Adding Important Contributed Modules
Lesson Four of my special Getting Started With Drupal series of instructional videos.
This video provides guidance on downloading, installing and configuring several contributed modules from Drupal.org. These key modules are some of the most important ones to add no matter what type of site you want to build with Drupal.
- Mollom for spam protection
- PathAuto for configurable automated URLs
- FCKEditor for WYSIWYG post editing
- IMCE for uploading images to insert into posts
- Poor Mans Cron for easy execution of the Drupal cron file
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Comments
Hi
Hi, just to let you know you missed a dash in the Getting Started link ;)
Thanks for your tutorials! (didn't watch this one though)
Dash?
There is no dash in the getting started link. It's all one word. http://learnbythedrop.com/gettingstarted.
whoops
that was careless. I thought I clicked the link but apparently I typed 'gettingstarted' in another open tab at drupal.org instead of your site.
Live Saver
Your videos really helped me figure Drupal out since I am much more of a monkey see monkey do kinda guy. I wish Drupal.org featured your videos, I bet a lot more people would get into it than be intimidated by it. You made my life easier as I am sure thousands of others, lots of good karma heading your way.
Thank you very much. it's my
Thank you very much. it's my first day within Drupal World, and I found these video tutorials being very helpful ! Many Thanks Guys ! Keep it up !
Drupal Learning Process
Rob,
I was thrown in at the deep end with Drupal, some 7 weeks ago... I have been charged with building a web site for my Corps that I served with in the Australian Army in the Vietnam war, all those years ago.. So, I have disclosed my age but I am so very happy that I have come across your site... Even though there is plenty of documentation available on Drupal, at my age I have learnt, that simplicity works.. I wish to thank you and not am I only here to learn but I am here to stay... Thank you again..
Regards
Barry
Hi Rob, thanks for all your
Hi Rob, thanks for all your helpful videos. I'm totally new to the website developing world ( I don't even know if "developing" is the right term) and I can understand and enjoy all your tutorials! I couldn't have found a better place to learn Drupal...Thanks again
Glad to help. Best of luck
Glad to help. Best of luck with all of your Drupal development efforts.
Cron Problem
Hello, firstly thanks for these! finding them great, I have a problem though...
I followed the instructions, everything's cool up until poormanscron, when I go to status report, I have the exclamation sign next to Drupal core update status, with "No update available" in the column next to it. There is also no module and theme update status in between GD library and MySQL database, what have I done wrong?!
(also - I've just logged in to create this post, and now the videos no longer appear, when I click "watch" it takes me to another page of videos, but any time I click "watch" again there is no video, just a description of the content and the video links tab - but when I log out, the video appears again?! - why is this?)
Thank you!!!
Poor Mans Cron
First off, that viewing videos while logged in is fixed. I had the permission on that field set incorrectly for logged in users.
As for the Drupal update status, first check to see that the "Update Status" module is enabled. Second, check your cron intervals in the settings for poormanscron at admin/settings/poormanscron. Assuming that Update Status is enabled, poormanscron will only run on the first page load after the interval time specified in your settings.
If not set already, set "Log successful cron runs:" to Yes so that you'll be able to get confirmation that cron has run in the Drupal logs.
Great...
Thanks for getting back so quick! I'll have a look through all that, just going through the premium video, when I go to the home page and my first example blog post is there, I notice I have the delete post option, but it isn't there on the video. Will all users see this, how can i remove it?
Thanks again
HTTP request status
Hi,
these tutorials are really great,
please help me with one problem...
In status report ..I m getting HTTP request status as FAILS....
what do I need to change?
thanks
emjey
Status report - HTTP request status fails
Hello,
Thanks for the videos. I am new to Drupal and these are really helpful.
I am getting the same problem as posted above. The status report in my Drupal site indicates 'fail' for HTTP request status. How should I fix this?
Any help is appreciated.
Thanks
Divya
I'm not sure what is causing
I'm not sure what is causing it but you should try the following recommendation to see if you can get past it. http://drupal.org/node/245990#comment-1312270
Performance of Drupal???
Rob, The videos are great! Thanks so much for posting them. I have been installing Drupal and following along with your videos.
My Drupal runs perfectly fine, except for one thing. When I click on Administer, it is extreeeeemely slow. Don't know what I did wrong. Clicking on anthing else is fast enough, only when I click on the actual 'Administer' link, it seems to slow down tremendously. Any thoughts???
FCKE Editor
How do Rob!
Loving the site - i know that with a combination of this site and a couple of books that i bought this weekend ill be well on the way to achieving the awesome sites that i have in my head!
