Drupal

Baxwrds - now with Open Revisioning!

I just opened up the viewing of revisions to anonymous users on my site. Check it out on my recipe for pickled eggs: http://baxwrds.com/node/469/revisions

You can use the Diff function provided by the diff module to get revisions highlighted for you. Allowing you to tell that I just added this paragraph:
http://baxwrds.com/node/493/revisions/view/598/599

Homegrown Drupal 5 Webform SPAM Filtering

One of my clients started getting massive amounts of SPAM through his web form created contact form. Since this contact form is displayed as a block on ever page, I didn't want to put in an obtrusive captcha. I did try the hidden captcha module, but found that it is already automated against. I decided to hit it straight on and wrote a snippet of code to not submit, but error instead, when the body contains the http prefix.

Up with the Google Fonts Module

After being alerted to Google Fonts, the Google Font API, and the Google Fonts Module in a recent Drupal Planet post (http://acquia.com/blog/robert/google-fonts-api-time-drupal-market-one-day), I dropped my lunch and said, "Rad!" Then I rolled up the sleeves and dropped a few fonts into my blog as easy as the dog drops logs on the lawn. What follow is usage notes and examples on getting this all going for yourself:

How-to wrap your CSS Injector files into a new Zen sub-theme

I frequently use a 3rd party designer to help with the tedious task of going from PSD to final theme. If you haven't realized it yet, but alot of designers have problems setting up a local MAMP install w/ drupal in which to fuck with css. To deal with this without giving the designer any command-line access, my shop uses what we call CZI on all drupal installs. This stands for CSS Injector, Zen theme, IMCE, and allows a designer to upload images and apply css rules to a development site they have been given permissions for on the theme, Zen, that provides all the classes and ids anyone would need.

After my shop, the designer, and the client are satisfied, CSS Injector and it's external files become a weight and need to be removed. Below I detail the process of using Zenophile (http://drupal.org/project/zenophile) to create a zen subtheme in which to wrap up all your CSS Injector files:

Configuring Image Assist in Drupal 6

Image Assist is a great choice for adding images to content in Drupal. This module allows users to upload and insert inline images into posts. It automatically generates an Add image link under the textarea fields of your choice. In this post I will go throught the initial setup of this module, saving usage for a later post.

For a good discussion on multiple ways of importing images into your drupal site and each approaches pros and cons, please see: http://crownedup.com .

  1. Check your Status Report

Drupal Legal Module Provides Required Terms and Conditions

If you want to make any sort of terms and conditions applicable to becoming a member of your Drupal site, I would suggest using the Legal module. It provides for a text agreement that a user must agree to to get an account on the site. The agreement is signified via a single checkbox or multiple custom checkboxes. Additionally, the terms can be updated which requires users to agree to the agreement during their next site visit, a text box also provides for notes on changes.

Installation and Setup for Node Reference View

The Node Reference module defines a field type for use by the Content Creation Kit (CCK) to reference one node from another. It works very good and allows you to add a greater amount of complexity to your site. The only problem with the Node Reference module is that the default display options for the referenced node field are very limited. But thanks to the Node Reference Views module, you can use all the formatting power of the Views module to display your referenced node field.

Installing and Configuring Tagadelic in Drupal 6

Having built two fairly robust and strongly interlinked taxonomies to aid in categorization, SEO and navigability of my site, I decided I wanted one of those (old school) tag clouds to display my lexicon. After waiting for the enormous drupal modules page to load, I decided the best route to follow would be to use Tagadelic, though it appears that I may have to use helper modules to get the fully customizable effect I am looking for.

According to the module description found on the module page of your site: Tagadelic makes weighted tag clouds from your taxonomy terms.

Formatting Timestamps in Drupal

Most data dealing with times and dates is stored as a as a standard Unix timestamp in Drupal. Examples of this are the node creation and revision dates, or the user creation, login, and access dates. If you access this data directly from the database you will retrieve this highly illegible timestamp. Good thing that Drupal provides a function for formatting dates: format_date().

Adding Links in Drupal with the l() Function

In Drupal you should know that you never want to hardcode a local URL into your nodes or blocks. Firstly as your site expands the node may show from places you do not currently imagine thus breaking your paths. Secondly if you try to bypass this by using a full/direct URL, you are going to be up shit creek without a paddle when you migrate the URL. The link l() function should be used for adding links so that manipulations, like localization and URL determinations, can happen on the output.

Syndicate content