Research Guide Template ( and more...)

Moving a Research Guide to a templated page
Meebo Boxes
New Easy Database linking
Collapsible Text: Old and New
Quote of the .....

Moving a Research Guide to a templated page

In order to move a current research guide page to a research guide template page, you will want to work through a few steps.

(1) Create the new template

After logging in to Drupal [INFORMATION - About Us - Staff Resources - Staff Login ], click on your user-name up in the top left corner. In the left column, click on the link for "Create content". The new content type you are interested in is Research Guide. Clicking on it will bring you to an edit page. In this edit page you will see the usual body section. Whatever you place in here is what user will see when they first arrive at the page. You also have an option to place an image on this home page using the Image field under the body section. This image will appear left of the body text if there is any or centered if no body text exist.

Other fields to be filled in include:

Subject Librarian ( just start typing in your user name until you can select it)
Meembo Code (described below) - Optional
Option to include a link to writing aids under your profile
Department Websites to appear under your profile information
Subject Indepth links (these links will appear under the main content area and can go to pages you have created or outside websites. )

The remainder of the page is dedicated to the various sections that your Research Guide might include. Each section has its own content editor. For each area with content added, a tab will display at the top of the guide page that will call up the content. The final section allows not only the content, but the tab title to be added.

Hint: to make the edit area larger, you can pull the bottom right corner down.

(2) URL Path Setting (IMPORTANT!)

While you are working on the template, you will want to assign it a URL path different from your current research guide, but easy to remember. Something like subjectareas/business/new or subjectareas/physics/beta . This way you will be able to easily find the page again to make further edits while not disturbing your existing research guide.

(3) Make the Big Move

Once your template is ready for prime time, you will need to make two URL path changes. During the time between the two changes, your research guide will appear broken, so make sure to complete both in short order. First go to your existing research guide and change its URL Path. For example, you might change subjectareas/art to subjectareas/art/old . Then go to your new template page and change its URL path to the former value of your old research guide: subjectareas/art/new -> subjectareas/art .

At this point you should be live! To make sure all went OK, log out and go to http://www.ulib.iupui.edu/research/guide/list . Click on your research guide and enjoy some time moving around in your new template.

MeemBo Boxes

The Research Guide template includes the option to place a MeemBo Chat box in the left column. Before you can take advantage of this you will have to create a MeeBo Me Widget. However, instead of copying the entire code into the template, you will only need to copy and paste a 10 letter identifier.

(1) Create a MeeBoMe Widget

If you don't already, you will first need to create a meebo account at http://www.meebo.com/ . Once in your account go to preferences : meebo me widget.

Then you will want to Add A New Widget. Give your Widget a name. This name is what will appear at the top of your widget. The research guide template is expecting the default configuration of the widget, so no further modifications need be made.

(2) Extract the Identifier

Now for the tricky part. Once your widget is created, the code to embed is found in the Widget Embed: field. You do not want all this code, only a 10 letter identifier. Copy and paste your embed code into a text editor such as notepad. It should look something like the following:

<object width="190" height="275" ><param name="movie" value="http://widget.meebo.com/mm.swf?HXAVlXUaPK"/><embed src="http://widget.meebo.com/mm.swf?HXAVlXUaPK" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" width="190" height="275"></embed></object>

The identifier is what comes after the mm.swf? as highlighted above (HXAVlXUaPK). This is all that should be entered in the MeeBo Code field in the Research Guide template.

New Easy Database linking

A couple of new filters have been added to our Drupal system. When a page is generated by Drupal it will look through the content to be displayed on the page for any "filterable text" that it recognises. If such filterable text exists, it replaces the text with what ever rule the filter tells it to. A new filter has been added that will allow you to easily embed a link and description of a database from the A-Z list . One big advantage of using this route, is that if the link to the database changes, your page will automatically reflect the update.

Here is an example:

[ view:InsertDB==AARP AgeLine (Ovid)]

will produce:

The only difference between the first line and the filtered output is a space between [ and view. The brackets [] are required as is view:InsertDB== . After that the title must match exactly with the title as found in the A-Z list (no parenthesis).

Currently this is the only filter available for displaying our databases, but others can be put in place to display the content differently. Suggestions are welcome and wanted.

Collapsible Text: Old and New

You may have seen through email a description of how using HTML lists, link anchors and class definitions, text can be made collapsible on your webpage. This method, while still available, is a bit rigid and troublesome to implement. A new method for collapsible text is now available using another Drupal filter. While the display takes a bit more space, you can use it to include a much wider range of content.

Here us an example:

[ collapse collapsed]

Collapse Title

some content

[ /collapse]

will produce output such as..

Old Collapsible Text Method

{Taken from email with barely any permission}

Hi, all -

A few people have asked about the code that we used on the new version of the Getting Started page (for example: http://www.ulib.iupui.edu/node/861 ). Here's a quick overview of creating expandable/collapsible links:

When you get started, you need to format all your content as a bulleted or ordered list. (I stuck that in italics because it's the step I kept forgetting.) Items to be hidden should be indented one level below the "visible" content, and it's possible to indent/hide multiple levels of text.

Select the text that you would like to have visible, and click "insert/edit link". Under General Properties, type # in the Link URL box, and select "switch" as the class. (See the attached screen shot.) This should do the trick, and all the bullet points under the text you've selected will be hidden.

Andy's still working on this, so if you run into trouble, he'll be able to help. Stop by if you want me to show you in person. It'll only take a few minutes.

Jessica

The difference between the first tags and the second set is a space between the [ and collapse and the content. Collapsed in the opening tag is optional. If omitted, the content will appear expanded initially, but can be collapsed by clicking the arrow. The title of the collapsible area is taken from the first header tag within the content ( H2 H3 H4 ... ) Header tags are available in the content editor next to the style selector drop down box. Just type the label, highlight, then choose a header tag. You will want to stay way from H1 as this would drowned out the page title. H3 or greater is probably best.

Quote of the .....

Want to put a Quote of the Day/Week/Month/Random? It's possible. Check out Robert Hinton's Communication Studies guide for an example.

Here is how...

{Taken from email with no permission what so ever and modified to suite this purpose}

Subject: RE: Quote Script

I want to add it to my bio. Can you help me with it?

-------------------------------------------------------

Sure!

Right now the quotes need to be stored in a CSV file. Robert and I created the files using Excel. The first column should be the author and the second, the quote. You do not want to add quote marks as the script will take care of that. I would save the original in the default Excel format. Then once you are ready to place the quotes online, do a “Save As” and choose the CSV (Comma Separate Values) format.

This file should then be uploaded into Drupal by logging in , clicking on your username in the top left corner, clicking on the Personal files tab, and Uploading the file.

Once you have the file uploaded, you can go to the Edit tab of your profile, click on Profile Information, and add the Javascript to the Body section. To add the JS, you will need to select the HTML tool as tags in the WYSIWYG editor get converted disabling the script.

The script should look like:

u## - this will be replaced u42 or the such and depends on your user account. You should see this full file path when you hover over the file once uploaded.
filename = the file name you saved.
random can be replaced with day,week, month.

I placed the script at the end of my profile to see how it works. ( http://ulib.iupui.edu/users/andjsmit ).

This method does take a bit of work upfront. If there is enough interest, an updated system where quotes are placed directly into Drupal could be developed. If you have questions on this or any other item on this page, please contact Andy Smith .

You have reached the end. Please feel free to return to the top .

Last updated by andjsmit on 02/06/2009