Posted by shambler on August 5, 2010 at 4:56pm
Hi there
I'm trying to do something I thought was pretty simple - organise content by issue.
I've got as far as having node types of issue and article.
I've created taxonomy of issues and assigned articles to issues.
I could create a view by filtering article nodes for the issue number but then id have to create a new view everytime i created an issue which i guess isn't that efficient?
So how do i go about it? do i have to put something in a custom template?
I thought I might be able to find a tutorial on this but my googling skills have let me down!
Comments
arguments and node reference
First... taxonomy might be unnecessary if you already have a node type called "Issue"--you can use Node Reference instead of taxonomy to attach/assign an article to the issue. Functionally, in your views and stuff, the Node Reference can work a lot like taxonomy. The main benefit of using an issue content type over taxonomy vocabulary in my opinion is that you can store additional data in the node type that you can't store in taxonomy (magazine cover image, synopsis, date, etc).
But whether you use taxonomy or node reference, to efficiently create a view or views for each issue, you should use Views Arguments to "filter" dynamically by issue. You add an argument for the term/node and then add the argument variable "%" to your path (something like issue/%). Then when you go to example.com/issue/august-2010, you'll get the view for content in August 2010 (Drupal can change the way the term appears in the path, making it all lower case and adding hyphens in spaces).
Arguments are perfect for what you're trying to do! I resisted learning about arguments for a while until I realized all the time it can save...
Sean Fitzpatrick
Proof Studio
@sffitzpatrick
Thanks very much for your
Thanks very much for your reply, I will check out node reference, it's that Drupal learning curve, I'm amazed that even after a year of Drupal there are quite fundamental things I know nothing about. Obv that might say more about me than Drupal...
I have made use of arguments before when creating a related block http://groups.drupal.org/node/23192 but need to delve more into them myself, I understand what you mean about avoiding learning new Drupal things though, the thought of learning more about arguments is making me think hmmm maybe I need to do some housework!
progress update
I left this for a while to work on other stuff and on return to it followed Sean's advice.
I found this article useful http://drupal.org/node/370227 and it's the solution I used. If there's a better way please let me know! But hey this is Drupal so as well as 'better' there are at least a hundred different ways ;-)
I found more help seaching for 'artist and song' than I did when I was searching for issue/article structure which I guess goes to show a very common application of Node reference. I must think more laterally!
Thanks and best wishes.
Look at how ProsePoint did it
It might also help you to look at how ProsePoint ( http://www.prosepoint.org/ ) is set up; we're using Editions in ProsePoint at the daily newspaper where I work. Editions sound a lot like what you're trying to do with issues.
Katrina
Site builder, writer, trainer, graphic designer
In case anyone is wondering,
In case anyone is wondering, Edition is part of the Prosepoint Drupal module bundle, and not a separately available Drupal module, but is still free, and fully integrated into Prosepoint.
Issues using nodereferences and views in VoiceBox
The functionality works out of the box after the install: http://code.funnymonkey.com/project/voicebox
I've been meaning to do a screencast that shows how to build issues - it's the only piece of the user-facing functionality we haven't done a screencast for yet.
Basically, you create an issue node, and can select multiple nodes that belong in the issue. The selection process is a cck nodereference, and the nodes in the issue are sorted by taxonomy, and ordered by their delta in the nodereference field.
It can definitely be made more complex, but we wanted something structured enough to work, but not so structured that it enforced one way of doing things to the exclusion of other methods of building issues.
FunnyMonkey
"I've been meaning to do a
"I've been meaning to do a screencast that shows how to build issues"
That would be very useful. There are all kinds of associated features that would also be useful. eg.
First three largely in place
The data is there to get the first three items you list - you might need to modify some views to get them exactly where you want them, but they might work out of the box, and the data is there.
The scheduling functionality could be done pretty easily - issues are nodes, and the process of publishing an issue means making the node public.
Cheers,
Bill
FunnyMonkey
Drupal isn't for end users.
Drupal isn't for end users.