Is this a common task in your Drupal work when you're asked to create a custom admin section in Drupal for your content?
For instance, you have a few content types and user wants not only to view them, but to search using different filters, to add new items - all inside the same admin subsection.
In essence, this is classic search/grid/record screen/pages and while in typical Drupal distribution content management screents are kind of scattered around, I am talking about more organized spage, e.g. in which Grid (View) also has "Add new" link and you don't have to scroll to "Create content" menu which relates to a different section.
What is your experience and opinion in this relation?
I'm actually working on something like this right now where I work. We've built a custom module to solve Drupal's biggest problem of having unorganized content by organizing it in a nice tree structure. What we've decided to do is go ahead and create a whole new section within the admin just for managing content through this module (it contains a lot more functionality than just a tree structure). There were two big deciding factors when deciding to do this.
We knew we weren't going to be releasing this module so we didn't need to worry about integration with other modules because any such integration would be done by us.
The non-technical staff that this was presented to preferred this method over having several different admin pages with different pieces of functionality on each one, despite all the functionality being related. They viewed at as simply being easier to use.
The point behind my explanation is this: if it makes sense in your situation, then I'd say make either a new section or a new page with several tabs on it. There's a lot of deciding factors to consider:
Do I (or my) clients like the Drupal admin as is?
Do I need to worry about integration with third party modules?
Is time of the essence (this one is a big one)?
How extensible do I need the new admin page(s) to be?
Is upgrading to the newest version of Drupal of big importance (from 5 to 6 and later from 6 to 7 and so on)?
Many non-developers I've talked to abhor the Drupal admin and most content editors I've talked to or worked with prefer having a single admin page they can go to to manage all of their content. As a result, our setup is well received by our clients even though some within the Drupal community may not agree with it.
you can use views_bulk_operation module to show content (or users) to execute (batch) operations on them. in this way you get a sortable grid with search capabilities (exposed filters), pagination and the possibility to execute custom bulk actions. from here it's easy to add a link "create new" in the view footer. furthermore, you can use link as "local tasks" to organize views in tabs.
usually i use simplemenu for the admin backend and i hide the navigation menu in the sidebar for all but administrators.
Another option - much easier to deliver - would be to create a new menu only visible to the administrators - and dependent on the content displayed - with links to the pages for common tasks. Particular views, for example, or to add new content of the currently displayed type, etc.
Related
I am running a wordpress website, and i am going to create a "Meet The Team" page.
We have our own custom built system internally which has users and their positions in the company already in the database so i will be using this information.
I am unsure whether to make a wordpress plugin to display this data or just simply create a page template to display it.
Does anyone have any ideas what would be best or does it really not matter?
Since the team is probably not that likely to change often I would say go with a Page Template. The main benefit being that in the future you might want to teak it a bit (sort members in a particular fashion, have different sized avatars, etc) and doing these changes would be much easier if its just a page template. If your team changes often and there is a lot of dynamic data you pretty much have to go with the plugin though
I am developing web application, using zend framework 2. In my app, I want some modules. News, for example, users etc.
Is it possible, to divide whole application to two big parts: front-end (for users) and back-end (for admins).
In front-end there will be part of News module, which render news list, full news item etc.
In back-end there will be part of News module, which will render list of all news, tools for editing, deleting etc.
At the moment, I have simple structure:
I have MyZfcAdmin module, with routes configurated so, that when I am writing /admin/news/edit/5 it will call NewsController edit action with id 5 and render it. So now, I have all actions (for admins and for users) in one controller. Is it possible to create something like this:
module
frontend
News
SomeMoreModule
backend
News
SomeMoreModule
I found topic on google questions, in that suggested to use this CMS, but I want to try it by myself.
Different people have different idea in managing application, for me I will have news module that handle all news related calls both admin parts and user accessible parts. The idea you have described have some side effects like duplication of code between modules and crossing of borders between isolate modules like calling action in another modules(it's ok if there are related or fall in hierarchy), which may have issues in long term maintenance of the applications.
IMHO I might suggest you could create modules like News, users, etc where it can have combined functionality of both admin and user access. You can later include user authorization plug ins using bootstrap events and restrict action accessible by admin and other users
There is not concept of submodules inside any module. But you can give them proper naming conversations. If code is not formed in oops properly, then there can be code duplication into your project. As per #raj's answer, it's good to give restrictions based on user role. If any action is not intersecting admin and user role then you can separate those actions, but actions like add or edit news content are same for both role then you should point to same action by router.
I am to develop a Joomla 3.1 Template. The template should consist of a static header and footer, as well as multiple pages, all of which need their own styling. Further, the client would like to be able to add 'events' to a specific listings page. Customers should be able to book said events via a simple form.
