When creating a new node in drupal, it occurred to me that I do the same set of things every time. However, it seems like every time I go to do it again, I forget a step or two, and then I have to fix it later. I should just do it right up front. Here I'm going to list the set of steps I take to be thorough in my content creation.
- Create the content type in CCK, adding all the proper fields that I'll need.
- Set the Basic Display Fields settings for the teaser and the full node.
Note: I don't set the Token search settings because I've never needed to. Maybe I should?
- Set the RSS Display Fields settings for the teaser and the full node.
- If search is enabled, set the Search Display Fields settings.
- Create a template for the node in my theme directory like node-my_node.tpl.php.
- Theme the node add/edit form for this node. That includes making sure all the settings are configured the way I need them, like comment settings, publishing options etc. At this step, many times I'll need to hide some of those extra "meta" fields.
- Theme the teaser view.
- Theme the page view.
- Theme the unpublished teaser and page views.
- Create the node preprocess logic in a custom module somewhere, or in my template.php file.
- Theme the preview. I often overlook this step, but it is always necessary.
All in all, this set of steps usually takes about 4 hours over the life of the node. If I do it all at once and it never has to change, it'll usually take only about 2 hours.
