| Attribute | Average |
|---|---|
| Features | 4.82 / 5 |
| Reliability | 4.73 / 5 |
| Ease Of Use | 3.73 / 5 |
| Documentation | 4.18 / 5 |
| Vote Count | 11 |
The views module provides a flexible method for Drupal site designers to control how lists of content (nodes) are presented. Traditionally, Drupal has hard-coded most of this, particularly in how taxonomy and tracker lists are formatted. This tool is essentially a smart query builder that, given enough... [More...]
| Maintainer: | merlinofchaos |
| Links: | |
| Categories: | Content display, Views |
| Version | Date | Files | Release notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| 6.x-2.0-beta2 | 2008-Apr-25 | Download | Recommended for 6.x |
| 5.x-1.6 | 2007-Jul-14 | Download | Recommended for 5.x |
| 4.7.x-1.6 | 2007-Jul-14 | Download | Recommended for 4.7.x |
Options: Add a review
This module is one of the most useful tools on a Drupal website. Extracting items from a database is sometimes a complicated task, but views make this process much easier. Although the UI of Views 1 is a bit hard to get used to, it is usable. And the functionality far outways this deterrent. Views 2, on the other hand is a whole new experience. It is quite easy to use, and has a lot of new features. Views 2 uses a "no page re-load" method of adding filters and arguments which makes building queries much faster. Overall, views is a great tool and almost necessary on a site of any magnitude.
Obviously Views is one of the most important modules in the Drupal-verse, and needs no introduction, but don't forget to try out Views Theme Wizard, which is packaged with it. With a few clicks you can generate a sample template that can be used as a starting point to make your View look however you like it. Using this module you can easily make your sites look nothing like the default Drupal templates (not that those are bad, it's just good to have options).
Views is a must for any drupal website that is something more than single-user blog or static content page.
You can build sortable lists of your content, random artcile blocks, list with specific filters (and you can publish filters for users) and much more with it.
I use views in near every webpage, and don't like 2 things:
* you cannot use views to make list from user and profile.module data
* interface for building views is complex and requires a lot of clicks and page reloads.
I had to add a review here because it should be right up there on the Highest Rated list :) It looks like somewhere down the line Views will be in core. Until then, it should be strongly advised that people use this module for anything more than the most simple sites.
Views is core material, no doubt. When you are starting up in Drupal, definitely install Views. Views lets you create views of of your content of all sorts. You can discriminate on numerous criteria (content type, date, a category term, etc). Combined with other modules (such as CCK) you can even show content based on your own custom fields, like "Best Deal" or "Kid's Only" for example.
You may want to install Views Bonus Pack right along with it. It contains some additional Views templates for showing grid based views or Panels based views for example. This will save you a lot of hassle when you want to show nodes (products, items, pages etc) in a columned layout.
There is also the View theme wizard option which will generate three bits of code: a template file, a PHP snippet and a CSS file ready to deploy inside your theme. This will allow you to override the LIST view type and take full control in how your view looks and what to show. Too bad this doesn't work for the other view types. Also the View theme wizard generates a separate function for each View. This will result in a bulky template.php rapidly.
Views are documented over the net extensively. No need to seek very far.
Views will get you to show data in many ways you can imagine. Taking arguments into account, Views will let you show almost anything. Views also has its boundaries, which you will run into once you get moving. Nonetheless part of your Drupal Swiss Army Knive!
Byelex | Imre Gmelig Meijling | Netwatmeer.nl
If you use any contrib modules at all, this is certainly going to be the first one you will want. I use it on all client sites.
If you have a Drupal site that has more content types than the basic content types like Blog, Forum, Page, Story then you must install views to render the contents in a coherent fashion. Not only with CCK Views is a great module in itself.
In database a view shortly is a customized representation of the data in the database similarly the views module lets you present the information you have in your Drupal site in the way you want to. The option of Page and or block view makes it very easy to show data in correct format. The page views have a URL also. Custom header, footer and menu are other great features added in view.
You can specify what fields to show and the filters make a site admins' life very easy as you can precisely show what you want to from content types to dates to anything. On top of that content display can be sorted and filters can even be exposed.
Amazing flexibility can be achieved by the arguments, for example I got the RSS for forums only (see here) using views. Custom RSS or any other feature is enabled by arguments of views. So you must use views.
Geshan
Basically a must have for 99% of Drupal sites.
I ranked it 4/5 for features since AFAIK you can only make a list of nodes (for instance it is not possible to make a list of taxonomy terms).
This module is great for quickly generating things like top ten lists or recent comment blocks. It also integrates with a number of different modules, and is actually a prerequisite for some of them.
Views has a lot of depth, and you can get into some complex territory playing with argument handling code.
Theming Views also offers a lot of possibilities, but it can be difficult for the beginner. This difficulty is somewhat offset by the inclusion of an automated code generator.
The SQL generated internally by Views is not optimized for speed. If you need ultra-high performance, you'll probably want to write a dedicated module.
Overall, Views offers a quick solution to a lot of common "I wish Drupal had this" problems, and that alone makes it worthy of your attention.
The views module is by far the most important and useful module I use on my sites. It makes combining and display a collection of nodes so easy and fast that I don't know what I'd do without it.
The only module that comes close is CCK.
I look forward to both Views and CCK being upgraded to Drupal 6.1.
If you have a block that shows posts, latest topics, most commented, or a page that shows posts, chances are you need views to do it. It gives you fine grained control to sort and define what content you wish to show. Combine this with CCK, Drupal now becomes a powerful CMS.
"I got this module working today and it is an excellent addition. Some time back, I tried to install FCKeditor..."
"Little raw around the edges, but what an awesome module! Absolute must if you ever want to allow non-technical..."
