Mastering Drupal

Acquia Drupal Training

heather — Wed, 07 Dec 2011 12:44:00 +0000

Learn Drupal with experts in classroom based training. Find out more at Acquia Training.

Drupal Video Tutorial Sites: Build A Module and Drupalize.me

greggles — Thu, 21 Jul 2011 00:03:00 +0000

Many folks interested in Mastering Drupal are looking for videos.

I decided not to create a full screencast series as part of this site, but our team is still producing videos periodically and making them available for free. However, since this site was started there have been two new companies launched that offer Drupal vides.

BuildAModule.com - Drupal videos by Chris Shattuck

Chris Shattuck, a really great person and competent Drupal developer/themer/site builder, created BuildAModule.com. This site has tons of videos broken down into short, digestable chunks. If you need to learn one specific thing you can watch just that video. They are also thoroughly screencasts: you see Chris' screen. He's great at using on-screen tools to highlight his mouse and the item he is working on so you can follow along.

The pricing is very reasonable between $23 and $29/month for online options or $29 to $399 for his DVDs. Note that his DVDs are actually full of video files for playing on your computer meaning that they are much longer than "DVD" might imply.

Drupalize.me from Lullabot

And of course a second option is Drupalize.me from the Lullabots. They have combined their tutorial videos, DiWD videos, and some site-specific videos to create a large library with a diverse set of presenters.

This creates for an interesting presentation of content because it mixes up medium length purpose focused material like "how to theme in Drupal" with a presentation style instruction where you might not be able to see the screen but the presenter themself might be more interesting.

Pricing on Drupalize.me varies from $35/month to $45/month depending on your commitment.

What do you think? Do you subscribe to either one of these sites? Are you getting videos from somewhere else?

Creating Local Copies of External JS for fun and performance: Drupal Starter Module

greggles — Wed, 27 Apr 2011 21:52:41 +0000

Often you need to load external JavaScript resources into a Drupal page. Unfortunately those can be from external servers that are slow. Even if the servers are fast, it is great to be able to take advantage of Drupal's JavaScript aggregation to make it a single HTTP request for the JavaScript file instead of multiple. The attached starter module is useful to create a local copy of external JavaScript files. This is a task that is really site specific. There are visibility rules and lists of modules to maintain. So, rather than creating a contributed module for it I'm presenting it here as a tutorial. You can also download the code for Drupal 6 as a .tgz. There are three functions in this starter module.

List out your files in customlocaljs_files

This function is just a piece of configuration to let other functions know which files they are dealing with.

<?php
/**
 * A helper function to list all your external js files.
 */
function customlocaljs_files() {
  return array(
    'example1' => 'http://example.com/number-magic.js',
    'exampleb' => 'http://example.com/fun-with-advertising.js',
  );
}
?>

Download and Add the JavaScript in customlocaljs_init

This function shouldn't need any tweaks unless you want to modify exactly which pages on the site the JavaScript should be added to.

<?php
function customlocaljs_init() {
  // If you want you could also do this in a node_api or wherever it makes sense.
  // Only do this in your init if that's where you need to add the js.
  $directory = file_directory_path() .'/customlocaljs';
  foreach (customlocaljs_files() as $key => $url) {
    // First make sure that the file is available locally.
    $file_destination = $directory .'/'. basename($url);
    if (!file_exists($file_destination)) {
      $result = drupal_http_request($url);
      if ($result->code == 200) {
        // Check that the files directory is writable.
        if (file_check_directory($directory, FILE_CREATE_DIRECTORY)) {
          file_save_data($result->data, $directory . '/' . basename($url), FILE_EXISTS_REPLACE);
        }
      }
    }
    // This actually adds the file to the page.
    drupal_add_js($directory .'/'. basename($url));
    }
  }
}
?>

Delete the files every 24 hours: customlocaljs_cron

The final purpose is to delete the files every 24 hours. This is important since the code that downloads files only goes to get them if they aren't available.

<?php
function customlocaljs_cron() {
  // Redownload the files every day.
  if (time() - variable_get('customlocaljs_last_cache', 0) >= 60*60*24) {

    // You have to create this file locally.
    foreach (customlocaljs_files() as $key => $url) {
      file_delete(file_directory_path() .'/customlocaljs' . '/' . basename($url));
    }

    // Clear aggregated JS files.
    if (variable_get('preprocess_js', 0)) {
      drupal_clear_js_cache();
    }

    variable_set('customlocaljs_last_cache', $_SERVER['REQUEST_TIME']);
  }
}
?>

And that's it! Once you've done this you should of course make sure that you are running cron and then bask in the glory that is locally aggregated javascript files.

