Integrating images, video, and audio content on a Drupal site requires knowledge of appropriate community modules, and an understanding of how to configure and connect them properly. With the power of up-to-date technologies such as HTML5, responsive web design, and the best modules available in Drupal's ecosystem, we can create the best Drupal 7 media website.
Drupal 7 Media is a practical, hands-on guide that will introduce you to the basic structure of a Drupal site and guide you through the integration of images, videos, and audio content. Learn to leverage the most suitable community modules and up-to-date technology such as HTML5 to offer a great user experience through rich media content.
Chapter 1, Drupal's Building Blocks, serves as an introduction to the building blocks of Drupal's node structure. Starting with a bit of Drupal's history, we move on to Drupal's very basic and prominent node structure. You will be introduced to Drupal's administrator user interface, which will help you create your own Memo content type.
Chapter 2, Views, Blocks, and Themes, shows how to display content with the use of the Views module user interface, which enables us to create content listing quite easily. We then move on to the presentation layer of Drupal and learn how to create and position content elements (blocks) in the various positions (regions).
Chapter 3, Working with Images, dives into deep water and helps in creating our very own content type for a food recipe website. We learn about the prominent Media module and its extensive support for media resources such as providing a media library, and key integration with other modules such as the Media Gallery. We also discover the concept of text format profiles and the use of WYSIWYG editors.
Chapter 4, HTML5 in Drupal, covers the HTML5 spec, why the Web needs it, and how to make use of the spec to create cross-browser-compliant HTML code in Drupal. We also learn about the canvas feature of HTML5, and create a signature management web application.
Chapter 5, Video Capabilities, explores the myriad of options available to add videos media to our website. We will learn about integrating with third-party video hosting websites such as YouTube, and create a YouTube-like video sharing platform.
Chapter 6, Audio Capabilities, covers different ways of working with audio content. You will learn how to customize an audio presentation, utilize the abundance of metadata that is potentially stored in audio media, and tie it up with Drupal's content structure.
Chapter 7, Leveraging Other HTML5 Features, starts off by showing you how to enable RDF support in our Drupal's website. We also learn how to implement a graphical chart with the help of the Views user interface and custom code. We also touch upon advanced theming and responsive web design.
Chapter 8, Enhancing Media Content, reviews Drupal's media configuration and tools, which aid a site builder in enhancing media-related content. You will learn how to apply image manipulations and how to build your own effects. You will explore the use of Colorbox and Plupload modules. Finally, you will learn about the rating module that adds voting capabilities.
Chapter 9, Drupal 8 and Beyond, reviews the upcoming Drupal 8 release and the changes it is introducing. Many of these changes are architecture and software design related changes, such as configuration management, core framework refactoring, better layout, and general mobile-ready with built-in support for HTML5.
Drupal 7 requires PHP 5.2.5 or higher to run the Drupal code. You will also need one of the following databases to run Drupal 7:
MySQL version 5.0.15 or 5.1.30 or higher
PostgreSQL 8.3 or later
SQLite 3.4.2 or later
You can use Apache HTTP, Nginx, or Microsoft IIS for the web server.
We recommend you to use a GNU/Linux, Apache, MySQL, and PHP setup, also known as LAMP, for best performance and community support.
If you are a Drupal site builder and you wish to spice up your web applications with rich media content, then this book is for you. A basic understanding of HTML, JavaScript, and basic PHP module development in Drupal would be helpful, but is not necessary.
In this book, you will find a number of styles of text that distinguish between different kinds of information. Here are some examples of these styles, and an explanation of their meaning.
Code words in text, database table names, folder names, filenames, file extensions, pathnames, dummy URLs, user input, and Twitter handles are shown as follows: "To make sure we understand this style when we use it in other places we will name it grayscale_thumbnail."
A block of code is set as follows:
name = "Image Effect - Sepia" description = "Adds a Sepia image effect to image styles" core = 7.x files[] = image_effect_sepia.module
When we wish to draw your attention to a particular part of a code block, the relevant lines or items are set in bold:
<h1
property="dc:title" class="node-title" rel="nofollow">
Live school show
</h1>New terms and important words are shown in bold. Words that you see on the screen, in menus or dialog boxes for example, appear in the text like this: "For the display format, aside from the interactive icons option, the Rating and Percentage options are pretty straightforward."
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