By TheLetterM on

Hi all,

This is my first post, so I hope I'm clear and in the right place.

I'm working on a drupal site for a show, which has 4 cast members.
I'd like to make a dynamic page (i.e. cast/%) that will do the following:

1) Use the cast members name as the variable in the path (ie. cast/tom or cast/harry)
2) Based on that variable, display the cast members profile (name, bio, pic(s), contact, etc ) as well as
3) Display a block with that cast members most recent blog posts to the site

I know this is accomplished with some combination of views/panels/cck and i've gotten started on creating the view/panel/cck but i keep running into a brick wall as to the work flow and how all these things are supposed to link together *especially* when it comes to the dynamic-ness of it (the cast/%) part. I dont know what needs to read the arguments and how to link the argument to the data I want displayed.

Also, FYI, each cast member is a user in the system, with fields defined for the first, last, and nick name, under personal info. The nickname field would be the same as the path variable (i.e. the user tom williams, nickname tom, would be at cast/tom).

I hope I've been clear.
Thanks all!

M.

⋅ Categories: Drupal 6.x

Comments

mikeschinkel’s picture

mikeschinkel commented

>> 1) Use the cast members name as the variable in the path (ie. cast/tom or cast/harry)

Each node owns and controls it's own path as does each user:

  • Turn on the Path Module to allow hand editing i.e. http://yoursite.com/admin/build/modules
  • Use PathAuto module to have Paths set automatically
  • Be sure to turn on Clean URLs i.e. http://yoursite.com/admin/settings/clean-urls

BTW, I'm assuming you've created a custom content type called "Person" (or "Cast Member"?) using the CCK module? Or have you set them up as Users in your system? Either way will work you'll just do things a bit differently.

>> 2) Based on that variable, display the cast members profile (name, bio, pic(s), contact, etc )

Create a View that create pages to list your cast members. Remember, the node or user controls it's URL.

>> 3) Display a block with that cast members most recent blog posts to the site

I think you can do this with views too. Views can create blocks for you, not sure if you can get it to create a list of recent posts but I so.

BTW, PathAuto and Views are included in Acquia Drupal so I would start with it. it has a much nicer base theme too.

HTH.

-Mike