CCK & Views the ultimate combination - part 2

Drupal is a fantastic content management system but is perhaps not the most non developer friendly however 3 simple modules can help you create compelling and powerful web site. So in this 3 part mini series lets see how easy it is to develop new content types and ways to view it. To help us lets use a fictitious company called AA Design who are about to start teaching a range of courses.

Quick note this post refers to Drupal 4.7 however several of these modules are now available for Drupal 5

Views

The views module provides a flexible method for Drupal site designers to control how lists of content (nodes) are presented. Traditionally, Drupal has hard-coded most of this, particularly in how taxonomy and tracker lists are formatted.

In the previous part we created our own content type node, using the CCK, we will continue this example and create a block and page that lists our content type in date order. Once again we start by downloading the views module from and installing it in our usual way, once installed you can find the views in adminster->views.

When the views module is installed it has several default views, however we are going to create a brand new one. To do this click the add tab, and give your new view a name and select both anonymous and authenticated users for access.
Next expand the page field set, and tick provide page view and give the view a node alias, it is referred to as url on the form but you need to provide only an alias such as latest.
Under view types select teaser list and give the page a title.
Now expand filters field set, and under add filter select node type and click add, once you have added the filter, select your content type from the list, and make sure the operator “is one of”.
Add a second filter this time select node published and the operator is yes.
Finally expand the sort criteria, under add criteria choose node created Time, and then choose order descending.
Now click save.

Now to add a block we need to go back to the view and edit it, this time we are going to expand the block section and tick the provide block, from the view type select list view. Under nodes per block put in a value I suggest 5 or more.
Next expand fields and add field selecting node title, make sure it has the option As Link selected and then save the view.
add the block in the normal way, it will be named the same as your view.

The Block should show the titles of your latest content which when clicked will go to there nodes and you should now have a page, which shows only your content in descending order. This was a simple example, look through the provided examples in the view module for more advanced views.

The final part of this series is about contemplate to help theme your new content type.

Other Articles in the Series
CCK & Views the ultimate combination -part 1
CCK & Views the ultimate combination -part 3
HReview a CCK example using contemplate

Other Articles on the Venture Skills Network about Drupal
Drupal 5.0 goes Beta
5 Drupal Modules to Guarantee Drupal 5.0 Success
The Digg effect and can Drupal survive it - looking at how drupal can cope with bandwidth spikes
Want to create a site like Digg with no programming series

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