Blog

Drupal theming nightmares part 2

Welcome to the second part of the Drupal theming nightmares series. Not really surprised by the feedback I've got in the previous post. Most of you were enough lucky to stumble on the same problems. While the post was focused on the theming mistakes, it raised a discussion about unfinished jobs too. So if you haven't read it, it is right here: Drupal theming nightmares part 1.

Drupal theming nightmares part 1

And yet again, took a job that someone else started long time ago, although I did say that I won't do this ever again. "It is almost finished, it needs only few tweaks there and there and we are done." they are saying. I am staying calm, due to time pressure (and the fact that I had to log in to a windows xp machine through vnc - actual server), throwing down some estimates without looking at the site build. Easy tasks you would say, add a border there, fix margin, login box there and mostly styling issues. Nothing I haven't done before.

They wanted to launch the site as soon as possible and of course, only these little things needed to be done. It's ok, shouldn't take me longer than half a day and surely it will help them. So they signed off the budget and we were ready to fix few simple issues and get it out. But...

Using RootCandy to create a simple interface for clients

admin theme v front endRootCandy is an administration theme specificaly developed to streamline the process of creating an admin interface for clients in Drupal. In this blog post I am going to show you what we did for our client eCommera (http://ecommera.com) and will highlight some of the RC functionality. Officialy 4,808 sites are using this theme and I am quite curious how, so feel free to leave a comment below.

Letterpress effect in GIMP


Have seen loads of tutorials for photoshop how to make a letterpress effect as seen above but non of them for GIMP (http://gimp.org). It is a trendy effect these times on the web and yes, it is fairly easy to create one.

Menu description field in node/add form

A simple solution how to add a description field to your node/add forms.

What is that for?

We are building a website that has landing pages. Structure could be like:

  • About Us (landing page)
    • Who we are?
    • What we do?
  • Locations (landing page)
    • United Kingdom
    • Ireland

The site structure is based on a menu, thus each page has its menu and most importantly parent menu item if it is not landing page. When visitor is viewing a landing page, the page consists of a text from landing page node and a list of first level sub-menu items with its description (views can't do this afaik).

Here is the landing page layout:

Blog Archive

DrupalCamp Prague 2009 The very first DrupalCamp in Czech Republic is being held in Prague on 31st October to 1st November. Overall capacity is 250 attendees, so far 122 people registered and most importantly the registration is free. If you are considering...
Another update on Root Candy Just noticed that I forgot to post about a version 1.0 being released some time ago. We are almost ready to roll out 1.1 version with several bug fixes and new features so I would like to summarise what has been done so far and invite...
Rootcandy getting darker - rc3 out We are almost there, RC3 is out and I am thinking how many RC's are ahead. One, maybe two, and then release. In the last RC, I know it's not a good practice, however I had to add a new feature, just because I liked it too much. So a new...
RootCandy alpha release After long nights and many hours spent on this theme, finaly I am able to release alpha version. The first blog post about rootcandy is dated on Sat, 01/12/2008 - 14:33. Thats quite a long time ago. It went through a lot of itterations (...
Calendar icons revisited - bubble with comment count My blog-post with calendar icons is nearly one year old. I've seen quite a lot of people using it and was surprised. One of the best upgrades was by Joost de Valk (Yoast.com). His article on CSS-Tricks shows his idea to place a bubble with...
Rootcandy update 09-2008 After a long time, another blog post about what's new since last update. After visiting Szeged and meeting quite a lot of new faces, I also got some feedback on rootcandy. Thanks all for that. I have set up a new gallery with latest...
Preparing for a drupalcon in szeged Finally I'll make it to my first drupalcon. Can't wait to meet all drupal geeks face to face and make a presentation about administration interface (http://moourl.com/pdl0n).
GuyCollection - drupal and e-commerce This is a little bit old project, released half a year ago. But I thought I would make a short walkthrough, showcasing what we did with drupal and e-commerce modules.
Magazine site done with drupal Last few weeks I've spent most of my time on a new website 'STANDPOINT.OnLine' which is a new UK magazine. Developed for BigKidLondon, drupal again prooved that especially for magazine website, where you need to have editors, publishing...
New blog design, old will be commited After one year with the old design, I have decided to re-design my site in my spare time. It took me 2 days to make a new design (using gimp(, including logo (blender+gimp) and then drupal theming. Yes, it was that easy with drupal. ;)
RootCandy update: Usability add on See the latest rootcandy screenshotsRootCandy screenshots album Another update of the admin theme RootCandy. This time I have tried something I wanted to do in the first version and also what was suggested in usability group afaik....
Rootcandy update. More sweet See the latest rootcandy screenshotsRootCandy screenshots album
Late night rootcandy update See the latest rootcandy screenshotsRootCandy screenshots album Another late night update on RootCandy. I made quite a lot of changes. Including redesign and now I am using Oxygen icons now which comes under GPL licence and they look...
Learn as you go Drupal concept While working on rootcandy admin theme, I came to a nice idea. I wanted to show a block with help on the right side, which I did. Then, I was figuring out if it could do more than just showing help for particular section and the idea of '...
RootCandy Drupal Admin theme See the latest rootcandy screenshotsRootCandy screenshots album Another update on this. I am slowly getting where I want to get. :) I also forgot to mention that rootCandy theme is available from drupal.org: http://drupal.org/project/...
Drupal Admin theme - mock ups vol1 See the latest rootcandy screenshotsRootCandy screenshots album Update 14/1/2008 21:45 Little navigation enhancements for long pages. see files 01.png, 02.png, 03.png -> anchor links. Update 14/1/2008 18:45 A little update for those who...
First name and Last name as user name in Drupal UPDATED 24/11/2007 I have stumbled upon a request (Custom Registration Form) for creating a module, which will use first name and last name to generate a username.
Reditrack drupal module Just a quick blog post, that I am currently working on a reditrack module for drupal. It will allow you to create a link with redirect and optionaly you will be able to track it. You will be able to create conditions for each redirect,...
Arg2Field drupal module nearly finished I would say, this is a really nice module. :) Originaly developed by guys in Antinomia solutions. I had to do few bug fixes, but then me and Matt (Antinomia) decided to improve it a little bit. The main functionality will be getting...
Calendar icons not only for your blog Read the update blog post here I have found a little bit of time last night to create few calendar icons. You can now download the source file of icons for gimp (http://gimp.org).
Theming comments with phptemplate How did I style comments and how did I use rounded corners using CSS Speech Bubbles from willmayo.com in my theme without hacking any other modules... Adding wrapper First, I created a new function in my template.php ->...
Back with the new website and theme! After a long time, I finally updated my website. There are new functions as well as a new drupal theme. I hope it will be pleasure for your eyes. Let's talk more about this new drupal theme...