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As we start 2009 I want to share some knowledge about how I keep up with what's going on in the Drupal community. Keeping up with the Drupal community is important to me because.I believe that in order to be successful in mastering Drupal you need to immerse your self in the world of Drupal.

One of the best ways to immerse yourself in Drupal is to keep track of the various sites where Drupal is discussed on a regular basis. I choose to keep track of my sites of choice by subscribing to RSS feeds. The concept of RSS may be new to people who are just getting started in web development. For the benefit of those people I've embedded a screencast below that shows how you can get started with RSS by using Google Reader.

• Drupal.org Main Page - These are items posted to Drupal.org that get promoted to the main page of the site. These are usually very useful stories.
• Drupal Search on Twitter - Lists all recent posts on Twitter that mention Drupal. This updates very frequently and will contain a lot of "noise" but can help you to find interesting people who are working with Drupal.
• Drupal Planet - An aggregation of a large number of Drupal oriented posts combined into one feed.
• Drupal on Delicious - Returns the latest 25 bookmarks saved on Delicious that were tagged with drupal.

There are lots more potential Drupal oriented feeds out there on sites like Flickr, YouTube and many others. I've found the four in my list to be the most interesting and/or helpful. Feel free to add feeds that you think are worth mentioning in the comments.

Google Reader Screencast

This video screencast will help you learn more about using Google Reader.

Every so often I'll get a question from a user who is new to Drupal about nodes. "What is a node?" they want to know. Nodes are explained on Drupal.org as, "...any posting, such as a page, poll, story, forum text, or blog entry." That description is close but not every post on a Drupal site is a node. Comments (as the Drupal.org item mentions) are not nodes. Neither are user profiles.

The Difference Between Nodes And Other Content

Nodes contain at a minimum a title and most likely a body (or description) field. You actually have the option to not use the description field at all. All standard node types on a Drupal site contain a title and a body. You can add additional fields  (like email address, date or url) to your node types using the Content Construction Kit (CCK) module. You can create new node types altogether by using the core feature located at admin/content/types/add. This allows you to create a new type of node which can be customized by utilizing CCK.

Other content, like comments, profiles or the registration form, won't necessarily contain a title and body field. Another difference is that other content may not be indexed by the standard Drupal search functionality. User profiles are not indexed by Drupal search. Neither are items captured by the core aggregator module. Comments are indexed by Drupal search as a standard feature starting with Drupal 6.

Two more important node features are comments and attachments. Comments can be enabled (or disabled if you like) for every node type. Likewise you can attach files (like documents or images) to nodes as well. Finally, the standard Drupal statistics system will only keep track of node views.

What This Means To The Drupal Site Builder

So you've got these nodes and there are these other types of content floating out there. How does it affect how you build and manage your site? There are a world of options available when it comes to nodes.  So you  really need to consider the limitations of the types of content that aren't nodes. Let's look at the case of user profiles.

User profiles are not searchable and cannot be customized by CCK. If you don't plan to rely on user profiles as an important feature of your site then you probably won't care about this issue. Those that do care about the issue usually look for a work around like a nice contributed module. The content profile module can help you make profiles available as nodes.

Imported content is another issue. The standard aggregator module lists imported items but does not offer a permanent link, search indexing or the ability to add comments to the items that you have imported. If you really want to build your site around aggregated content then you will probably want to investigate contributed modules like Activity Stream or Feed API.

There can be a down side to turing certain types of content into nodes. As you add more and more content as nodes your site performance could be negatively impacted. So the balance between everything as nodes and the potential performance and maintenace issues should be considered.

How To Know When You've Created A Node

You know that content is a node when it is created by going to the node/add link on your Drupal site. I mentioned that for two reasons. First, it's a simple way to know if a node is created. Second, it's because pages don't necessarily have to be nodes.

There are pages that are created by going to the link node/add/page on your site. Those pages are nodes. They will be indexed by search, can have file attachments, comments, etc. You can also create a page which contains a list of nodes by using the Views module. It is very important to understand that distinction.

Why You Might Not Care

If you're building a very basic site that simply relies on the standard content types (like blog, page, story, poll, forum post) then whether or not content is considered a node should not be important to you. If that's the case then have no worries.

