I am trying to set up a navigation system now,
with Drupal, distinguishing between
Forums, Blogs. Books, Pages, is not all that
clearly defined. ........Help!
I want to use Tabs running across the top of the
site, similar to this
I just dont know whether to use Books, Forums, Blogs
The Menu titles will be like this:
Delta Blues.. Texas Blues ..Ragtime Blues.. Other....Gear
Then the categories go into the artists,
Delta Blues (has a subcategories of)
Mississippi John Hurt
Son House
Bo Carter
Robert Johnson
Willie Johnson
Mississippi Fred Mc Dowell
Then each of these artists
have subcategories which will be the songs they wrote
Mississippi John Hurt (has a subcategories of)
Monday Morning Blues
CandyMan Blues
Avalon
Payday
Frankie and Johnny
and each song here has a pdf which can be downloaded
which has the transcription of the song and most times a
embedded video.
So one issue is just getting the top navigation items to appear
across the top where they are accessed like tabs,...
I wonder if I should mix up formats or stick to one,
like Forum or Book,
the other issue would be
getting this to appear after
clicking the Tab Delta Blues:
Delta Blues
Mississippi John Hurt
Son House
Bo Carter
Robert Johnson
Willie Johnson
Mississippi Fred Mc Dowell
Maybe I should use CSS w/ a
ordered or unordered list?
Also I would like actual block Tabs how is this done? CSS, a module?
This is the site I am working on,
http://www.bluesguitarlessons.info
I have been learning Drupal for about 3 weeks & my first CMS,
I think its great.
Thanks
Kevin
Comments
A step back first?
Hi Kevin,
Drupal is known for it's rather steep learning curve, something that is trying to be addressed in the development of Drupal 7.
I'm not sure of your past IT/web design experience, but I think you'll struggle with building your site, without taking a step back and learning about CCK, (Content Types) Views and Drupal Theming. I would recommend trying to get your hands on as many resources as possible, podcasts, tutorials and books. Lullabot, (Using Drupal is an excellent book written by these guys) the Drupal Dojo, iTunes (for free podcasts) etc, etc. Immersion is the name of the game, to go from "I Suck" to "I Rock" as quickly as possible. Good Luck and I hope you perservere with learning Drupal and not take the easy (less flexible) road of using something like WordPress. Though it's very good for blogging no doubt. Hey, I'm a blues fan too, so best of luck with your site.
regards,
Brock
Brock Hi;
Believe it or not I have most you mentioned, plus Lynda video,
I have a BS in Info Systems and a Masters in Digital Media so I am
a bit familiar. I have been reading about CCK (in O'Rielly book) and installed the module,
but I am thinking maybe of trying to use books instead of Pages Blogs or Forums
because of the parent child relationship, does that seem like a good idea?.
I was at the D4D last weekend at MIT.
I am laid off so all I have been doing is watching videos and reading,
I am starting to become familiar with the interface at least.
I am a bit familiar w/ CSS and XHTML not PHP though
I am positive I will not be going to Joomla or WordPress
Thanks for you help,
Kevin
http://www.facebook.com/kevin.duggan
http://www.twitter.com/delta_blues
Thanks,
Kevin
http:www.delta-guitar.info
http://www.Twitter.com/delta_blues
CCK + Views
Hi Kevin,
I sympathize with trying to distinguish between all the default content types available in Drupal, it can get a little confusing. When I first started to learn Drupal, I clearly remember thinking that I should be using core content types - why else would they be included?
Clearly, there are benefits to understanding the functionality of the default content types but I think you may find it more expedient to not use core content types but instead jump right in and create your own with CCK. Additionally, it sounds like you'll want to display quite a few lists to navigate users as they drill down through your categories/subcategories; the Views module will aid you in creating those lists.
One way you could consider creating your site:
Create a custom content type with all the fields for your data entry (additionally, you may want to structure a good taxonomy for tagging your nodes; this can help you create filters in the next step). Once you're satisfied with your content type, move over to Views. Create a default view, and then create separate Page displays, one page display for each of your categories. Each page display would have its own path, and the display would filter the CCK fields to display only the related content. Finally, for each category page, copy the path, navigate over to the primary navigation list and create a new link for each of your category pages using the path of the view as the url.
As for the tabbed navigation display, I suggest you first find a theme that displays the primary navigation as tabs and review how the themer styled the primary navigation links.
I'm hardly a Drupal guru, but I hope you find these suggestions useful.
Pages or ..
Hi Kevin,
As Brock told you, Drupal is known for its steep learning curve. We all can feel your frustrations at this point :)
Cattlecall have given you a simple way to create your site.
Here is my suggestion: get a media supporting module > add vocabulary and terms to Taxonomy > CCK to make the content type/s > adjust Views > adjust the blocks on your chosen theme.
You will need to use Pages or make a new content type and call it "songs"
The content type will have the title and the body where you can write a brief about the song (as I saw you doing on your site).
You may like to add a text field for lyrics for example.
Allow file attachments for attaching the pdf.
you will also want to have a field for the embedded video (that will be another module)
and that is it!! you are almost done.
Now the categories (Delta Blues.. Texas Blues ..etc) are vocabularies.
Artists will be the terms under the vocabularies.
In the menus section, add the vocabularies to the primary links.
In the Blocks section of the site administration pages, put the primary links in the head section.
When you create a "song" make sure you assign it to the term (artist)
Further adjustment can be done through views to filter how it will appear on your site.
Another solution is to make different content types (not just one called songs) but to make one for each intended category as in one called "Delta Blues" another "Texas Blues" etc.
As for the theme, there are many nice themes out there, tell me if you need to make a choice.
Hope that would ease your first Drupal project and make it more fun.
Regards,
Osama