In this episode:
Interview – Show me my data! Query Wrangler with Jonathan Daggerhart – [6:47]
If you’re a regular listener to the podcast then you’ll know that I was once a heavy user of Drupal. The reason for this is simple, Drupal is really rather awesome. I know that this is a WordPress podcast, but there’s just no denying it; Drupal does heaps and heaps of stuff really well, and dare I say it… sometimes better than WordPress does!
Okay, now you can put those pitchforks away, ‘cos I’m not trying to convert you over to Drupal, because, after all, I left and don’t use it anymore. Something to do with the move from version 7 to 8 being a bit of a nightmare.
But I was being serious when I said that Drupal does some things better than WordPress does. One of those things is getting custom data out of the database and onto the screen. We all know that this entirely possible in WordPress and has been for ages, but it is hard and is only just starting to get easier for people who don’t want to wrestle with the code.
Drupal has a module (aka plugin) called Views, and I’m not exaggerating to say that it’s very very very cool indeed. It’s a point – click – type UI that allows you to create really complicated displays without having to understand how on earth you did it. Want to display this field if this box is checked, use Views. Want to show this field to only this role, use Views. Want to create entire pages with just the data in your Custom Posts, guess what… use Views! It does everything that you could ever want.
When I came to WordPress, I could not understand why there was nothing like Views. Something that you could point, and click at and get data out. Until I discovered Query Wrangler by Jonathan Daggerhart.
He’s a Drupal man who dabbles in WordPress, and he’s recreated SOME of the functionality that Views has. He’s only one man after all and Views has got millions of people using it and contributing back, but it’s a great start.
Now that you’ve read this far, I bet a whole bunch of you go away and try it out… and I bet that I know what’s going to happen next! You’re going to come back here and tell me that it’s not pretty, that there’s not enough options, that it does not look like something WordPressy! You know what, you might be right.
This tool is just about getting data out of the database. ALL of the rest is on you. You want it to look pretty, you’ll need to add your own CSS, you want more padding, again, CSS my friend. In short this will get you the data that you want, in the form that you want it and then it’s up to you to decide how it will look and where is will go.
I love it, and think that if you invested some time into this, you might too.
Praise be for people like Jonathan Daggerhart. Nice one!
