Update Documentation

+1 agree, look into other good modules in drupal, install/configure/use guides are essential for new users.

I like the idea of a bean.api.php too. I might jump in on this.

Documentation is much further along better but we still have strides to make. For reference: http://drupal.org/project/bean_examples

You might want to improve the project page too. Your opening statement is about #D7AX in big bold letters? I don't really think anyone cares. Not to mention the irony considering what I'm about to say.

Neil, you're from an English speaking country but you wouldn't guess that from reading the project page. Not having a go, you probably don't give it too much thought, but it is a bit herp derp. There is that bizarre equation thing (A bean equals node blocks (wtf?) minus nodes plus fields plus boxes (wtf?) multiplied by a plugin system?), and then some broken/incomplete sentences:

Beans were driven by the API first. This means that you can create block types (bean types) all in a plugin class turning off the UI. The entire configuration in code. No worry about feature reverts.

Now this probably wouldn't be such an issue if the module name was self-explanatory, but it is a bit of a silly name, so I think you need a strong opening statement that gives a clear and concise description, followed by detailed exposition.

There are 20 committers on this project and none of you brought this up?

It is not clear whether beans are entirely separate from blocks, or if they *turn* blocks into beans.

+1 for more documentation. A walk-through or screen cast on creating a bean via the UI would be nice. Here are my experiences in the hopes it helps in understanding user behavior. Maybe someone can chime in on where I went wrong and it will provide fodder for documentation.

• I read the recent article that appeared on the Planet Drupal listing and thought 'a simple views type thing'. This looks cool.
• Installed the module, read the readme.txt file and community doc page, went to admin/structure/block-types and created a bean called My Test. I added a single existing field 'field_first_name' where I knew there were a couple of dozen values. My expectation was that somehow I was going to be able to filter a list of first names (sort, number, newest, or something).
• Fumbled around and figured out that I hadn't created a block but just created a template and now I needed to create an instance. So under admin/content/blocks I created a block called My Test Bean of type My Test.
• Went to the admin/structure/blocks page and placed the new My Test Bean Block in Sidebar first.
• Fumbled around some more and discovered - whoa, I'm going to have to give permissions for each 'block template' aka bean I create. Well, I guess if I think of it like a template then it is parallel to a content type, so Ok.
• Unless I explicitly typed some value in, I didn't see any output other than the title. I thought that by adding an existing field I would be able to output some values that already existed.

What steps did I miss, or am I totally misunderstanding what the whole bean UI is supposed to be used for? I'm prepared to be totally embarrassed.

Thanks!

It sounds like your custom fields might not be enabled in the view mode for the block type.

In any case, I'll record a screencast tonight at CDMUG during my bean presentation. With your problem (and others in mind) I'll be sure to upload two versions. One I can edit down to just the UI part for official documentation/tutorial. The "directors cut" I will also put up on archive.org with full QA/case study/anything else for those who would like to watch the whole presentation.

Here's to hoping recording goes better for me than it did at SANDcamp. If not, I'll just have to record something in my own time because I think a screencast for the UI is very necessary.

Sounds great. Thank you.

Here is the full (~45 min) presentation: http://www.archive.org/details/DrupalBeanModuleTutorial-UsingBeanAdminUi...

Also, an edit with just the Bean Admin UI parts (~7 minutes): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Eu1YNy-BNG8

Thank you for making the videos. I watched the UI video and it helped me understand that Bean allows you to add fields to block templates via the UI, which is pretty significant. The video example made sense.

For some reason I got the notion after reading the posting on Planet Drupal, that it might be possible to create simple queries via the bean UI. Maybe I got that idea because of the references to views. After watching the video I'm thinking that was an incorrect notion and what I was attempting the first time was not how Bean works.

Thanks.

The pledge has nothing to do with Grammer so the statements in your second paragraph do not really make sense.

The pledge is about accessibility, and the grammar used was not inclusive of my, rather typical, language abilities.

I think it will be nice to add to the project page:
Requirements:
Entity API
Chaos tools