By commonmind on

I've created several Drupal sites for clients working as a freelance web designer. After finishing up my last project, I've decided to take on Drupal development full time and want to create a portfolio site that will display projects in an artistic and aesthetically pleasing way on the front end, but provides a richer, informational experience once the viewer delves deeper into the site.

On the front page, I want to create a block in the middle of the page that will display projects in an image format, arranged in a grid, with an overlay of information that might display on hovering over the image, including a link to the node of that project, which will contain more information about the client and the technologies used to build the site.

I know the first part of this would be creating a content type for the project, with image and data fields, creating a view that displays these projects in a gallery format, rewriting the output of the fields to properly position the overlay, title and read more links, and perhaps giving the div containing the data field output a jQuery hide/show effect. Although I am not a jQuery wiz, I do think I can effectively pull this off without too much issue.

The kicker is, I want to create a dynamic slideshow, containing some of these elements, possibly based on their taxonomy, or, going beyond that, having a menu at the top of the page that acts as the navigation for the slideshow, and using that slideshow as the main form of navigation for the site -- for instance, the gallery being labeled "Portfolio," with another menu item being labeled "Hire Us," bringing a contact form into view. All without leaving the page.

Of course, if the slideshow/navigation concept is a little too much to be pulled off without heavily modifying code, I at least want to be able to display multiple images in one slide of a slideshow, with each subsequent slide containing either other images, or other node types.

Feasible?

(I apologize in advance for the disorganized thoughts)

⋅ Categories: Drupal 6.x, Drupal 7.x

Comments

carnevaledesign’s picture

carnevaledesign commented

I would highly recommend using the Views and Views Slideshow modules to achieve a flexible, dynamic slideshow of any kind of content. With both modules enabled, using Views you can create a slideshow and tell it exactly what fields you want display in the slideshow, including images, text fields, terms, or really anything that associates with the content.

For help with the Views Slideshow module, I recommend http://mustardseedmedia.com/podcast/episode42... possibly one of the best screencasts for this module.

If you aren't familiar with Views, do a Google search for Views screencasts and I'm sure you will be impressed with what can be accomplished with this necessary and important module.

Good luck!

commonmind’s picture

commonmind commented

Thanks for the suggestion. I am actually well versed in Views and using Views Slideshow -- I've leveraged both to build some fairly specific types of content delivery methods that I wouldn't have been able to do otherwise. In fact, I just got done creating a Slideshow that controlled a small, niche store display for a client building a sex therapy site; an example can be found at http://thenixfix.com (navigate to the Shop Online area -- the entire front page of the site was built with views). A warning to conservative/younger viewers, the site is made for women and is built for a therapist who sells parties, sex toys and other products.

What I'm trying to do in this case goes beyond a simple slideshow and, unfortunately, I may not be explaining myself as clearly as I want to. Slide 1 needs to be an entire gallery on its own -- not just a single image -- and this gallery needs to contain images that have overlays displaying titles, descriptions and links to their respective nodes. Slide 2 might be a contact form, slide 3 might even be the login block...above the slides might be the site's main navigation, but this navigation is intrinsic to the slideshow. I hope this clarifies a bit.