As I stated above it could become an issue if you plan to do more complex things like making use of imported (aka aggregated) content and complex user profiles.

Comments Welcome

Since this is a blog post, which means (hooray!) it's a node, you can and should leave comments if the concept continues to confuse or otherwise perplex you.

Content Construction Kit (CCK) is one the most important and at the same time most mystifying features of the Drupal platform. In this drop I'll provide a high level overview explanation of CCK and why you might want to use it on your site.

What is CCK?

CCK is a contributed module that allows you to:

1. Add fields to an existing Drupal content type
2. Create new custom content types

Drupal Content Types

It's important to understand a bit about Drupal content types. Drupal comes standard with blog, page and story content types. The main difference between these content types is the way they are organized by the system.

• Blogs are associated with a particular user and will be listed at 'http://www.yoursite.com/blog' which shows all blog posts by all users. Blogs will also be listed on page that shows only posts by a particular user. The url for those pages may be something like 'http://www.yoursite.com/blogs/[username]'.
• Pages will simply have a url " and not show up in any lists unless you take some sort of action to do add them to a list.
• Stories are like pages except that they are automatically promoted to the front page.

The common thread across these three types of content types is that by default they contain two fields called Title and Body. But what if you want to expand a content type to add more fields? That's where CCK comes in.

Adding Fields

CCK allows you to add one or more fields to an existing content type. There are a number of reasons why you might want to do that. You could add fields to improve your workflow. If you're publishing video you might want to add a link to the video each time you post. Adding a field that is required when you submit ensures that you won't forget to add the link. See my post Adding Fields With CCK for an example.

You could also add a field to make it easier for you to organize or theme your content later. When a piece of information is entered into the body field you can't really sort that piece of information or use it if you want to create a list using views. But once a piece of information has it's own field you have much more flexibility. Using the video publishing as an example once again you might add a field that displays the duration of a video that is linked to a post.

Creating New Content Types

If you want ultimate flexibility in customizing your content types then you can use CCK to create a whole new content type that meets your specifications. Imagine that you want to be able to add information about your favorite DVDs to your Drupal site. The title and body fields probably won't meet your needs. You might want fields that list the Director of the movie, the top stars, release date, rating, an image, a link to the trailer and more. CCK was tailor made for things like this.

How Does CCK Work?

Many people are confused about how exactly to put CCK to use on their own website. You get started by downloading the module from http://drupal.org/project/cck but you will likely have to do more. The power of CCK is in the types of fields that it allows you to add to a content type. The contributed module includes several standard fields (like text and node reference) included but many of the fields you would want to add to your content type must be downloaded and enabled separately.

Here are some additional fields that are listed on the CCK module page on Drupal.org:

• Computed field: lets you add a PHP-driven "computed field" to CCK node types
• Date: creates an ISO or unix timestamp date field
• Email: validated email field
• Image field: an image field
• Link: a URL field

There are many other fields that you could use to customize your content type. These can be found in the CCK modules section on Drupal.org. Some of the interesting fields that you might want to add are listen below.

• Addresses
• Fivestar (content ratings)
• Slideshow Creator
• Video Upload (for YouTube) 

What Next?

Your new content type is basically a list of fields that are ordered a certain way. Creating a new content type and adding fields is only part of the work you'll need to do in order to make CCK work for you on your Drupal site. Each field that you add has settings that must be attended to. You may also be concerned with how the new content type is displayed when you publish a node. The Contemplate module allows you to adjust the layout and customize the appearance of content types. If the content type you have created is brand new then you will need to use the Views module to create a page, block or RSS feed for the content.

Another thing to consider when creating a new content type is the path to the nodes that you create. By default content created on your Drupal site will have a path that looks something like 'http://www.yoursite.com/node/24'. If you're submitting the DVD content type that I mentioned above you might want to the path to be something like 'http://www.yoursite.com/dvd/[movie-title]. That's why I highly recommend the PathAuto module for automatic node url creation.

CCK Screenshots

These are screenshots that show what CCK features look like in the adminstration section of this site.

I receive a fair amount of inquiries from people who are in the process of building out video based communities on top of the Drupal platform. The most important questions center around the functionality related to uploading, transcoding and storing video. What modules or techniques can be used to fully integrate community submitted video to a Drupal site?

