Beginning Drupal 8

Chapter 10 ■ Creating Pages
The first view display that we will create is the teaser list of the latest five articles. Click the Add button
to create a new display, and select Block from the list of options. Click the Block link in the “Display name”
field and change the “Display name” to “Latest Articles.” Click the None link next to the Title field and enter
“Latest Articles” as the title to display at the top of the view’s output. Next, for the Show settings, change what
to show from Fields to Content and select Teaser from the list of formats to display. Click the “Use pager” link
and change it to “Display a specified number of items” and set the number of items to display to 5. Finally,
click the Save button.
The second view display that we will create is a Featured Article block. We’ll randomly select an article and
display the full article on the page. To create this view display, click the Add button and select Block. Change
the “Display name” to “Featured article” and the Title to “Featured Article.” Make sure you select “This block
(override)” in the For select list at the top of each element you change; otherwise your changes will apply to all
the view displays. Change the Show settings to Teaser to display the shortened version of the article. Next, click
the Add button in the Sort Criteria section and add a new sort order. Select Global from the Type drop down
list and from the list of values available for Global, select Random and click Add and configure sort criteria.
Leave the Export this sort to visitors checkbox unchecked and complete the addition of the new sort criteria by
clicking the Apply button. Next, delete the “Post date (desc)” sort criteria by clicking the drop-down arrow next
to the Add link (displayed to the right of Sort Criteria) and selecting Rearrange. On the “Rearrange sort” page,
click the Remove link associated with “Content: Post date (desc)” and click the Apply button. Next, change the
number of items to display in the Pager section from 5 items to 1. Finally, click the Save button.
We’ll assign the two blocks that we’ve just created to the “What to do Around Los Angeles” page to
demonstrate the fruits of our labor. Click the Structure link and select the “Block layout” link. In the right
column you will see the list of available blocks to place. In the section titled Lists (Views), you will see the
two blocks that we just created. Click the Article: Featured Article link and assign it to the “Sidebar second”
region. Click the Show Pages vertical tab and click the “Show for the listed pages” radio button. In the text
area enter the URL to the page. In my case the URL to my article about what to do around Los Angeles can
be found at /node/7, so that is the value that I will use to restrict this block to only that page. Click the Save
button. Do the same steps for Article: Latest Articles, but in this case select the Content region. Finally, click
the “Save blocks” button at the bottom of the “Block layout” page. Next visit the “What to do Around Los
Angeles” page to see the progress of our page-building efforts (see Figure 10-5).
Figure 10-5. Page build progress
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