GotDrupal Video Feed

How To: Save Draft Nodes in Drupal

Matt Petrowsky — Tue, 24 Aug 2010 21:25:52 +0000

Drupal is a very powerful publishing system. In fact, it's pretty hard not to stumble across many modules which will help you create an awesomely powerful publishing platform. Drupal distribtions, such as Managing News, have already packaged a handful of modules which get you started right off the bat.

If your publishing needs are simple and straight forward, then you may just need a handful of uself modules.

One of the default features in Drupal is the baked in revision system, which allows you to track any and all changes to any given node (which is any given piece of content - if you're not familar with Drupal speak already).

Using this default system, you can easily track what changes have been made to your site's content. However, unless it's just yourself creating the content, you may need to facilitate a review process. This means you may go through many drafts before you're ready to release an updated node.

Creating an intermediate draft in Drupal is simply a matter of using the Save As Draft module. While its initially sparse interface is a bit confusing, the features it provides may be exactly what you're looking for if you'd like multiple people to contribute updates to a node and save the release process for a higher level of access.

Drupal Hosting for Performance

Matt Petrowsky — Fri, 09 Jul 2010 00:51:24 +0000

When most people consider Drupal hosting, they're looking for a reliable host they hope isn't going to shut down over night. It's typically your larger run-of-the-mill hosting provider running an install script that will simply load a basic Drupal install.

For myself, I've always opted to manage my own hosting. This meant taking care of setting up, securing and optimizing either a dedicated server box or the current trend of using a VPS (virtual private server) which uses virtualization technology to fully leverage all the resources of a really beefy server.

Recenly, however, while spending a fair amount of time becoming familiar with the Varnish reverse proxy server (which is very nice by the way), I decided I was spending too much time with my own "Drupal hosting". I wanted to create more videos and more valuable content - I enjoy doing it.

There are a good number of smart people and companies in the world of Drupal, many of them providing high quality services to some really BIG companies. My search for a Drupal hosting company was personally based out of frustration. While researching, I found a number of links about the latest "hot new web server" call nginx. I was intrigued.

My search brought me to a number of posts on Drupal.org by user Omega8cc. For every post I came across, it was evident that Omega8 was doing everything possible to be helpful.

This caused me to click on Omega8's signature, which took me to their home page for Drupal hosting. Based on my current level of frustration with having accidentally messed up network settings on a server box while adding a new IP (never lock yourself out of your own server if you can avoid it!), I contacted Omega8 and asked to test out their services.

Long story short, I couldn't be happier. Watch the video to get a real sense of why I'm so impressed with this Drupal hosting company. They exist in the world of Drupal so you know they're doing everything they can to make Drupal perform like it should.

And this is only the start of it. Wait until I make some videos about using Aegir and being able to quickly, and easily, create any number of Drupal sites your heart desires!

Related videos:

How To: Boost Drupal Performance

Drupal Admin: Drupal Masquerade Module

Matt Petrowsky — Mon, 21 Jun 2010 20:11:02 +0000

Building a Drupal web site certainly can take a bit of time, especially when you've got a large number of users, roles and permissions. It's also very frustrating when users write in to say your web site is not working properly.

The Drupal Masquerade module is an excellent tool for testing all kinds of settings within your Drupal site. The module allows you to easily switch between any other user and limit this capability to a group of users covered by a certain role. The catch, however, is to be certain you know what is happening with each role and user who has access to the powerful module.

With one wrong setting, you can provide access to your whole Drupal site as if that person was the super user.

In this video, I walk through the various settings and the process of testing the Drupal Masquerade module in order to facilitate faster site testing and also use it for support purposes.

If part of what you do is act as a Drupal administrator or someone in charge of building the Drupal site then make sure to watch this Drupal tutorial video about the Drupal Masquerade module.

