Developer Tips

Customizing Google Forms

2010-09-20T00:44:00.001-07:00

I was scratching my head at the lack of settings and customization available for Google forms, and after much searching for a work-around I found the following great, simple, tutorial:

http://www.morningcopy.com.au/tutorials/how-to-style-google-forms/

It covers:

How to embed the form in your own webpage

How to force a redirect so your visitors aren't presented with a bland google page after they submit

Drupal: Create a view to display taxonomy content in alphabetical order, which also displays the taxonomy term in the correct language

2010-09-10T08:59:00.000-07:00

By default, taxonomy pages display content in the order they were entered, and this is not customizable unless you update the core module.

To get around this, create a view with taxonomy term as the argument, simple. When you enter %1 as the custom title in the argument settings, it will nicely change the title of the page to the taxonomy term - HOWEVER! the term will only display in the default language and ignore the user's current language. Here is a solution using php to produce the title in the view's custom header setting.

View my Drupal post here: http://groups.drupal.org/node/92499

Drupal: displaying multiple Views within Views with argument

2010-09-10T08:53:00.000-07:00

Goal: to display multiple views within a view such that each row of the primary view passes a variable to the embedded views so that all of the content for 2 different content types can be displayed based on their relationship with the contents of the primary view.

Table display of the primary view would look something like:

[view1: row1 content [view2: content related to row1] [view3: content related to row1] ]
[view1: row2 content [view2: content related to row2] [view3: content related to row2] ]

View my posting on Drupal here: http://groups.drupal.org/node/92494

Franklin the Turtle's Creators for Canada's Walk of Fame

2010-09-02T08:34:00.000-07:00

This is a re-post from the Franklin the Turtle Facebook page - You love the turtle, now help get his creators into Canada's Walk of Fame!

Franklin the Turtle is celebrating his 25th birthday in 2011! Yes, it’s been 25 years since Franklin made his debut in Franklin in the Dark. And what better way to celebrate this achievement than by helping his creators — Paulette Bourgeois and Brenda Clark — receive a star on Canada’s Walk of Fame.

How can you help?
1) By going to Canada’s Walk of Fame website, http://www.canadaswalkoffame.com/nomination, and nominating Paulette Bourgeois and Brenda Clark for The Canada Honours. (Please note that you cannot nominate Franklin because he is a fictional character.)
2) By “liking” this page and telling your friends about the page.

Nominate Paulette and Brenda:
1) For creating the beloved Canadian icon Franklin the Turtle, whose books have sold over 65 million copies worldwide and who celebrates his 25th anniversary in 2011.
2) For being Canadian creators whose books have entertained millions of readers.
3) For donating their time and money to such worthy causes as Literature for Life, PEN International, United Way and Toronto Parks and Trees Foundation.
4) For mentoring emerging writers and illustrators.

Written by Paulette Bourgeois and illustrated by Brenda Clark, the Franklin series has sold over 65 million copies worldwide. There are currently 100 Franklin books in print in over 30 languages, making Franklin the most successful franchise in the history of Canadian publishing. In 1997, the animated Franklin television series premiered on the Family Channel and remains a top-rated show among children ages 2 to 5. Combined, Paulette and Brenda have won twelve awards and have been shortlisted for another three awards. In 2003, Paulette became a Member of the Order of Canada.

To learn more about Paulette please visit
http://www.kidscanpress.com/Canada/CreatorDetails.aspx?CID=20

To learn more about Brenda please visit
http://www.kidscanpress.com/Canada/CreatorDetails.aspx?CID=34

Thank you for taking the time to nominate Paulette and Brenda!

Must-have Firefox add-ons for developers

2010-01-10T14:50:00.000-08:00

If you're a Web Developer or Designer, the following Firefox add-ons are a must:

1. Firebug (http://getfirebug.com/)
Tested on: MAC OS X Snow Leopard, Ubuntu 9.1, Windows 7

Firebug allows you to pin-point errors in html, css, and JavaScript. You can even test code in real-time right in the browser before changing your source files, making testing a quick, and simple process.

2. ColorZilla (http://www.colorzilla.com/firefox/)
Tested on: MAC OS X Snow Leopard, Ubuntu 9.1, Windows 7

ColorZilla adds an eyedropper and color picker to your browser which allows you to quickly grab the colour code of anything in the browser. Also allows you to save your favourite pallets and pick colours from a prism.

Note: Unfortunately the eye-dropper tool does not appear to function in Linux, though the color picker and pallets tools seem to work fine.

3. Screengrab! (http://www.screengrab.org/)
Tested on: MAC OS X Snow Leopard, Ubuntu 9.1, Windows 7

Screengrab! is perfect for people like me who can't remember the key-strokes for taking a screen capture on Mac or Linux, but it's great for PC users too since it allows you to save your capture to a file or to the clipboard. Screengrab! allows you save the visible window/frame, a portion of the screen, or the entire window.