What's the best way to go about this layout? I a bit overwhelmed with trying to find & select which modules are best suited to this task. I'm guessing it's going to involve panels, cck, views and node queue at the least. I've also been spending some time on the Node Queue demo site (http://nodequeue.demo.logrus.com/), trying to see how that all works.
I'm certain that someone more familiar with Drupal and available modules will be able to quickly determine what will be needed to achieve what I'm after.
I'm creating a news aggregation site for non-profit organization related to political issues in Burma. I'd like the center column of the home page to be formatted in the following manner:
-------------------------------------------------------------
| |
| |
| Breaking News Panel |
| (Does not show if no articles with category this exist.) |
| |
| |
-------------------------------------------------------------
| News Category 1 | News Category 2 |
| | |
| * Selected Story 1 | * Selected Story 1 |
| [ story 1 teaser ] | [ story 1 teaser ] |
| * Selected Story 2 | * Selected Story 2 |
| [ story 2 teaser ] | [ story 2 teaser ] |
| * Selected Story 3 | * Selected Story 3 |
| [ story 3 teaser ] | [ story 3 teaser ] |
| * Selected Story 4 | * Selected Story 4 |
| [ story 4 teaser ] | [ story 4 teaser ] |
| * Selected Story 5 | * Selected Story 5 |
| [ story 5 teaser ] | [ story 5 teaser ] |
| more | more |
-------------------------------------------------------------
| News Category 3 | News Category 4 |
| | |
| * Selected Story 1 | * Selected Story 1 |
| * Selected Story 2 | * Selected Story 2 |
| * Selected Story 3 | * Selected Story 3 |
| * Selected Story 4 | * Selected Story 4 |
| * Selected Story 5 | * Selected Story 5 |
| more | more |
-------------------------------------------------------------
| News Category 5 | News Category 6 |
| | |
| * Selected Story 1 | * Selected Story 1 |
| * Selected Story 2 | * Selected Story 2 |
| * Selected Story 3 | * Selected Story 3 |
| * Selected Story 4 | * Selected Story 4 |
| * Selected Story 5 | * Selected Story 5 |
| more | more |
-------------------------------------------------------------
| |
| News Category 1 |
| |
| * List ALL Category 1 nodes |
| with today's date or last 24/hr |
| |
| News Category 2 |
| |
| * List ALL Category 1 nodes |
| with today's date or last 24/hr |
| |
| News Category 3 |
| |
| * List ALL Category 1 nodes |
| with today's date or last 24/hr |
| |
| News Category 4 |
| |
| * List ALL Category 1 nodes |
| with today's date or last 24/hr |
| |
| News Category 5 |
| |
| * List ALL Category 1 nodes |
| with today's date or last 24/hr |
| |
| |
-------------------------------------------------------------I'd like the number of story's in the small panels to be variable if possible, some days they're will more important articles and some days just a couple. I'd like the 'more' links to just be anchor links that scroll down to the corresponding section below.
Each node will basically be a teaser paragraph & links to the full article (on other news sites).
Any suggestions, links etc. would be great!
Comments
Actually, each news category
Actually, each news category box will have teasers, not just the first row in my sample layout
I'm still stuck, if anyone
I'm still stuck, if anyone is willing to offer any advice. Every little bit helps! Thanks.
I think you've got a good
I think you've got a good grip on which modules you need. From your post, I think you could construct the front page with only Views and Panels, but if you have more data that you're adding to nodes then CCK is needed. I'm not familiar with node queue.
I would setup the views that you need and make sure they are working as desired. I see three views here, one for your top panel (which may or may not be displayed), one view for the news categories (you would change the category via a taxonomy term argument) and a final view to pull in all of the latest news (again with the category changed by taxonomy term).
I'm not exactly sure how you would go about deciding on the variable number of stories in the small panels. One approach would be to include a CCK field for the importance of the story and also filter on that field. Then turn off the more link and create your own in the footer for the block of that view.
Thank you for your thoughts
Thank you for your thoughts and assistance, it's greatly appreciated. I often find myself spending hours of wasted time heading down dead end roads with Drupal because I'm not familiar enough with it. It's very valuable for me to hear how others with more experience would approach the problem and what tools they would use.
Thanks again, I'm looking into your suggestions.