Featured Content

Overview

The Featured Content module lets you very easily create related/featured content blocks on your Drupal site. This module is useful if you have non-technical users who need to add blocks on the site that contain lists of node titles, node teasers, and/or full node content. This module can also be useful if you need to get up some featured/related content blocks quickly and are not familiar enough with views to do it, or simply prefer not to use views for this purpose. A related/featured content block can be created in just a few minutes.

Language support was added in version 1.5 for both D6 & D7. If you have a multilingual website, please use 1.5 or above.

Do not use the 6.x-2.x-dev and 7.x-2.x-dev branches as they are for experimenting with performance enhancements. If you want to grab a *dev* version (which we try to keep stable), then grab the 1.x version in the downloads section.

NOTE: If you have a large site (lots of nodes and/or users), this module will likely NOT be a good fit as there is currently NO caching (views is recommended in that case). If someone is interested in becoming a co-maintainer and working on the caching code (in the 2.x branch), please add an issue to the queue. Thanks!

Index:
Overview
Features
How to use
Simple examples
More examples
More details
Requirements
Known problems
Similar projects
Reviews
Credits
Downloads

Features

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• Create node content blocks from manual links, filters, node fields, or search results
• All content can be sorted by:
  • Alphabetical order
  • Date created
  • Popularity
  • Random
  • Term match (when using terms)
  • Vocabulary order (when using terms)
• Block content can be:
  • Titles (linked to nodes)
  • Teasers
  • Full node content
• "Read more" page can be added
• RSS feed icon and link can be added
• Block can have header and footer text
• Optional text for when there is no content to display
• Filtered content blocks can use these filters:
  • Languages
  • Content types
  • Users/Authors
  • Taxonomy terms
  • Path
  • Title keywords
  • Views results
• Block visibility can be set by:
  • Content types
  • Users/Authors
  • Taxonomy terms

The featured content that shows up in the block depends on how the user configured the block. The content can be sorted alphabetically, by date, by popularity, by closest match (by terms), or can presented randomly. There are additional visibility rules available so you can choose to show the block based on the content type, user/author, or taxonomy terms available for the node page being viewed. (Note - if you are *only* interested in having blocks based by taxonomy terms, check out these modules: http://drupal.org/node/323329)

One option is to specify a manual list of paths to show. The advantage of this is if you know the pages you are interested in, but want them sorted in a particular way or you want to apply some additional rules for when the block should show up.

Another option is to choose the CCK fields that contain the nodes to be shown. For text fields, the field will be parsed for node ids. For node references, the referenced nodes will be used. For user references, the nodes authored by the referenced users will be used.

The final option is to specify a number of filters to determine what related content will be displayed. You can filter by content types(s), user(s)/author(s), taxonomy term(s), and by path. You can match the content type, author, or terms of the current node being shown, or can configure it independent of the page being shown.

How to use the Featured Content module

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1. download module to your modules directory
2. enable module on modules page or via drush
3. go to block configuration page (/admin/build/block)
4. click on "Add Featured Content Block" tab or link
5. configure your Featured Content block
6. save your configuration settings
7. choose the desired region for your block via the block page or use panels module or context module to place your block where you want it

Simple examples of related/featured content blocks

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Here are some simple examples of related/featured content blocks you can create easily:

• List of content that has the same language as the node being shown
• List of content that has the same author as the node being shown
• List of content that has the same content type as the node being shown
• List of content that has one of the same terms as the node being shown
• List of content that starts with the same path as the node being shown
• List of content that matches one of the chosen content types
• List of content that is authored by one of the chosen authors
• List of content that contains one of the chosen taxonomy terms
• List of content that is in a text field of the node being shown
• List of content that is in a node reference field of the node being shown
• List of content that is associated with a user reference field of the node being shown

These can be combined as well. For example, you could choose to show a list of content that has the same author *and* content type as the node being shown. You could show a list of content that has the same starting path as the node being shown *and* contains at least one of the chosen taxonomy terms, etc. See below for some more complex examples.

Detailed examples of related/featured content blocks

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Here are some more detailed examples of related/featured content blocks you can create very easily:

• Block that shows the titles of the top 5 (node) pages with terms that most closely match the (node) page being viewed and are of the content type "blog" and were authored by the same author as the (node) page being viewed. If the page being viewed was created by user "foo" and has terms "apple", "orange", "lemon", "pear", then the block will show up to 5 blog pages where the author is "foo" and will be ordered based on how many of the matching terms the blog page has.
  
• Block that shows an ordered list of the titles of the top 20 most popular (node) pages where the first part/section of the (node) page path matches the first part of the path of the page being viewed. If the page being viewed is /forum/topic/1, then the top 20 most popular (node) pages with an alias like /forum/* would be shown.
  
• Block that only shows up if the (node) page being viewed has the content type "blog" and shows a random list of 3 teasers of (node) pages where the content type is "page" or "story" and has the term "featured".
  
  

More details

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More details and screenshots on the featured content module: http://www.kristen.org/content/new-drupal-featured-content-module

Requirements

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You need to have permission to create blocks.

Known problems

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If you have a *very* large site (thousands of nodes/users) then you might experience performance issues. Always test out new modules on a development or testing site first. Performance enhancements are in the issue queue but the current maintainers do not have time to work on these right now. Please consider becoming a co-maintainer to add this feature!

Similar projects

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Although these other modules did not have the needed features available in the Featured Content module, you might want to try them out if you are focusing on taxonomy terms or simpler related content:

http://drupal.org/node/323329

Reviews

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If you want to leave a review or read reviews of this featured content module, check out drupalmodules.com:

http://drupalmodules.com/module/featured-content

Before you consider leaving a negative review, though, please consider filing an issue first so problems can be resolved. You can leave an issue for anything that needs to be fixed, and I will try to get it resolved quickly. Please make sure to write as much information in the issue summary as possible as well as add a screenshot of your block settings.

Credits

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The 1.0 version of this module was partially sponsored by NatureBridge. NatureBridge is a non-profit that connects youth with the natural world. If you like this module, please consider donating to NatureBridge.

This module was written by Kristen Pol. If you have any issues or want any new features, please open an issue.

If you would like to sponsor enhancements to this module, please contact me.

Go to...
Overview
Features
How to use
Simple examples
More examples
More details
Requirements
Known problems
Similar projects
Reviews
Credits
Downloads