The Basics 

It's important to note that there are three basic functions that need to take place in order to have a fully integrated video community built on Drupal. Users will need to upload videos. Those videos usually get transcoded to Adobe Flash on the server so that they can be presented in a web based player. The video then needs to be stored and delivered on demand from a server.

There's no one single way that Drupal supports the three functions required to power a video based community. So it's on the site developer to do some research and testing to figure out the method that will work best for them.

Budget Makes A Difference

I think that the method you will use to accomplish the development of a video based community will depend greatly on  the budget you have set for building the site. The most expensive option would allow you to simply hire a Drupal-savvy developer to code a custom module that will assist with uploading, transcoding and transporting the video to a content delivery network or CDN. Less expensive options would include utilizing existing Drupal modules or integrating with a video service that has the ability to plug in to Drupal via an API. No matter what you budget I believe that your first step will involve researching the options available today. I accent the word today because the world of Drupal is ever changing. So if the module or API you need doesn't exist today it could very well exist tomorrow.

Tackle Storage and Delivery First

As far as I'm concerned it makes the most sense to figure out your video storage and delivery provider first. One reason this is so important is that your storage and delivery will greatly affect the performance of your site. And if your site is slow or frequently unavailable chances are users won't spend too much time there. Another important issue is cost. Storage and delivery of video can be very expensive. So shopping around for a reasonable deal is very important. 

If you decide to handle storage and delivery yourself you will either manage your own servers, contract with a CDN, or do a combination of both. The other option is to plug in to a service that is already geared towards the storage and delivery of video. Such a service might also handle transcoding to Flash as well.

Dealing With CDNs

A CDN will assist you with storing and delivering your content to users on the web. A true CDN will spread your content among multiple servers around the world in order to facilitate the most efficient delivery of your media. Some CDNs focus on delivering downloads, while others focus on web streaming. Some do both. In creating a video community you will want to focus on a company that specializes in streaming content over the web.

You're going to need a lot of time and patience when researching CDNs. There are many (list on Wikipedia) that exist today and the field is growing. Growth is good as it helps to expand the feature set and force down the price. But there's also a risk as smaller, newer services could fail and cause you serious problems later if that happens. Prices and service features vary widely as well. I've been involved in discussions with reps for CDNs and in some cases nailing down a price is near impossible. Prices will be based on the amount of content stored and delivered. Prices do vary widely so it would be worth your time to log quotes that you receive and compare them to see who is offering the best deals.

Some people will use Amazon S3 for storage and delivery of the media from their Drupal sites. It is imporant to note that while the Amazon service is an attractive one in terms of pricing and ease of use, it is not a true CDN. The good news is that Amazon is working on a new content delivery service that could be a game changer in the CDN space.

Powering Video Via API

An Application Programming Interface or API will allow your Drupal site to connect with a third party service that can perform transcoding storage and delivery of your media. These APIs simplify to process of building a video community but they may also come at a cost. You probably won't have control over the quality of video that is transcoded. The final videos may also have video advertisments included unless you agree to pay for the service. This is an option to consider if you have a small budget and want to get started quickly.

The new YouTube API allows for video to be submitted from third-party sites. A module has been committed for Drupal 5 and there are a number of discussions on the topic over at Drupal.org. So while there appears to be no locked in solution for Drupal and YouTube at the moment, integration can be accomplished if you work with a developer who knows Drupal pretty well. 

A company called KickApps offers a single sign on (SSO) module for Drupal 4, 5 and 6. According to KickApps the SSO module allows you to create a seamless experience, which theoretically will allow users to upload videos to the KickApps service then display them on your site. The KickApps service is free if you allow advertisements but you can also pay them to "buy out" the advertising inventory.

Brightcove is one of the larger players in the online video services space. They offer integration services that can assist you with connecting Drupal to their video platform. Brightcove helps major corporations manage, store and deliver internet video so expect the price tag for integrating with their system to be on the high end. But if you have the money to spend my experience with Brightcove has been that they have got first class tools to help you manage a video community.

A Drupal Solution

If you're on a budget or are planning a smaller community that doesn't need the power of a third party service then you can build a video based community with Drupal. Check out the following modules.

