Drupal Website Building Tips - Part 6

Upload and download files

Whether a file is available for private or public download depends, of course, whether the page to which it is attached is available privately or publicly. In addition, there are methods for maintaining private download folders (for FTP or other access).

Public files / attachments

In general, files are "attached" to a page. See Uploading files with Drupal for information about changing permissions.

• Attach a file to an existing page (examplepage):

Drupal -> Administer -> Content Management -> Content -> examplepage -> edit

-> File attachments -> Attach new file: your file to upload -> Attach -> Save

Increase uploaded file size limits

• Increase the uploaded file size limit for PHP.

Add a quotation module

Add the Fortune module to Drupal

Fortune is a *nix utility to display quotations from preselected files. Drupal has a plugin to display these quotations from within a webpage. Although a nice module, a disadvantage is that it uses monospace font and currently does not have options to adjust the font type and size. See here for installation details.

Add the Quotes modules to Drupal

• Download the Quotes module:

cd /etc/drupal/6/all/sites/modules
sudo wget http://ftp.drupal.org/files/projects/quotes-6.x-1.40.tar.gz
sudo tar zxvf quotes-6.x-1.40.tar.gz
sudo rm quotes-6.x-1.40.tar.gz

Note: If you wish this module to be available to only one subsite, then install it instead into the /etc/drupal/6/sites/mysite_x/modules folder.

Note: You must update and adjust permissions after module installation.

Drupal -> Administer -> Site building -> Modules -> Other -> Quotes (ticked) -> Save configuration

• Create a Quotes content and import your quotations. You can create a quotation one by one, or a large number of Quotations all at once (from a file, for example). Each quotation is created as an individual content item. The "display in Quote blocks" option determines whether a Quotes block (created in the next step to display a rotation of the quotations) will include the particular quotation(s) created in this step.

Drupal -> Create content -> Quotes

->Name: Quote%id -> Display in quote blocks: (ticked)

I use quotations from the Fortune program, which are in a particular text file format that looks like:

I reject your reality and substitute my own...
%
This is one of those "What the hell am I doing?" moments, over!
%
We got a robot in the water, he's stuffed with tuna and it's just another day here at Mythbusters.

I copy the contents of the text file into the input box.

-> Format: Import Fortune file -> Comment settings: Disabled -> Save

This will create as many content items as are in the Fortune file. If there are hundreds of quotes, you will have hundreds of Quote content items.

• Configure the Quotes settings so that Quotes can appear as a block:

Drupal -> Administer -> Site configuration -> Quotes

-> Configure blocks -> Name: Quotes -> Add block -> Configure block

-> Update options -> Update every 6 seconds

-> Show block on specific pages -> Show on only the listed pages: choose the pages to display on

-> Save block

• Add the Quotes Block on your site:

Drupal -> Administer -> Site building -> Blocks -> Quotes:Quotes -> Location