 what s new in views 2 views 2 is the newest major release of views and it is specifically coded for drupal 6 views 2 retains all of the core functionality of views 1 together with a completely revamped user interface and a large set of new features which greatly expand upon the original featureset of views 1 this document is a sidebyside comparison of views 1 versus views 2 from a user s perspective detailing the ui changes some new ways to perform old tasks the cool new features of views 2 and how these features can be used to address some of the shortcomings of views 1 admin interface the first thing that pops out after you install views 2 is the radically different admin interface  views 2 admin interface compared to the old comfy views 1 interface  views 1 admin interface the new admin interface performs the same functions as the old listing all the views in the system providing links to add or import views and a link to views tools but has been compacted with each view displayed as a paragraph stylerow compared to the table of views 1 and set of filters on top to ease locating views among a large list contexthelp is available by clicking the small blue questionmark icon contexthelp in views 2 is provided by the advanced help module so make sure to install that together with installing views 2 the small blue help icons will be available in various parts of the views ui in particular look for them as part of the description of a display  when setting style options and in various editing sections such as path   menu and the like several new attributes of each view are visible in the filter header  tag  this is just another label for organizing and sorting views tags can be any text views that are provided by modules will often be tagged together to make it easy to find them display  in views 1 each view query was tied to its display in other words your fields sorts filters and arguments could only be displayed in the single page or block display provided in the view definition in views 2 view displays have been decoupled from view queries it is now possible to have multiple page block and feed displays from a single view more on view displays later type  views 2 view types are radically different from views 1 types views 1 types basically defined how the node list displays were styled  you had full nodes teaser list table view and so on in views 2 view display styles have been broken out into the separate style attribute view types now refer to the primary table on which information for the query will be retrieved which controls what arguments fields sort criteria and filters are available views 2 view types are discussed later adding a view so let s jump in and add a view for this example we re going to create a user view which will display a list of users adding a view the first step in adding a view is simply entering a name only alphanumeric characters no spaces a description tag and the view type to get the user view we selected the user radio button configuring the new view this might be the 2nd whoa moment as the interface here is also completely revamped from views 1x the best way to summarize is to say all the pieces from the views 1x interface are still therejust in different places fields arguments sort critera and filters are all still there there just in new ajaxyflavours let s start by adding some fields  adding fields clicking on the icon next to the word fields unfurls a section beneath the view information with all the available fields grouped by comment file node node revision taxonomy and user and probably a few others this is a general paradigm for the views 2 interface clicking on a widget or link unfurls a section beneath the view information with the relevant interface usually what is being edited will be hilited in yellow as well when adding items you can use the groups dropdown box to show only a subset of the fields available according to the above groups or select all to see all fields available which is what was selected when the section unfurled for our example we re selecting the user group and adding the user email   user name and user picture fields adding fields once we add our fields they show up in the fields section of the interface we will be walked through each field we added so keep clicking update  even if you don t make changes to the field and you will see the next one the fields we added can be rearranged by clicking the up down icon right next to the add icon we used earlier we can also remove a field using the same interface rearranging fields from here the fields can be dragged up and down by grabbing the little drag handle on the left and moving them where you like making a change to any part of the view by clicking update usually triggers a refresh of the view preview which is conveniently located right below the main interface views preview now that we have some fields set up we can turn our attention to basic settings for the view it s important to note that all the interface elements pertain to the current display selected for the view as mentioned before a view can have multiple displays the first time you create a view you ll be manipulating the default display you can add displays using the add display button whose basic settings are completely different from each other this lets you have as many displays of a view as you would like all sharing items such as sort criteria filters and arguments but different display settings like title style fields and pager settings also any display you add automatically inherits display settings from the default display initially so you can keep a core of common settings in your default display and add additional settings for every other display adding a page display let s stick with the default display and twiddle some settings we can set the title to user view 1 and the style to table as mentioned earlier view styles in views 2 correspond more to view types in views 1 remember list table teasers full nodes  selecting a views 1 view type in views 2 view styles control how a view display looks these styles are significantly different from the types in views 1 in particular types have been broken up there is now the style as well as the row style which focus on different parts of the output a breakdown of view output we change the style by clicking on the current style on the left hand side of the view information area selecting a views 2 display style we re given the style options of grid   list   table and unformatted  additional display styles can be added by modules which have views style plugins  choosing a style reveals a settings button which you can click to configure the style you ve chosen in the shot below we ve selected and are configuring the table style which we re using to produce a more compact output than we had earlier selecting and configuring the table style  todo finish this document  