I installed FCKE editor in line with this lesson and it worked great - but then it came to the adding rich content lesson and i think i maybe clicked a button and now the formatting buttons dont appear and text in the add content boxes appear in HTML.
I can't find what ive done wrong! Have you got any ideas?
Formatting Buttons
If FCKEditor has disappeared, and it sounds like it has, the first thing I would do is check the settings for FCKEditor (admin/settings/fckeditor)to see that that there is a profile assigned to the appropriate role. In this case you would probably want to have a profile that is assigned to the authenticated user which is a standard level of access with a new drupal install. Please see http://learnbythedrop.com/drop/27 for more details on FCKEditor.
General Module questions
Hi guys!
just another thought......
Im most concerned about adding modules when i don't know much about programming. Im one of those people that will happily play with settings not really knowing what im doing but think that this ethos could see me in a bit of trouble!
Is there a recommended protocol for installing modules and testing them? And learning the pit falls of too many button clicks?
Cheers!
K
Adding Modules
One piece of advice I'll give is to recommend that you have two sites. Have a sandbox (or test) site that allows you to try new things out before you try them on live sites whose functions are important to you.
One more tip is to check the issue queue of the module. Sometimes by reviewing issues you can tell if the module works well or not.
wysiwyg gone crazy
well... due to a mistake i made making a backup, i had to go start over, so this time i figured i would skip the imce/fckeditor installation sequence in this tutorial, and skip to what i ended up having to do to get it to work eventually last time due to the issue that arose in the later embedding rich media lesson, and all seemed perfect (got it all together on the first try, no problems - browse button there just as it should be, etc.)
well, now i realize i must have missed something, because while it looks like it is working fine, it is not. when i create pages, the fckeditor wysiwyg panel shows up, but whatever you do to the content with it does not carry over (images disappear, text formatting comes over with the html tags instead of just doing it - i.e. if you bold something, it shows it as being bolded, but when you get to the resulting page, it is word
what did i miss?
Check Input Formats
The first thing I can suggest is to check your input format for your nodes. See the following post for more details on input formats. http://learnbythedrop.com/drop/78
FCK editor
Hello ,
I am new to Drupal and i would like to know what can i do to change the background color of the editing area from black to white , i don't know why it is black not white.
Thanks
FCKEditor Color
It could be your theme. If you switch to the Garland theme does the editor color change to white? The following post on Drupal.org points to a page that has some other tips. http://drupal.org/node/338712
FCKeditor
hey Rob,
I am really grateful to you for putting up these videos, i had clearly follwed your lessons, installed fckeditor then reached the lesson of installing videos and images and after going to install mp3 music, i found that my fckeditor doesn't appear.I have tried all means but in vain the plain text appears.what went wrong?
Troubleshooting FCKeditor
It's hard to know exactly what went wrong. You may want to back out the editor by removing the files and disabling and uninstalling the FCKeditor module. Then you can use the WYSIWYG API which seems to simplify things a great deal. See the following video. http://learnbythedrop.com/drop/144
Browse Button
I went thur every step from this vedio and the all the vedios after this one.. but i still cant get the browse button when u click to upload an image or file...
Can you tell me why??
There are some problems with
There are some problems with IMCE and FCKEditor. See the following comment for info on getting the Browse button enabled with FCKEditor. http://learnbythedrop.com/drop/144#comment-635
vista!
christ on a bike - i cannot for the life of me get wamp/php to run on vista - been in the wamp forums and every body seems to have their own particular issue none of which have related to the problem i am having. does anyone, anyone, know how to get wamp running on vista 32. i have cleared IIS and port 80 is wide open etc...help me Obi Wan you're my only hope?
Try Other Installers
Like many people I skipped Vista so I don't know why. Perhaps you might want to try another Drupal local installer such as the Acquia Drupal Stack Installer. http://learnbythedrop.com/drop/143
Enabling Modules
Firstly, I'd like to say thanks for making such detailed and informative videos - they really help beginners like me get to grips with Drupal!
I wonder if you can help me with a little problem I have? I've followed all your instructions, but am having issues when it comes to enabling the modules and clicking 'save configuration'; the subsequent page appears to be loading but then only displays a blank page (with the URL /admin/build/modules/list/confirm). If I refresh this page, it asks to resend the data and doesn't work. However, if I click in the address bar and navigate to that URL manually, it then seems to remember the first module I enabled. (And ONLY the first module for some reason!)
In order to enable all the modules, I have to follow this process:
- Enable (tick) a single module
- Click 'save configuration' and wait for page to go blank
- Click in the address bar and navigate to /admin/build/modules/list/confirm
- Repeat the process for each module, one at a time.
