Building A Tasty Backend
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This document discusses how spending time to polish the administrative areas of a Drupal site can simplify content management and improve the experience for clients and users. It recommends using modules like Vertical Tabs, Views Bulk Operations, Context Admin, Quickbar and Block Class Select to organize content types and menus in a more intuitive way. The goal is to hide complexity, only show relevant options, and make content creation and management easier for non-technical users.
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Building A Tasty Backend
- 1. Building A Tasty Backend Or... How spending a small amount of time to polish your admin areas can keep you, and your clients, sane.
- 2. Whoami ¡ñ Jeni Tehan ¡ñ Delicious Creative ¡ñ USA ¡ñ Liverpool -> Brighton ¡ñ Drupal 2006-2007ish
- 3. Demo Site ¡ñ http://www.tastybackend.com
- 4. What Is This All About? ¡ñ Drupal is very powerful ¡ñ That's why we LOVE Drupal ¡ñ But... ¡ñ We're not normal
- 5. Power Can Be Powerful ¡ñ This can overwhelm some users ¡ñ Drupal provides a good start ¡ñ But the defaults are only OK ¡ñ What happens when we need more? ¡ñ We can do better!
- 6. We Must KILL Help All Humans! ¡ñ Our content admins are human ¡ñ We can simplify how people add content ¡ñ We can simplify how people manage content ¡ñ We can simplify how people get around ¡ñ We don't have to recreate the wheel to do this
- 7. Creating Content ¡ñ For New Clients This Is Everything ¡ñ Vertical Tabs Helped Clean Things Up ¡ñ Basic Forms Might Be OK
- 10. Vertical Tab Everything! ¡ñ Yes, EVERYTHING!
- 13. Vertical Tab Everything! ¡ñ Need Field group d.o/project/field_group ¡ñ Shortens the forms ¡ñ Simplifies things so your clients don't recoil in fear ¡ñ Gets your forms to the point of the content ¡ñ Only add the basic fields necessary to create the content, additional optional fields are hidden.
- 14. Vertical Tab Everything! ¡ñ Hides long lists of references, taxonomy terms, etc. ¡ñ Can add in more fields without making the form look huge. ¡ñ Add additional functionality without additional complexity.
- 16. Further Node Add Cleansing ¡ñ Disable the preview button ¨C Doesn't really theme well ¨C Clients expect something else when using an admin theme ¨C If previewing is needed save the content and don't publish it
- 17. Further Node Add Cleansing ¡ñ If it's on the page, and it really doesn't need to be, get rid of it! ¨C No need for hook_form_alter ¨C Rules/Rules Forms Support can clean up unwanted elements and more.
- 18. Managing Content ¡ñ Default content page just isn't up for the task ¨C Too many clicks ¨C Not specific enough information ¡ñ Views Bulk Operations to the rescue! d.o/project/views_bulk_operations
- 19. You Down With VBO? ¡ñ Create admins screens that suit the content ¡ñ Show relevant information on complex content types ¡ñ Gives clients easy access to relevant information ¡ñ Gives YOU access to relevant information ¡ñ Better understanding all around
- 21. Where Do These Views Live? ¡ñ Context Admin d.o/project/context_admin ¡ñ Create Manage Content Section at admin/manage/content ¡ñ Our new family home holds all our lovely VBO children ¡ñ Now I'm just getting silly
- 22. Contextual Administration ¡ñ Can be used to create admin areas that users wouldn't normally be able to get to ¨C Edit taxonomy terms and vocabularies without ¡°Administer vocabularies and terms¡± permission ¨C Users will need the edit/delete permissions for the vocabulary ¡ñ Makes those permissions make sense!
- 23. Administration Menus ¡ñ Default placement of navigation menu can complicate your site ¡ñ Not all pages have traditional ¡°Sidebars¡± ¡ñ Get admin menus out of your front-facing theme! ¡ñ Why not use Admin Menu module? ¡ñ What do we do?
- 24. Quickbar ¡ñ Underloved, but works great. ¡ñ Easy as F*DGE to understand ¡ñ Minimises page loads ¡ñ Everything is always on the page ¡ñ Uses any menu you want ¡ñ Customisable per role
- 25. Users ¡ñ Content admins sometimes need to be ¡°User admins¡± ¡ñ Views Bulk Operations and Context Admin can also be used to manage users ¡ñ Control Access to User Settings d.o/project/user_settings_access ¨C Ability for admins to add/edit users, but not adjust global user settings
- 26. Users ¡ñ More useful user modules ¨C d.o/project/role_delegation ¡ñ Allows you to select which roles can assign which roles. ¨C Doesn't work with context admin just yet, but otherwise it's pretty sweet
- 27. Block Class Select ¡ñ http://drupal.org/sandbox/jeni_dc/1899728 ¡ñ Add preconfigured classes to blocks ¡ñ Easy option for Content Admins who don't understand CSS or shouldn't be adding their own classes.
- 28. Tasty Backend Feature ¡ñ d.o/sandbox/jeni_dc/1555218 ¡ñ Standard Install ¡ñ Some configuration necessary after install ¨C Quickbar Menu ¨C Documentation coming (I swear!)
- 29. Demo Site ¡ñ http://www.tastybackend.com ¡ñ Google ¡°Tasty Backend¡± ¡ñ Safe for work ¡ñ Seriously
- 30. Thanks For Listening! ¡ñ jeni@deliciouscreative.com ¡ñ http://www.deliciouscreative.com ¡ñ @DelishCreative ¡ñ d.o. - Delicious Creative ¡ñ IRC: jeni_dc ¡ñ Yes, I'm a shameful self promoter