Chapter 1. Getting Started with CTools
We will start this chapter with a brief overview of the history of the CTools, and from there we will jump into the general concepts involved when building a dashboard. When building a dashboard, it's not enough to just start developing the dashboard—there is a process to follow and some tasks that you should know about in order to produce better work.
First, you will need to have a good understanding of the requirements, such as who is going to use the dashboard, what is the purpose, what it will be used for, and so on. The next step will be preparing a mock-up or design of the dashboard. It is essential that you understand the best way to display data on the dashboard, and of course there are some techniques that provide a clean and simple dashboard that is very informative and intuitive at the same time. Doing a functional breakdown of the entire dashboard will make a big difference when developing both the back end and front end of the dashboard.
When working in a team, you always need to know the responsibilities of each element of the project. This chapter will touch a little on each of these points. You can see this chapter as a way to demystify what you probably need to know and do before starting the development of the dashboard.
To be able to use the CTools, you need to install them, or if you already have the CTools, you need to learn how to update them, and how to check what version you have. To be able to follow the remaining chapters, we will also provide a brief introduction to the most important technologies and frameworks that the CTools use. This is really important, because for you to become an expert at developing dashboards using the CTools, you will need to know these technologies and frameworks, and have an idea what they are used for. You don't need to know the details about how they work just yet, so this chapter will not give you in-depth knowledge on each one of them.
Understanding these concepts and applying them will make all the difference while developing dashboards, so you should not consider this chapter as optional.
We will cover the following topics:
- A brief introduction to the CTools
- Considerations when creating the design of a dashboard
- The difference between dashboard design and mock-up
- Frameworks and libraries used when developing dashboards
- External tools to use while developing dashboards
- The processes available to install the CTools, and how to install them
- The process of developing a dashboard from beginning to end
- Interacting with clients and getting their requirements
