Introduction to Drupal 7 - Blocks management and contexts
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Transcript of Introduction to Drupal 7 - Blocks management and contexts
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Introduction to Drupal 7
Session 5.2
Blocks management
1Course by Init Lab (http://initlab.org)Drupalist: Kalin Chernev
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Agenda
• Drupal blocks
• Regions
• Managing blocks the easy and quick way
• Managing blocks in contexts
• Case study – arranging your website blocks
2Course by Init Lab (http://initlab.org)Drupalist: Kalin Chernev
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Drupal blocks
• A block is a generic term that is applied to any self-contained piece of content, menu, or code.
• They can be:
– System blocks: login block, search block, etc
– Modules blocks: latest news block, slideshow
– Custom blocks
– Programmatically build blocks (with coding)
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Regions
• In order to place a block into a given place, you need to have a region for this
• Regions depend on the theme you’re using
• To check your theme regions, go to admin/structure/block and click on the Demonstrate block regions
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Default Bartik theme regions
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Managing blocks
• Managing blocks with the handles
• Using the drop-down options
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Managing blocks
• From the contextual links in the front-end
• Then edit the block from the back screen
Drupalist: Kalin Chernev Course by Init Lab (http://initlab.org) 7
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Blocks tips and tricks
• Removing block title
– The <none> short code
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Blocks with configurations options
• Some blocks have configurations
– Menu blocks have list links and edit menu
– Views block have views configurations
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Blocks visibility settings by Pages
• You can set whether the block will appear – only a given set of
pages– or on any pages, except
a given set of pages
• You can use <front> short code to target the home page
• We want the slideshow to be visible only on the home page for example
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Blocks visibility by content types
• You can set instructions for a block to appear only when a given content type is seen
• In our case we don’t use this option, but you can use it when for example you want to show a relevant articles block only on news articles
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Blocks visibility by roles
• You can also set a given block to be visible for a specific user roles only
• You can use this option for example to display a content management menu only for the Office Assistant user role
• Or you can use this settings to show content for Premium (Paying) users only, etc
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Blocks visibility by users
• Very rarely used option
• It’s better to define the necessary blocks with your client preliminary and set the blocks for them
• Blocks management in the end is a pretty complex logic for a regular user
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Blocks management with Context
• Another way to manage blocks is with the Context module• Advantages
– Contexts can be compiled in features– Contexts can be re-arranged with drag and drop from administrators
with the Admin module– Cleaner way to manage blocks– Clean categorization possible– More options than the default blocks management capabilities
• A bit not so advantages– You have to know what’re doing with a bit of though beforehand, or
you’re re-make contexts all the time– If you have more than 1 block in 1 region, separated in different
contexts, you don’t have control on the order of display of the blocks
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Enabling Context and Admin modules
• Enable the Context core module
• Enable also the Context UI module to be able to configure contexts with user interface
• Enable the Admin module to be able to edit contexts with and inspector and drag and drop
• Go to admin/config/user-interface/admin to place the Admin options on the bottom right (because we have the Administration toolbar enabled on the top)
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Let’s create some contexts
• We want the slideshow to be displayed on the home page only
• Go to admin/structure/context and click the “Add” link to create a new context
• Place slideshow_homepage for a name of the context, always make it machine readable
• Place a tag Home page for better categorization• Select a Path condition and add <front> in the field so
that the context is valid for the home page only• From the Reactions, place the slideshow views block in
the Features region, as we have it now
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Homepage slideshow context
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You can now switch off the block from the blocks management screen
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Create a feature for your work
• Taking only the newly created context for the home page with the block should be enough
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Time for questions
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Contacts
Kalin Chernev
– E: [email protected]
– T: twitter.com/kalinchernev
– U: http://shtrak.eu/kalata
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