First - thanks to everyone who responded to my last post (the infamous sucking post). I'll be going through all the suggestions for days implementing them all. I have already upgraded to 4.6.3, and I'm very happy with that - either neither FCKEditor or TinyMCE work at all out of the box, and all other (30 odd) modules I installed seem to work fine.
My question is how do I.....
make nodes move back to the top when I update them? I often update items over time again and again, and I want them do be promoted to the *top* of the homepage when I do. You see this on other (non-Drupal) sites - like boingboing.net. Can you do this in Drupal?
Also - OT in regards to this forum....why don't you get notified when someone posts to your topic automatically? I don't see anywhere where I can subscribe or anything, and I have to manually hit my post page over and over again to see if anyone's answered. What's the story here?
Comments
here's what you do...
no one answered this post either, but I figured it out myself - so I'll post the answer here in case someone else needs to know...
edit the post, and just change the post time to the current time and it will automatically rise to the top of your home or page when you submit.
you could also click sticky
you could also click sticky on top of page.
-sp
---------
Test site, always start with a test site.
Drupal Best Practices Guide -|- Black Mountain
-Steven Peck
---------
Test site, always start with a test site.
Drupal Best Practices Guide
sure but...
sure, but sticky makes it stay there...
why don't you get notified
I am sure you know this, but I will say it anyway.
Another way to do this would be to click on recent posts>>my recent posts, if you are logged in. It is basically the tracker page and works nicely even if someone responds afresh to a post I made ages ago. You can click on the '1 new' or '5 new' links to go to the replies.
thanks
I did find that out, and it is the only way to find out what's been updated.
I think like many others - we find it strange that Drupal is this advanced in so many areas, and yet is doesn't have the most basic threaded discussion features that have been around 5 years.
Drupal is not an amorphus
Drupal is not an amorphus entity sitting on the web doing things independantly at night while you are asleep. No one has seen fit to code this feature and submit it. I certainly don't need this feature. You are welcome to submit a patch or feature request to do this.
Continueing to express surprise that something is not there doesn't mean anyone will put it there or that it will magically appear.
-sp
---------
Test site, always start with a test site.
Drupal Best Practices Guide -|- Black Mountain
-Steven Peck
---------
Test site, always start with a test site.
Drupal Best Practices Guide
wow, that's an incredible response...
Wow, all I can say is that's an incredible response. I swear sometimes, it's as if the you've totally forgotten how any standard web tools outside drupal work. Do you read the countless forum posts from people new to drupal and their frustrations? I know you've been a member for two years, but can you be that oblivious to it?
Web-style threaded forums have been online and evolved in a standard format for 6+ years now. VBulletin, PHPBB, UltimateBB, and the like. Almost all major BB releases have the option to "notify user on thread update".
My statement was basically, I think it's strang that threaded discussions got added to Drupal without that feature, and seemingly other "standard" features of web based BB's. So when you say "no one has seen fit to code it" - I think - who was sleeping when they added threaded discussions like this? It's just expected....
sigh
I offer you a path and a reason, you continue to freely insult me.
I rarely use forums on other sites anywhere else except on Drupal.org (smoothwall). I do not use them for my sites. I do not code php. I find that Drupal forums work adequetly for me. I don't plan to use forums anywhere. Oddly enough, none of this motivates me to learn php and work on the forums module.
Drupal forums module is four years old architecturally and has been gradually updated. Architecturally they are nodes in a taxonomy container with comments attached. This leads to some limitations in what you can do to them and how you handle them.
No one who has complained, griped, yelled insulted or demanded a change in or additional functionality in the forums module has EVER bothered to follow the development process and actually produce work on the forums module to add features and functionality that they claim is so important. They just insult everyone and complain and do no actual work to contibute to solving their percieved problem.
Dries has publically in the forums and on the mailling lists stated that he is happy to review any patch/feature enhancement that anyone bothers to supply.
So, if you think there should be more features, then YOU should work towards providing them. Drupal is not an amorphous entity that sits there at night evolving all by it's little lonesome. It is independant people working on things they are interested in. It is a lot on people not paid by you working on things they are interested in. It is a lot of people trying to help you learn how to accomplish things you are interested in without you paying them.
