Learn Rules (D6) with NodeOne
The Learn Rules with NodeOne series has been going on for a while now, and yesterday the final screencast was posted. This wrap-up post summarises the series and gives some perspective.
Overview of Rules and the screencast series
Rules is a module and a framework that allows you to automate a lot of things on your website. Technically it is a event-condition-action system, meaning that Rules reacts when certain events occur, check a number of conditions, and then set off a chain of actions on your website.
In simple cases you can use Rules to create URL aliases when nodes of certain types are created, or have e-mails sent to administrators when new comments are posted. These rather non-complex cases are covered in episode 1, 2, 3 and 4.
In more complex cases, you have chains of actions that allow Rules to fetch and process data from other parts of your website – copy field content from a referenced node or send an e-mail only if the user has a particular setting in her profile. In some cases these kind of rules require that you create rule sets – chains of rules that allow you to load new objects and then use them to evaluate conditions. These more complex situations are covered in episode 5, 6, 7, 8 and 9.
In the Rules project there is also a module called Rules Scheduler, that makes a new kind of action available – scheduling the execution of a rule set. This allows you to configure things like reminder e-mails, scheduled state changes on nodes, and even repeating events. This functionality is covered in episode 10, 11 and 12.
Episode 13 and 14 covers some general things you should know when developing with Rules: import/export of rules plus some general advice for trouble shooting.
In many cases you would like to perform actions not only when certain events occur, but also have the possibility to execute them manually on a number of nodes, users, comments or what have you. Combining Rules and Views Bulk Operations makes it possible to use rule sets as actions in just this way – allowing highly customized actions in a simple interface. For the really advanced configurators, it is also possible to call Views Bulk Operations from Rules, to allow things like sending notifications to all users who have flagged a node when that node receives new comments or changing ownership of all referenced nodes when a node author is changed. Using Rules and Views Bulk Operations together is described in episodes 15, 16 and 17.
Some comments on the series
I am happy that both new and (some very!) experienced Drupal users have found the series useful. Some comments that made me extra happy are collected here:
I thought I understood “Rules” before, but, as always, I was mistaken. I am more than looking forward to the rest of the series. My life has just become much easier. You clever Swedes really make me feel like a turnip.
Really great series of screencasts! Short and easy to follow. Gave me completely new ideas how to work with rules.
Cool, never actualy had to use the scheduler before, but now I can see a thousand situations where this could prove very useful.
Very useful series of screencasts, thanks a lot for making them :) Very useful especially for highlighting the features and possible uses. I’ve been working with Drupal for a good while, but haven’t really been good enough to utilise Rules yet.
I have watched all episodes and would like to thank you for making this great series about rules. I already knew and used rules but with this extra explanation i can see many more uses!!
Thank you so much! Those screencasts have made four of my modules already obosolete. I never though that RULES are such a powerful tool.
Want more?
Thirsty for more screencasts? Check out Learn Drupal 7 with NodeOne or Learn Views with NodeOne.