Modules for Laying Out Content-submission Forms - drupal

In reviewing Drupal layout modules, I'm left with the impression that while many exist for formatting existing content (e.g. Panels, Views and Display Suite), there are very few (if any) that focus on changing the layout of content-submission forms - and therefore there's no alternative but modifying the associated templates themselves. Is this a correct impression? And if so, I'm curious as to why so little focus on content-submission modules. Thank you very much.

Panels will let you change the node/add node/edit forms.

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Is there any reason I shouldn't make pages folderish

I find the hardest thing to explain to Plone end users is the concept of having to make a folder, a page and set the folder's default view to a page in order to have nested pages. Is there any reason I shouldn't include a folderish version of a page content type in my product?
there are existing products that provide folderish types that almost behave like pages for the end-user
eg. Products.Richdocument and raptus.article.
personally i prefere raptus.article because of it's concept of components. editors can activate carousels, or image galleries and define which of the contained images are displayed in which component.
in many project i also define custom components eg one for showing addthis integration under the article text if editors turn on the component.
Ulrich Schwarz is right when commenting that using folderish content types as pages brings in extra complexity when it comes to versioning.
the problems in versioning with cmfeditions could most likle be solved by using attributestorage instead of annotationstorage for archetypes fields. (see https://dev.plone.org/ticket/11887)
The simplest was is to compare Plone as a filesystem.
There are discussions/rumors about making all content types folderish, but right now I suggest you to to something folderish only when really needed. The UI of a folderish content is more complex
Keul is right. Compare Plone as a filesystem.
I think also that you don't always have to set a page as the default view of a folder, sometimes you just want to have a list of contents (files, images, pages, etc...).

Webform nodeview content & form separation

Can anyone offer any insight into how I can show the body content and the form of the same webform node on separate pages?
My Drupal site has webform nodes which all have alot of body content and equally long forms. As a result, the entire combination seems complex and not very user friendly.
I need to find a way to keep both aspects associated to the same node but create distinct viewing areas for each half.
ps: Apologies if there is a module for this. I googled very quickly and may have missed it.
Display Suite can reorganize your whole node layout. you can add views, block and even custom code.
fieldgroup you can split large forms or views in the manage display section of your content type.
hope it helps
PR

Best practices to implement custom functionality on website

I was wondering if someone with Drupal experience could advice what are the best practices in the following situations. I think they are all common tasks for any website that you build.
Display a custom HTML of a certain content type at front-page (e.g., only the link and title).
Should I build a module only for this?
Customize the login form HMTL, including inputs, labels etc, to something very different from the default login block.
Again, another module?
Format the node view of some content types; for example: showing additional fields values. I have some Joomla experience and with it, it's very easy to override the template on your theme.
But with Drupal, it seems HTML is hard-coded on PHP files and there are very few thing that uses templates. Or am I missing something?
You should create a view (from Views module), and for this create display 'block'. This block you can use later on your site. Within your view settings you can choose what and how you will display.
It depends what you would like to put there. If you put just some static text, change theme could be a solution. But still, a bit smelly. What you should do, is to create a module use hook_form_FORM_ID_alter and add both - field to your form, and code to use values which user added.
Change templates for this content type in your custom theme; or use Panels module - here you have nice introduction; or use Display Suite module - which do pretty much the some work as creating a template
html is in php files, but where else can it go? Drupal also has it template overwrite system. The customization of the theme can be usually done using that alone.
As for your questions (there are also other alternative)
load the content type in view/block, display in list format on home page.
create your own theme for css changes. create custom tpl.php for
layout, and div naming etc.
same as above.
It doesn't hurt to create a new module, but generally it's not necessary unless you are going for something like a muti-step form.
You can use both Views & Panels in order to achieve what you've mentioned above.
For instance, Panels gives you the option to override the home page with your own content. This content can be organized with Views.
From drupal.org:
"The Views module provides a flexible method for Drupal site designers to control how lists and tables of content (nodes in Views 1, almost anything in Views 2) are presented."
"The Panels module allows a site administrator to create customized layouts for multiple uses. At its core it is a drag and drop content manager that lets you visually design a layout and place content within that layout."