Currently the active developers that routinely contribute are busy working on things. We need more people to join in and produce work on the things they are interested in.
I'll just stop now.
-sp
---------
Test site, always start with a test site.
Drupal Best Practices Guide -|- Black Mountain
-Steven Peck
---------
Test site, always start with a test site.
Drupal Best Practices Guide
Sorry sepeck but I think
Sorry sepeck but I think your original reply was out of line and better left unsaid. It was a simple, honest question, if you didn't know the answer then a "code it yourself if you want it" type of response was unecessary.
JMO
perhaps I may have.
perhaps I may have.
A lot of people seem to want to make these kind of comments about 'Drupal should have feature X'. Some people make these comments in every other post they make and in nasty forum posts. Some people start to demand that Drupal fix this as if some magic gnome will magically start generating code to solve what until now hasn't been an issue for anyone actively contributing work for free.
People expressing disblief that their desired feature set should be common as dirt isn't there. If it's not there, then perhaps it's not as common as they believe. Perhaps no one has used Drupal in this manner before. Perhaps someone adding this feature will help contribute towards it's growth. Perhaps they will continue to complain without helping.
Perhaps I was wrong. We'll see. I am certainly willing to be wrong.
Upon further consideration, yo're right. I did overreact. I was remembering an earlier post. My apologies.
My being wrong doesn't change the fact that we still need more people to contribute and it isn't going to get done with out someone writing code though.
-sp
---------
Test site, always start with a test site.
Drupal Best Practices Guide -|- Black Mountain
-Steven Peck
---------
Test site, always start with a test site.
Drupal Best Practices Guide
You can't help being passionate!
[g] (which I admire you for)
I agree that getting more contributors would be great, and gentle goading is probably the best way to achieve that.
I might start a new thread with some thoughts on why I believe there is a relatively low level of user contribution to Drupal - my thoughts are too ethereal at this stage to be of use to anyone.
gentle goading perhaps
could be used by new people when the post as well. Perhaps that would help prevent such in the future.
-sp
---------
Test site, always start with a test site.
Drupal Best Practices Guide -|- Black Mountain
-Steven Peck
---------
Test site, always start with a test site.
Drupal Best Practices Guide
I've said it once.....
I've said it once - I'll say it one hundred times if I have to...I'm probably not going to contribute anything until I manage to get the features I need working. I'll continue to document all the problems I'm currently having on my web site for others to read. If and when I get it all working, I'll consider writing some guides for people starting out with Drupal.
For now, inline images, bracketed input, trackbacks, are broken in my site, and I've submitted many very polite and to the point postings and gotten no response. Some I've gotten good replies (and for that I'm grateful), many have gone unaswered. If you look at this original post, it went unanswered - and I figured it out and posted the answer to myself in case someone else needed it.
Listen to the new people and their complaints - they are more often than not a very good reason they are similar.
I think you have the same
I think you have the same problem I have, it is taking you longer to learn than you thought?
You might not have noticed, but 95% of the questions here come from new people, and replies come from about a dozen people. I think the high prevalence of newbie questions results from the nature of open-source cms. Lots of people try them out, expect answers immediately, then move on when it gets too hard. The documentation probably scares them off, the search is not too good (not that I think many people use it), and there is no simple FAQ to answer the newbie questions that keep cropping up.
The lack of response from those "in the know" probably results from too many questions, too often the same question being asked repeatedly, and too few people who know the answer and have the time and inclination to help. (That's why I appreciate those that do help!)
Solutions - save it for another thread.
(But glad to see you answered your own question, I had the same question - which is why I was reading it in the first place - That's my strategy at the moment, troll the questions and try to learn from them.)
save for another....
I know you said save solutions for another thread - but since I've yet to see that thread I have to post a few thoughts here...
