Deck Fifty Design Blog: Content Management System
26
Feb
Using Drupal Views in Code
written by Shane Graham
Ever been is a situation where you have a crazy complex View and realize you messed it up right AFTER you hit the save button? It's happened to all of us at one point or another. Having the ability to easily revert your View at anytime can be a life saver. This is why we always use the methods below when building larger Views. There are some other substantial benefits to keeping your Views in code. It allows you to commit to your version control system and makes deploying Views from a development environment to a production site a snap. Did I convince you yet? Ok enough yakin', let's get to...
27
Jan
The Benefits of a Custom Drupal Website vs. Free Hosted Websites
In this digital age, your company’s success is largely dependent on the efficacy of your online presence. The question is no longer simply: do you need a website? (You do.) It is now a series of questions: What kind of a website do you want? What functionality is required? How will you get the right eyes on your website? And most importantly: What sets your website apart from a sea of competitors?
While “free” websites are appealing (i.e. websites hosted without charge by wordpress.org or similar providers), remember that in the marketplace, there is no such thing as “free.” Businesses...
24
Aug
Custom Drupal Search Block
written by Shane Graham
Recently a client wanted an unusual block. The block contained three social media links (facebook, twitter and youtube) and the search form. The easy solution would be with a static block or block menu and position it with css, but I wanted all the markup in a single block...ok here we go!
Custom Drupal Search Block - Step 1.
First create a custom module. This will require an .info file and .module file. My module is called deckfifty:
My deckfifty.info file contains:
name = deckfifty custom
description = "deckfifty.com custom"
core = 6.x
My deckfifty.module file utilizes Drupal's hook_block...
04
Jul
Drupal Ubercart exporting orders in CSV or XLS (Excel Format)
written by Shane Graham
Often times clients request a listing of detailed information from their Ubercart orders. Typically the standard Ubercart reports doesn't cut the mustard. Having reports in an exportable format like .xls or .csv allows easy importing into other applications. We'll cover how to create a table listing of your ubercart orders and how to export them.
This tutorial covers Drupal 6 modules. You'll need:
Ubercart http://drupal.org/project/ubercart
Views http://drupal.org/project/views
uc_views http://drupal.org/project/uc_views
Views Bonus Pack http://drupal.org/project/views_bonus
First, create a...
26
Apr
Top 50 Drupal Modules
written by Shane Vincent
Drupal is our favorite CMS. One of the major reasons we love Drupal so much is the huge community of developers and large number of contributed modules available. If we were in the business of building cars we probably wouldn’t go about designing new tires for it. Instead, we would rely on tire manufacturers who had already done the R&D. The same holds true for websites. When a website requires common functionality such as a blog or forums we use pre-existing modules which offer a framework for us to build from. In our day to day development we use a LOT of modules. We’ve listed our top...