Drupal Tutorials

The Drupal Go Module for Redirects

Steve Burge — Fri, 07 Jun 2013 15:45:04 +0100

The Go module (also called GoTwo) is a relatively simple Drupal module that allows you to track how many people have clicked a link.

It also allows you to conceal the destination of a link and to provide visitors with a disclaimer after they click.

Here's how the Go module works:

Manage Drupal Content Layout with Panelizer

Cindy McCourt — Mon, 27 May 2013 19:32:46 +0100

By default, the fields in a content type are displayed from vertically, one field after another. For simple content types, this might not be a bad thing, but if you want some variation in the way your content fields lay out, you have options.

When selecting a strategy for managing content layout, your first decision is 'to code or not to code.' If you are like me, you'll choose not to code. The next decision is which module do you want to use?

There are three popular modules that allow you to arrange the fields in your content such that not all fields are stacked on top of each other:

A Beginners Guide to Drupal Overrides

Cindy McCourt — Thu, 09 May 2013 19:59:07 +0100

The problem with many software applications is you can't make them your own. With Drupal, however, you have the option to override how Drupal does things. From altering a form to customizing the way your pages are displayed, Drupal provides options.

The concept of overriding something in Drupal can be made reality in several ways: Drupal's APIs, theme overrides, as well as overriding default configurations in modules. Whatever it is you need to do, the number one rule you should endeavor to follow is: don't hack the core (or a contributed module). Don't open the code files in Drupal and change them to meet your needs. There are better ways.

In this tutorial, we will focus on overriding themes.

The quickest, easiest way to test Drupal modules

Steve Burge — Mon, 06 May 2013 22:52:59 +0100

A time consuming task for all software users is testing.

It takes time to find all the download links, to set up a test environment and to install all the additional software you need.

Simplytest.me is an ingenious solution for Drupal. Simplytest.me will install Drupal sites for you, as well as modules and themes that you want to use. Here's a brief introduction to this very useful site.

Move a Drupal Site to a New Folder

Steve Burge — Mon, 29 Apr 2013 17:15:00 +0100

Moving a Drupal site to a new location on your server is surprisingly easy.

There is a simple 3 step process to move a Drupal site from one folder to another. In this tutorial we're going to show you those 3 steps.

If you'd like to move a Drupal site to new folder, we recommend using the Backup and Migrate module.

How to Use Drupal's Search Module

Steve Burge — Fri, 26 Apr 2013 14:27:38 +0100

A lot of things are simple in Drupal ... once you know how.

The Search module is a perfect example of something that is initially confusing to set up, but simple once you know how to do it correctly.

This week we had several questions from our members about the Search module, so we wrote this tutorial to help them out.

There are several confusing elements to the Search module. Let's address them one-by-one:

A Guided Tour of Drupal's Settings.php

Cindy McCourt — Mon, 22 Apr 2013 00:25:00 +0100

The most important file on your Drupal site is the settings.php file.

The settings.php is unique to every site and contains all of the important information that Drupal needs to run.

Inside settings.php you'll find everything from your database type and login details to your URL and multisite options.

This tutorial is your guided tour of settings.php. If you run a Drupal site, here's what you need to know about this vital file.

Deleting Content Types and Fields in Drupal

Cindy McCourt — Mon, 15 Apr 2013 14:50:10 +0100

Here are two of the most common questions we get from Drupal newcomers:

"What happens if I delete a content type?"
"What happens if I delete a field?"

Because the answers are not easy to find, these kinds of questions can be confusing.

Here's a clear explanation of what happens when you delete a content type or field.

Using the Feeds Module for Drupal Imports

Steve Burge — Sun, 07 Apr 2013 18:08:04 +0100

If you're moving to Drupal, there's a good chance that you'll need to import data.

The Feeds module is the most common way to import content and user data into Drupal.

In this tutorial, we're going to answer a question from one of members, "How do I import RSS feeds into Drupal?" As we answer his question, we'll give you an introduction to how the Feeds module works. whether you want to import from an RSS feed, a CSV file or another format.

An Intro to Drupal Views Templates and Theming

Steve Burge — Tue, 02 Apr 2013 06:56:00 +0100

One of our students is learning Drupal and trying to master Views. They wanted to know how to style different areas of each Views. We wrote this tutorial as an introduction for them to templates and theming for Views.

As our example, we're going to use the "Front page" view, which is on the defaults available when you first intall Views.

3 Ways to Reorder Drupal Fields

Steve Burge — Tue, 26 Mar 2013 15:00:12 +0000

With all the software we teach, some tasks almost always confuse beginners.

With Drupal, re-ordering fields is one of those confusing tasks.

Learning how to re-order Drupal fields is easy. You can re-order fields using an easy drag-and-drop interface.

What's confusing is learning where to re-order fields.

