Working with the Jump module
Out of the options available running Drupal 6x and Views 2x, I settled on using the Jump module to create dropdown menus for one of my recent projects. It's an easy module to get up and running and lets you create dropdowns menus from any configured menus or taxonomy terms.
Publishing to multiple Social Networks from Drupal
There are several options for dealing with specific social networks such as Facebook, Twitter and Linkedin, but what are the options for publishing a node directly from Drupal and have it posted to all (or many) of your social networks? Here's where my research has taken me.
The heavy weight candidates
Drupal for Facebook: Adding Social Plugins
While the functionality to add social plugins to your drupal web pages is available through the Drupal for Facebook module, it is not entirely obvious as there are no options available to add, for example, a 'like' button to your nodes, or an activity stream in a block. Here are some suggestions for implementing these features on your site.
Drupal for Facebook: Canvas Pages & Tabs explained
I didn't quite grasp the concept of Canvas pages and Tabs when I was first acqainted with them, so think it's worth explaining the difference between Facebook Canvas Pages and Facebook Tabs.
If you want to build an application on Facebook it will be housed in a Canvas Page. Aptly named, this blank 'canvas' provides an area 760 pixels wide in which you can display content from your server, video, images, games, whatever it may be. All this is done inside an iframe, so the user never leaves Facebook.
Drupal For Facebook: Installation
Installing Drupal for Facebook requires a couple of small hurdles to be jumped.
Let's assume that you have already downloaded Drupal for Facebook and have uploaded the files to your modules folder (sites/all/modules). If you haven't, visit the project page and download the latest stable release. Before you activate Drupal for Facebook there are a couple of small hurdles that need jumped. If you follow these instructions, it should all fall into place gracefully. Here goes...
Drupal and Twitter
I still hear people tell me they just don't get Twitter and ask me what's it all about. Whether you get it or not, it's clear that you should be taking advantage of it, if you want to promote yourself or your business. If you have a Drupal website, here's the options for publishing content directly to Twitter from your Drupal site, how to integrate content from Twitter into your site and map users and data.
Drupal and Facebook: What are the options?
I heard some quote from a guy prophesying that Facebook will become the 'plumbing' of the internet. Whether or not his prediction comes true, I'm only concerned with Drupal's ability to plumb into Facebook. There are a few options available to help you integrate Facebooks social plugins and create Facebook applications using content from your own Drupal site.
Quick&Easy
Installing Drupal Timeline Locally
This process differs from its Drupal 5x predecessor in that we now have to install the Libraries module. This isn't so bad, what else do we need to do? Hmmm, oh yeah, download the timeline libraries (in this case the pre-packaged patched version - nice and easy).The steps:
Drupal User Settings: Email Variables explained
If you're setting up registration emails in your Drupal install, here's a quick overview of the tokens you can use to customise them to your needs.
!username - username.
!password - users password.
!site - the name of the site as specified in Administer » Settings » Site information.
!uri - the full URI of your site (Uniform Resource Identifier). Basically, a URL e.g. http://www.yourwebsite.com
!uri_brief - is a short version of %uri, meaning it usually strips the http:// part. e.g. www.yourwebsite.com
WYSIWYG + Easy Inline Image = Happy Clients
Giving your clients a WYSIWYG (what-you-see-is-what-you-get) text editor is pretty much expected these days. What's more, they want to be able to upload and add images along with their content with minimum, preferably zero fuss. In short they want it to be simple.
They DON'T want to:
Custom Date Formatting
I can never remember the various formats for making your own custom date so here's a breakdown of the meanings of the abbreviations used:
- a - am or pm
- A - AM or PM
- d - day of the month, 2 digits with leading zeros; i.e. 01 to 31
- D - day of the week, textual, 3 letters; i.e. Fri
- F - month, textual, long; i.e. January
ImageField CCK doesn't publish?
Here's a workaround for those of you experiencing problems when using the ImageField CCK module. The problem is that the uploaded image does not display on node view. I experienced this problem using ImageField 5.x 2.1 on Drupal 5.12.
- Edit your content type by navigating to Administer > Content types > [your content type] e.g. story
- Click the 'Display fields' tab and change the label for your imagefield from "Above" to "Inline". Click Submit.