Top Drupal Modules

Matt Petrowsky — Tue, 04 May 2010 03:59:28 +0000

I remember when I first started with Drupal. There was just a handful of modules compared to today. I want to say something like 600 or so...

In fact, there were few enough, I had printed the whole list of all top Drupal modules and took a stack of paper home to read about each one. Fast forward to today's module count and it's coming close to 6,000!

Can you say "Holy metric ton load of Drupal modules to search through Batman!" How do you really know which are good and which are bad?

To start, keep this in mind. Drupal is open source, and pretty much anyone can contribute back to the project. While Drupal's future of version control will place a few more barriers to entry to just anyone submitting potential duplicate modules, (therefore preventing the wonderful module of shame issue ) you still don't really know which modules are coded well and which are not - unless you dig into their code.

So, the quick answer to this problem about knowing which are the top Drupal modules, is to use Drupal.org's /project/usage stats. This is the one place you can see which modules are used the most by the most sites (at least those reporting back to Drupal.org).

In this video, I start at number one and head down to module 50 within the usage stats. I've not worked with all of them, but I'm familiar with what most do. I provide an overview of the modules and what they do within Drupal.

If this approach is a good one, and you'd like me to keep going, then please leave a comment on this posting!

Related videos:

Module Review: Pathauto

How To: Drupal debugging with Devel

How To: Create a Drupal Calendar

How To: Drupal SEO using Nodewords for Meta tags

How To: Setting up Drupal's Cron

How To: Using Drupal Webform for useful feedback

How To: Use Drupal email to send notifications to users

Matt Petrowsky — Tue, 30 Mar 2010 02:08:18 +0000

Twitter's great. SMS messaging is great. Even Instant Messaging is great.

But, there's one thing which ties everyone together online. It's not going away soon, and it's something that pretty much everyone has. If you guessed email (the title of the article was a give away, wasn't it?), then you're absolutely right. Just try to imagine a world without email - even with killer audio/voice technology, it just wouldn't be as refined without email.

So, if you're seeking a solution to have Drupal email your users, then one of the best methods for doing this is the Messaging and Notifications modules. You won't find one specific Drupal email module on Drupal.org because sending email is already built into Drupal. It's they way, and when email, or any other message method is used, that you need to focus on.

Sending out a message via any of the above mentioned methods, plus a Drupal email is easily accomplished with these modules.

It's easy, because they offer all the methods plus more. One of my own recent requirements was having Drupal email all users of a given role for one specific content type, and then also support email notifications to admin users in another role.

If this is the type of solution you're seeking for your Drupal site then this video may have what you're looking for.

Messaging [issues] - [usage]

Notifications [issues] - [usage]

How To: Using the Drupal Flowplayer Module

Matt Petrowsky — Mon, 22 Feb 2010 20:07:11 +0000

Flash and its associated players are all the rage (actually have been for quite some time), except for with the iPad that is. Obviously, you can embed video into your Drupal site in a number of ways.

You can use an external site like YouTube or Blip.tv using the Embedded Media Field Module or you can implement video on your own site using the FLV Media Player Module in conjunction with JW Player.

I've already covered how you can use any of the possible flash players (JW Player or Flowplayer) in this video about SWFTools. So, what was next was Flowplayer and it's here that I've put together a video about using the Flowplayer API Module in conjunction with the respective, and required, Flowplayer flash player and javascript.

Now, you don't have to worry about downloading the Flowplayer Javascript and flash file, those are all included with the Flowplayer API Module. What isn't covered, that I show in the video, is some of the extended coolness you get with things like Flowplayer playlists.

However, if you're seeking to do REALLY cool things with video then Flowplayer API is definitely the way to go. It's going to provide the greatest level of customization (that's customization that YOU'LL have to do), with the lowest amount of overhead, of the other modules I've worked with. You'll have to get into the PHP of your theme to implement, but once you start to learn it, you'll really start to think about radical things like Views based videos series driving Flowplayer to create dynamic playlists and other cool whiz-bang features.