By default, there are 3 ways to re-order Drupal fields and none of them are easily marked.

In this tutorial, we'll show you both how and where to re-order your fields.

A Look at Commerce Kickstart 2 for Drupal E-commerce

Steve Burge — Tue, 05 Mar 2013 20:39:59 +0000

We first blogged about Drupal Commerce in late 2011.

Since then, there have been some huge changes in the Drupal Commerce world.

Drupal Commerce grew enough to pass Ubercart as the most popular shopping solution for Drupal.
A good number of large and prestigious sites moved to Drupal Commerce.
Commerce Kickstart, their distribution which allows people to get a store up and running quickly, become the most popular Drupal distribution.

Version 2 of Commerce Kickstart was recently released, and it provided a complete redesign. So we decided to take a look.

7 of our Favorite Presentations from DrupalCon Sydney

Rod Martin — Tue, 26 Feb 2013 03:08:36 +0000

At the beginning of February, Australia held the first ever DrupalCon outside of Europe or North America.

All of the DrupalCon Sydney sessions were taped and put all online, saving you the cost of airfare, hotel and food, although Sydney would have been really nice in February! In fact, the DrupalCon team did an extraordinary job. Not only did they record every session, but they posted videos online within hours of each session ending.

Adding Meta Tags to Drupal Content

Cindy McCourt — Mon, 25 Feb 2013 19:25:27 +0000

Search engine optimization (SEO) is often at the top of the to-do list when planning a site.

There was a time when the <meta> tag had been considered one way to help your pages rise to the top of a search engine result. Although that is not always the case anymore, it can still be useful to meta tags available to search engines so they can use it if they choose.

In this tutorial, we'll explore the Meta tags module, a fast and easy way to add metadata to your nodes, terms, and users.

The State of Drupal 8: After Feature Freeze

Steve Burge — Tue, 19 Feb 2013 20:14:10 +0000

Over the last year, we've been covering the Drupal community's progress towards releasing Drupal 8.

Planning for Drupal 8 started years ago, but new features were added up until this weekend when "Feature Freeze" finally arrived.

In our first update in November, we showed that the core file structure has changed, plus there were over 15 new modules including Views.

In the second update in December, we pointed out a new toolbar, inline editing, cleaner interfaces and improved multi-lingual features. Now that the feature freeze has passed, let's take another look at the state of Drupal 8.

Improving Drupal User Profiles with Profile2

Cindy McCourt — Wed, 06 Feb 2013 20:04:53 +0000

Drupal 7 has made it easy for you to allow your site users to share information about themselves. User accounts are now "entities" which means that you can add fields to them, just as with content.

You can add user profile fields for names, email addresses, phone numbers, resumes or whatever else you might need.

However, there are some limitations to the core user profile. What happens if you don't want user accounts visible to the public? What happens if you need different profiles for different areas of your site?

The answer is the Profile2 module.

Applying Drupal Patches (for Non-Coders)

Cindy McCourt — Mon, 04 Feb 2013 16:52:30 +0000

Have you ever updated your Drupal site only to suddenly have errors?

If you use Drupal regularly, this will happen to you at some point. However, one of the good things about using Drupal is there are so many other users that someone else may well have found and solved the error.

One common way to solve an error is with a patch. A patch changes the code on your site, but only by editing a file rather than providing a complete update.

Many of the available instructions for applying patches ask you to use an application called Git and to use command line instructions. These instructions can be intimidating, so we're going to show you how non-coders can safely and effectively apply patches.

How to use Drupal's Context Module

Cindy McCourt — Mon, 28 Jan 2013 08:29:09 +0000

"If ..., then ..." is one of the most commonly used phrases in the world of software development and, I suppose, in life:

If the sky is blue, then it probably won't rain.
If I learn Drupal, then I'll make lots of money.
If the webpage URL includes "services" in the path, then display the block called Services.

In this blog, we are going to introduce to you to the Context module, which puts the power of "If ..., then ..." into your hands.

Change Drupal Folder and File Permissions

Steve Burge — Sun, 27 Jan 2013 19:40:07 +0000

Sometimes when you're trying to modify files or folders on your Drupal site, you'll be faced with error messages that will look like this:

"553 Can't open that file: permission denied"

One of our students wanted to know why they were getting this message about being denied.

What are permissions and how can you fix this problem? Read on ...

Multiple image uploads in Drupal with Plupload

Steve Burge — Thu, 10 Jan 2013 20:48:10 +0000

One of our students was setting up a photo gallery and asked:

"I was wondering what module you think would best enable my site members to upload multiple photographs at once."

There are several ways to do this with Drupal. We're going to show you one option that uses a script called Plupload.

Node Option Premium: full Drupal content for specific users only

Ed Andrea — Mon, 07 Jan 2013 20:24:00 +0000

Node Option Premium is a module for people who want to encourage visitors to register on their site.

