Stoneberg Design | Blog

Theming Drupal - A Well Worn Stretch on the Drupal Learning Curve

Jared — Thu, 15 Apr 2010 17:57:22 +0000

Learning Drupal theming often feels like climbing Misery Hill, especially to people coming to Drupal from a front end web development background who know HTML and CSS but do not have experience with PHP or with Content Management Systems. This was me, but it does not have to be you.

HTML + CSS expertise != PHP Know-How

My beginnings of web development were in writing HTML and CSS. I love writing HTML and CSS. I think there is value in lean, semantic markup and love well thought out, creative CSS that give the markup a beautiful design. When I found Drupal I realized that the translation of my skill set would be doing what people call "Theming". Theming is often used to describe different things, but for me it means making the output of Drupal match a particular design. This should primarily happen in CSS in my opinion but often manipulation of the markup must happen as well. Learning to manipulate the ouptut of the Drupal was the beginning of Misery Hill for me. I felt completely over my head as I googled looking for answers to my questions trying to understand what "overriding a theme function" and "phptemplate_variables" meant. The theming section of my copy of Pro Drupal Development is well worn from reading and reading and re-reading trying to understand the concepts. My main takeaway from going through the process of learning, very slowly and painfully, what all these things are is that a basic understanding and demystifying of PHP could have gone a long way to easing my way up Misery Hill.

Progress in the Ecosystem

Things are different now. Drupal has changed since those days and so has the ecosystem around the system. One of the biggest changes is the wealth of resources for learning to work on Drupal as a front end developer. There are great instructional podcasts, books and even a DVD learning series on Drupal theming. These are all very high quality and have contributed to the integration of designers into the community and education of how to learn as a Drupal Front End Developer. One of the more recent and very exciting efforts to help educate people about some of the things, like a minimal knowledge of PHP, that were personally challenging is the Design to Theme project from Emma Jane Hogbin. Emma Jane is an author and trainer and Design to Theme is the place where she is leading workshops and writing about Drupal theming. Recently Emma Jane published an ebook titled "Theming Drupal: A first timer's guide" that is a a fantastic starting place for someone new to PHP and creating Drupal themes. "Theming Drupal: A first timer's guide" covers many of the very subjects that drove me up a wall trying to figure out as I started with Drupal theming, some of my favorite sections include:

Template Variables
Adding Style Sheets
Conditional Output ("if" statements are important to teach PHP noobs!)
Zen Theme
Node Template Variables
Customizing Blocks (especially the bit here about tpl naming suggestions)
Accessing Content in the $node Object (oh the hours spent learning to pick apart $content!)
Designing with Grids
the ebook also includes a sample node.tpl.php with great example code

The ebook is well organized with code samples throughout and explanations of concepts that make sense. I highly recommend this ebook to people who are coming to Drupal theming from a similar place as I came from - a strong understanding of HTML and CSS but little to no knowledge of PHP(or any dynamic language).

SEADUG: Drupal is Global - We make it Local

Jared — Wed, 03 Mar 2010 22:44:51 +0000

When a leading global technology meets a strong and dedicated local community good things happen.

I think the power of Drupal is the community.

Drupal is a great framework/CMS, but it is not the only option in this market-space. The Drupal community and project have many different entry points for becoming involved and meeting and collabortating with others. When I came to Drupal almost two years ago the entry point for me was the local Drupal User Group here in Seattle. I think our group is a great model for other groups to follow, we have a great core of committed people, we are committed to our local community and we focus on remaining a place that is available to anyone interested in Drupal, regardless of their experience level.

Committed leaders are at the core

Averaging over 20 people each month, our group has grown since the first meeting I attended where 4 of us met in a cafe. Much of the credit for our growth and staying power has been the commitment of a core of people who schedule and lead the meetings, organize and present at DrupalCamps and answer questions on our groups.drupal.org page. This is a familiar refrain for those in the open source/Drupal community- the core people are committed to the flourishing of a project and demonstrate that through hard work. These people are vital to our (your) local group's success. How can you support them? One thing is say "thanks". Another is look for ways to help, don't wait to be asked. As members of the group find value, there should be an expectation that they will become a part of the process they have benefited from. This goes for Drupal shops too. Our meeting is often a place where local shops come to find talent, so supporting the groups efforts should be a priority for these business'. When I started working with CivicActions I was pleased to learn that they put their money where their mouth is by offering a stipend each month for time spent working with your local Drupal User Group. I feel that this is a great way for companies to support and establish local user group leaders.

We are committed to our local community

In my experience, some of the coolest things about our Drupal User Group here in Seattle has been our impact regionally and locally. Our annual DrupalCamp has grown each year and been a fantastic event for all involved. People come up from Portland and down from Victoria and Vancouver B.C. to attend. Many of our members go to the DrupalCamps in those cities as well. It is fun to see the local flavor and learn with our neighboring Drupal User Groups. Recently we came together to build a Drupal site for a local arts oriented non-profit in what we have called a "barn-raising", as a service to them and a learning opportunity for SEADUG members.

We are focused on being inviting and open to all

One of the things that is easy to do once you start making your way up the Drupal learning curve it to forget what it was like when you started the climb. I am always impressed how the group leaders intentionally set our monthly agenda to be certain that the group stays a place where anyone can have a place. We have the "What is a Node?" question almost every month. While some may tire of constantly answering this question, the patient answers and dedicated time to beginner questions has been rewarded with continued growth in our group. This is especially important to me because as I began trekking in the foothills of the mountain that is the Drupal Learning Curve these folks listened to and answered my questions. Last month conversations ranged from the absolute beginner to questions about load balancing servers and stream wrappers in Drupal 7; there was space for all. This has been a mark of our group and something I would stress to anyone starting a local group, always ask yourself how you can serve the new person. As our group gets bigger I am sure we will run into some growing pains because the interests will become more varied, but I know that there will always be a commitment to remaining a place for all to come and Drupal together.