UPDATE: In the video, I mention that Flowplayer is becoming the most popular open source flash player. This is debatable. I should have said it's "my" favorite player. Here are some trends and insights regarding the two most popular players.

Related videos:

How To: Embedding media using SWF Tools module

How To: Boost Drupal Performance

Matt Petrowsky — Tue, 05 Jan 2010 22:27:33 +0000

It's no coincidence the title of this video corresponds with exactly what you're probably trying to do with your Drupal site. Squeeze every bit of performance you can from whatever server you're on. Shared hosting, dedicated box, virtual server, you name it. So how does the mere Drupal user or admin get stellar performance out of Drupal?

It turns out, the tried and true method for the fastest web page response is simply allowing the web server to spit back a simple html page - just like the good old days of Web 1.0.

Now, Drupal is a complex Content Management System with years of personal investment by many talented and enterprising minds. It has a feature rich database with many creative optimizations in place.

But, guess what, as cool and addictive as Drupal is, you still can't beat that simple HTML web page! So, if you can't beat 'em - then join 'em. That's exactly what the Boost module does. It's a module for Drupal which can increase the speed of your Drupal site SIGNIFICANTLY!

Unless you already know how to install and use memcached or you're REALLY cool and can wrap your brain around using EC2 and Pantheon or comfortable with a Drupal fork such as Pressflow, then Boost is the way to go - especially if you're running on a server you don't directly control.

Boost won't save your bacon if you've got thousands of authenticated users (you need the other solutions above), but for every one of those content-based anonymous-traffic web sites running on Drupal. You simply can't ignore Boost and its Drupal performance enhancements!

Drupal Menu System Demystified

SiteAdmin — Thu, 03 Dec 2009 21:58:27 +0000

There's a mistake I've made which a few others have made too. The mistake is rushing into your new Drupal site and populating your menu right away. You simply add new menu items as placeholders until you can create or add the data. You set the menu path to something like <front>, and populate away.

The frustrating part about this, is that your menus may not work as expected - at least when expecting cascading menus using the Primary links (or any other menu) as a hierarchy. Drupal needs to have something to point to in order to build it's internal menu.

There is an option within the Devel module to flush the menu (internally known as the menu router and menu links), and this is great to know, but won't help unless the menus are linked to actual content.

This video will walk you through the 'know-how' about how the menu works internally, and how to avoid the pitfalls of making your menus do what you want. I cover three other add on modules which you can use to make your Drupal serve up the order you've placed for it (did you catch that one? - if not, do you need a Menu? - being addicted keeps you crazy.)

Modules referenced

Sites referenced

Lullabot Menu's Video

Related videos:

Drupal Menu Navigation Enhanced

How To: Leverage Drupal Taxonomy

Matt Petrowsky — Tue, 03 Nov 2009 00:59:09 +0000

While trying to think of what to write, regarding Drupal taxonomy, it was my kids’ story
last night that inspired this posting about this video covering how the taxonomy module works and what it means to your Drupal site.

Taxonomy, taxidermy, category, road kill
let’s play a matching game,
and then increase our Drupal skill.

Spend some time with synonyms,
take a break, eat M-n-M’s,
return to Content Taxonomy,
help Drupal fix the economy.

We want a killer Drupal site,
without the pain and UI blight
of something ugly, hard to use,
so let’s all learn Taxonomy and Views!

I’ve got this video
right here for you,
it covers Vocabularies
and then Terms too.

It’s great to learn what can be done,
now let’s all go and have some fun,
being addicted to Drupal stuff,
which really isn’t all that tough.

Wow! that’s not something I normally do when writing about some silly Drupal video tutorial designed to help you learn more about Drupal and how Drupal Taxonomy works. But, hey, it was fun!

