drupal
Freelinking 3: Forging Ahead
grayside — Fri, 11/20/2009 - 23:58
Since I have recently become a co-maintainer on Freelinking, and am now leading Freelinking 3 onward to the next Alpha release, I felt a need to philosophize about Freelinking and where it is going.
One of the biggest differences between traditional writing and composing for the web is the ability to easily interconnect information. Inline references for immediate "further reading" are really powerful, really easy for readers, and really annoying for writers. Be it composing HTML or clicking buttons, creating links interrupts the flow of ideas. Suddenly we have a trade-off between a bad writer experience and a limited reader experience.
Enter Freelinking, the Drupal module that addresses the simple, wiki-like approach to creating links, providing the kind of shorthand notation that minimizes the impact on writers.
Overriding Prepopulate: Do Not Use hook_form_FORM_ID_alter
grayside — Fri, 02/12/2010 - 11:31
The Prepopulate module works some great magic to preload forms from URL variables. But suppose you need some extra magic to modify the titles it puts in place?
You can always use hook_form_alter (and here is one of countless little tutorials on that).
If you already know about that, you might be someone that enjoys the use of hook_form_FORM_ID_alter(). If you do, you cannot use it to override Prepopulate-set fields. It turns out that regardless of module weight, hook_form_FORM_ID_alter is called before hook_form_alter for any given form, meaning that the more specific function will always set the value, then Prepopulate will come along and reset it to your URL value.
There is a nice issue (#300481) that details this problem, and hopefully will find itself fixed in Drupal 8.
Atrium Casetracker: Change Which Case Statuses are "Closed"
grayside — Mon, 02/08/2010 - 13:35
You might wonder how cases are considered "closed" for purposes of case filtering in the Case Tracker. It's an attempt to be helpful on the Case Tracker's part– hide the stuff that is no longer relevant unless the user specifically asks for it. Unfortunately, I don't like the defaults on what it considers irrelevant.
Casetracker with Subtasks
grayside — Mon, 11/30/2009 - 16:09
The Case Tracker project provides a fairly straightforward issue tracker. In the future it will provide more functionality, but for now certain types of customizations are left to the end user. This post describes an attached module that provides a simple up/down relationship to Cases using CCK.
The State of Drag-n-Drop File Upload in Drupal
grayside — Mon, 11/16/2009 - 16:32
This post briefly evaluates the available modules for Drag-n-Drop File Upload & Management in Drupal. Quick summary: It is a sad and sorry thing, with most of the long term solutions in an infant state, and the mature solutions declining or in need of a massive overhaul to stay relevant in Drupal 7.
Remove CCK Fields from the Node Form
grayside — Thu, 11/12/2009 - 15:05
There is a fine tutorial on drupal.org describing How to set the disabled attribute of a CCK field on your node add/edit form. All that does is deactivate the input widget without removing the clutter. Let's get rid of the form elements entirely.
Using Nano with Drupal
grayside — Thu, 11/12/2009 - 11:12
Janak Singh had a great introduction to tailoring Nano for use with Drupal. Here are the details of how I use Nano.
CCK Fields and the Open Atrium Node Form
grayside — Tue, 11/10/2009 - 16:04
OpenAtrium has some pretty slick styling of it's node add/edit form. Unfortunately, when you add a CCK field to it, you get something comparatively under-styled and in the main column of the form.
If you want to get that slick styling and move the CCK fields to the right, try the following:
- Go to admin/build/modules and enable the Fieldgroup module under CCK.
- Go to the Manage Fields page for your content type. Create a new group, the machine name starting as group_sidebar.
Prepopulating Casetracker
grayside — Tue, 11/03/2009 - 11:32
The Prepopulate module for Drupal is a nifty little tool that resets the default values of forms on their way to the browser. This is particularly useful for crafting links to create nodes with pre-set values. You can even prepopulate Case Tracker form values to help users create cases filled out as you would like.
Freelinking for Casetracker
grayside — Thu, 10/22/2009 - 20:31
I use this extensively in my personal issues queue, and it helps. On the inspiration of an issue to colorize the issues in the casetracker views, I've fast-tracked this project to provide thoroughly stylizable links to casetracker cases.