Posted by priestdi on February 5, 2011 at 11:32pm
Hi, I'm new.
I'm helping to design and build a new Drupal site for a college newspaper. We're using the "about people" theme, which I found while exploring your list of Drupal newspapers. Thanks for that resource.
We're just getting started, but we're trying to conceptualize the best way for the reporters/editors to promote stories from all the section pages -- sports, news, editorials -- to the front page. Can anyone provide some advice or guidance? Is there a module that works especially well?
Thanks!
Diane
Comments
Hi Diane, The nodequeue
Hi Diane,
The nodequeue module works very well for that.
We use it on our newspaper sites.
You can see it in action here:
http://www.theforecaster.net/
The featured stories, latest news, etc., are all controlled by nodequeues allowing the reporters to select which stories to display in those areas on the home page. Same for sports and the other categories on the home page.
Nodequeue also supports something called smart queues, which means it can automatically generate a queue for each term in a taxonomy, for example, you "sections".
Good luck,
Ah that's great, perfect!
Ah that's great, perfect! and it reminds me -- is there a module to generate your "What People are Reading" listings? because we want to do that too.
thanks so much ...
Diane
What people are reading
The Views module provides a "Popular" view which you can configure in a variety of ways.
You can then display that as a block in your sidebar.
Two follow-up questions ....
I installed both Views and Nodequeue -- now I'm trying to comprehend what to do with them!
Could you direct me to a how-to that explains how to configure views to achieve a "popular" or most-read function? I'm not seeing it.
I figured out how to use views to publish stories directly onto specific section pages, with teaser content and photos, which then link to the full stories.
But how do I make stories also publish (with photos and teasers) to specific blocks on the front page? We're going to have several blocks to tease the top stories from the inside sections. In theory, anyway!
Is this what nodequeue would do, if I knew how to use it? Can you recommend a how-to anywhere on-line?
Thanks so much ....
Oh and on a random note, how do I add a pic to my posts? I stared at the profile controls and didn't see it!
Diane
statistics module and other answers
You have to activate and configure the Statistics module in order to have any pageview counts before you can order a query by views.
To create blocks for the homepage, use Views and create a block display. To place blocks on the homepage in a layout of your choosing, use Panels,
Nodequeue is used to rank-order items in virtual lists. Nodequeue rank then can be used in Views to control various displays. This lets your editors decide which story is #1, #2, #3, et cetera, with precise control, rather than merely "most recently posted."
In addition to many books about Drupal, you can easily find videos on YouTube covering many of these tools.
You have to activate and
Yes and no.
There are tools like http://drupal.org/project/ga_importer that let you import statistics locally if you use Google Analytics and external caching like varnish so that you don't have to use Drupal's statistics module.
knaddison blog | Morris Animal Foundation
But how to publish a story to two pages?
Thanks guys.
I'm been perusing the youtubes, but there are so many it's hard to figure which are the most concise and helpful for total beginners like me.
I get the basic concept of using panels, views and nodequeue. But I still can't see how to publish a story teaser on both the front page and an inside page. We want to have several blocks on the front page to show the lead stories on the interior pages. So how do we publish a sports story teaser on the Sports page and also in the Sports block on the front page?
Thanks for any advice ...
Diane
One way is with Views
When you create a View, you can have several variants. So say you have a View that builds a Sports page. You can add a Block to that view for just the home page - a block that shows only 5 headlines (or whatever). One caveat: Make sure to Override the default settings when you create the block, otherwise when you change the settings, it'll change them on your Sports page, too (I learned this the hard way after constantly forgetting to do that at first).
Save the View. Assuming you're using a panel for the home page, go to the content selector for that panel and under Views, select the sports View. When you do that, you'll get a dropdown from which you can choose the block.
thanks all of you ....
thanks all of you ....