Posted by Mike Kettle on Thu, Jan 19, 2023 - 1:03pm

Hi

Brand new to BD and loving it so far (about 3 days in and a lot of reading later). Looking for something that works out of the box. All I want is to configure it and add content.

So, to the problem. I feel like I'm missing something that is blindingly obvious. So I'd appreciate it if someone can point me in the right direction.

I spent acouple of hours trying to figure this out and eventually came across this:

https://forum.backdropcms.org/forum/use-file-types-structure

I now have this:

which is at:  www.sitename.co.uk/file/27

Simple question is: How do I get from that to a page with downloadable files listed like this (from my old site):

Which would be a page something like: www.sitename.co.uk/downloads

TIA
Mike

Most helpful answers

Hi Mike.  If you add the

Hi Mike.  If you add the documents as part of a content type - perhaps a new content type called Document (Admin menu > Structure > Content Types > Add content type), then you can:

  • Define the sub folder where all the files should live. This could easily be files/inline-docs.
  • Limit the types of files, file sizes and decide whether to have a label show instead of the filename.
  • Add a tag field so you can group the resulting documents.

Once you've added the documents attached to nodes, you can then add a view (Admin menu > Structure >Views>Add view) and add Content of type Document, add Fields including the document and the tags, group by tags and display each file in a line.

If you would like to come to our next Office Hours session, you can get more in depth support, though we will try to help you here. See https://backdropcms.org/news/events for the next one on Wednesday. I'm guessing you're in the UK by the example URLs you gave so there is one at 9.30-11.30 AM and one at 7-9PM UK time.

 

 

Hi Mike. Welcome to the forum

Hi Mike. Welcome to the forum.

You would create a view and select to display files.  You can then select download link and do any filters.

However, I note that one has two files, so perhaps it is pages and you want to just do fields with the files.

A bullet list like that is fairly simple.

If you need anything further once you get the view started, just ask.

Comments

Thu, Jan 19, 2023 - 1:21pm by yorkshirepudding

Hi Mike. Welcome to the forum.

You would create a view and select to display files.  You can then select download link and do any filters.

However, I note that one has two files, so perhaps it is pages and you want to just do fields with the files.

A bullet list like that is fairly simple.

If you need anything further once you get the view started, just ask.

Thu, Jan 19, 2023 - 2:54pm by Mike Kettle

Hi

Thanks for your comment.
Baby steps!
I now have:

The documents have been uploaded to the folder files/ and they are the only two documents in the folder. Is there a way to upload them to a subfolder like: files/inline-docs ?

Is there a way to tag the files so I can filter/sort them and group like this:

Where there are duplicates in different formats they can just be listed alphabetically rather than on the same line as above.

Thanks again for pointing me in the right direction.

Fri, Jan 20, 2023 - 12:18am by yorkshirepudding

Hi Mike.  If you add the documents as part of a content type - perhaps a new content type called Document (Admin menu > Structure > Content Types > Add content type), then you can:

  • Define the sub folder where all the files should live. This could easily be files/inline-docs.
  • Limit the types of files, file sizes and decide whether to have a label show instead of the filename.
  • Add a tag field so you can group the resulting documents.

Once you've added the documents attached to nodes, you can then add a view (Admin menu > Structure >Views>Add view) and add Content of type Document, add Fields including the document and the tags, group by tags and display each file in a line.

If you would like to come to our next Office Hours session, you can get more in depth support, though we will try to help you here. See https://backdropcms.org/news/events for the next one on Wednesday. I'm guessing you're in the UK by the example URLs you gave so there is one at 9.30-11.30 AM and one at 7-9PM UK time.

 

 

Fri, Jan 20, 2023 - 3:43am by Mike Kettle

Many thanks. I think I have a couple of issues:

  1. understanding the power of BD and how to use it. Sounds like the above Office Hours might help.
  2. translating the terminology of the old site to the BD terminology (same words, different meanings).

I need to go away and have a play.

The draft site is at www.gunscores.co.uk if you wanted to have a peek. It may or may not be working well at any stage depending on how well my playing is getting on.

First attempt at a view is at Open Shoot > Download Files on the menu.

Fri, Jan 20, 2023 - 3:56am by yorkshirepudding

For someone new to Backdrop, your site is coming together well.  I hope you can make the Office Hours as that might be the best way to cover ground, though playing will also help.  I (Martin Price) host the session in the morning and usually Wilbur Ince hosts the session in the evening.

Fri, Jan 20, 2023 - 8:48am by Mike Kettle

Mainly copying from previous site, both content and ideas on layout/structure but yes, have made quite a bit of progress.

Created 2 views for Archive-Reports and Archive-Results and managed to make the RHS invisible.

Don't seem to be able to make RHS invisible for any of the posts tagged as Results. There doesn't seem to be an option in the visbility for the blocks.

Any ideas?

Fri, Jan 20, 2023 - 9:13am by yorkshirepudding

RHS = Right Hand Side ??? Is this the bit with About Us, Booking and Joining the Club?

Are the views blocks or pages?

If you're trying to do this on the default layout then you'll struggle as it won't have an awareness of content fields.

I think the module Field Visibility Condition will help here; I used this on a site where I needed to make visibility dependent on a content field.

If you create a custom layout (Admin bar > Structure > Layouts > Add layout) (it will start from default, so you don't have to rebuild from scratch) and then:

  • give it a Path of `node/%` which will also set the context
  • and then use visibility conditions for Field Value 

Fri, Jan 20, 2023 - 10:53am by Mike Kettle

RHS - Yes, and

Pages. Did try a Block but failed to figure out how to use it and as I pretty much wanted a page anyway ...

Custom Layout - I'll give it a go over the weekend.

Sun, Jan 22, 2023 - 1:39pm by Mike Kettle

Struggled with Layout as we seem to be limited to a single layout for the site.

Using the Harris Flexible layout I can make blocks invisible on certain pages like /report-archive that is generated by a view. This makes the rendered page adjust to the content (or lack of).

Played around a bit more and my little brain suddenly realised that a content-type Page was just a definition named Page. Previously, I'd created a post which gives a /posts/... URL so I could access the tags but this didn't quite fit the idea I wanted.

So, I created a new content-type of Report with a Title, Body and added the Tags field. This generates a /report/... URL which is what I was after. If I put the right tags in and then click on them I get a listing page with all the [Dewar, EnglishMatch, 2022, etc] reports on them. The tags list will just have a lot of years in them as our website has quite a lot of history on it. I think the first report is dated 1965!

I'll do a bit more testing as Reports and Results make up a lot of the remaining content of the site.

 

Wed, Jan 25, 2023 - 12:30pm by Mike Kettle

I got 95% to where I wanted to be working my way through the above.
Then dropped in on the  https://backdropcms.org/news/events morning session with Martin and got a bit more advice. Did a bit more work and then dropped in on the evening session and Wilbur and Justin and put a final piece in place.

Many thanks. I now have quite a bit to do to keep me going!