Alternative to Panels - Node Reference Techniques

This session will explore developing Drupal sites using the power of node reference to share content across multiple pages and node items within a site. The technique is an alternative to using Panels and provides a agile design pattern for developing sophisticated Drupal sites. This includes in-page management of shared content and a streamlined workflow for selecting, creating, and sharing content between pages and other content types.

The session will be split into the following segments:
1. Introduction and Presentation Overview
2. Example of live websites using the techniques
3. Step by step (with code examples) on how to setup your site to use node reference
4. Open discussion on techniques and alternatives to the design presented. (loose code verses custom modules, and I would love to talk with developer who have used Panels)

I will provide a digital copy of the presentation and a database dump with source code of a working prototype of a Drupal site for session attendees.

Prerequisites for the session:
This session will use several community modules and Drupal development techniques such as Drupal themeing, CCK template integration, and Views template integration. It is assumed you have a working knowledge or have used both the community modules and the techniques mentioned. It is the goal of the session to present the design pattern and to not provide training on the modules used.

Primary Modules used for this session:

CCK (Content Contruction Kit)
http://drupalmodules.com/module/content-construction-kit-cck

• Extending a node with cck fields
• Integrating cck fields into your theme

Views
http://drupalmodules.com/module/views

• Creating views
• Creating override templates for views

Drupal Theme Development
http://drupal.org/theme-guide/6

• Setting up a custom theme
• Creating templates for module displays
• Adding hooks to the template.php file

Additional list of modules that will be discussed during the session:

Node Relationships
http://drupalmodules.com/module/node-relationships

Referential Integrity for CCK
http://drupalmodules.com/module/referential-integrity-for-cck

Menu Node API
http://drupalmodules.com/module/menu-node-api

Modal Frame API
http://drupalmodules.com/module/modal-frame-api

jQuery Update
http://drupalmodules.com/module/jquery-update

jQuery UI
http://drupalmodules.com/module/jquery-ui

Thanks for reading my session and I hope to see you there! :)