Hi all. Drupal noob trying my best!

I would like to build a view that lists the 6 most currently either published or uploaded News items. I say published or uploaded because my user would like to easily publish simple news stories, but also have the option to upload things like PDF press releases. I am currently going about things this way: Two content types - one called "News" and one called "News Document."

A News content type is just your basic published node with a title and body field.

A News Document content type is basically just a holder for an uploaded PDF or Word doc. It has a title, but no body, and a CCK field for uploading a file.

I would like the view to show the post date and title for the 6 most current news things. If the item is a News content type, I would like the title to link to the node. If the item is a News Document, however, I would like the title to link directly to the uploaded file (so that if its a PDF, you click the title and it opens the PDF). It would be really cool if I could keep the little PDF or Word icon next to the title so people know what they are clicking on.

Am I going about this the right way? Is this possible with Views?

I really appreciate any comments or suggestions.

Cheers,
TJEngel

CommentFileSizeAuthor
#1 recent-news-view.png13.09 KBTJEngel

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TJEngel’s picture

TJEngel commented
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new recent-news-view.png13.09 KB

Still struggling with this issue. Can anyone give me some direction? I've attached a graphic in order to illustrate my dilemma more clearly. Sorry for bugging. This is an essential feature for my site, and I am unable to give it legs.

Thanks!

dawehner’s picture

dawehner
Primary language German
commented
Status: Active » Fixed

I doubt that it helps to push issues :)

I would like the view to show the post date and title for the 6 most current news things. If the item is a News content type, I would like the title to link to the node. If the item is a News Document, however, I would like the title to link directly to the uploaded file (so that if its a PDF, you click the title and it opens the PDF). It would be really cool if I could keep the little PDF or Word icon next to the title so people know what they are clicking on.

If you want to do things like this you have either use theming or use the "views custom field" module.

TJEngel’s picture

TJEngel commented

Right, sorry for pushing...

I received some help from a fellow Drupal-er and we figured this out. For anyone interested:

Here are the essential fields in replicating this:

Node: Type Type
Node: Nid Nid
Content: Document Generic files
Node: Title Title

The first three are excluded from display. None of the fields have replacement text, links, or are linked to a node from within Views UI. Very, very stock except for the Excludes as noted.

So the last step could be handled in a custom module or in the template.php of your active theme. Here's something like what you'd do in the latter case for a view named "my_news" with a display of type Page. The content type with the doc is called "news_doc" and I'm using filefield (not core Upload). The name of that field, if you're looking to replicate this exactly, is "field_news_doc" (which is represented below by its internal name, "node_data_field_news_doc_field_news_doc_fid").

<?php
function THEMENAME_preprocess_views_view_fields__my_news__page(&$variables) {

  if ($variables['row']->node_type == 'news_doc' && !empty($variables['row']->node_data_field_news_doc_field_news_doc_fid)) {
    $filearray = field_file_load($variables['row']->node_data_field_news_doc_field_news_doc_fid);
    $variables['fields']['title']->content = l($variables['row']->node_title, $filearray['filepath']);
  }
  else {
    $variables['fields']['title']->content = l($variables['row']->node_title, 'node/' . $variables['row']->nid);
  }

}
?>

It's important to note that you need to create the file "views-view-fields--my_news--page.tpl.php" in your theme's directory or this will not work. Just copy and paste the "views-view-fields.tpl.php" file from the views module directory into your theme's directory and rename it.

Status: Fixed » Closed (fixed)

Automatically closed -- issue fixed for 2 weeks with no activity.