News and announcements

FunnyMonkey is pleased to announce the release of VoiceBox, a community discussion and aggregation platform. Using VoiceBox, an organization can set up a site that allows people to create profiles, start discussions, upload content from mobile phones, comment on one another's posts, share content to other social media platforms, and follow incoming news feeds.

The VoiceBox installation profile simplifies the work of groups looking to create or expand their online presence. Organizations looking for a place for their stakeholders to publish, collaborate, and get more informed could use VoiceBox to support these goals.

The site was designed to support community media and other grassroots organizations, but the base functionality can be used in a variety of different contexts. VoiceBox can easily support a school newspaper, or, with some modifications, it could work as the public-facing site for organizations that want to communicate with their stakeholders and develop a community around their work. In particular, the blend of content aggregation, internal site discussions, repurposing content within issues, and sharing out to external sites via social media helps connect the smaller communities of individual organizations with larger external groups that share a common interest.

VoiceBox was built by FunnyMonkey as part of the Knight Drupal Initiative, which was funded by the Knight Foundation.

Drupal 6 Panels Cookbook, by Bhavin (Vin) Patel, a newly-published title from Packt Publishing, is a collection of simple useful recipes that gives a very clear understanding from the basics of Panels to complex implementations to generate Web 2.0 layouts.

It begins with the basics and gradually delves deeper into the complexities of Panels. You will learn how to set up CTools and Panels, upgrade from Panels 2 to Panels 3, about page layout, theming, and lots more. The layout of the book is a series of interconnected but distinct recipes that gives a basic understanding of usage of Panels in Drupal and also the advanced settings that makes Panels one of the most powerful modules. You will learn to master the Panels user interface and theme each panel quickly with a series of practical recipes. You will be able to integrate powerful Drupal modules like Organic Views, Advanced Profile Kit, Views, CCK, and many more to create socially connected Web 2.0 websites.

As a reader of drupal.org, you can receive a 20% discount (see below) and benefit the Drupal Association!

Following the success of its predecessor, Building powerful and robust websites with Drupal 6, Packt Publishing announces Drupal 7, an updated and revised version of the original book by David Mercer written specifically for Drupal 7. The book is written for Drupal 7 beginners or newcomers to Drupal in general and will help help anyone to create and operate any type of website quickly and efficiently.

This book provides a great way to learn and master Drupal 7, enabling you to create virtually any type of website. It meets the booming demand for well presented, clear, concise, and above all practical information on how to design and build sites like a pro. By clearly and concisely demonstrating the fundamentals of Drupal in combination with practical and methodical coverage of more advanced subjects, this book paves the way for anyone to quickly become proficient at building and operating professional websites.

150 quiz questions and exercises will help you to consolidate and expand on what you learn in the book.

Drupal.org readers are also entitled to a 20% promotional discount when ordering through Packt. Make sure you provide the discount code (Drupal7book20) upon purchase to receive the discount.

Remember that, as with all Packt books, a percentage of the revenue from each book sold will go to support the open source technology on which the book is based - in this case, the proceeds will benefit the Drupal Association.