By dorien on

Update: Second Edition also available in paperback

The second edition is now available. Read more in this post #767392 or get it from Amazon us or Amazon eur.

From the back flap

More than 100 screenshots will guide the reader through the process of setting up a community site with the Drupal 5 or 6 framework. A number of popular topics, such as profiles, picture and video galleries, maps, messaging, groups, friends etc will be discussed.

Drupal is one of the best content management systems (CMS) around. In fact, it has just won (for the second time) the Best Overall 2008 Open Source CMS Award and Best PHP Open Source CMS Award. For about 8 years now, Drupal has been providing users with one of the best and most versatile frameworks around. In this book, I will guide the reader through the different modules needed to build a solid community site. And I go even further, by looking at how to structure content and making a few €, $, ¥, ¢, £,... from your site. It is going to be an exploration of modules and their features.

The main strategy of this book is to use only out-of-the-box, user contributed modules. So anybody can make a great site. This well thought strategy offers us the following advantages:
- Easy to update.
- Anyone can do it.
- Expansive: at any time, you can install a module safely, to allow additional functionality.

Every function will be explained using the fully integrated case study Drupalfun.

Anyone can build a community site with Drupal after reading this book.

Drupal 6: Ultimate Community Site Guide.
With notes for Drupal 5
Now everyone can set up a community.
ISBN 978-2-8399-0490-2
Author: Dorien Herremans MSc MIS

Available at http://book.drupalfun.com. From all sales through this affiliate link, 10% will be donated to the Drupal Association.

About the author

Dorien Herremans is a MSc Commercial Engineer in Management Information Systems, from the University of Antwerp, Belgium. She has lectured IT and 3D Computer Animation at Les Roches University of Applied Science in the Swiss Alps. She is currently doing her PhD at the University of Antwerp, developing a local search metaheuristic for computer aided music composition. She is also the founder of Sun Flare Ltd, a Drupal consultancy/development company. Among others, she loves life and Drupal, and has set up a multitude of sites, using creative techniques to get the maximum out of this great framework.

⋅ Categories: Drupal 5.x, Drupal 6.x

Comments

jjjames’s picture

jjjames commented

This sounds like it will be useful!

kevcol’s picture

kevcol commented

Hi there,

I'm really enjoying this eBook, but am tripping up on the part about how to make the user profile show up via a panels view.

I am using Content Profile module to add fields to profile. And then I follow this bit of instruction, but when I look at my profiles, they are not displaying in the panels layout I selected:

1. Create a panel page (/admin/panels/panel-page) (Panels module).

2. Choose a layout, let’s take the “Two Column Stacked” layout.

3. Name the panel “profile”.

4. Here is the tricky part: set the path to “/node/%”, by doing this all of
the node/3, node/4, node/5, . . . pages will be replaced by this panel,
and the argument % will be passed to the panel.

5. Leave the advanced settings as they are.

6. Define a context: add the argument3 “node ID” (fig 4.6), select the
content type Profile (for content type and own display).

We have successfully created a panel page that will take over all the profile pages and treat the argument (that is the % in the URL) as a node ID. By adding the argument node ID and restricting it to “profile”, we only take over the nodes that are profiles. So each profile will be replaced by this panel.

I can't seem to figure out what I'm doing wrong. If anyone can point me in the right direction, would very much appreciate it.

Cheers,
Kevin

dorien’s picture

dorien commented

First of all, I wonder if you use the latest panels 2 release (alpha 3). There is a panels 3 out (from two days ago), but I haven't tried that yet. You might also want to update Content Profile B3, if you haven't already.

Your profile page is indeed not being taken over by a panel.

The path node/% should do the trick. If no info at all is being shown, this means at least that the profile is being taken over!

You also need to check that the panel has a context for node ID, but if it's blank, that should be the case.

If you go to the content section of your panel edit pages, you should be able

The next thing to do is check that the panel for your profile actually has content (this actually comes in the next section of the book, I don't know if you got there already). In any case, you would need to go to /admin/panels/panel-page/Profile/edit/content/argument_0-profile and fill up the panes.

Let me know if it works now!

dorien’s picture

dorien commented

Kevin's reply:

I am using the Panels 6.x-2.0-alpha3 and Content Profiles B3.

I did add content, but still wasn't seeing anything. Just to test things, I went into the content area of panels and added "Who's Online" above the "Node ID content" and that showed up -- which made me realize something was wrong with my "Node ID content." I did that part over and got things working: http://pulpkulture.com/content/kevcol

So I'm plowing ahead now adding the avatar. Thanks much!

dorien’s picture

dorien commented

For everyone who want support about book specific questions, Drupalfun is the place to be.

WorldFallz’s picture

WorldFallz commented

If you're not going to answer questions asked about your posts where the posts are created and the questions are asked, then stop posting the link.

dorien’s picture

dorien commented

Meanwhile, Drupalfun has been upgraded to Panels 3, and I've written a short tutorial on the update process. The same methods apply. Panels still performs the same functions, only the interface has changed quite a bit.

Summit’s picture

Summit commented

Hi,

don't know if it is explained in the ebook. But it would be great if you would build an installation profile (http://drupal.org/project/installation+profiles) of the site, with example content in mysql database, so not only the site is explained, but somebody can go from your site profile to instead of starting from scratch to enhance drupal more.
Greetings, Martijn

venusrising’s picture

venusrising commented

Need and update section for panels 3 as the user creation is halted due to panels 2 info. Perhaps a web addendum available to those that purchased recenly would be nice.

venusrising

dorien’s picture

dorien commented

Hi,

Thank you for your comment.

This is already available at http://drupalfun.com/content/converting-panels-3
I'm guessing that the posting will be updated to rc1 this week still.

Except for a few minor UI changes on Panels, the rest of the book is still valid.

Have the best day,

Dorien

sarav.din33’s picture

sarav.din33 commented

Hi dorien,

Now I am in section 4.3.1.(Ultimate Community site guide..)

In step 4, you indicate and set the path as node/% but it say some error. For that i set the path as "users/%user". And then i set the context as "nodeID".

So, now i set the

argument: "%user"
context: "NodeID"

The next one is i dont know where to set the content type as "profile". Due to this i didnt set the content type for this panel page.

After configuring like this i got the same out in all user's Profile panel's page.

How i solve this issue. So, please guide me on this issue as soon as possible.

Thanks & Regards
Sarav...

Thanks & Regards
Sarav..