Drupal has many plugins, or modules, that you can install and enable. Drupal has a large set of ‘Core’ modules that, while installed, simply need to be enabled to be used. Others, however, need to be installed and then can be enabled and used. Views is one of these types of modules.
Views is extremely popular, and while not a core module, is considered to be one of the first modules users should install to enhance their Drupal capabilites and make editing their site easier. It gives a very easy way to pull data from the database and organize it in an easy to manage format.
The Views module enables you to create lists of content and format it to display as you wish within your Drupal site. These lists are referred to as Views and can be displayed in both page and block form. Page form means the view is its own page, whereas a block can be inserted as part of a page, sidebar, or any other region of the site.
While there are many parameters available in Views, one of the great things is that they are only activated if needed. This allows the user to make the View as simple or complex as they want.
The Views module is very complex and has many capabilities. Our class here will focus on some of its basic abilities for new users of the module.
