Lessons from drupaldojo.com

Using og_panels on groups.drupal.org

joshk — Tue, 01 Apr 2008 15:18:41 -0400

This screencast shows how we initially configured our homepage on groups.drupal.org. You can use it as a guide to building out your own group, or for using the og_panels module (now part of the standard Organic Groups project download) on your own Drupal website.

Fine-tuning the UI by Theming Forms In Drupal 6.0

joshk — Sat, 23 Feb 2008 17:31:29 -0500

This lesson builds on the previous lesson about theming/template files in Drupal 6.0 by examining the specific topic of forms. Taking control of the user-interface is key in building world-class websites and web-applications with Drupal, and the 6.0 release give you more power than ever in controlling your UI.

In this lesson we explore some options best practices and strategies for applying theming to forms.

Theme Template Files for Drupal 6

Senpai — Fri, 15 Feb 2008 15:13:03 -0500

Sunday, February 17 at 19:00 GMT (11 a.m. PST, 2 p.m. EST, 20:00 CET)

As part of Josh's deal with DmitriG to get him to cover Drupal 6.0's actions and triggers support (see lesson 40), He is going to do a lesson covering the advances in Drupal 6.0's handling of theme templates (those tpl.php files we all know and love).

In short, Drupal 6 brings a lot of the best practices that developed around template files in 5.0, and puts support for them into Drupal Core, as well as implementing a new standard in the core modules that contrib/custom developers can aspire to and emulate. The new omnipresence of template files radically simplifies the process of overriding the output of theme_functions, as well as making things more hospitable to designers.

The objectives for this lesson are to create a good introductory screencast to this concept, and then talk about some advanced functions/use-cases.

Actions, Triggers, and the automated life.

Senpai — Sat, 09 Feb 2008 20:17:09 -0500

dmitrig01 has stepped up to the mic this week to show us the new features of Drupal 6's Actions alongside the new core Trigger module.

What are they, and how do you use them? Actions are like stored procedures. That is, they are a series of pre-defined steps that Drupal can take in order to accomplish a task or three. Sort of like a macro, but not nearly as dangerous. Trigger.mod is the beast that fires off some Actions when the time is right, the user is right, the save process for executive blog posts has just begun, or when an registered user reads a certain news article for the fourth time. Get it? Good, Now step inside the machine and see how to set it all up!

After covering the basics, dmitrig01 will even show us how to leverage the core system to write some of our own Actions and Triggers. This is one of the new, exciting features in Drupal 6 and all the cool kids will be using it soon, so check it out at the same Dojo channel, same Dojo time.

http://webavant.com/dojo1

flexifilter module

Senpai — Wed, 09 Jan 2008 13:39:59 -0500

Flexifilter has arrived! This lesson, taught by cwgordon7 and Corsix, will introduce this awesome new module. For those of you who haven't yet heard, the GHOP Flexifilter project, a built by Corsix, is a module to allow non-coders to easily create custom filters entirely through the user interface. It also exposes a hook to other modules, so that anything it can't do on its own (which is very little) can be provided by other modules. This presentation will introduce this awesome, exciting, revolutionary new module and its API.

The first half of the session will be devoted to explaining the user interface, including how to create several basic custom filters with it. This will be aimed more at the site administrator, explaining the "how to administer" section.

The second half of the session will be devoted to explaining the API, including how to implement its hooks, covering both conditions and components, which are the basic building blocks of the module. This will be aimed more at coders, explaining the "how to code" section.

No matter what your level of experience with Drupal or flexifilter, there is something you can learn at this session.