For those new to Views, it can be a complex system that appears totally overwhelming. The good news is that the UI is designed to compartmentalize everything; this means that for the most part, you can ignore the parts you're not interested in. Start small and build your way up. It helps to have something particular in mind that you want to accomplish when using Views. Here are a couple of ideas and a brief sketch of how to accomplish what you want.

Create a page to list users by role

  1. Go to add new view.
  2. Give it the name 'user_list', description 'A simple user listing.', tag 'users', type 'User' and click Next.
  3. On the left, ensure that 'Page' is selected, and click Add Display.
  4. Next to Fields click the + icon to add fields.
  5. In the Groups section below, select 'User', then check the following user fields: Created date, Delete link, Edit link, Last access, Name and Picture. Then click Add.
  6. You will be taken through the fields you added one at a time. Click Update default display to go to the next field. Leave the default options on all fields except Delete link; change that field's label to 'Operations'.
  7. Under Page settings, click the None link next to the Path setting. Set the path to 'user_list' (or something else if you prefer) and click Update.
  8. Click the No menu link under the Menu setting. Select Normal menu and set the title to "User list" and click Update.
  9. At this point, you have done enough to create a valid view. If you scroll down, you will see a preview of your view. At any time you can click the Preview button, but whenever you finish one of the mini forms, the preview will update automatically, so you don't need to, generally.
  10. Next to Fields, click the rearrange icon, which is to the right of the + icon. Down below, drag the Name field to the top, the Delete link (Operations) field to the bottom, and the Edit link field just above it. Then click Update.
  11. Under the Basic settings, click the Unformatted link next to the Style setting. Change this to 'Table' below, and click Update default display.
  12. You will be taken to the table settings form. Next to Edit link change the column to Operations. Next to Operations set the Separator to ' | ' (note the spaces around the | symbol). Check all of the Sortable checkboxes, and set Default sort to 'Name'. When finished, click Update default display.
  13. Click the + icon next to Filters, select User under Groups below, choose the User: Name filter, and click Add.
  14. Select Is not one of and enter 'Anonymous' in the Usernames field. Click Update default display.
  15. Back under Basic settings, click the No link next to Use pager. Select Full pager and click Update default display.
  16. Next to Arguments, click + icon, choose the User: Roles argument, and click Add. Set the title to "%1", the "Action to take if argument is not present" to "Summary, sorted ascending". Leave the other settings as they are. Click Update default display, and click Update through the prompts that follow to accept their default values.
  17. Finally, click the Save button to save your work.
  18. At the very top, click View "Page" to go to your new view!

Create a block to list recent story nodes

  1. TODO