Views is a contributed module that was originally written by Earl Miles, who is known as
merlinofchaos, or simply Merlin in the Drupal community. The module is maintained by
him and others in the Drupal community.
Views 1 was written during the Summer of Code in 2005, and was available for Drupal 4.6,
4.7, and for Drupal 5 in 2006. For those still running a Drupal 5 site, there is a Drupal 5 Views
Recipes book from Packt Publishing.
Views 2 was first released in 2008 for Drupal 6, and was a major improvement on an already
very useful module. There isn't a book with recipes on Views 2, but you can find many good
examples of using Views 2 in Drupal 6 Attachment Views from Packt Publishing.
Views 3 for Drupal 7 is still in beta as I write this introduction, but will be released before I get
to the appendix!
The Drupal content management system is purposely created with a 'light footprint', leaving it to the user or developer to add wanted features. Views is the #1 add-on module for Drupal and enables you to filter, select and present your content in ways that are more meaningful to your site visitors.
Drupal 7 Views Cookbook allows you to bypass most of the Views learning curve and quickly take advantage of the capabilities of the Views module through step-by-step instructions for quickly developing dozens of useful views.
Starting with a brief introduction to Views, Drupal 7 Views Cookbook takes you through recipes for elementary views such as displaying randomly selected content, to intermediate views such as customizing links, to advanced views using multiple displays. Along the way there are recipes for theming views, creating a programmatic view and a view handler, administering views, and finally, using some other modules related to the Views module. Recipes are standalone, so pick them in any order!
Don't limit your site with dull content presentation. Empower your site visitors with the recipes that Drupal 7 Views Cookbook delivers!
What you will learn from this book
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Present menu choices for categorized subsets of your content
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Create blocks containing interesting lists or randomly selected images
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Link multiple content types to provide more complete information
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Display complementary content in additional displays
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Design a desktop-like page driven by user input
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Deliver a view from inside a custom module
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Manipulate the templates to add pizzazz to your views
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Administer your views with confidence
Approach
This is a cookbook containing plenty of easy-to-follow practical recipes with screenshots that will help you in mastering the Drupal Views module.
Who this book is written for
Drupal 7 Views Cookbook is for developers or technically proficient users who are fairly comfortable with the concepts behind websites and the Drupal environment.