How To: Drupal SEO using Nodewords for Meta tags

Matt Petrowsky — Fri, 02 Oct 2009 21:58:00 +0000

SEO is one of the more critical aspects for any web site - at least if you want to be found in the search engines. The fact that Drupal is capable of being super SEO friendly is a great benefit. However, it doesn't do you much good to simply know that Drupal is SEO friendly. With modules like SEO Checklist from Volacci you can certainly walk through the myriad of possible SEO options.

In this video, I simply walk through one of the more powerful Drupal SEO modules. The Nodewords module is what allows you to communicate, to your prospective visitors, what your content actually is and why they should visit your site - specfically, via the Description meta tag. If you only get two things from this video; 1) know that you absolutely need to use the Description meta tag and probably Keywords too and 2) use Nodewords to make it happen!

How To: Drupal debugging with Devel

Matt Petrowsky — Mon, 21 Sep 2009 22:47:59 +0000

Getting started as a Drupal developer can take quite a bit of time. One of the key tricks is to know what to look for, and more importantly, how to look for it.

There are number of ways to debug PHP code, the one you choose, sometimes, ends up being the only one you know about! Maybe it's time to learn a few more methods.

In this video, an experienced Drupal developer, Chris Shattuck, from Build A Module.com walks you through the use of the Devel module and how efficient it is.

How To: Embedding media using SWF Tools module

Matt Petrowsky — Thu, 17 Sep 2009 19:37:28 +0000

Yep, we're living in a media rich world (just in case you didn't notice the video on this web page <wink>). In fact, what's the second most popular search engine? Is it Bing? Nope, it's YouTube of all things (last I heard).

So, all you really need to know, is how to bring your Drupal site up to the media rich standards of the new web and activate some media modules. Personally, I've used a number of them, and I'm quite comfortable digging around with Javascript and jQuery, however, there's something to be said for the easy route.

I'm using the Flowplayer module on this site now (as of posting date), and previously, I used jQuery Media.

It wasn't until recently, where I was avoiding an upgrade to one of my podcast sites, that I decided to try out SWF Tools module. I had tried it out in the past, but found it lacking. BUT, not these days.

For audio, I like using the 1pixelout player, and seeing support for Flowplayer too, "forced" me to try it out.

While it really depends on preference, for whether to use Flowplayer proper or SWF Tools, it sure is nice to have all media managed by one module.

The trick is understanding how to get it working - and that's what this video will help you with!

How To: Using Drupal Webform for useful feedback

Matt Petrowsky — Wed, 02 Sep 2009 17:33:40 +0000

The Drupal Webform module is both a popular and useful module for collecting information from web site visitors.

For the most part, you can install, activate and start to create your own webforms right away. The module is pretty easy to use, well crafted and created by one of my most favorite Drupal developers.

Using webform is great when collecting valuable information, but what happens when you need a bit more. Is it possible to know where a site visitor was when they clicked on a response form? Can you determine what browser they are using, and if they use Macintosh or Windows? You sure can, and it's VERY helpful! Take a few minutes to watch this video and start collecting even more useful information.

Modules referenced

Webform [issues] - [usage]

UPDATE: 11/3/09 Unfortunately, the Webform module was updated, and some of the tips in this video no longer work as expected. Here is the reasoning and also some suggestions about how to regain some of the functionality within this Drupal support issue related to webform and SERVER variables.

UPDATE: 3/16/10 A great suggested workaround was posted as a comment on this article. I replied with information about how I am now capturing the path again. Thanks andyb for the contribution! http://gotdrupal.com/videos/drupal-webform-for-feedback#comment-786

How To: Drupal Panels

Matt Petrowsky — Tue, 25 Aug 2009 01:34:11 +0000

Like many other content management systems, Drupal is built on PHP. With PHP, you can dig in and make it do whatever you want. Likewise, you can dig into Drupal and make it do most everything you want - well, almost. If you're not afraid of writing PHP code, then the sky's the limit. If you're limited by the time and desire to learn PHP, then Panels is likely the way to go!

