Lists within Drupal are funny. Like everything else in Drupal, they are keyed to display in a certain way based on the parameters of the node type in which they are located.
This means that if you want to display a list (or anything else within a content node) differently, you will have to modify the entire content type. Or, you can use Views.
Views, according to its creators, is a smart query builder for Drupal that displays any sort of list, like forum posts, tables of content or what have you, in a specific way, based on the query you build. This means you can sort or filter the content of the individual list and come up with an interesting content node like, say, a list of unread forum posts.
This is not a module that's going to win a lot of popularity awards, because it does only one thing -- but it does it very well. It's a pretty nice tool to have in your Drupal toolbox if your site uses a lot of list-type content.
Drupal has a lot of power under its hood, which makes developers and site admins very happy. Content managers and providers? Not so much.
The very simple Drupal interface that makes life happy for coders can be downright confusing to those people who just want to go in and post an article or a blog post. This is something that Joomla and WordPress do quite well, and it's a problem for Drupal users.
Workbench is a big step towards solving that problem. It's a very simple interface that lets users add, delete and edit content easily (based on business and organization roles, not just Drupal's user roles). Once installed and enabled, it sets up a nice little My Workbench page to manage content.
The impact of this app can be great, because content providers need a place to be able to come in and just work with what they do best: content creation.
Brian Proffitt is a veteran IT writer with experience in open source, mobile and big data technologies. An unrepentant Hoosier, he can be followed on Twitter: @TheTechScribe.
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