Central Web Services

Starting Tuesday, February 14th, 2012 Central Web Services will be updating our OSU Drupal release to the latest version.

This release includes some important security updates to Dupal code and some contributed modules, as well as our first general release Feature,  the Video Carousel with Lightbox feature.

What's a Feature?

Simply put, Features is sort of a mini-module maker.  The Features module can combine pre-made custom content types, views, taxonomies, imagecache presets, and many other Drupal elements into a bundle that your site's administrator can choose to enable and use on your Drupal site.

Features are really only as limited as the developer's imagination.  Common features that you might find on a Drupal site include things such as media galleries, people/directory information, newsletter systems, and interesting display widgets.

This module is not intended for use by the average Drupal user, but the features that CWS can easily create and deploy using the Features module are.

About the Video Carousel with Lightbox Feature

The College of Engineering brought a special request to CWS and WebComm during the design phase of their new site.  They wanted something like a video gallery to display all of the great things that are currently going on in the college.

The result is an attractively styled, highly functional carousel display that opens and plays in a lightbox player.  There are four different block displays: 4-column, 3-column, 2-column, and 1-column.  The best part is, once you've enabled the block display you wish to use, all you have to do is create the very simple to use Video content and the display will automatically show your newest material.

We liked this feature so much that we decided to repackage the styling a little bit for OSU Standard and provide it to the rest of the OSU community.

Video Carousel

Lightbox Display

Want to know more?  Visit the Features instruction articles, in our CWS Training site, for full details on how to use this helpful new module.

For specific questions or feedback regarding these updates, or for general Drupal assistance, please submit a Help Ticket or call 541-737-1189.