If 95% of the questions come from newbies what does that tell you? Something is lacking. It's not just a Drupal problem, or a CMS problem, it's a larger 'open source' type problem. It's the same problem that has plagued Linux adoption for years, those that are 'in the know' fend for themselves, and when usage reaches critical mass veteran users are not ready for the influx of newbies who are not technical nor developers.
The minor success stories that occur on the whole are by groups who have acknowledged this up front and prepared for it. Ubuntu Linux is a great example, because the distribution is setup out of the box ready to go, with up to the minute updates. It's intuitive, and it takes away the majority of the "How do I..." questions from initial install because they took the time to get everything configured up front - and not leave the user to figure out how to do it.
How does that apply to Drupal? A simple fix is to rewrite the install.txt with the download distribution. Beyond setup, the last steps are merely administration (user permissions) and customizing themes. From there it just says "consult the handbook at drupal.org". ?!? Judging from the rash of newbie questions I think you could add 6 more steps or more....how to get started, start with this guide, here's some php snippets, here's how to submit content, here's how to configure input formats, here's how to setup roles, here's how taxonomy works...
Another way to do it is to rip a page out of the Macromedia usability playbook...have a setup wizard on initial install. Once Drupal is installed - run a one time setup wizard - "what do you want do to (blog, community, ecommerce, book authoring, etc.)?". The wizard helps you configure and setup your site, and what isn't covered at least has a direct link - for more information go to this handbook at drupal.org.
If you want to stem the tide of new user questions, you have to work towards actually attacking the problem.
I totally agree with you. I
I totally agree with you. I think personally think something is not working well with the handbook on the core level. Not that the set up is wrong per se, but it buries the information so deeply, it's hard for readers to find what they want.
I don't like it when newbies get bashed for asking questions or complaining about things. I also agree that people should get involved. I also feel the same way about the political process, but we all know how few people actually vote or do anything there, and that is something that directly impacts our lives.
There will always be the do-ers and the complainers. But, fundamentally, there would be fewer complainers if the do-ers would address the core reason the complainers do so in the first place.
___
www.liberalthinkers.org - a community for liberal viewpoints.
Fast, Cheap, Good -- choose two
That's a rule for just about everything. Drupal is free, and it's excellent, but it's not fast to learn.
But if you get a hosting account with Fantastico, you can get a simple install.
The problem with the setup wizard that you suggest is that it cannot anticipate all the needs of all the contributed modules -- which are where Drupal really lives. Some of these modules literally reinvent Drupal's capabilities, making it into a client database or photoblog or software distribution platform or....
Work is being done on an installer, but ultimately if you want an excellent and cheap (free!) CMS, you have to expect a learning curve.
And while we could certainly do better in providing support for n00bs, the challenge is coming up with the supporters. I started with Drupal one year ago with my first site. Now I'm doing "expert" installations with some very complex sites that, a year ago, I wouldn't have had a CLUE how to approach.
And I come here when I can, even looking for those questions with 0 responses to try to fill in the gaps.
There are others like me. And this will continue. n00bs this month may end up being helpers next month.
What we're up against is a surge in the userbase, which skews the balance towards inexperience. That will change, and as the rate of growth levels out, we can expect more answerers for the questioners.
Also, this is a community. If you have an idea that could help us with support, by all means, feel free to flesh it out. And while a setup wizard may be a bit beyond the community right now -- and look at CivicSpace and how, with some 40 modules, they have quite a task with each and every core upgrade -- there might (must?) be a better way to manage the question-asking process.
Do we need a FAQ section?
One other thing I will say: Using precise post titles will help one get answers. And if you get no response, maybe you need to provide more info. It's not that nobody cares, but it could be that nobody has a clue what you're talking about. (I'm not addressing this at you in particular. This is the generic "you.")
Laura
===
pingVision • rare pattern • scattered sunshine
_____ ____ ___ __ _ _
Laura Scott :: design » blog » tweet
Do we need a FAQ section?
I think so. For example...
