resource

Taxonomy Suggestions

Drupalace — Mon, 30 Jun 2008 07:24:47 -0700

Taxonomy suggestions

You can create whatever Terms you can think of a use for, grouped into whatever Vocabularies you like. There are infinite possibilities – which always makes it hard to get started.

General strategy

It's difficult to immediately envision all the ways to set up your taxonomy, and all the possibilities for using it. Here's a general suggestion for starting out:

Menus, Links, and Paths: Navigating the Site

Drupalace — Thu, 12 Jun 2008 07:09:39 -0700

This is important stuff. One of the keys to grasping Drupal is to understand that creating content is just a small part of the picture. Creating a node is simple enough; telling users how to get to any node, via links in menus or elsewhere, is the start of building a site.

Creating a page from a List of Nodes

Drupalace — Thu, 12 Jun 2008 07:00:01 -0700

You'll often want to make a page not from a single node, but from a list of several nodes. I haven't yet come across a technical Drupal word for such a page, so I'll call it a 'node-list page'.

Creating a page from a Single Node

Drupalace — Thu, 12 Jun 2008 06:42:51 -0700

There's not much to cover here. As already discussed, when you create a node, Drupal automatically gives it a path (like node/53), or you can give it a path yourself (like product_catalog).

To create a page from that node, then, you don't really need to do anything special. Just go to the node's path (presumably via a menu item you've created for the purpose), and Drupal will whip up a page centered around that node, surrounded by the blocks, graphical elements, footer, and other accountrements you've set up for the site.

That's it!

The Drupalace theme: download-ready!

Drupalace — Wed, 27 Feb 2008 07:49:57 -0800

Want your site to look sort of like this one? Then I've got news for you:

Your condition can be treated. Seek professional help. Now.

... Still here? Well, as long as you're staying, feel free to sample my first attempt at a downloadable theme: DRUPALACE ZEN, an unhealthy reimagining of the popular Zen CSS theme. (Download at bottom of page.)

Free Aliases!

Drupalace — Sun, 27 Jan 2008 01:16:11 -0800

Below are useful built-in aliases, ready to take you to important pages. Just type the alias into your browser's address bar, after <your site domain>.

Drupal aliases

The following aliases come courtesy of Drupal:

The user login page. The first page you need as an administrator!

/user

List of registered users, with links to each individual user page.

Changing Color of Garland Theme

Drupalace — Sun, 27 Jan 2008 01:12:27 -0800

Garland is the name of a Theme made for Drupal 5. It has a nifty feature: an easy color selector that lets you change your color scheme right within the Theme configuration form; no programming required.

If you're using the Garland Theme, or a Theme based on Garland, here's how you can change your colors:

Change download method to 'public'

First, a quirk in the process: You probably have (and should have) your site set to handle file downloads via a private, not public, method. That would seem to have nothing to do with changing the Theme's color scheme, but it happens that the Garland scheme can only save new color information if the download method is set to 'public'.

Other Fun Things

Drupalace — Sun, 27 Jan 2008 01:10:06 -0800

Tips, tricks, and techniques.

Maintenance and Construction Notices

Drupalace — Sun, 27 Jan 2008 01:08:41 -0800

Sometimes you'll want to put up an "under construction" sign, or even make your site invisible, while you make big upgrades to the content (or just run experiments). Here are a couple of choices:

Placing an "Under Construction" sign

If you want to tell visitors that the site is under construction (or send some more creative message), but not deny access to the site, you only need to place a message on the front page. Create a Blog Entry, Page, or other appropriate node, and follow the instructions for having it appear among other nodes on your front page (or even make it the sole node on your front page).