Better control of views output markup?

I am developing a website with drupal 6, and using a 960 grid system based theme.
I want to create a dynamic thumbnail gallery with Views, and using this jquery effect:
http://www.queness.com/post/590/jquery-thumbnail-with-zooming-image-and-fading-caption-tutorial
I have some experience with views, but I am by not means an expert... I am facing two problems here:
How to make the views html output
conform to my 960 grid system theme
(that means that each object in the
views output should have a grid-x
class, at the very least)
How to adapt the views html output to
the DOM required by the jquery effect I want to use.
So what I want is basically more control over the output of Views. Right now I can only get html lists or tables. Is there anyway to use a more customized DOM and put some kind of placeholders for fields in it?
Thank you for reading
O.
You can define your own templates, that Views will use instead of its default ones.
In those template, you can use almost any kind of HTML markup that you possibily can imagine -- which means you'll be having a really great level of control over the output.
For more informations, you can start looking at this question and its answers : Drupal 6: How to quickly theme a view ?.
And a couple more links that might be useful :
Drupal 6 theme guide
Overriding themable output
Views help index

Implementing a 'reverse' or 'nested' master page with ASP.NET

I'm hoping my cryptic title isn't too cryptic, but I'll try to explain what it is I actually want to do.
I have a master page 'A' which has child pages 'B' and 'C'.
This is implemented with the standard master page model in ASP.NET just fine.
My site has two themes 'T1' and 'T2'.
They actually represent different partners, T1 being our own company and T2 is a partner.
I want to display specific things on pages 'B' and 'C' depending upon which theme I'm using. For instance I may want to insert additional buttons or graphics on page 'B' specific to partner for theme 'T2'. This content would be at an arbitrary point on the page depending upon the page itself. Some partners may not even use this feature.
The problem is I want to do this as declaratively as possible, and minimize the knowledge that the pages have about the theme.
This is where the 'reverse' master page concept comes in. I want to define an area on a child page into which 'theme' specific content can be inserted. (I'm saying 'theme' because thats what ASP.NET uses - and most likely what I'd tie the content to).
So you may be wondering :
Why can't you just use a master page for this and add extra content sections? Reason is that the content may appear anywhere on the page in a location that is specific to that page.
Why can't you use a 'nested' master page? Essentially the same reason.
Possible solution:
I'm wondering about creating some kind of user control that would have a textual key representing what type of content would be inserted there. The user control would have to know what to display for each 'theme' - probably by dynamically creating the relevant additional user control.
This seems a little clumsy - so I'm wondering what kind of solutions others may have created for similar situations.
you can use CSS to position your content sections anywhere on your page. so i wouldnt worry about page locations, etc.
if it were me, i'd just dynamically load the 2 different css files into the one masterpage and based on the same logic render the different content into the placeholders.
I'm currently working on a site that has similar requirements that are too much for CSS. In one layout the login is horizontal towards the top of the render order, and in another its in the right hand column.
We're using standard ASP.NET themes to push out CSS, logo URLs via SkinID, etc.
To obtain the custom layout I've created a "Loader" control that loads UserControls via a list specified in a Loader attribute. The attribute can be defined directly in the loader markup, or via a .skin file in the theme.
Each key in the list is just the base name of a UserControl (I add the path and extension). The controls are created via Page.LoadControl().
Do you have fix layout for different partners ? Or do you want the partners to choose the layouts on runtime ?
If the layouts are fixed than 1 way is to create zen style CSS (http://www.csszengarden.com/) and than dynamically load it as per the client/partner. If you want the partners to modify the layouts on runtime than probably you might want to use Webparts.
Hope this helps.
You CAN use nested master pages in VS2008!
See here --
Scott Guthrie's Blog

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