So I can manage to enable the modules eventually, but it's a long and arduous process that should be a lot simpler! Do you have any idea what may be causing this and how I could fix it?
Any help would be much appreciated.
Thanks once again,
Liam
Enabling Modules
That sounds like more than a little problem. Enabling modules should work without the need for any workarounds. There may be files missing from your install or there may be a problem with the configuration of your web server. I've never seen or heard of that before. I think that your best bet would be to also post this on Drupal.org.
Where is "Poormanscron"?
Hi Rob,
I have been following your "Getting Started With Drupal" series from Lesson One to this Lesson Four. Excellent work I must say! I have already recommended your site to some other Drupal 'users-to-be' that I know.
Here is what is stumping me. At precisely "31:50" in your video, you instruct the user to go to "Poormanscron" in the "administration by module page". The issue for me is that this module is not being displayed. I have no idea why. I installed it properly (so I thought) and it does shows up under "Home » Administer » Site building » Modules" (with a check mark on it if that helps to know".
Any suggestions? I can't configure what I can not access. :-)
Here is something else I noticed (not sure if it relates). I do not recall you mentioning (up to this point in the lessons) how to setup cron to run automatically. That being the case, I have not set it up yet (nor do I know how).
Thank you for your help in advance!
Best, Tom Isabelle
Running Cron
Not sure why it doesn't show on the 'administer by module' page because it should. To access Poormanscron try going directly to the url /admin/settings/poormanscron to see if the configuration page appears. If it does not then the module is not installed correctly. What I would recommend at that point is to uninstall the module, delete the directory from your sites/all/modules directory on your ftp site, download the latest version of poormanscron from Drupal.org and then go about attempting to install again. If it still doesn't work I would take a look at the issue queue for the module on Drupal.org to see if anyone has had a similar problem.
As far as setting up cron to run automatically, poormanscron is supposed to do that for you. In the absence of poormanscron you would set up a cron job in the admin panel of your web hosting account. The process differs from web host to web host. Some hosts offer a simple form to do it and for others it's a more technical process. Check your host's support forum or website to see if they have guidelines for setting up cron jobs.
/admin/settings/poormanscron
Hi Rob,
I was able to get to the directory as suggested: url /admin/settings/poormanscron
It shows up "Site configuration" at the top of the page. How can I know that 'poormanscron' is running properly by this page? it just shows a page with the following sub-menus:
Actions
Manage the actions defined for your site.
Administration theme
Settings for how your administrative pages should look.
...
Checking Cron Runs
Look at your recent log entries (/admin/reports/dblog) and filter on the message type 'cron'. If cron is running then you would see a message in the log each time it runs. If you don't have a log file then check to make sure that the core Database Logging module is enabled. Settings for Database Logging are located at /admin/settings/logging/dblog.
I had the same thing happen
I had the same thing happen with Poormanscron and came across this on the Poormanscron download page:
"Upgrading from the 6.x-1.x versions of poormanscron is fully supported. Note that there is no longer an admin/settings/poormanscron with settings for Poormanscron. There is only the Automatically run cron setting on your admin/settings/site-information page."
So apparently it is just doing it's job quietly behind the scenes and it's normal for it not to appear in "administration by module page". (Unless I am misinterpreting this information.)
And Rob, this site is fantastic. Thank you so much for all the information you're sharing here.
Gene
Problem with Contributed Modules Showing up
Please help, I currently have a site set up on my local host, and everything appears to be running fine with my wamp server. The only issue I'm having is really bugging me, is that my contributed modules are not appearing in my admin/modules area.
I am wondering if there is an Apache module and must turn on, or something of that nature. I'm all out of ideas, please help
Contributed Module Visibility
Sounds like the modules are not in the right folder. Double check that your modules, the unzipped versions of the modules, are located within the sites/all/modules folder. For example, the files for the Views module should be located in sites/all/modules/views.
Problem with FCKeditor
After installing fckeditor and going to FCKeditor Settings I see this:
Fatal error: require_once() [function.require]: Failed opening required 'sites/all/modules/fckeditor/fckeditor.admin.inc' (include_path='.;C:\php5\pear') in C:\wamp\www\drupal2\includes\menu.inc on line 346
It's strange because FCKeditor is enabled in Modules> Other.
Thanks,
Sergi
FCKEditor Problems
I don't think it's FCKEditor. It sounds to me like something is not right with your WAMP install. Here's the question. Is Pear installed at C:\php5\pear? Because I think that although the system thinks it's there it is not. I found a blog post that discusses this issue and may help you get it fixed. http://shubhamoy.wordpress.com/2009/04/09/fix-pear-installation-on-wamp-...
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