If you're seeking a high degree of control, regarding the individual building blocks which make up the output of your Drupal site, you can choose one or more of the following. In order of complexity (and decreasing silliness) you can A) generate an XSLT parsing system to re-render what was already rendered by Drupal from your own custom module built to output custom XML code, B) become a Drupal theming master (a topic for another video series) or C) use Panels and be done with it.

My suggestion is to go with 'C' and be done with it. Hopefully, this video will provide you with the head start you're looking for when working with the Panels module.

How To: Create a Drupal Calendar

Matt Petrowsky — Mon, 03 Aug 2009 22:30:42 +0000

In the beginning was the Event module. It was the de facto standard for managing calendar types of data. That was before CCK. Content Construction Kit saw fit to bring about many changes in the world of Drupal.

With the rise of Views module, a new era was born. Shortly after, the super talented developer KarenS created Date module and Views and Date got together. Their offspring was the Drupal Calendar module.

And from that time on, a Drupal calendar was easily possible with date and time harmony spreading across the land.

Ok, enough of the silly take on a religious beginning. What you likely want to know is how to simply add and leverage a calendar on your Drupal site. Well, how about this for simple - "Just watch the video" - "Oh, and enjoy!"

Modules used in this video

Preview: Open Atrium

Matt Petrowsky — Wed, 15 Jul 2009 00:12:31 +0000

I recently received a direct tweet from the folks at Development Seed with notice about the beta release of Open Atrium. Having been quite interested in seeing what they've got, I quickly downloaded a copy and got it up and running.

I decided to record the process and provide my first impressions. Bear in mind, these are first impressions and I'm not an expert (by any means) about their system. I dug into the system as a developer and skimmed through it.

If you're interested in finding out more about the actual feature set, they've got a video on this page.

Feel free to leave related comments below.

How To: Finding Drupal Modules

Matt Petrowsky — Mon, 13 Jul 2009 19:59:47 +0000

Maybe your experience was similar. You learned about Drupal, you thought it was great (still is) and you wanted to make it do more.

Of course, you knew about adding modules. There's a whole section on Drupal.org. You visit the site and WOW! Get ready to surf through over 4,000 modules. You'd have to spend enough time with at least 10-a-day to know what each one does.

Discovering if a) there's a module that does what you want, and b) if its name may transalte into the feature you seek (try to guess what Eldorado Superfly does without reading the description), can be an exercise in exploratory determination - determined to keep exploring that is.

So, here's a video with a few of my tips for making the search process a bit more comfortable. If you've got a helpful tip about searching for and reseaching modules, then, by all means, leave a comment on this site!

How To: Add focused Drupal search to your site

Matt Petrowsky — Thu, 02 Jul 2009 01:03:04 +0000

When it comes to search, Drupal seems to do OK by itself. However, there are a number of supporting modules which will make your Drupal's default search even better. These include Porter-Stemmer (english only), Search 404, Search by Page, Similar By Terms and many others.

If you're seekign to help an advanced user out, then modules like Search config can help with that. But what about the user who won't dare go into the hidden area of 'Advanced Search'? This is where the power is - right?

It sure is. This is where you tell Drupal what content types and categories you want to limit the search to. This is where a user, simply looking for a job on your site, which lists information about jobs, news, blogs and other items, can focus their results.

So, why don't you stop expecting the user to figure this out, and just make it happen for them! That's what this video is all about. Using the default Drupal search box and forcing it to focus on specific content types or categories. You control what Drupal searches for and you control where it shows up!

Search Related Modules

The Apache Solr project is what is used on Drupal.org. You know, where you get the cool faceted results from a search request.

Apache [issues] - [usage]

Of course, if you haven't heard about it already, the Acquia Search service make it quite easy to take advantage of the Apache Solr coolness.

Here's the code.

