If the featured content in your slideshow needs to be updates frequently, you should consider building a dynamic set-up rather than the more static approach that is explored in this tutorial. If you have bought a premium theme that comes with the SOOPER FeatureKit, a demo site is included with an example setup of this dynamic slideshow.

End result of this tutorial:

• We will we have an ImageField on a nodetype so that we can easily upload slide images to go with our featured content.
• We will have added a checkbox to a nodetype to allow us to mark nodes as featured.
• We will have a Views block that loads the 4 most recent story nodes that were marked as "featured".

Modules Used

1. Content Construction Kit (CCK)
2. Views
3. ImageField
4. FileField
5. Admin Menu (to make your life easier)

Step 1: Installing the modules

Download the modules to your modules folder (probably /sites/all/modules) and enable them. For more information about installing contributed modules please refer to the drupal handbook: Installing contributed modules

Step 2: Adding a "featured" switch to the story node

Similar to the way Drupal allows you set "promoted to frontpage" and "sticky at top of lists" we're adding a checkbox to set a node as "Featured".

1. Using admin menu navigate to the following link: "Content Management > Content Types > Edit Story > Manage fields".
2. Fill in the fields for a new integer field using the values in the following image and click the save button at the bottom of the page:
3. On the next page fill in a description, for example:
   "Check this off to feature this node in the SOOPER FeatureKit slideshow". Further down in the allowed values textarea you enter in the following lines:

   0|Feature This
   1|Feature This
   

   
   Lastly, you hit the save button at the bottom.

Step 3: Adding an ImageField to the story node

1. Again, using admin menu navigate to the following link: "Content Management > Content Types > Edit Story > Manage fields".
2. Fill in the fields for a new imagefield using the values in the following image and click the save button at the bottom of the page:
3. On the next page just you can leave the default settings and skip to the save button at the bottom

Step 4: Hiding the slideshow content from regular node views

We don't want the slideshow image and the featured checkbox data to show up on the frontpage and on the node pages, we need to hide them.

1. Using admin menu navigate to the following link: "Content Management > Content Types > Edit Story > Display fields".
2. Check all 4 "Exclude" boxes in the ImageField and "feature this" rows.

Step 4: Creating a Block View

For the unexperienced, this is the tricky part of this tutorial. The Views interface is intimidating to new users and it takes some effort to figure out. You can get help information from Views itself through the Advanced Help Module.

1. Using admin menu, go to "Site building > Views > Add"
2. At the basic settings panel, select the following options:

   Style: HTML List
   Items to Display: 4
   
   

3. At the sort criteria panel, add the "Node: Post date" option and set it to "descending".
4. At the filters panel, set the following options:

   Node Published: Yes
   Node Type: Story
   Content Feature: Not Empty
   

5. At the fields panel select the following options:

   Content: image Image (formate: image, label: none)
   Node: Title
   Node: Teaser
   Node: Link (set a display text, such as "Read More")
   

6. From the top left selectbox, add a Block View display

In the end, your Views interface should look similar to this:

Step 6: Activating the slideshow

This is the last step in the process and don't worry, it's also the easiest. To save the block, click the "Save" button at the bottom of the block form". Now you're taken to the block overview, where we can active the block.

The block is at the bottom of the block overview page, with the other disabled blocks. The block is activated simply by selecting the "slideshow" region from the selectbox, clicking the "Save blocks" button at the bottom of the page.

Now you can start adding story nodes and when you mark them as featured, they will show up in the slideshow. Remember that the nodes need to be published as well, in order to show.