Creating a Book Page
Generally, I only create one book page for each book. This is the first one, usually the introduction. All other pages will be added as "Child pages" (to be accurate, child pages will still have the "book page" content type set for them).
In addition to the things I said about pages, a book page has a "Parent." For the first page, this will be "<top-level>." If you use "Add child page" the "Parent." selection should be already filled in with the book's name. If you create another book page, you would need to make sure you properly select which book or page the new one is to be made a child of.
The top page of the book probably deserves a menu entry. The rest do not, unless they are really special. Remember, a book has its own navigation.
You are currently reading a "book."
| © Nancy Wichmann 2007-2011 |  |
Comments
can't figure out how to let anonymous visitors view book pages
I've looked in the settings and permissions, in Access Control for the book module I'm only getting:
create book pages
create new books
edit book pages
edit own book pages
outline posts in books
see printer-friendly version
I've allowed anonymous users only the option to see printer-friendly pages because I don't want folks just creating books/pages or editing ones that are online, and not sure what it'd do if I allowed everyone to outline posts in books... I don't see anywhere to check to allow the book to be visible to anyone who comes to the site though. I've used Drupal on another website I maintain but that's mostly just to host podcasts (my church's services) and I'd never tried the book module before. I really like it from descriptions and how you have it working on your site. If I'm not logged in, it's telling me I don't have permission to view any of the book that I've created so far (it's got about 10 child pages). I did what you describe above, did it before I found your website, but now I've hit a brick wall. What am I missing? Drupal is powerful, but it's also really adept at putting little checkboxes that need to be checked on 10 different screens that are easy to forget to visit one and then cause the module to not function as intended. I'm also struggling with getting images to display in the book pages, if you can point me toward that information I'd appreciate it too (tried installing Image/Image_Assist already, not working, tried running cron manually in case it was just needing that).
To see what I'm talking about, go to my site and click "Advice" - that's the book I'm trying to create.
Sorry such a long comment, feel free to delete it, I'd appreciate an email response if you have the time and feel that this comment is just too obvious to have here. I feel like I must be looking RIGHT at what I need to do and it's under an invisibility cloak!
Ahmie
Viewing books
When I went to your site, as an anonymous user, I could view the book, so you must have figured out that you need the "access content" permission given to anonymous visitors. You'll also need to do the "printer-friendly" permission granted to anon's.
Ideally, there is really
Why? why is it "ideal" that the rest of the pages are not of the "book" node-type?
Because
Because they will be "child-pages" or other pages that are added to the outline. You start a book with a book page, but then add child pages.
I don't get it
But it seems natural to me to add pages of type 'book page' to a book. Why doesn't it look obvious to you too?
In your reply you tell me nothing new. You just repeat yourself. You provide no explanation.
Flexibility = complexity = potential confusion (books explained)
The Drupal content management system (CMS) which is used for this web site is a particularly flexible one - maybe the most flexible open source CMS available these days.
"Nodes":
Everything in Drupal is a "node", be it a book page, a "book child page", a blog post, an image/photo or a forum post, or whichever other content types the site administrator has chosen to enable for the site.
"Outline":
There is an "outline" feature in Drupal, that lets us "hook into" a book any of the above mentioned content (node) types. They then becomes "children" to the book, while still retaining their original "form" as another content type too.
So if you "hook" a blog post into a book, it will then appear both in the blog and as a "child page" in the book. The book content type is the only of the content types that has this built-in structure that lets us hook anything into it. The purpose of the book content type is to provide this kind of structure.
Book pages provides structure:
Any of the other content types may have comments and discussions onto them, but not with Previous/Up/Next link structures like the book has. This means that we can have discussions like this one here going on anywhere on the site, not only in for example a forum section, if such a section is set up on the site in question.
- All this flexibility is a source to confusion.
Book pages and child pages are technically the same:
As for the question of why a book child page is not a normal book page, well, it technically is... We just call it book page when we start a new book, and child page to indicate that you will place something within the current page if clicking on the add child page link.
So if you take an existing child page and "hook it" into the top level, it will then appear as a book page and not a child to another book page. There is only one logical difference to be aware of: Only true book pages (child pages are true book pages) can be set as a top-level "front page" book. You cannot place any of the other content types on the top level, they can only be hooked into an existing book.
Comments not (yet) "nodes":
Notice that comments are technically not "nodes". This means we cannot categorise or move comments around easily (for example cannot make a new book using this very comment of mine by moving it up in the book hierarchy) unless we implement a special tool for this (which exist on drupal.org). Hopefully the next main Drupal version will treat absolutely everything as a "node", then we have full flexibility (and potentially "total confusion" ;-) ).
Related
See this page for content type descriptions:
http://www.nanwich.info/CreatingContent.htm<
Regards,
Treebeard :-)
table of contents for books
hi nancy
i keep returning to your site for its wealth of info...thankyou, thankyou
i have been playing around with creating books with not much heartache...i have a question though...as a 'book' is there any way of creating a table of contents that we can say insert onto the first page of the book to allow people to get an overall view of the contents rather than having to click the sequential child pages?
cheers and thanks again
toul@
Yes and no
First, any page with child pages should show the list of all child pages.
Then you can go to admin >> build >> blocks and you will find a block titled "Book navigation" which you can enable an dplace in the sidebar. It will show the complete book structure when you are in a book.
Creating a Book Page
Yes, Mooffie, you are correct, you can keep creating book pages. I need to clarify this.
However, when you add a child page, it automaticaly gets put into the book. When you create a new book page, you must select the correct book in the "Parent" drop down box.
I will try to clarify this.