Node Option Premium lets you show a content teaser to the public but show the full content only to people who are logged in and have a certain role. This is typical of the strategy used by many newspapers and magazines with their paywall.

In this tutorial, we'll demonstrate how to use this simple, yet effective module.

Using Drupal's Advanced Forum Module

Cindy McCourt — Mon, 31 Dec 2012 16:33:45 +0000

Drupal's core forum module has been around for a long, long time. It was first introduced back into Drupal 3 in 2001!

The forum module is fairly basic but it has proven reliable enough to handle some large sites such as http://drupal.org/forum. However, the module does lack many of the more advanced features that you'd expect to see in today's forums such as VBulletin and phpBB.

If you want a more powerful forum in your Drupal site, we recommend Advanced Forum. The Advanced Forum module has many of the same features as VBulletin and phpBB, but it's also tightly integrated into Drupal.

In this tutorial, we'll show you through how to install, configure and use Advanced Forum.

The State of Drupal 8: Toolbar, Inline Editing, Languages

Steve Burge — Mon, 24 Dec 2012 05:14:53 +0000

Over the last few months, we've been covering the Drupal community's progress towards releasing Drupal 8.

Our last update was a month ago. I explained that the core file structure had changed, plus there were over 15 new modules including Views.

Since that update, the first major deadline has arrived. Feature freeze was in the beginning of December, although that deadline slipped a little, and we can still expect new features until February.

However, lots of great new features have arrived in the last month, and so let's take another look at the state of Drupal 8.

Drupal Entities: Adding Fields to Comments, Terms, and Users

Cindy McCourt — Wed, 19 Dec 2012 16:34:05 +0000

In this blog post we're going to introduce you to Drupal entities and how they make site building easier.

In Drupal 6, there was a big difference between how Drupal handled different types of content. Nodes, comments, terms and users were all technically "content", but Drupal treated them all differently.

What happend with Drupal 7 is that we started to treat nodes, comments, terms and users in the same way. No longer was there a big difference between them.

Each individual node, user, term and comment is now called an entity.

Nodes, comments, terms and users are now called entity types. The image below from Heather James on Drupal.org shows some "entity types" in Drupal 7

Control Who Can View Drupal Nodes: Content Access

Steve Burge — Mon, 17 Dec 2012 20:33:11 +0000

Sometimes in Drupal there are many solutions to a problem.

One such problem is controlling who can see which content on your site.

Although Drupal comes with 5 permissions for content, none of them deal with access. Here are the 5 default permissions:

Control Who Can View Drupal Nodes: Taxonomy Access Control

Steve Burge — Mon, 17 Dec 2012 02:34:30 +0000

In another tutorial this week, we talked about a major hole in Drupal's permissions system.

The hole is that Drupal allows you to control who can create, edit and delete content but not who can view it.

Because this problem impacts a lot of sites, there are a lot of available solutions. In that other tutorial, we recommended the Content Access module. In this tutorial, we're going to recommend the Taxonomy Access Control module.

What's the difference?

The State of Drupal 8: Before the Feature Freeze

Steve Burge — Wed, 21 Nov 2012 13:15:55 +0000

Over the last few months, we've been covering the Drupal community's progress towards releasing Drupal 8.

Now that the first major deadline is only a week away, it's time to provide another update.

What's the state of Drupal 8?

Magic Quotes Error With Drupal 8 Installation

Steve Burge — Mon, 19 Nov 2012 05:00:00 +0000

We've had a few members start to test Drupal 8 and several ran into a problem during the installation.

Basically their hosting service is out-of-date or incorrectly set up. During the installation they get an error message saying that something called "Magic Quotes" isn't supported.

Here's an explanation of that problem and how you can fix it.

Automatically Generating Node Titles in Drupal

Steve Burge — Tue, 13 Nov 2012 02:58:46 +0000

It's fairly common to replace the title field in Drupal.

There are many possible reasons to replace the title, but most of them come down to this ... the title field is not very flexible.

To take just one example, imagine that you're adding a directory of your staff members to your site. Presumably, you'd like the person's name to be the title of each page. However, because the title field only consists of a text field with 255 characters, you can't have close control over what people enter. The solution is to replace the default title with specific "First Name" and "Last Name" fields.

So, here's how to automatically generate titles in Drupal 7.

Add a Spellchecker to Your Drupal WYSIWYG Editor

Steve Burge — Thu, 01 Nov 2012 14:45:49 +0000

Most of us are used to having a spellchecker when we type. If we use Microsoft Word, Google Docs and most other writing tools, you're used to seeing a red line under your spelling mistakes.

If you'd like to add a similar spellchecker to your Drupal WYSIWYG editor, here's how to do it ...