Drupal Customizations
Custom Content Types
What is special about Drupal4Ed? Why am I spending all my spare time modifying a drupal site? It is because there are things I am hoping to be able to do within drupal that will allow users to more easily take advantage of some tools I have been building in Flash over the years. So far, progress is slow, but this is where I am hoping to be able to showcase the content types that make this site special.
The page you are reading now is an enhanced version of the built-in Book Page Content Type. The Drupal Book provides the best way to create paged content within Drupal, and has same great navigational features that I wanted to tap into. I have enhanced the built-in book page with some extra fields intended to make it easier to add interactive content to the page.
I am also working on a custom module called ePage that allows authors to put educational content into the existing Drupal side panel in as simple a way as possible. The side panel content can include a glossary, a quiz, an mp3 player, and some page notes. The latter can be used for links, credits, instructions, pretty much anything you want to sit in a drupal block rather than as part of the node itself.
All of this can end up making for some very crowded side-panels, although depending upon your theme, it is possible to deploy the blocks in other areas. There are two ways to preserve space. One is built-in to the ePage module. It puts all the content into a single panel with a so-called "accordion". An according is a set of nested panels, similar to a tabbed interface, except that to switch panels, you must click on it's title bar. Title bars are stacked one above the other, and sit at the top or bottom of the accordion, depending upon which panel is open at any given time.
Speaking of tabs, that is of course the other way to preserve space, only that option is not built into my module. I like the QuickTabs module for that. Either way, only the data that is included on any page will appear, so your side panels will not become cluttered with empty blocks.
The pages of this book have examples of all the options I currently have available. The book is a work in progress, not to mention a moving target, since I am continually experimenting with the format as I go. Please be patient, and don't be afraid to contribute your comments.