<?php
// All of the following code goes within template.php

/*
 * Using one of the preprocess hooks in template.php, you create a
 * variable which calls drupal_get_form on the function which creates
 * the search form
 */
function THEME-NAME-HERE_preprocess_node(&$vars, $hook) {
  $vars['focused_search'] = drupal_get_form('THEME-NAME-HERE_focused_search_form');
}

/*
 * This function will create a search form which adds a validation
 * handler which you use to append any custom search criteria
 * Note to self: Context module could be used here?
 */
function THEME-NAME-HERE_focused_search_form(&$form_state, $keys = '') {
  // Render the form to search a focused content type
  if( module_exists('search')) {
    $form = search_form($form_state, '/'. drupal_get_path_alias($_GET['q'])); // Use existing search form code
    $form['#validate'] = array('search_form_validate', 'THEME-NAME-HERE_focused_search_validate');
    $form['#submit'] = array('search_form_submit');
    return $form;
  }
}

/*
 * The validation handler added within the search form is where you make
 * any adjustments to the search handled by Drupal. You can use any
 * critera you wish, including the path or other variables available
 * within Drupal.
 */
function THEME-NAME-HERE_focused_search_validate($form, &$form_state) {
  // Using an array to determine which content type to search based on path from search form
  $content_type = array_search($form['#action'], array(
                  'vendor_item' => '/vendors',
                  'job_item'    => '/jobs/sites',
                    )
                  );
  $content_type = empty($content_type) ? '' : $content_type;
  // Initialize using any existing basic search keywords.
  // taken from node.module node_search_validate() function
  $keys = $form_state['values']['processed_keys'];
  $keys = search_query_insert($keys, 'type', $content_type); // additional seach criteria added here
  form_set_value($form['basic']['inline']['processed_keys'], trim($keys), $form_state);
}
?>

Related videos:

How To: Drupal Search using Acquia's Solr Service

Drupal Menu Navigation Enhanced

Matt Petrowsky — Fri, 19 Jun 2009 19:18:01 +0000

The Drupal menu system is very smart about when it shows menus. It knows when a user has access to the menu, based on the roles the user has, and ultimately, the permissions the user has.

This is a great feature of Drupal. However, you still need to provide some form of navigation. Out of the box, Drupal provides a Navigation menu and both Primary and Secondary links menus. No matter which one you choose to use, you can enhance this navigation by making it easy for users to get to where they want to go - or even better, help them find the content they may be interested in.

In this video, I discuss the use to two different modules in particular. Dynamic Persistent Menu and the Me modules.

The information I provide in this video can apply to many other navigation modules. It's the Me module which is providing the magic to make your users happy with accessing their content. You find information about the specifics of Dynamic Persistent Menu and creating a block based navigation area for your site. The advantage to block based navigation (as opposed to html/template based) is that an admin user, with the right permissions, can control the menu to their heart's content.

If you have more suggestions about cool navigation and menu modules then please leave them in the comments below.

Modules referenced in this video

Dynamic Persistent Menu [issues] - [usage]
Me [issues] - [usage]
Nice Menus [issues] - [usage]

Note: About the extra feature in Dynamic Persistent Menu. This is a link to the issue where I posted a patch that adds the checkbox feature of not showing submenus when the given url matches the menu which was selected.

Related videos:

Drupal Menu System Demystified

How To: Use Beauty Tips Module to Enhance Your Drupal Views

Matt Petrowsky — Sun, 07 Jun 2009 17:57:41 +0000

When it comes to Web 2.0, it’s all about the GUI, UX, UE, WYSIWYG, FTW, WTH*. Ok, ok, enough acronyms. Let’s just leave things simple. “I saw this cool feature on another web site and I want that feature too.”

Typically, the feature you’re seeking to incorporate entails the use of AJAX or Javascript. While the cost for adding such features used to be quite high, the use of jQuery and its firm acceptance within Drupal make things much easier.

Enter modules such as Beauty Tips, and their integration with Views, and the tasty, gooey GUI you’re seeking becomes a reality.

