Content Type with People (list of people) in Select List to Choose From

Question

diving deep into Drupal 7 as a noob and wondering how can I create a field (select list) in a new content type that pulls in all the users in the system? I'd like to be able to associate certain content with a person, not necessarily as the author, but as the "person in charge of this area" for example. I'd like to show the persons name and some other info from the "people" area of the Drupal 7 core.

I am thinking I should use the people area rather than create a new content type for people. I added new fields to the "new user" form.

Any thoughts or ideas?

EDIT:::

Did find https://drupal.org/project/references module that seems to work great. However, I still would like to know if using People area is best for storing all users / people associated with my Drupal site. Thanks :)

Answer 1

Personally I often use Entity Reference, but I think this answer is the same regardless of the choice between Entity Reference and References modules. Both modules allow you to define a relation between two entities. If you need a reference from a node to another entity, this is a good solution.

I still would like to know if using People area is best for storing all users / people associated with my Drupal site.

When you say "People area", I think you mean Drupal's built-in user management. Users are fieldable entities, just like nodes. If you need to store data about a person, you can use both the user entity or define a "Person" node type. If the persons you're adding should be able to log in, now or in the future, you definitely want to create users. If they will never need to log in (for instance, you're building a site about people in ancient Rome), I would choose nodes.