Last night I was looking for an explanation to why those annoying
<pre>tags kept appearing in my code whenever I editied the source code of a text field with TinyMCE. I did a Google search of Drupal.Org and didn't find any posts on this, so I went to the TinyMCE module page - ditto, then I went to the TinyMCE site.http://tinymce.moxiecode.com/tinymce/docs/index.html
Now I know that TinyMCE is miniscule compared to Drupal, but it was so easy to find what I was looking for there. First with the FAQ, then with the appropriate documentation.
(OK, this is a gripe about the Drupal Docs - Have a look at the documentation for the TinyMCE functions - they are explained clearly! My limited experience with the Drupal docs is that I was left scratching my head!)
Anyway, 15 minutes later, I realised where this was controlled within the TinyMCE Module and set the approriate property, and I modified the module to do some extra TinyMCE things that the module didn't support! - And, I didn't need to post a question on Drupal [vbg]
The problem with a Drupal FAQ is that Drupal is soooo big. Maybe start with the basics, maybe split it by module, maybe make it a wiki so people can post tips etc. (Where can/could I post my tips about modifying TinyMCE for instance?)
JAT
I think the forums module
I think the forums module has the threaded discussions feature. Just doesn't seem to have implemented on drupal.org
so maybe...
so maybe it's there in another module - just not core then??
I will have to dig into the modules to see..
No, I meant it is there in
No, I meant it is there in the core forum module that ships with Drupal. I think it is just a question of enabling some settings.
At least, this is what I remember. I may be off target here since I haven't used the module so far.
Looks like I was wrong- the
Looks like I was wrong- the threaded options seem to be for the comment module. Here is an example (bottom of the page):
http://paul.leafish.co.uk/articles/drupal/blog_blog
Have you looked at the contributed modules?
Notify, Subscription and Subscriptions modules all can do this in varying ways.
When you talk about the feature set of Drupal, you should look outside of the core code. The real power is in how extensible it is with the other modules.
Think of the core as just the no-frills basic install. I've done dozens of Drupal installations, and never have gone with just the core install.
Laura
===
pingVision • rare pattern • scattered sunshine
_____ ____ ___ __ _ _
Laura Scott :: design » blog » tweet
well...
well, that as my initial thought - I knew that notify, subscription, and subscriptions modules were available, I use them in my Drupal site. I should have stated that with the earlier post, I couldn't understand why the threaded discussion wasn't hooked into that (knowing that it was readily available - even if by another module). You would think that Drupal.org would feature itself modules outside of core that enable people to better use the site.
I think Drupal is fairly
I think Drupal is fairly picky abou the modules they have decided to include into the core module. I'm not on the development team, so I don't know what the criteria are.
As for documentation, I complained a lot about this when I first started. lol. I still think it's shoddy. You know, if you find an answer to a basic question that should have been addressed somewhere in the code - you can add a comment to the handbooks. I joined the documentation list-serve recently - and they spend time looking through all the comments to see which need to be added to the handbook. If you have ideas, please share them. I thought I would tackle the handbook, but then I got confused and threw my hands up in frustration. :P
___
www.liberalthinkers.org - a community for liberal viewpoints.
My question is how do
You edit the date on your post at the time you edit the content. When you see Boingboing doing that, that's what they're doing with Moveable Type.
weight module
And again: there is a module for this!
---
if you dont like the choices being made for you, you should start making your own.
---
[Bèr Kessels | Drupal services www.webschuur.com]
no there's not
no there's not a module for this. If you set a weight, then it will always be a higher weight than other content. If you just want it to rise to the top of the page, and then fall again - what you want to do is merely change the post date and time when you edit and resubmit the content (node).
no there's not
no there's not a module for this. If you set a weight, then it will always be a higher weight than other content. If you just want it to rise to the top of the page, and then fall again - what you want to do is merely change the post date and time when you edit and resubmit the content (node).
no there's not
no there's not a module for this. If you set a weight, then it will always be a higher weight than other content. If you just want it to rise to the top of the page, and then fall again - what you want to do is merely change the post date and time when you edit and resubmit the content (node).
Hmmm...I do remember seeing
Hmmm...I do remember seeing a node_weight module at www.drupal.org/taxonomy/term/14.
You may be right about how it works, though.