This video presents a technique for using Beauty Tips to hover over a link, inbound from an RSS feed (pulled in via FeedAPI module), and show a quick synopsis of what the underlying link is about. The shortened body is presented within a Web 2.0 bubble, making it easy for scanning topics of interest. There are many ways to use modules such as Beauty Tips, and the presented technique is only one of many.

* (What the Heck - because WTF is just so juvenile)

Related videos:

How To: Using Drupal Views module

How To: Using Drupal Twitter Module

Matt Petrowsky — Fri, 22 May 2009 20:16:42 +0000

"Twitter me this, twitter me that," can anyone listen to or read any Internet media news and not hear about Twitter? Not likely these days. It seems that celebrity and competition has driven Twitter to become that latest Internet fad.

Wait as second? A fad? Well, only time will tell if that's the case. Currently (to me at least), it seems like Twitter is yet another channel for social communication between multiple parties. If you think in terms of RSS, with a 140 character limit - (some times it's better if some people talk less*) -, you simply have the same selective personal input with some useful conventions providing some uniquely new levels of information access.

So, when it comes to cutting edge, would you expect any less from Drupal? Of course not. While there are a few twitter modules on Drupal.org, I chose to focus on the Twitter module created by James Walker (walkah) of Lullabot fame.

I've covered as much as I can, to give you a strong sense of what you can do with this module and how to integrate into your own Drupal sites.

Want to know when new videos are released on this site? Just follow GotDrupal.com on Twitter.

(from asterisk above) * although they just say more in smaller chunks

How To: Edit a Drupal Blog via Blog API using blogging software

Matt Petrowsky — Fri, 08 May 2009 06:53:08 +0000

Whether you're an avid blogger or you simply make the occasional post, there's just something uncomfortable about editing long posts and working with pictures when you're in a web browser. If you've heard of Ecto (mac), MarsEdit (mac), ScribeFire (firefox) or any of the other popular desktop blogging clients, then chances are you'll want to use one of those tools to access and edit your Drupal blog.

Here's where the gotcha shows up. Getting things set up right!

While I love what Drupal can do, it's lacking in the area of "Where's my 'use blogging software' checkbox?". I came across this issue the other day when messing around on my personal domain. I wanted to setup Blog API and get started making some posts. On top of that, I wanted the easiest way possible to get multiple pictures into a post. Using a blogging client is the best way (read easiest) to do that - as far as I know.

So, what's the result? Well, it's the video you'll find here on this page, which walks you through most all the steps you need to know for making your Drupal blog happy with your desktop blogging client of choice. Whether you want to support a multi-user blog or just set things up for yourself.

Outside of remembering your blogging api url is http://example.com/xmlrpc.php (replace example.com with your own domain name) and that Drupal uses the Movable Type setting for connecting, there are a slew of permissions and settings to make sure you get it right before you can use that client. Fortunately, I think I've covered most everything you need to know to get things going.

HEY DRUPAL BLOGGER - SPECIAL NOTICE! I'd like to make an open invitation to other Drupal users and developers who might want to start blogging on this very site. If you'd like to blog about your Drupal experiences, and you've got a good head for writing about technical topics, then send me an email.

How To: Enhance Drupal's user access, features & control

Matt Petrowsky — Thu, 16 Apr 2009 00:57:45 +0000

Drupal is all about two things, content and management. Ok, so that was a cheesy one about Drupal being a CMS. But,the biggest advantage Drupal has, as I see it, over many other CMS's is both its flexibility and the number of contributions made to extend what it can do. Quite literly, there are new modules every week (RSS feed) which make Drupal do things you probably want it to do.

Herein lies the problem. Knowing what modules do, which ones to use and how to find them. If your goal is simply to allow other users to contribute content to your site with a degree of control over who can contribute, how they contribute and what the process is, then this video will get you started.

