By kaw on

I can drive semitrucks, fly airplanes, make websites, and speak Chinese ----but I can not (yet) figure out how to manage a Drupal site. And it's not that I haven't tried! This is very, very, frustrating. A year ago, I gave up on Mambo for the same reason. But I keep reading how wonderful Drupal is and how "easy" it is, so am still hopeful that I can master it.

I have read, most of it more than once, everything I can find on taxonomies, categories, vocabularies, heirarchy, etc. Perhaps I have missed the real key.

Conclusions I've come to are that I'm not the only one in this boat named confusion, and there must be a better way to present the information so I/we do not become frustrated failures.

Should I switch to PHP_Nuke, which now has a real book available called PHP-Nuke Garage? Anyway, on with some specifics:

I did manage to create a list with vocabulary and several terms under it ---but can't get them to show up in the menu.

I have also created a Page, but it shows up as a "story" or article in the middle of the home page, without being listed in the menu. And I have created a menu item, but when I click on it it says "no such page" or something like that.

It seems I can't make it do ANYTHING I want it to. What am I missing??? By the way, I'm using Blue Marine ---but that shouldn't make any difference on these issues.

I will be very grateful if some kind soul out there can give me the info, or the source of info, which will let me join the ranks of happy Drupal users.

Regards,
Keith

Comments

Steven’s picture

Steven commented

First, edit the node and uncheck "promoted to front page". Save, and note the address of this page (e.g. node/123). Then, enable menu.module (if it's not on already), go to administer - menu, and make an item pointing to node/123 (with the correct node number in it).

You'll probably want to go adminster - content - configure to make pages demoted rather than promoted by default.

--
If you have a problem, please search before posting a question.

kaw’s picture

kaw commented

I can't find anyplace to edit a node, and I have never seen a page where the node number is displayed.

I really must be missing a key part of the game here; hope you can get me back on track, Steven.

Keith

sillygwailo’s picture

sillygwailo
Location Toronto, ON
commented

To see the node number, click on the title of the item, and the URL for that item should be something like http://www.yourdomain.com/node/42 (or possibly http://www.yourdomain.com/?q=node/42 ) in the address bar of your browser.

What Steven is saying is take a note of the part after www.yourdomain.com, which in this case will be node/42 and use that as the path when creating a menu. I've written some documentation on creating menus at Bryght's support site, at the following location: http://support.bryght.com/adminguide/menu Our documentation, more of which you can find at http://support.bryght.com/ applies generally to Drupal, even though Bryght is a hosted service version of the software.

To edit a node, you have two options:

  1. click administer then content, which will give you a list of all that was submitted, then click the "edit" link in the row for that item.
  2. click on the title of the item, and you should see an "edit" tab.

If you're the first user, that is, the administrator, you should see a checkbox with "Promoted to front page". Check that, then click submit, then the item should appear on the front page.

(Username formerly my full name, Richard Eriksson.)

kaw’s picture

kaw commented

Thanks, Richard ----that was indeed a help. I've now had some small successes in getting content positioned where I want it but still have a long way to go to create expected results. Right now, there are way too many surprises!

Is there anyplace which shows a list of all content with node numbers? It seems strange that the only way one can find a node number is to "open the node" and look in the browser's address window to see what it is.

This leads to another, related, issue. When one submits a new article/story/page and selects the menu item, I would think it would automatically show up when you click that item in the navigation list. So far, I haven't found that to be the case.

I had seen Bryght and thought it fairly clear, but haven't re-visited it. I'll do so.

Again, thanks ----and I'll keep trying!
Keith

venkat-rk’s picture

venkat-rk commented

Is there anyplace which shows a list of all content with node numbers?

Drupal doesn't list the node numbers in one place, but if you go to administer>content>, you get to see all the nodes submitted till then. You can find the node numbers by hovering the mouse over each node item.

If you use url aliases, then you *can* see the node numbers by going to administer>url aliases

I suggest having at least three or four windows (easy with tabs if you use firefox) open when you do anything on your site. One for administer, one for administer>content, one for administer>categories (if you use taxonomy) and another for administer>url aliases

kaw’s picture

kaw commented

".....the nodes submitted till then. You can find the node numbers by hovering the mouse over each node item."

It doesn't seem to work that way for me. The ONLY way I've been able to see node numbers is to "open" the content and look in the address window of the browser. I'm using Firefox. Another hint?

"....use url aliases...."

Where do I find this? I think it's a module, but the info says it is part of the core but I've not been able to find it. I have everything enabled to me as administrator.

"I suggest having at least three or four windows ...... open when you do anything on your site."

I do use Firefox; great suggestion.

Thanks to you and the others for your help!
Keith

sillygwailo’s picture

sillygwailo
Location Toronto, ON
commented

"The ONLY way I've been able to see node numbers is to "open" the content"

Right. Another way is to hover your mouse over the title of each 'node', and that will tell you the URL of the node. But yes, you generally need to go in and 'edit' the node to find its number..

"I think it's a module, but the info says it is part of the core"

It's the 'path' module. You may need to enabled it under administer » modules. After you do so, you will see a link on the sidebar called "url aliases", then you'd click the "add" tab to create new aliases.

Once you do that, the 'system path' is the original relative URL (e.g. 'node/42' without the quotes) and the "New path alias:" is what you want to call it. So if you had http://www.yourdomain.com/node/42 you could give 'node/42' the new path alias 'answer-life-universe-everything' (without quotes), making the full URL http://www.yourdomain.com/answer-life-universe-everything There is some documentation on url aliases available on drupal.org.

(Username formerly my full name, Richard Eriksson.)

venkat-rk’s picture

venkat-rk commented

".....the nodes submitted till then. You can find the node numbers by hovering the mouse over each node item."

Sorrry, I misled you there. To get the node numbers ,you need to hover the mouse not on the node title, but on the 'edit' or 'delete' links under 'Operations' in administer>content

kaw’s picture

kaw commented

To get the node numbers ,you need to hover the mouse not on the node title, but on the 'edit' or 'delete' links under 'Operations' in administer>content

This doesn't work for me (Firefox). In fact, I have found nothing that hovering will show me. Is there a switch someplace that I need to enable to make "hover" useful?

I have still found no way to see node numbers other than "opening" the content and reading the number in the address line of the browser.

Thanks for the comments; I learn something from each one.
Keith

sillygwailo’s picture

sillygwailo
Location Toronto, ON
commented

Might be that your status bar in Firefox is not enabled. For the Mac it's under the View menu (might be the same for PC, it's been that long since I've used mine!).

You're right, though, the best way to see what node # it is is to go in and edit it and see the URL. From what I'm hearing, maybe a feature request might be to have the node number or the "system path" readily available in administer » content, but as is, you need to figure out what it is based on the URL for that item presented in your browser.

(Username formerly my full name, Richard Eriksson.)

lekei’s picture

lekei commented

I feel your pain, Keith. I have been trying to get a Drupal site running since March and it is so frustrating (even though I have used a dozen or so content management systems). It seems that once you "get" Drupal, it appears so obvious that you can't understand why you couldn't follow it in the first place.

There is a module called sitemenu that I have installed and tried to play with. It looks like it might do what you want, if you can figure out the relationship between taxonomies and nodes. Unfortunately, it is tied the taxonomy system, so I can't figure out how to use it until I understand that.

Try the how-to files written by the guys at Bryght. They are more focused on achieving individual tasks than most of the documentation here. Especially this one:

http://support.bryght.com/adminguide/how-to/dynamic-web20-brochure-site-...