Drupal 7 ShareThis Module

Photo by Evil Ink

You can view the video here

This video will demonstrate how to do a download and set up Share This on your Drupal website so that your readers can share interesting articles and product to their social media accounts. It takes 2 minutes install and enable the appropriate modules. The rest of the time is spent fiddling with your options until you have the right look.

Drupal is a content management system designed to handle a huge array of content. This platform is ideal for sites that want much more than just a blog or static website. By adding modules to the existing framework you can customize your Drupal website to fit your business needs.

Overall, it’s not the easiest CMS to learn and it lends itself to a very steep learning curve.  For the clients who “want to make changes” themselves the website’s content is much more manageable. However, for a design heavy website (such as Evil Ink’s website) where code is applied directly to the content for tighter control, there is still a need for a designer who is familiar with Drupal’s framework.

You will need:

• Stable internet connection
• Drupal website installed

Download and Installation Guide

For in-depth information about how to find, download and install modules to your Drupal website, please refer to our video guide: Drupal 7 - Installing Modules.

Configuring Your Module

Once the modules are enabled on the module page (accessible through the admin panel at the top of the screen), you can configure the settings by clicking on the ‘configure’ link next to the Share This module to suit your website’s needs.

Share This  Module Configuration Settings

In this section we’re going to go over the configuration options found in the Share This module.

Display Settings:

Each display setting comes with a preview screen that enables you to see how the option looks before you choose it. You will have to choose a widget type and a button style.

Next you will have to choose from a list of possible social media services. Good ones to start with are Twitter, Facebook, and Email. Others like Tumblr, LinkedIn, and Google+. I recommend going with what you are familiar with.

Extra services: you can check the services that you want to include.

Context:

Next you have to configure which content types the share this node will appear. All of the content types that you have created will appear on this list.

Only Full view: If checked, the share this node will only appear on the full page and not in the teaser views that appear in a blog listing for example.

Comments: You have the option to share out comments.

Location:

Node content: If selected the Share This node will appear in the content region of a page.

Block: This option gives you the most control over where the node will appear. At the time of the capture of this video these options were not available. If you select this option, the block portion of this video will apply to you.

Link area: All Share This tags will appear in the block area of the website.

Weight: Assign a weight to the block. The higher the number, the earlier the node will appear in the content order.

Advanced Settings:

Publisher Key: If you have an existing account with ShareThis you can reuse your key here. If not, this module will generate a random key for you.

Late Load: You can choose to have the widget load last, after the rest of your page is loaded.

Twitter Suffix: After you put in your Tweet, the node can include a @twittername of your choosing. It’s a great way to get pinged when someone tweets something from your website. Leaving t blank with cause nothing to appear in its place.

Twitter Handle:  is your twitter name. If you choose to leave this option blank it will add an ‘via @sharethis’ at the end of the tweet. It’s best if you just use your handle instead, which will replace the sharethis.

Adding a Share This Block to your Website

For more information about the various settings available to you in the Block creation screen please refer to our video guide: Drupal 7 – Creating a Block

A Share This blocks works similarly to any other block with the exception that you don’t have to create it and you don’t have the flexibility to determine its layout or design, which is a good thing.

All you really need to do is find the Share This block from your module page, click on the configure link next to it, and choose which region it will appear and which content types it will appear with. In some cases you may want it to appear only on certain pages of a particular content type; in which case you will need to set up the links under the appropriate section.

When done, click save. Adjust its order that it appears in the region from the block listing, then click on save again. Load up a page to test it. Adjust until satisfied.