Complicated views with dates

Question

I need a somewhat complicated view setup. I don't know if I can even do it with views...

I have a page, we'll say the url is "/example". When a user hits "/example", they'll see a main content area and a sidebar. The main content area has a list of nodes. The one requirement I can't seem to figure out is how to have this list be limited by time, rather than number. I want the last 3 months of nodes to show up, not a set number.

Then in the sidebar is an "archive" view (seems best to me to just have it be a separate view from the main one, even though it concerns the same content) where the years should be listed (if they have nodes) and under each year the months should be listed (again, only if they have nodes).

Such as:

2012
February
March
2011
April
December
2010
January

I see an example "archive" view in the default views, but it's not quite set up like this.

I know views is very capable, but can it do this?

Answer 1

For the second view , I think it's possible using agregation : you will have to select two times the field dates , the fist one will be displayed as year and second one month , then use group by the first date field. If it doesn't work then in the fields settings you will have to separate the date as one field for year , and one field for month , then you will have to group by the year field in the views.

Here is a great tutorial from nodeone.se of how to use agregation in drupal 7 :