By Willdex on

I'm developing a college-based website based on Drupal and will be a kind of blackboard for several colleges in New York area, so far. It is new, does not have much on it yet, but I'd like to hear what do people of Drupal expect of a college blackboard website. Any suggestions are welcome!
A little bit off the topic, the Drupal's Support, Handbooks, Forum, Downloads, Contribute, Contact and Community links on the very top - are they categories? B/c I tried to make a category, but it wasn't visible.

Comments

Willdex’s picture

Willdex commented

Remember that any suggestions are welcome!

sepeck’s picture

sepeck commented

Themes and modules used on Drupal.org has most of the site configuration setup information.

The tabs are primary links from the menu module and theme.
Support, Contribute and Community are Page type content using Path module to alias them.
Handbooks is a link leading to a Page type content that uses a php script to generate the content for that page and path module aliasing it.
Downloads leads to project module generated links.
Contact is with contact module
Forums leads to the front page generated by the stock forum module.

-Steven Peck
---------
Test site, always start with a test site.
Drupal Best Practices Guide -|- Black Mountain

-Steven Peck
---------
Test site, always start with a test site.
Drupal Best Practices Guide

Willdex’s picture

Willdex commented

Doesn't Path module allow users to rename URLs? I haven't used it yet b/c I thought it's a security issue...rename URLs...

btmash’s picture

btmash commented

It allows users that have the permission create and/or administer URLs to rename them. So if the other users on your site don't have such permissions, they shouldn't be able to.

Willdex’s picture

Willdex commented

Now I get it.
One problem so far: I've created content for assessment tests for English courses and have it almost ready. However, when I go to http://www.studentblock.com/courses I see this "Page not found" thing, but I've put the content under the http://www.studentblock.com/courses/english/assessment directory, but I do see it under http://www.studentblock.com/taxonomy/term/3. What should I fix?

vm’s picture

vm commented

is the path module enabled ?

this gives you the ability to use the url aliases and rewrite http://www.studentblock.com/taxonomy/term/3

to http://www.studentblock.com/courses

Willdex’s picture

Willdex commented

No, it was not enabled. Sorry, I should've enabled that first.
Enabled - http://www.studentblock.com/courses still returns "Page not found."

vm’s picture

vm commented

after enabling it did you visit the new menu item it gave you at administer -> url alisases ? and than create the alias ?

turning /taxonomy/term/3 into /courses ?

Willdex’s picture

Willdex commented

Oops, I didn't realize that there was a new menu, url aliases. Thanks for pointing that out.
Added taxonomy/term/3 with alternative courses.
Updated - excellent, http://www.studentblock.com/courses works just like I want it to. Will I have to do it for every single link there will be?

vm’s picture

vm commented

every link that you want aliased yes.

you could also look into the pathauto.module which gives a bit more automation to paths.

Willdex’s picture

Willdex commented

I'll do just that.

Willdex’s picture

Willdex commented

I believe I have a problem again...My primary links contain Courses which has 2 children: /english/eg101 and /english/assessment. When I hit Courses link on the top, it only shows my /assessment directory content.

vm’s picture

vm commented

and what is the menu items path ? in administer -> menus ?

Willdex’s picture

Willdex commented

The assessment's is http://www.studentblock.com/courses/english/assessment
The eg101's is http://www.studentblock.com/courses/english/eg101

vm’s picture

vm commented

I meant the primary link what path does courses have in adminster -> menus for your menu item courses ?

Willdex’s picture

Willdex commented

I go to administer->menus->Primary Links-Menu item-Courses->English->Assessment Test-> click on edit-> in Path I see this: http://www.studentblock.com/courses/english/assessment
I do same thing for EG101, it says http://www.studentblock.com/courses/english/eg101
What I'm trying to say is that when I go to http://www.studentblock.com/courses it should have EG101 besides Assessment Test Category b/c there are 2 articles: 1 in EG101 and 1 in Assessment Test. However, it only has Assessment Test content, you can see it for yourself.
http://www.studentblock.com/courses/english doesn't show anything, yet I've created content for EG101, which is a child of English, so it should show, right? It doesn't.

Willdex’s picture

Willdex commented

Does anybody know which module to use for it?

vm’s picture

vm commented

search drupal.org for random quote. I believe i saw a snippet posted not that long ago. Should be a good base for a tip of day module. rather than use quotes, use tips.

vm’s picture

vm commented

I don't have any sites with parents and children, I cannot test to see if it works the way you are describing.

did it work the way you suggest previous to creation of url alias ?

a new thread may turn up some more help, with your question as the title.

Willdex’s picture

Willdex commented

No, it didn't work the way I wanted, and I will create a new thread, thanks.

doka’s picture

doka commented

Check this group, maybe it is the right place for you: http://groups.drupal.org/alumni

Doka

Doka

Willdex’s picture

Willdex commented

a good idea. Thanks, I'll stick around.
UPDATE--Cannot login using Drupal ID.

Willdex’s picture

Willdex commented

If you were to choose a theme for a college project, which one attracts you the most/easy on the eyes?
Also, about the content: what I plan on doing is share the material provided at the college I'm attending with the registered users [only: I've even created a separate role for that purpose]. Would that work out?

vm’s picture

vm commented

If you were to choose a theme for a college project, which one attracts you the most/easy on the eyes?

I always seek out a theme that is organized the way I want my site to be. I've never deployed a site, with a theme that hasn't been tweaked to no longer look quite like itself.

themegarden.org may help you make a decision by actually seeing drupal in each theme.

Willdex’s picture

Willdex commented

Thank you for the link, what about the content, is the idea ok?

vm’s picture

vm commented

personally, I'd negate the role. If only authenticated users will see your content, and autheticated users will only be classmates. Then you can just use the autehticated users role and set registration accordingly (to only allow admin approval for new users.)

otherwise new users wont be automatigically added to the role you create without the implementation of another module. like the rolesignup.module.

Willdex’s picture

Willdex commented

Are you suggesting that anyone can sign up, but when they do, to manually assign them the roles?

vm’s picture

vm commented

drupal has 2 default user roles. authenticated user (registered & logged in) and anon users (not logged in).

if you create another role called students, you will have to use a module (rolesignup or roleassign) to have them moved from authenticated user role to the students role, or you will have to do it manually after they register. Loggin Toboggan may have a feature that automagically adds users to a non default role as well.

OR:

you could just let them be left in the authenticaed user role and remove access permissions from anon user role to view site contents. Contents would not show then for your users, until they log in.

To try and explain in more detail.

A classmate comes to your site and registers. He/She is now added to the autenticated user role. The only way to get them from authenticated user role to a new role (students) would be through a module or manual addition by administrators after calssmates registers.

Willdex’s picture

Willdex commented

You could just let them be left in the authenticaed user role and remove access permissions from anon user role to view site contents. Contents would not show then for your users, until they log in.

This is exactly what I've done. Guests cannot view registrants' material. I've also disallowed all emails, except for those of specific universities/colleges.