How The Drupal Page on this Site is Created

This is a panel page that uses a number of Drupal features provided both in core and in third-party module

Module List

The list of modules is a view that displays nodes that are a custom content type. That content type adds fields such as the information about download location and permissions. The standard node title is the name of the module. A custom view then displays published nodes of that content type in a pager that is shown in a panel on this pag

Recent Updates

The list of recent updates to modules referenced in the book is an RSS aggregator (part of core) that checks the feeds for the modules in the book. This display lets you see the latest updates even if you don't have them installed.

Extras

Extras are ordinary Drupal content nodes -- blog entries, stories, and so forth. They use two taxonomy tags: one is Extra and the other is the particular technology such as FileMaker, Drupal, Bento, and so forth. A custom view called extras displays the extras for a specific technology which is passed in as an argument as in http://www.northcountryconsulting.com/extras/drupal. This view uses a pager. A copy of the view provides the latest extra by limited the number of items to 1 as in http://www.northcountryconsulting.com/latest_extra/drupal.

By convention, each extra has a graphic badge inserted in it identifying it as a Drupal extra, FileMaker extra, etc.

This structure means that no customization is needed beyond setting up the page with a panel path such as extras/Drupal. It also leverages Drupal's automation so that any item with those two tags (Extra and the technology) automatically flows to both the Extras and Latest Extra view.

Because blog entries can also be tagged in this way, there are two basic ways in which I update the site:

1. If I create a blog entry with the Extra and technology tag, by default it appears on this site's first page in the standard blog format. It also appears in RSS feeds that may be picked up in other places. The main one that I control is the RSS feed linked to my profile on Amazon. So a single blog entry here shows up in the appropriate views on the appropriate pages of this site as well as on Amazon. That's about the most efficient process I can think of. (If you want to subscribe, feel free!).
2. If I create any content that is not a blog entry, it is handled exactly the same way but does not show up in the RSS feed (and not on Amazon).