By nickgs on

Hello all. I am exploring the possibility of developing a system that will enable an end user to create custom content types to replace many paper forms used throughout their business. In its current state it looks like we can get the basic functionality of this by using the CCK. The problem is that there is really not much end users can do in terms of the control of the layout of the CCK content types and fields. For example I would like users to be able to create address area's that have the standard "envelope" layout OR be able to literally drag and drop fields all over the screen for control over both the input and output of field data for any specific content type.

I have alot of experience with Flex and Flash player development. I think this tool may be the right path to be able to enable this type of rich but useable functionality BUT I am not sure if this has been done already. I took a look at the cotemplate module but did not find it very intuitive for end users to use.

Does anyone have any insight with this?

Thanks.

⋅ Categories: Drupal 6.x

Comments

nickgs’s picture

nickgs commented

No comment on this? I am going to put some work into this as a client calls for it for don't want to reinvent the wheel. It would be nice to have wufoo.com like functionality.

mikeker’s picture

mikeker commented

I'm not completely sure what you're asking, but I'll toss out a few ideas and see if any of them fit...

For example I would like users to be able to create address area's that have the standard "envelope" layout

If you've setup the fields in CCK (eg: address_1, address_2, address_city, address_state, address_zip), changing the order of those fields is just a matter of drag/dropping the list presented in the "Manage fields" tab (Admin -> Content Management -> Content Types -> YourContentType -> Manage fields). To mess around with the display of those fields, either the CSS (if your changes from the default layout are not huge) or creating a template file (if your changes are more substantial).

Take a look at content.css and content-field.tpl.php in your CCK/theme directory. The README.txt file in that directory is very useful as well.

be able to literally drag and drop fields all over the screen for control over both the input and output of field data for any specific content type

I don't know of any pre-built modules that do drag/drop layout control for Drupal, but I'm also fairly new to the scene here so perhaps I've missed it. Anyhow, it would be an interesting project to implement the Drag/Drop Modules pattern as a Drupal module. Something like that would allow a site admin to drag/drop Drupal blocks around their site.

Bottom line, though, is it would be a lot of JavaScript work to get it going and I'm not sure it would work for CCK forms anyhow. There is the ability to reorder CCK fields built-in to CCK. Does that give you enough flexibility?

Mike Keran
www.MikeKeran.com

- Mike

nickgs’s picture

nickgs commented

Thanks for the response! The README.txt in the CCK/theme directory was very helpful! My problem is I want to expose an environment to end users for modifying how custom content-types are displayed and inputted. Check out wufoo.com, it is pretty much exactly what I am looking to develop.

gustalves’s picture

gustalves commented

hey, i think you will love this.

Check out: http://www.lullabot.com/blog/drupals-form-building-future