The Drupal Community e-book

lisarex — Sat, 20 Nov 2010 02:11:56 +0000

$0.00

Written by:

Ezra Barnett Gildesgame and Greg James Knaddison

Some people use Drupal for a long time before having direct interaction with this community. These folks might be unaware that the community is out there, or of the benefits of having a good relationship with it.

In this chapter, we'll introduce the community and give some suggestions for how to interact with it (and get support) to get the best results for you and your website(s). First, let's start by sharing some basic information about the community. Then we'll talk about finding support. We'll end with some suggestions of ways that you (yes, you!) can say thanks to the Drupal community for the help and free software.

Summary

A glance at the community
Using Drupal.org and Groups.Drupal.org to Get Answers
Finding the Best Contributed Modules
Drupal Community Values
Be Thankful
Drinking from the fire hose

Improving User Experience with Recommendations e-book

lisarex — Wed, 17 Nov 2010 19:18:58 +0000

$0.00

Written by:

Ezra Barnett Gildesgame and Greg James Knaddison

If you've ever seen a list such as “Popular News Stores,” “Customers who bought this item also bought” or “Other stories by this author,” then you're familiar with the idea of related and recommended content, and the value these recommendations can add for website visitors. They also add value for site owners, since suggestions (and especially good suggestions) of additional content make people more likely to stay on your site for longer, view more pages, and buy more products.

Monetizing Your Site e-book

lisarex — Wed, 17 Nov 2010 03:15:12 +0000

$0.00

Written by:

Ezra Barnett Gildesgame and Greg James Knaddison

Whether you're looking for a new way to generate income or just trying to cover the costs of operating a website, you've probably wondered how your site will make money with its valuable content. In this chapter, we'll explore several different ways of generating income using external services like Google AdSense and Amazon.com's affiliate program, as well as self-contained systems for selling ads and charging to view and post content.

Context-Sensitive ads with Google AdSense
Building a self-contained ad selling system
Online classifieds: Paying to post
Subscription only Content
Summary

Creating sessions and a schedule with COD

ben — Wed, 10 Nov 2010 15:19:56 +0000

COD, the Conference Organizing Distribution for Drupal, is an easy and streamlined way to build powerful event websites. The recent release of COD Alpha 2 comes with a Views-powered schedule and many other great features.

In this quick screencast we'll build a single day, two-track conference using the COD Session feature.

Length:

4 minutes

Smart Landing Pages with Panels e-book

lisarex — Fri, 05 Nov 2010 20:38:01 +0000

$5.00

Written by:

Ezra Barnett Gildesgame and Greg James Knaddison

Panels makes it relatively easy to integrate your Drupal site's content into dynamic landing pages with customized layouts.

This PDF can be downloaded instantly after purchase. Download the Features file that provides essential assets.

Mastering Views e-book

greggles — Sun, 10 Oct 2010 15:49:23 +0000

$5.00

Written by:

Ezra Barnett Gildesgame and Greg James Knaddison

The Views module addresses a common need for people with a website full of content: displaying that content without having programming knowhow.

Views is one of the most innovative and important Contributed modules, empowering site administrators to easily create complex displays of content, and has changed the way developers build their modules.

This PDF can be downloaded instantly after purchase.

Druplicon Llama hats

greggles — Sun, 10 Oct 2010 15:43:51 +0000

$0.00

Currently sold out - contact us if you are interested in purchasing one and we'll add you to the list to contact when we get more.

These hats are made from a mix of alpaca, llama and synthetic wool.
They have Druplicon on them.
They are reversible with a llama design on the inside.

Mastering Drupal

Acquia Drupal Training

Drupal Video Tutorial Sites: Build A Module and Drupalize.me

BuildAModule.com - Drupal videos by Chris Shattuck

Drupalize.me from Lullabot

Creating Local Copies of External JS for fun and performance: Drupal Starter Module

List out your files in customlocaljs_files

Download and Add the JavaScript in customlocaljs_init

Delete the files every 24 hours: customlocaljs_cron

The Drupal Community e-book

Summary

Improving User Experience with Recommendations e-book

Monetizing Your Site e-book

Contents

Creating sessions and a schedule with COD

Smart Landing Pages with Panels e-book

Mastering Views e-book

Druplicon Llama hats