Encore Symposiums launches new site on Drupal 6
Posted 5 months ago in Drupal
Yesterday, we launched Encore Symposiums on the Drupal 6 platform. The group had previously been on a homebrew CMS, and came to Jon and I with hopes of a platform that would allow them to manage every aspect of their site. Drupal fit the bill nicely.
The site provides nearly 20 custom content types, built with the Content Construction Kit. We used several views throughout the site, but will be converting the remaining few to custom code for increased scalability and efficiency.
We used SlideShow Pro for the homepage seminar teaser, wired up to an XML feed generated by Drupal.
We also built-in integration with Google Checkout to allow registrants to sign up for seminars right on the site.
Check it out and let us know what you think!
12 Comments
It's a beautiful site!
May I ask how the registration works? Is it a contrib module or custom built?
Thanks! The registration form was a combination of the Webform module and some custom code to integrate with Google Checkout.
Nick
Nice work and really beautiful designed theme.
Really good, came together nicely. Looks like fun stuff to work on as well, I'm working on something similar (if we exclude the registration part.) :)
"The site provides nearly 20 custom content types, built with the Content Construction Kit. We used several views throughout the site, but will be converting the remaining few to custom code for increased scalability and efficiency."
Nick, I'd love if you might go into a little more detail on this. When I look at your symposiums type, I'm trying to understand the best way of doing templates like this.
http://www.escrnas.com/symposiums
http://www.escrnas.com/content/santa-fe-2008
I'm used to a CMS like EE, where you create a content type (define the fields, just like in CCK). Then create templates which pull the fields into html you specify.
My plan was to go down the path of creating a custom style for views 2, but I'm not quite sure that's the right answer, especially in light of your comment.
-Cameron
@VROwners,
The individual Symposium view itself is simply node-symposium.tpl.php where I build the HTML according to content that I know might exist.
The listing of Symposiums is just some custom code in template.php to pull the content out of the database.
I find Views to be overly complicated and unnecessary in many cases. Views really only shines when you've got someone who's not a programmer running the site.
This probably isn't in-depth enough to help you much, but if I get a moment I'll write up a blog post in more detail.
Thanks!
Nick
Nick, I'm really interested in the slideshowpro integration with drupal 6. I see that there is a module (slideshowpro integration) but it's for drupal 5.
Can you explain how you create/connect your xml feed to slideshowpro?
Wes,
SSP is wired up to ingest an XML feed generated by some custom code in our Drupal installation.
I can post that code as soon as I get a minute.
Nick
Nick, that would be great! thanks.
It looks great. I am thinking about switching my site to drupal. How hard was it to move to a different cms?
P. Monroe,
It wasn't too hard. If you're new to Drupal, checkout my 3-part tutorial on going from zero-to-hero with Drupal:
Part 1 (installation), Part 2 (site setup), Part 3 (theming)
Nick
Thank you very much for this useful article Nick. I like your site ;)
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