupal administrators and themers. We will be cooking up an extensive smorgasbord. We'll create lists, tables, calendars, charts, maps, proximity searches, fused views, views bulk operations, and so on, while introducing a wide array of techniques and companion modules along the way. Most of the recipes require no programming, but some contain useful code snippets.

This book covers Views for Drupal 5.x. (Views 2 will be the primary subject of a separate book.)

Why release a book on a Drupal 5 module, when Drupal 6 has already been released? It's simple: Many web site developers use Drupal 5!

There are often good reasons for this. Web site developers like to be sure that required modules are in good working shape for the version of Drupal they select. If contributed modules required for the site are not yet ported to Drupal 6, it is a reasonable option to use Drupal 5. Also, if a developer is replicating most of the functionality of an existing Drupal 5 site, she may use Drupal 5. Many developers inherit web sites that are still based on Drupal 5 code. Additionally, developers are still releasing new Drupal 5 modules. Drupal 5 remains a rich and widely-used framework.

What this book covers

Chapter 1 introduces the Views module along with a Views Worksheet that will serve as a guide throughout the rest of the book. We create a basic view of Swim Groups.

In Chapter 2 we look at the six default views that come with the Views module. We learn which modules must be enabled for these views to appear and we get to know the feed selector and Term arguments. We end the chapter by creating a module with a default view of Swim Groups.

In Chapter 3 we incorporate CCK fields into views such as a Blog Roll, Guitar Chord Display, and a Block of Media Hits Associated with Press Releases. We share a variety of ways to associate views with related content, including Viewfield and Node Reference modules and building views from within a template.

In Chapter 4 we focus on date fields, calendars, upcoming events, and the timeline module. This chapter rounds out coverage of all of the Views User Interface fieldsets, including Exposed Filters.

In Chapter 5 we examine ten tools to ease the work of site administrators, including Views Bulk Operations, Editable Fields, ModuleInfo, and setting up cron.

In Chapter 6 we explore some rarely-covered but powerful modules, including: Views Fusion, Views Fast Search, Views Bonus Pack Export, and Google Maps Tools, We also create a YouTube Video Bar, detail the steps to install jQuery Update with a Lightbox2 Gallery, and examine how to use the Flag module for a variety of applications.

Chapter 7 is the theming chapter and a bit more code-rich than the others. We create a directory of available theme functions. We look closely at Views theme functions and override them when necessary. We cover some debugging strategies. We use CSS to create date badges and to control carousel formatting. Finally, we incorporate views into panels and tabs.

In Chapter 8 we focus on navigating the online Drupal community. We learn how to search the Views issue queue, and how to apply and create patches. We cover some Dos and don'ts for Drupal chat on IRC and create a few helpful browser buttons and search plug-ins to facilitate finding information online.

Appendix A lists all the default views available for Drupal 5

Appendix B gives a comprehensive list of Drupal 5 field formatters by module

Appendix C gives a Comprehensive list of Drupal 5 style plug-ins by module

Appendix D lists the Views 1 hooks

Appendix E lists the modules included in recipe ingredients

Appendix F lists the additional resources and modules

Appendix G lists the selected noteworthy patches to views, sorted by topic

What you need for this book

For most of the recipes, you'll need a Drupal 5 web site along with administrative access to the server and the site. (The Packt book, Building Powerful and Robust websites with Drupal 5 offers a comprehensive chapter on installation.) You may also want to use a printer or copy machine to prepare copies of the Views Worksheet.

Who this book is for

This book is primarily written for Drupal site builders, administrators, and themers who want to develop custom content displays using Views. It can be used by anyone who has developed or inherited a Drupal 5 site.

Some knowledge of HTML and CSS is required. PHP basics will be handy for some of the recipes.

How you read this book is your choice. Some readers will start from Recipe 1, working all the way through to the Appendix, to gain as much information as possible. Others will head straight for the most-needed recipe, turning back only to complete prerequisite steps. However you approach it, cook up a storm!

Conventions

In this book, you will find a number of styles of text that distinguish between different kinds of information. Here are some examples of these styles, and an explanation of their meaning.

Code words in text are shown as follows: "The last argument of that command was views.module."

A block of code will be set as follows:

if ($field['fullname'] == 'node_counter.totalcount') {
         $item .= ' <span class="popular-content-count">
(' . views_theme_field('views_handle_field', $field['queryname'], $fields, $field,
      $node, $view) . ')</span>';
}

Any command-line input or output is written as follows:

cd <DRUPALROOT>/sites/all/modules/cck

New terms and important words are shown in bold. Words that you see on the screen, in menus or dialog boxes for example, appear in our text like this: "Enable the core Search module and the Views Fast Search module".

Note

Warnings or important notes appear in a box like this.

Tip

Tips and tricks appear like this.

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