Pro Drupal 7 Development updates the most popular development reference for the release of Drupal 7. With several new and completely-rewritten essential APIs and improvements in Drupal 7, this book will not only teach developers how to write modules ranging from simple to complex, but also how Drupal itself works. Learn the Drupal APIs and major changes in Drupal 7 Learn how to write Drupal modules using the APIs Learn proper development practices and how to become a contributing community member

Drupal is the premier open source content management system available. It is used for high profile sites such as TheOnion.com and has been deployed by organizations such as NASA. Utilizing Drupal, you can create your own personal blog, a community driven site like Slashdot, or any other content oriented web site you can imagine. Pro Drupal Development is a book geared to professionals that need to deploy and customize Drupal. This book deeply delves into the internals of the Drupal system and teaches the reader everything they will need to know to deploy a highly customized and optimized Drupal installation.

Drupal 7 opens the door for you as a Windows developer to build Drupal sites—including custom modules—all without leaving Visual Studio! Pro Drupal 7 for Windows Developers gives you everything you need to know to achieve this, whilst drilling down into the advanced topics that you'll want to master whilst working with Drupal 7 as a Windows developer. Pro Drupal 7 for Windows Developers starts with the Drupal page model, which Windows programmers can contrast against the ASP.NET page model. You will then explore the various features of Drupal, including the hook model, theming, roles, and caching. You'll also discover the data abstraction layer which lays the foundation for integration with your enterprise-level databases and external systems. Pro Drupal 7 for Windows Developers focuses on the important topics for the programmer coming to Drupal: An up-to-speed introduction to Drupal for developers so that they can get past the initial learning curve most efficiently. Key introductions to the important features of Drupal, including the page model, the hook architecture, the theming layer, and custom module development. How to work with the Drupal 7 features you want to work with within the Windows development environment. Step-by-step tutorials on building, testing, and deploying custom modules for internal use or for sharing with the Drupal community. Pro Drupal 7 for Windows Developers provides a bridge to Drupal for you as a Windows developer—by speaking your language!

“Even if you’re already a seasoned Drupal user of CCK, Views, or Panels, I’ve no doubt that this book will provide you with several new techniques and methods for getting the most out of these extremely essential modules. It certainly has for me.” —Dries Buytaert, founder and project lead of Drupal, and CTO of Acquia With Drupal, Web professionals can create full-featured Web sites with just a few clicks. Drupal’s core is compact and well documented, but much of Drupal’s immense power lies elsewhere—in external modules. Drupal’s Building Blocks is an authoritative tutorial, reference, and cookbook for Drupal’s most valuable modules. The authors are Drupal insiders who’ve spent years creating and supporting these modules—Earl Miles, developer of the Views and Panels modules, and Lynette Miles, Drupal documentation team member. They’ve brought together indispensable information you won’t find anywhere else, as well as extensive sample “recipe” code designed for easy adaptation and reuse. Learn how to Use Content Construction Kit (CCK) to customize your data input forms around your needs Improve site flexibility with Drupal’s node system Add optional field types, including PHP-based fields Customize themes to display data more attractively and legibly Build powerful Views query displays Integrate with SQL databases Customize Views with relationships, arguments, and filters Optimize query performance Add custom styles with the Panels module Maintain full control over sites as you deploy into production This book will help you create more powerful, flexible, usable, and manageable Web sites—whether you’re a Web developer, designer, administrator, architect, or consultant. The accompanying Web site contains all examples, code, and themes presented in this book.

This book focuses on the nontechnical user who is responsible for building, maintaining, and managing Drupal web sites. The book covers why you should consider using Drupal when building a new web site, what Drupal is, installing and configuring Drupal, creating and managing content, managing users, adding functionality to your web site through Drupal modules, and more advanced topics on using themes, panels, and views. By reading this book, you will: Understand why you should use Drupal and the power of the platform. Quickly build confidence in your ability to use Drupal. Gain the knowledge necessary to build, deploy, and manage web sites of moderate complexity on Drupal 7.

Take advantage of Drupal’s vast collection of community-contributed modules and discover how they make this web framework unique and valuable. With this guide, you’ll learn how to combine modules in interesting ways (with minimal code-wrangling) to develop several community-driven websites— including a job posting board, photo gallery, online store, product review database, and event calendar. The second edition focuses on Drupal 7, the latest version of this open source system. Each project spans an entire chapter, with step-by-step "recipes" to help you build out the precise functionality the site requires. With this book, developers new to Drupal will gain experience through a hands-on introduction, and experienced Drupal developers will learn real-world best practices. Learn Drupal’s concepts and building blocks, and how everything works together Hit the ground running—build your first Drupal site hands-on Explore solutions that meet each project’s requirements, and discover why specific modules were selected Understand the projects through case studies, including the client’s needs and desires Learn how to configure modules with a bird’s-eye view of how they work Discover new modules, including Drupal Commerce, Media, and Workbench

"A designer-friendly guide to Drush, Git, and other tools"--Cover.