views archive

It can take a while when you're new, but once you start to wrap your head around Views, that is when Drupal gets really fun. In this tutorial, I'll go over how to use Contextual Filters in Views to alter your content dynamically based on information in the URL. If you're a visual learner, you can skip to the video at the end of this post for a detailed walk through of the process. Read More…

I love views. It makes my job easier, so I can focus on the more complex things, rather then having to hand-write queries, create forms for filtering data and it saves time debugging my typos. Every so often you will get a request that can't be accomplished out of the box. If you are trying to customize the options in an exposed form, you may still need to do hook_form_alter(). Or, if you are trying to filter or sort your view by a field that doesn't appear in views, this short tutorial will show you how. Read More…

Views can be very handy, but the views interface can be a little tricky. A question that comes up when training clients is "Why can't I edit this content?" when they are looking at a view. If you use the node row style, Views will add them for you but not if you use the fields style. You can surely explain how views work (results may vary depending on the client), but an even easier method is to create edit links that link directly to your content and use a little CSS/jQuery to make sure it's shown when and where it's needed. Using this method creates a handy little gear button when you roll over the content, with a link that says "Edit Content" when you click on it. Read More…

Over the years, I've created a list of ways to make Drupal easier for one of my target audiences: the non-technical admins and editors that run the day-to-day operations of a website. My list is getting huge, but the following six ideas are always reliable. Read More…

Views 3 addresses some of the most stubborn parts of Views 2, and significantly improves the way Drupal programmers deliver features to clients. Read More…

Messing with your exposed filters for fun and profit. Ah, to get the request from a client that just cannot be done via stock Views; they are rare but so choice indeed. This episode of Hacking Views will feature our latest request, making a select box with a range of values where all you have is a CCK number/float. Impossible you say? Unlikely to happen you quip? Nay! It happens all the time. In fact, considering the options given to us when dealing with number CCK fields it's any wonder that Views doesn't already have an option for this case. Aside from a fancy javascript double-ended slider what is a person to do? Min/max are just ugly! Gaze farther for my solution. Read More…

Like any Drupal themer, I've done my share of grumbling about the frequently ridiculous level of nested divs with dozens of classes. I'd heard some people mention a module called Semantic Views, but I never really understood what it was for until I found this video. If you don't understand what the big deal is either, take the four minutes to watch. It's a total "ah-ha!" moment. I'm happy to say that I just used Semantic Views for the first time on a client site, and it's just as awesome as everyone says. It saved me a ton of work and let me get exactly the markup I wanted, even while working around Chuck's nested views. Read More…

As you have probably figured out, I love views. I love teasing out little features that are completely buried and obscure. Nesting Views is one of my favorite new travesties; not sure if it's ready for Drupal for Evil, but it's certainly not kosher. If birds can nest, why can't I? image by Benjamin Verdonck, reported by apartmenttherapy.com Read More…

While I'm certain that I could never work up to the standards of Peter Cooper his "Interesting Ruby Tidbits That Don't Need Separate Posts" series was a great help to me when I was a ruby developer. You can see the original here: IRTTDNSP #1. I've not found similar for the Drupal community but I believe a lot of the things I do during the week are interesting but not at all worthy of a complete post of their own. So this will be my attempt to categorize and commit those very thoughts to memory. I hope that even one of these things sparks something for you. Read More…