Thanks to some really basic guides, I have the header and footer down, as well as some simple template options. However, I am now running into some problems;
How would I approach the content section? Ideally, a page would consist of multiple, editable sections. The client would be able to edit said sections in the backend without having to deal with or accidentally changing the layout or styling of the page itself. Since there are multiple pages, I obviously need different views/containers for each of them. Is this possible and if so, how?
Another problem is the documentation, which I found to be very lacking. Even google only got me so far (basic structure, index.php, templateDetails.xml and so forth). Are there any other resources I may have missed or do I really need to refer to other templates (most of which, obviously, aren't free) and use var_dump all the time?
Writing this, I just realized that I could theoretically build a template for every single page but ... that surely can't be right, right?
If someone could provide a basic outline or at least tell me how you personally would tackle a project like this, it'd be very much appreciated.
All the best
Edit;
I just found some video tutorials but since my bandwidth is limited, I cannot watch them. Please take this into account when writing an answer. Thanks.
I have only one word for you :
GANTRY :D
gantry-framework.org
Joomla revolves around menu items that point to components. For each menu item, you can assign modules to different positions within the template to create a unique page. You only need one template if you really understand how Joomla templating works.
Joomla has very good documentation here - http://docs.joomla.org/
Few things to remember -
Component - this is a type of content or app of sorts. A component will define what content is and how it is displayed. This can be anything from blog articles and categories to an event registration system to a message board or social network. Menu items generally will point to a view in a component.
Modules - these are used to display additional content around the component output. This can be a menu, or a login box, or a weather widget or anything else you can come up with. Modules can be assigned to or excluded from the various menu items on your site.
Plugin - plugins are used to change the final output on a site. They can be used to insert Youtube videos, or forms within content, or even to alter the meta tags on a page.
Understanding how extensions work is an important first step. Once you get how those work, learning how templates and template overrides work will give you most of what you need to know to build a basic Joomla site.
Just started developing with Joomla! (2.5), completely newb, read through the docs talking about Plugins, Components and Modules. Having a hard time figuring out which to choose and how to implement. I'd like to have a table similar to the one used in the Plugin Manager in the Joomla! administrator backend where the the results can be searched, filtered and even individual entries can be toggled (Enable/Disable by clicking on Status circle). Can someone point me to a tutorial or even some example code I can in developing this?
I’ve already read a few sites including this (http://www.inmotionhosting.com/support/website/joomla-25/plugin-vs-module-vs-component).
If you want to create page in administrator panel with tables, that display some items, you should develop joomla component.
Look for this: http://docs.joomla.org/Developing_a_Model-View-Controller_(MVC)_Component_for_Joomla!2.5
Note, that only components can provide extended administrator interface for managing some entries, create pages on font-end. Plugins intended only for processing output of components and modules. And modules intended only for display some html on specific positions in front-end template.
I have a website which is up and running on drupal. Its product based website. I developed by creating my own tables and writing php code using php filters. I never used module concepts. Since the site is running well, so i am thinking to move to module concept. so wanted some help here, like how to do it.. i have gone through module development concepts also.
requirement.
1. Admin should be able to create new products like Mobile, Camera.
2. He should be able to define product properties and properties for which user will rate on.
3. Admin/ second admin should be able to create new sub products under products like mobile - nokia 8850 , nokia 9980 where he enters details of product properties also.
4. A listing page for all the sun products under main product. and from listing page we go to to main sub product page where user rates the product.
My confusion : should i create a new table or drupal takes care of all the requirements. and how do i start with it.
update : clear picture of requirement
ex :
1. 1st i add a product "MOBILES"
2. Then i add properties for this main product.
3. Then i start adding sub products under MOBILES i.e nokia 1100, samsumg 2200 and etc.
while adding sub products, in this page it gives me a text box for all the propeties i defined while creating the main product MOBILES . So is this possible using CCK.
You're right to consider using modules and following the "Drupal way". Use CCK + Views and Drupal will take care of the table maintenance and querying for you.
As already mentioned, you will need to get familiar with the CCK module. This module will allow you to create new "content types", which in your example would be the different product types and their attributes. Here is a good overview video on CCK. With CCK you can define new content types and Drupal will create the basic content creation forms for you and hide spare you from all the database details when you're working with it.
The Views module is essentially a query builder and will allow you to create views of your content. There are all sorts of related modules that can help you render your data as charts, grids, lists, slideshows, tables, etc.
There is a slight learning curve but once you get past it you'll be able to build new things pretty quick.
Update: Just another thought, if you are really needing to create some kind of classification system you should look at Taxonomies.
It sounds like you could do all of this with modules, without needing to do any php coding at all. Check out (if you haven't already) cck, views, and fivestar.
In response to your update, sounds like CCK and Node Hierarchy should do everything you need.