Posted by christophweber on May 27, 2012 at 2:23am
We have a plan to discuss Views at the June SD DUG meeting (that's the Central San Diego group), and I'd like to split this into a basic and an advanced part to address the issues voiced at the last meeting an in recent discussion here on the group site.
So if you have something Views-related to talk about which addresses either noobs or advanced users, let's hear it and we'll slot you in.
Thanks!

Comments
Views!!! Hurray!
Christoph,
I'll happily defer to everyone else because I'll benefit from ANY discussion on Views. But, if nobody else comes forward, I'll offer my web-site for discussion because I use a lot of Views. I just can't explain manu of these because so many of my Views were trial-and-error and blindly-following-someone's-recipe.
Potential topics could be:
1. Using views for handy utilitarian stuff. For example, I'm currently using Views to show all of the nodes that are using the Location field so that I can port those to the new AddressFields. And, I'm using Views to show nodes that use a particular image field that I'm phasing out. I'm sure that there are a lot of other handy uses for Views that I haven't thought of yet. Do people use Views to manage users (ahem, I have so few users that that isn't an issue for me, yet). [My utility Views are pretty simple so I could probably explain these but I'm expecting people to suggest other handy Views that they could explain.]
2. Contextual views - I'm using Contextual Views with OpenLayers to filter on only those nodes with a particular taxonomy name. That's not currently in my live site, but it's on my local site and I'll be adding it to my live site tomorrow (probably). [I only have a vague understanding of how and why it works - I just followed a recipe that I found online and in a book.]
3. All of the calendars on my site use Views (actually 10 of them). Those were mostly trial-and-error. [I don't have a good understanding of these, even though I have so many of them. I just found something that worked and kept cloning it.]
4. My blog uses views (in order to retain multiple postings). [I could probably explain these.]
5. I'm currently using a Views Table for a sortable list of medical clinics. I'll be restructuring those nodes once I master OpenLayers but that won't happen before our next meeting. [I could probably explain these.]
6. I'd like to figure out how to do something else in Views and we could add that to the list - if it's even possible. I group Calendar events by taxonomy name and when someone clicks on the taxonomy name, they're taken to a list of nodes using that taxonomy name sorted by date. If its possible, I'd like that click to take them to another View where the list is sorted differently. I just haven't figured out yet how to intercept that click.
7. There are View features that I've never used (e.g., RSS Feeds).
8. If we have time, deciphering some of those Advanced features might be nice. For example, what happens if you "Use AJAX"?
9. I assume that the Ninjas in the groups are all-knowing, but, that may not always be the case. It would be nice to include some Views topics that they care about. Such as, maybe, comparing the View UI with generated SQL?
Personally, I'm finding it helpful to look at the actual database in order to understand what the View is doing, especially the contextual filters - I can already hear most of you say "duhhh" but it wasn't obvious to me until I read that Views are basically really sophisticated SQL-generators. Anyway, I can log into CPanel at the monthly meeting if it would help.
Christoph, if you want to use my site for demo purposes, set up an account on my site and I'll give you admin privileges once I verify (somehow) that it's really you (yes, I trust you that much).
Thank you!!!
Debbie
Adding a patch for Views?
Since we'll be doing Views, I thought I'd try to get Andrew's attention one more time since he said he'll submit a patch at some point regarding Field Collection & Views:
http://groups.drupal.org/node/224064 ("The Impossible View")
Andrew, I'll email you shortly with a fresh Drupal installation with the bare minimum modules needed and dummy data do help you get started. If you get around to doing it, maybe you can present how to add a patch for Views when writing a new module using this example.
I'll also use the new live test site to ask another specific question regarding Views that I'm not sure how to do during the lightning talk and try to kill two birds with one stone. It's gonna be an exciting night.
Jay Lee
https://jay.lee.bio
June DUG meeting tonight?
I'm gonna assume it's happening as usual and will attend unless someone lets me know that I missed something. :P
Jay Lee
https://jay.lee.bio