Content display

Fortune has arrived for Drupal 6.

The Fortune module is a port of the venerable BSD Unix fortune cookie program created by Ken Arnold. It provides a block that displays a random fortune each time it the page is reloaded.

Fortune is similar to Quotes, but was built to specifically support the huge library of "fortune cookie files" which often rely on an 80 column display, a monospaced font, and tabs set 8 spaces apart.

The "fortune cookie file" itself is a simple ASCII (ISO-Latin-1) Unix text file in which each fortune is followed by a percent symbol (%) on a line by itself. Fortune files usually come with a binary index file having the same name plus a ".dat" extension.

The Fortune module uses the "fortunes" folder in the files directory as storage for both fortune and index files. You can add new fortunes to that folder via FTP or by using the Upload field on the Fortune Settings Page (admin/settings/fortune). When using FTP you should include the .dat file, but in the Settings form you only have to upload the fortune file itself, and a .dat file will be created automatically.

There are lots of places on the web to get fortunes. Most fortune files are GPL or public domain and free for distribution. Some links to sources of fortune files are included on the module's settings page.

Converts ANSI colors into more web friendly equivalents.

It does this by translating ANSI sequences into span tags with proper (X)HTML classes which are used to color it correctly, using CSS.

Adds support to Views to filter a block on a node page by that node's taxonomy terms.

Top Commentators module provides a usable and easy way to create block of best commentators on your site.

Vertical Tabs module allows you to output form (in our case, node form) fieldsets as vertical tabs. Vertical Tabs Default Tab advances this behaviour, allowing you to move remaining top level node form elements (such as title and body) into default vertical tab, leaving only buttons below. This reduces height of node forms, greatly improving usability for complex content types with lots of fields/fieldgroups.
Contains code from #357300: Place all top level form elements into a default vertical tab group.

Custom Node Template allows one to specify different node templates to be used on a node by node basis.

While there are many options for customizing the display of pages, fewer options exist for customizing the display of nodes. There are many instances in which customizing the display of specific nodes might be useful, and this module provides a simple and efficient way to achieve this.

Using This Module vs. Other Solutions

If you are looking for a way to customize the display of all nodes within a content type this module would probably not be useful. While you can specify a node template to be used by default for a content type using this module, it only applies to nodes you create in the future. There are better solutions for customizing the display of content types - probably the best way is to just do this through your theme. You may also find some other helper modules to be useful. One of the main reasons for using this module would be to customize or override the display of specific nodes differently from the default display of those nodes.

Please see the Custom Node Template Handbook page for additional information and use cases to help you decide if you should use this module.

How do I Use This Module?

For users with appropriate permissions, a list of all node templates available in a theme are presented when creating or editing a node. Any node template can be selected to be used to display a particular node. Specific node templates can also be assigned to content types as a default. If a node template is not selected for a content type and specific node, then appropriate node template will be used by a theme as it normally would (per existing node template suggestions).