This class will be rescheduled
IMPORTANT: This class will not meet on June 17th – it will be rescheduled – please look for an announcement soon.
On Thursday June 17th we continue our monthly 'Getting Started with Drupal Series'. This month we'll branch out from Drupal core and cover the first of the 'must-have' add-in modules, the Content Construction Kit (CCK).
CCK makes it easy to add all kinds of custom data fields to your site's content. Using CCK you can add images, video, audio, attached files, links, maps, and much more to your content.
CCK is a must-have for nearly any Drupal site — if you are serious about building a site with Drupal you do not want to miss this class!
What we'll cover in this class
— Getting CCK and installing it on your site
— Adding basic text fields to your content
— Adding image, audio and video fields to your content
— Controlling how fields are displayed/formatted on your pages.
This is a hands-on class, so bring your laptop and follow along! (You can still benefit even without one, though.)
Don't worry if you don't have Drupal installed, we have test installations for you to use, or you can sign up for a free account at http://www.webenabled.com and quickly deploy a new Drupal site.
If you have any specific beginner questions you'd like to have addressed, please add them to the comments for this event and we'll try to work them in.
If you know anyone who'd like to get started with Drupal, please send them the link to this page!
Recommended reading
To best prepare for the Getting Started series, we recommend the book Using Drupal published by O'Reilly. If you are at all serious about learning Drupal, please just go ahead and purchase this excellent book. Monte, Art, and AJ are just three of our group members who are happy they did! Well-written and aimed at the Drupal beginner, it takes you though the sometimes-daunting Drupal jargon and concepts with ease, and gets you comfortable with managing content and building sites step-by-step. (Although highly recommended, the reading is not required to attend the session – everyone is welcome!)
About the Getting Started Series
Each month an experienced Drupaler will present a lesson suitable for Drupal beginners. We'll structure the series so each month builds on the next – if you attend each monthly Getting Started series, your Drupal skills will grow naturally and within a few months you'll be competently managing your site and your content, and on your way to adding new site sections and features.
Meetup Details
Thursday, June 17th
4:00 to 6:00 pm
Ruby's Inn and Convention Center
4825 North Reserve
Missoula, MT 59808 map
Phone: (406) 721-0990
Comments
Transportation
Anyone going from Downtown who could give me a ride?
Probably…
Brad, I could probably give you a ride. I know Ruby's isn't the most convenient location!
FYI we also promote these on the Meetup group here: http://www.meetup.com/Montana-Programmers – and many people choose to signup there instead of here. But I encourage everyone to join here and use this group for discussion.
Image types
Is there a plugin for CCK which generates thumbnails off of images? Or do you have to have multiple image fields, with size restrictions and just upload the same image multiple times?
Thoughts? Feedback?
ImageCache
The plugin you're referring to is known as ImageCache. It allows you to specify any number of presets for an image and allow you to display images using those presets.
For example, one could upload a 400x600 pixel image and have it displayed as a 100 pixel square thumbnail, a 200x300 preview and the full-sized image all from the one original upload.
There are even some cool add-on modules for ImageCache which allow even more image customization. ImageCache Actions allows watermarks, overlays, rounded corners and more to be added dynamically to uploaded images. You can even create your own actions.
Enjoy.
-Scott
Scott Rouse
http://about.me/scott.rouse
CCK??
What I'm trying to do is this, with Drupal 6.
Making a video game review site, so each game will have a variety of cck attributes, including approximately these image types:
multiple user submitted screenshots
videos (to be added later)
I have started out with the imagefield plugin for cck, and it does work, but I didn't see a way to do multiple sizes for screenshots. I don't need multiple sizes of every image, but do require multiple different images per node and would like multiple sizes on some images.
thanks
ImageCache +1
That's exactly what ImageCache is for. It works in tandem with imagefield and other modules. You set up as many site-wide presets just like you mentioned, e.g. you'd define square thumbnail as 75x75 px, maybe small screenshot is 250 px wide and lets the height scale proportionally, etc. Then for each imagefield, you can designate which preset should be used to display it in each output scenario.
It's an exceptionally powerful and robust system, so good that it has been included in core for Drupal 7.
We will cover this in class soon, but probably not this week. Meantime, here's a screencast that explains it:
http://drupaltherapy.com/node/47
I'd be happy to help you get set up on it.
Views
As Andy said, the ImageCache plugin does exactly that. Now you just need to display different image sizes produced by ImageCache. The easiest way that I've found to do that is Views. Views goes hand-in-hand with CCK as one of the most popular contributed modules for Drupal.
Setting up Views to match the display you've requested is a bit difficult to explain over this forum, but perhaps Andy will be able to help in person Thursday evening. Unfortunately, I'll be out of town this weekend (and next week), so I can't make it. I'm happy to help once I return on the 28th, though, if you still have questions.
The book Using Drupal that Andy and I have referred to helped me tremendously when getting started with Drupal. Chapter 7 covers ImageCache and related topics.
-Scott
Scott Rouse
http://about.me/scott.rouse
Out of Town
Hey all,
Unfortunately, I won't be able to make it to this one. I'll be out on the East Coast teaching a photography workshop. Hope you guys have a great meeting and, as always, feel free to contact me if you have any questions.
I'll be back in town the evening of June 27th if anyone is interested in getting together after that for a work session.
-Scott
Scott Rouse
http://about.me/scott.rouse