Using the Modr8 module [issues] - [usage], you can add moderation of content to your site. When allowing users to contribute, you can clean things up by using the Vertical Tabs module [issues] - [usage], which makes the node edit form much more clean. Finally, when it comes to allowing some users the ability to publish, without moderation, using the Override Node Options module [issues] - [usage], you can provide users with control over the node options of Published, Promoted or Sticky and allow for the Authored On and Authored By to be controlled per role.

As Drupal has proven time-and-time-again, there's very little you can't accomplish. All you need to do is either find the module or build it.

Related videos:

How To: Drupal Workflows & Automation

How To: Manage Drupal Permissions More Easily

Matt Petrowsky — Wed, 15 Apr 2009 19:12:30 +0000

One of the most time-consuming tasks for any new Drupal site is setting up and testing what users can and can't do. This is the realm of user permissions and role permissions. I'm guessing you've visited the checkbox maze - as I like to call it.

One of the most frustrating aspects of Drupal's Permissions screen is this; with any number of roles beyond a few, and with a large collection of modules, the task of permissions management becomes quite hazardous. The potential for "accidentally" checking one little box which gives the wrong role the wrong access and allows the wrong user to do the wrong things, it's no wonder managing Drupal permissions can become unnerving.

Enter my solution to this problem. A collection of modules which extend the level of control, make it easier to focus on the permissions that matter (relative to what you're setting up at the time), and remove the visual clutter from this extensive web page.

Here are the modules I cover in this video.

Filter Permissions module [issues] - [usage]
Better Permissions module [issues] - [usage]
Permissions Lock module [issues] - [usage]

Here are some other modules, which I didn't review in the video, that deal with permissions. They seem to provide even more control over who can do what on your Drupal site.

User Permissions [issues] - [usage]
Node permissions grid module [issues] - [usage]
Site Configuration Permissions module [issues] - [usage]
Permissions API module(for developers) [issues] - [usage]
Profile permission module [issues] - [usage]

If you've got other suggestions or ideas about making it easier to manage Drupal permissions then leave a comment below!

Related videos:

Basics: Understanding Drupal's Permissions

How To: Drupal Workflows & Automation

Matt Petrowsky — Thu, 02 Apr 2009 21:01:20 +0000

The definition of a workflow, according to Wikipedia, is a "depiction of a sequence of operations". When taken at face value, a workflow is typically something you want to automate in Drupal. In other words, what we're talking about is Drupal Automation and my guess is, you'll want to automate things in Drupal based on certain events.

The confusing part of Drupal automation is the fact that you need to know what works together to accomplish such automation. With the modules of Workflow, Actions*, Triggers* (* Part of Drupal 6 core) and Rules, it can be quite confusing when it comes to automation.

Put simply, in Drupal 6, you can still use the Workflow module (which I don't show in the video) but you can also get by with the default Triggers and Actions (as mentioned, already installed with Drupal). However, unless you know you need to install Workflow module to achieve the automation you're seeking, and potentially install Triggerunlock module (which you don't really need if you install Workflow in Drupal 6), things can get really confusing, really fast.

So, aside from trying to confuse you with the above paragraph (I did that on purpose), about all the setup and things you do or don't need, I focused a bit more on the Rules module because it's a one-stop-shop for automation which goes beyond what you can do with Triggers, Actions and Workflow.

Even though I'm a convert to Drupal's Rules module, my compliments go out to John VanDyk (whose book helped me learn Drupal even better) for creating Workflow and Actions (which I started with in Drupal 4.7) and to Wolfgang Ziegler for creating the ever powerful Rules module. I can only hope this video will provide you with most everything you need to know to automate things so you can achieve your ultimate Drupal workflow!

Note: If you're still working with Drupal 5, then Workflow, Actions, and Workflow-Ng (also by Wolfgang) will give you the automation you need. In most all cases, you'll definitely want Token module installed so you can do the cool stuff the big boys do.