Getting Started

Actually, downloading, installing, and configuring the FAQFrequently Asked Question - most web sites get questions; the owner may collect the frequent ones to be easily asnwered. moduleAn add-on, or extension, to Drupal to provide additional functionality; written in PHP. was already done, since it was already in use on the first siteA logically grouped set of content - also web site. to get this new feature.

Settings

We were already set for most of this.

• We couldn't use FAQFrequently Asked Question - most web sites get questions; the owner may collect the frequent ones to be easily asnwered.'s heading since it was already in use with a more global description. But there is an easy answer, which is detailed later.
• Clicking on question takes user to answer further down the page.
• Categorize questions - this is critical to this solution, but we were already using it.
• Show FAQFrequently Asked Question - most web sites get questions; the owner may collect the frequent ones to be easily asnwered. count - this was new since we last visited the FAQFrequently Asked Question - most web sites get questions; the owner may collect the frequent ones to be easily asnwered. settings; we turned it on.

Pretty much everything else was, we believe, "out of the box" in terms of settings defaults.

Customizable Header

Unlike so many taxonomy-based modules, FAQFrequently Asked Question - most web sites get questions; the owner may collect the frequent ones to be easily asnwered. actually shows the term description. This is the basis for solving the customized header problem. This method is easily extensible to multiple experts, should we choose to do so.

Taxonomy term descriptions may contain HTMLHyperText Markup Language - the coding standard for a web page. (I hope they never take this away). So when we added the term to the FAQFrequently Asked Question - most web sites get questions; the owner may collect the frequent ones to be easily asnwered. categories (more confusing use of this word in Drupal

Drupal

An open-source content management system that is used on this site and is taking over the world.), we chose something like this:

Note: The "clear-block" was needed because the picture was taller than the text and caused the next category to be indented.

While we were at it, we submitted a patch to support the Taxonomy Image moduleAn add-on, or extension, to Drupal to provide additional functionality; written in PHP. for the FAQFrequently Asked Question - most web sites get questions; the owner may collect the frequent ones to be easily asnwered. category page. It's a nice little touch. She not only accepted the request, but improved upon it greatly!

This then brought a small annoyance in that the taxonomy images were different widths, so the lists were ragged. We fixed that by submitting a patch to Taxonomy_Image that added a wrapper around the image.

Notifications

Since FAQFrequently Asked Question - most web sites get questions; the owner may collect the frequent ones to be easily asnwered. uses taxonomy terms, the Subscriptions moduleAn add-on, or extension, to Drupal to provide additional functionality; written in PHP. works quite nicely to notify the expert (and anyone else who wishes to know when a question is entered.

Unanswered Questions

We partially handled this issue by creating a small hack to the node form. We supply a default value so that the "required" attribute is met.

This is not optimal, but at least temporarily adequate to test the concept of this feature on our web siteA logically grouped set of content - also web site..

How responsive is the FAQFrequently Asked Question - most web sites get questions; the owner may collect the frequent ones to be easily asnwered. owner? Before this article was even published, we received this response!

Scorecard

1. The expert had to be notified when a question was posted. (Supplied by Subscriptions moduleAn add-on, or extension, to Drupal to provide additional functionality; written in PHP..)
2. The answered questions needed to be available in a Q&A format.
3. There should be no administrator overhead in the process.
4. The process had be governed by appropriate permissions.
5. We wanted a customizable header for the question page. (Supplied by Taxonomy moduleAn add-on, or extension, to Drupal to provide additional functionality; written in PHP..)
6. We preferred a ready-made solution to creating our own moduleAn add-on, or extension, to Drupal to provide additional functionality; written in PHP..
7. It had to allow unanswered questions.
8. It had to be extensible to more than one expert. (Supplied by Taxonomy moduleAn add-on, or extension, to Drupal to provide additional functionality; written in PHP..)

Conclusions

The FAQFrequently Asked Question - most web sites get questions; the owner may collect the frequent ones to be easily asnwered. moduleAn add-on, or extension, to Drupal to provide additional functionality; written in PHP. would appear to be the clear winner for our first implementation, but the unanswered question problem is worth a few negative points. While it might not take a great deal of effort to address this, we understand that the FAQFrequently Asked Question - most web sites get questions; the owner may collect the frequent ones to be easily asnwered. moduleAn add-on, or extension, to Drupal to provide additional functionality; written in PHP.'s owner might be (rightfully) reluctant to address this. That leaves us with the need to carry forward a less than optimal patch to deal with the issue.

Perhaps a more "ideal" solution would be a rewrite of the Question moduleAn add-on, or extension, to Drupal to provide additional functionality; written in PHP. specifically to front-end the FAQFrequently Asked Question - most web sites get questions; the owner may collect the frequent ones to be easily asnwered. moduleAn add-on, or extension, to Drupal to provide additional functionality; written in PHP..

The future of this moduleAn add-on, or extension, to Drupal to provide additional functionality; written in PHP. is much more certain. It probably has many more adopters than Question. The documentation is good. The FAQFrequently Asked Question - most web sites get questions; the owner may collect the frequent ones to be easily asnwered. moduleAn add-on, or extension, to Drupal to provide additional functionality; written in PHP. owner is quite quick to respond to issues. And she not only adheres to Drupal

Drupal

An open-source content management system that is used on this site and is taking over the world. coding standards but has submitted issues against the Coder moduleAn add-on, or extension, to Drupal to provide additional functionality; written in PHP. when she found gaps.

Potential Improvements

• Better solution for unanswered question.

Perhaps jQuery could be used to add a checkbox that would turn off the "required" attribute for, or completely hide, the answer field. Or to do it by examining the selected category (how to say which categories allow it is another problem).

• Preselected category.

We think this could be done by adding the term id (tid) onto the end of the "node/add/faqFrequently Asked Question - most web sites get questions; the owner may collect the frequent ones to be easily asnwered." linkThe technique which points to another page, anywhere on the Internet, from the current page.. How this gets turned into a preselected value still needs to be worked out.

• Set FAQFrequently Asked Question - most web sites get questions; the owner may collect the frequent ones to be easily asnwered. to non-published.

This may help to give the expert time to answer before other users see an unanswered question. We still need to determine if Subscriptions will notify someone (the expert) if the node is unpublished. On the first siteA logically grouped set of content - also web site. to use this, most user-submitted content is set to unpublished to give an administrator time to preview it.

Extras

We also have the Taxonomy Super Select moduleAn add-on, or extension, to Drupal to provide additional functionality; written in PHP. and used it for the FAQFrequently Asked Question - most web sites get questions; the owner may collect the frequent ones to be easily asnwered. category.

Bonus points go to the FAQFrequently Asked Question - most web sites get questions; the owner may collect the frequent ones to be easily asnwered. moduleAn add-on, or extension, to Drupal to provide additional functionality; written in PHP. for having a Drupal

Drupal

An open-source content management system that is used on this site and is taking over the world. 6 version before its general availability.