An introduction to the Slot Machine module, which was recently released in beta for Drupal 5. Slot Machine offers a multi-featured scheduling/publication system, especially useful on sites with a constant stream of incoming content and a regular publication schedule.

It offers two administrative tools: 1) the Featured Content Queue, which allows admins to push incoming content into various slots for a particular channel. For example, an article draft could be slotted to appear in the "Sports" channel in the "Feature of the Day" block; and 2) the Slot Machine, where you can view what is currently published in each slot, view and reorder the queue of items waiting to be published for each slot, and modify the frequency of update for each slot (e.g., 'Every Morning', 'Every 4 Hours', etc.).

There are a lot more features, including content rotation and Views integration, so come to the session to learn more. I plan on spending some time demonstrating the module and how it can be used in both large publication sites and smaller sites with a regular publishing schedule. After that, I hope to have a discussion with attendees about scheduling on Drupal in general, and perhaps to brainstorm ideas as to how to make Slot Machine useful for a larger base of users. If there's interest, we can also talk code.

Some history: FastCompany.com needed a complex scheduling system to manage the multiple features and channels on their site. At Advomatic, I worked with Fast Company/Mansueto and developed the Slot Machine module, which I recently finished generalizing and released in beta for Drupal 5, based on initial work by Katherine Bailey from Raincity Studios. (I plan on updating to Drupal 6, sooner rather than later if there's interest.)

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Marco Carbone
Developer
Advomatic, LLC