FlashVideo - Travis Tidwell has built a module called FlashVideo that handles upload, transcoding and storage of video. The module is supported on Drupal 5 and 6. More recent versions allow video to be shipped off to Amazon S3 for storage and delivery. Travis has posted a very detailed tutorial on the setup and usage of this module.The module appears to do many things that video community builders will want so it is definitely worth a look.

Media Mover - This module assists with some of the background work related to storing and processing video. The most notable feature is that it will transport a video from your server to the Amazon S3 storage service and insert the proper link into your site.

Twistage - This module provides for integration with the Twistage video hosting service.

Video - This is an older module that handles upload and presentation of video files. The module also includes very basic play count statistics. This module will embed a video in your site but does not transcode the video to flash prior to doing so. A demo of this modules functionality can be seen here.

There's More

This post isn't intended to cover every tool, technique or module that can help you build a video community with Drupal. My hope is that those looking for a place to start or some direction will find this helpful. Your links to other tools and services or general suggestions about building video communities with Drupal are welcome in the comments.

On many sites communities begin with comments. And the comment features found in Drupal are deep enough that they can help you turn a website into a community.

Drupal not only contains many comment related features but also settings for each content type contained within your Drupal install. So you can have different comment settings for blog posts and pages for example. The screenshots below show the standard comment settings for Drupal.

Comment Settings

The standard comment settings contain many options to help you customize the experience for your users. You dcomments can be  threaded discussions or flat. When comments are flat each comment always appears after the previous one. Threaded discussion allow users to reply to specific comments and those replies are grouped together.

As of Drupal 6 comments are searchable. So when users search your site the returned results may include information contained in the comments. You can also provide a field that allows people to enter a title for their comment, which makes the comments have the feel of a forum. If you allow anonymous comments you can also choose to require that commenters provide contact information.

Protecting Comments

The access controls within Drupal give you the option to only make comments available to those who have registered for an account on your site. This feature provides you a certain amount of protection against malicious comments. Limiting comments to registered users can reduce the amount of comments you receive. You also have the option of editing the overall permissions for commenters so that all posted comments (or only those posted by anonymous users) will be held for approval. An example of the comment management queue is shown in the picture at left.

You can allow anonymous comments and still be protected if you add comment protection modules like Akismet or Mollom. Both of these modules call back to a central server to prevent comments that they think might be spam. I've tried both and they work well and can help keep your site protected.

A simpler option for protecting comments involves presenting a visual riddle to ensure that the poster is a human and not a machine.The captcha and recaptcha modules will add such a riddle at the end of your comment submission forms. Users must type in the correct word presented in order to successfully submit their comment. It's worth noting that captchas are not fool proof and some users get annoyed when presented with a captcha.

Extending Comment Functions

Drupal has plenty of modules that can help you add features to make comments more compelling. Comment RSS provides an RSS feed of comments for your site and for individual nodes. Comment Closer lets you shut down the comments on a particular node after a given amount of time. Comment Notify allows users to be notified automatically via email of follow up comments on a node.Comment Subscribe offers similar features to Comment Notify but allows you to only subscribe to direct replies of a particular comment.

A relatively new service called Disqus offers the ability to totally replace the Drupal comment system with a comment system manage on their servers. The Disqus module allows site owners to make that switch. Spam protection is then handled by Disqus but you also lose the ability of Drupal 6 to index the comments so that they may appear in your search results.

Tools For Site Administrators

There are a few different tools that can help a site adminstrator to stay on top of comments. By subscribing to the previously mentioned Comment RSS module you can stay abreast of recent site comments in your RSS feed reader. You could also use the comment RSS feed to create a widget (using a site like Widgetbox) that can be posted on another site or social network.

In Drupal 6 You can set up triggers and actions to generate an email each time a comment is posted on your site. The Subscriptions module appears to provide similar functionality. The Watcher module (currently only Drupal 5) allows node authors to receive notificatons of new comments via email.

Administrators also have to option of placing a recent comments block on their site. The recent comments block is a standard option in the block administration view for a Drupal install. When activated, the block will display a link to the ten most recently posted comments on your site in reverse chronological order.