Drupal is growing. More and more large Drupal sites are being built, Drupal companies are being formed and developers are drinking the Drupal Kool-Aid. This is great, but I believe that the community must respond with growth. It is entirely possible to use and benefit from Drupal as a developer or business without the community, but once you have tapped into the community I believe real growth as a project happens. This is why I joined and support my local user group and urge you to do the same.

Drupal Views - Listing of Nodes Related to User in a Panel

Jared — Mon, 01 Mar 2010 17:59:30 +0000

I am using Content Profile with custom CCK fields on my Drupal 6 site to create User Profiles. I am using Panels 3 to handle the display of the User Profile Page. This is a demonstration of how to use Views to Display related content on the User Profile Panel using Views Arguments.

Before I begin I would like to point out that an enormous help to my understanding of how to do this came from this post on the Drupal Easy website.

I am using Drupal 6, I am going to wager that accomplishing this is going to be a lot less complicated in Drupal 7.
I am using this technique to show related users on a user profile page.
User profiles are made using the content profile module.
The user profile page is a panel page made with Panels 3.
I am showing 2 lists of other users:
- A list of users with the same selection of a CCK text field, select list, who share the same value as the user being viewed.
- A list of users who have the same selection of a node reference field as the user being viewed.

First, a bit about the user profile. In Drupal 6 I find that most often I prefer using content profile to handle user profiles. The option of using the core profile module does not have the same flexibility and power as using content profile. Content profile creates a node for the user profile of a custom content type. The Content Profile module comes with a custom type when you install it, the type has a machine name of 'profile' and that is the one that I prefer to use. I have added two custom fields to the 'profile' content type that we will be looking at today.

A CCK text field with a select list widget type that has options for a user to choose a value.
A Node reference field that allows a user to choose a node to relate their profile to.

Now a bit about the panel page. I do not think this technique changes whether or not you are using a panel to display the page that the view will be shown on. I am using panels to hijak the user profile display. This means that the page which we are working on is a panel and lives at "user/uid". I think that there may be an easier way to handle this in panels, since the central challenge to displaying the lists I would like to display is getting the proper argument to the view. This is the first time I have used panels in over a year and a lot has changed since that time. If there is a better way to accomplish this with Panels 3 please do leave a comment.

Drupal Views Attachments Sceencast

Jared — Fri, 19 Feb 2010 06:30:50 +0000

In this screencast I will demonstrate a technique using a Views attachment display to control the markup from views. By using taxonomy to organize content on the Drupal website I show how to use the Views module to create lists that can be manipulated by using different display styles.

Setting Up a New Server to Send Email

Jared — Thu, 21 Jan 2010 19:51:19 +0000

I am in the proccess of moving off of shared hosting to a dedicated server for this site and a few others I maintain. This is a learning process for me. This is how I was able to configure my server to send emails.

Pacific Northwest Drupal Summit - A New Regional Drupal Event Paradigm

Jared — Wed, 30 Dec 2009 19:27:16 +0000

The Pacific Northwest Drupal Summit held in Seattle in October 2009 offers a new approach to a regional Drupal event for Drupal professionals.

Just over two months ago the Pacific Northwest Drupal Summit happened in Seattle. The Summit was a regional conference for people who use Drupal. We saw over 130 people gather for two days of teaching and learning and sharing. The event was free to attend thanks to many generous sponsors. The sessions were of a very high quality, videos can be found here. All reports were that they event was a success like the Drupal Camps have been held in Seattle in the past, but I believe that though success was shared by both events, Camps and the Summit, they are distinct from each other.

First, a little backstory. In 2006 Seattle held a Drupal Camp and has held one annually since then. In 2008 we had over 150 people attend and ran multiple tracks. Our camps were growing at a rapid rate. Following our camp in 2008 we became aware of a few things:

The producers (SEADUG - our local Druapl user group) of the camps were having less time and energy to devote to putting on camps.
The diversity of the subject matter of the camp was difficult to manage with people who are exploring and beginning with Drupal and experienced Drupal coders all looking for a first class development experience.
We were not the only awesome folks nearby, just a couple months before our camp a fantastic Drupal Camp had been held in Vancouver.

When discussion started about whether or not to produce a Camp in 2009 we had trouble building any interest or momentum. After many starts and stops it was clear that a camp as we had previously know it was unlikely to happen and that a new approach was needed. Out of these conversations came a new Drupal event model that worked really well for us.

First, we took our traditional camp model and split it based on the attendee demographic, new/exploring and experienced/coder. I do believe this was a genius move because it allowed us to appropriately scale for and serve the two very different groups.

We established that there should be two events, The Drupal Clinic and The Drupal Summit.

Moving "Read More" Link Inline in Teaser

Jared — Tue, 06 Oct 2009 03:30:54 +0000

A common requirement for many of my recent clients has been to move the "Read More" link at the end of a teaser inline to the end of the teaser's last paragraph. Here is a look at a technique for doing this I find useful.

This need usually occurs in a listing, and listings are almost always built with the fantastic Views module. Often on a page showing excerpts of content, sometimes called teasers in Drupal, the displayed data is a small portion of the entire piece and is followed by a link to the full piece of content. This link is often called the "read more" link, for obvious reasons.

When using the Views 2 module there are a few ways to add a "read more" link to listing showing a preview of an article or other piece of content. In the past I used a trimmed version of the body text that was set to a specific number of characters or words and was followed by a "read more" link to the full view of the content. The are more options available now with the second version of Views. I am going to outline my newest and currently prefefrred hack/technique.