Heather Rodriguez's presentation for the October UMD Drupal Users Group monthly meeting on creating and customizing content types.

1. Creating and Theming Custom Content Types Heather Rodriguez UMD Drupal Users Group October 5th, 2011

2. What is a Content Type? Node: the most basic unit of content Made up of fields of information (ex. Title, Body, URL, etc.) Nodes belong to content types based on fields they share in common Default content types: article (news), blog entry, basic page, book page, forum and poll

3. Why Create Custom Content Types? Easily and quickly create new nodes that will collect and display the same fields of information Images File upload Text fields Teasers Links etc.

4. Custom Content Type Example Faculty Bios Name Department Areas of Expertise Research Projects Contact Information Educational background

5. Customizing Content Types through Template Overrides Copy the content of node template (/sites/all/theme/node.tpl.php)into a blank file Save as node--your-content-type.tpl.php into the templates folder to override the default node template Two dashes after node for Drupal 7, 1 for 6 You MUST FOLLOW this naming convention Double-check the machine name of your content type

6. Customizing Content Types (cont.) Expose array names for styling <?phpprint_r(array_keys($content)) ?>include Print the arrays that you need to display on the page <?php print render($content [’arraynamehere']) ?> Add your HTML and CSS around the arrays <h3><?php print render($content [’arraynamehere']) ?></h3> or <p class=“paragraphstyle”><?php print render($content[‘arraynamehere’]) ?></p>

7. Flush the Theme Cache! In order to see the effects of your styling, you must empty your theme cache! Configuration > Performance > Clear all caches

8. Customizing Fields To modify a specific field rather than the entire content type (useful for separating field label from field items): Make a new copy of the field template file (field.tpl.php located in Modules < Field < Theme) and put it into your theme’s template folder (Sites < All < Themes <Templates) Put your HTML and CSS around the field label or items, depending on what you want to modify Save file as field-- field_machinename.tpl.php

9. Tips You can use these same methods of template overrides for Views, Forms, Pages, etc. as well For a full list of possible tpl.php overrides, check out Drupal 7 Template Suggestions: http://drupal.org/node/1089656 Don’t forget to save template overrides in your theme folder! If you don’t see any changes, flush the theme cache. Watch Lin Clark’s Intro to Drupal 7: Theming Fields and Nodes with Templates: http://youtu.be/sxZQqgvJk3s