Getting started and creating node types

Let's begin by enabling the site-wide setting that allows you to actually use other node types as categories and containeris. To do this, go to your administer -> settings -> categoryi page, and expand the content type settings box on this page. For the allow other content types to be setting, tick the category check box. You don't really need to tick the container check box, as we'll only be creating CCK nodes as categories. Make sure that for the provide these content types setting, both the category and container check boxes are ticked, as we will still be using the built-in types in this tutorial. Once you're done, click the save configuration button.

Enabling the setting that allows other node types to be categories or containers.

Next, we're going to add a new CCK node type. Go to the administer -> content -> content types page, and click the add content type tab. Enter person as the label (lowercase, no first-letter-capitalised, for consistency with built-in node types), and enter some description and help text if you want. Then, click the save content type button - you should see a message indicating that your new content type has been added.

This is what your page will look like after you've added your new CCK node type.

Now that we have a node type, it's time to add some fields to it. Click the add field tab to start doing this. The first field that we want is the person's date of birth, so enter date of birth as the label for this field. For the field type, select text field under date. Then click create field, and you'll be taken to the page for filling in all the extra details for your field. You can leave most of these details at their defaults, but you might like to tick the required check box, and you should change the granularity setting to date. Then, click the save field settings button.

Our person node type is going to have one more field, called life achivements, so let's add that now. Click the add field tab again, and enter life achievements as the label. The type is going to be text field under text. Click create field, and you're onto page 2. Set the number of rows to 15, as we want the user to enter a fair bit of text in this field. Tick the required check box, and set the text processing setting to filtered text. Click save field settings, and you're done!

The table listing the new fields in your CCK node type.

You've now got your CCK node type ready to go, and you've let the category module know that you want category behaviour to be available for non-category node types. Good start!