Muhathala Koottam

Mukhathala Kootam Chinchu http://mukhathalamuraritemple.com/community/profile/Chinchu

Taxonomy-A way to organize content

In Drupal , Taxonomy is a method of organizing content on a site. For example classifying music by genre could generate this list: classical, jazz, rock. A single area such as “classical” might be further classified as concertos, sonatas, symphonies, and so on

In Drupal 5 the naming of the Taxonomy module is inconsistent across the administrative interface. On the Administer >> Build >> Modules page, for example, the module is called Taxonomy. However vocabularies are administered through the Administer >> Content management >> Categories page.

In Drupal 6 the naming of the Taxonomy module has been made more consistent across the administrative interface. Settings for taxonomy.module can be found at Administer >> Content Management >> Taxonomy

You can enable the Taxonomy module on the modules page (administer >> site building >> modules).

These principles apply to defining a vocabulary with the Taxonomy module:

Each vocabulary consists of a set of terms.

1. A site can have an unlimited number of vocabularies each containing an unlimited number of terms.
2. Within a vocabulary terms can be ordered into hierarchies. In Drupal 6, all vocabularies are hierarchical (in other words, you can simply arrange items in a hierarchy). In Drupal 5 there is a setting for enabling hierarchical vocabularies.
3. Vocabularies may be designated as Free tagging in which users creating new content don’t have to classify it with terms from a “controlled vocabulary,” previously defined. Instead users can freely define terms, or “tags.”
4. Vocabularies can be set to allow terms to define related terms. This functions similar to “see also” in a dictionary.
5. Vocabularies define whether users may attach only a single term to a node or whether users may attach multiple terms to a node.

More details http://drupal.org/handbook/modules/taxonomy

css hacks for IE

While writing XHTML/CSS we might have faced the problem of browser compatibility. Following are some ways to solve these issues in IE browsers

In IE 6 series before a class or ID specify *html

Eg . if your class name is .content then you write

*html .content { … }

If it is an id you can write it as below

*html #content { …. }

In IE 7 series inside the class or ID you write # before each element

Eg.

.content { margin:3px; #margin:4px }

Here in IE 7 browsers margin will take 4px where in other browsers it will take 3px

Creating Your own Custom Regions In Drupal 6 Themes

Creating Custom Regions In Drupal Themes

It’s basically a two-step process:

step 1 - define the custom region in your theme’s .info file

All Drupal 6 themes contain a .info file. This is a required element in Drupal 6 themes which allows Drupal to ’see’ your theme.The .info file for your Drupal 6 theme will be located within the root of the theme’s main folder.

Regions are defined in the form:

regions[regionname] = Region name

step 2 - insert some PHP in your theme’s page.tpl.php file wherever you would like the new region to appear

This step is still the same as for custom regions in Drupal 5 themes.Open your theme’s page.tpl.php file and determine where you want the new custom region to appear.



save, and we’re done. Content can now successfully be added to and displayed in our new ‘regionname’ region.

Search Engine Optimisation on full Flash websites

”Does Google index your swf files?”

Seems to be the most popular question… After lots of googling we found out there are widely two methods to make a flash website well optimized for a search engine.



Optimizing Flash for the so-demanding search engines is not an easy task. The effort that must be done and the amount of energy and time that must be spent on SEO for Flash are far greater than for the optimization of an usual HTML site.



The first technique is splitting the content which has to be crawled by Google and other search engines into a different section and making the design a separate one. The second one is Designing and animating flash in such a way how Google mentions that in web masters area.



The best way to do the first option is by using JavaScript or a script like swf object . By using this we are loading the flash content into a div using the id of the div. Spit out the required content into this div which will be crawled by Google. Then we can use the swf object to replace the content only if the user has Javascript enabled and the required Flash plugin version.



You can get more description about this point here: http://blog.deconcept.com/2006/03/13/modern-approach-flash-seo/





For the second point you are supposed to design the flash file in such a way how they mention in webmaster central. At present Google can only discover and index textual contents and links inside a flash file. And also Google can not recognize or index any text that may appear in images. Similarly, they do not generate any anchor text for Flash buttons which target some URL, but which have no associated text. Another important point is they cannot index flv files as they do not contains any text elements. The improvements that Google had made to crawl swf files do not require any special action on the part of web designers or web masters.





For more details on how Google index your swf file: http://googlewebmastercentral.blogspot.com/2008/06/improved-flash-indexing.html

A quick overview of Drupal in mobile application development

Drupal is also in the mobile Era. It offers many built in functionalities for customer who wants to show site on mobile devices. Usually mobile sites are based upon a domain; the visitor has to visit a different website from his mobile device. Often m.mysite.com instead of (www).mysite.com. There are many attempts in the Drupal support community to provide tools that help in making your site mobile.
I am trying to give an overview with the present state of Drupal modules targeting the mobile world!
I tried to do my best to not forget any module, feel free to add your comments, modules or your own experiences.
There are many modules in Drupal which helps in mobile app development.Like
Mobile , WURFL , WURFL PHP library, Siruna, Mobile Tools …
I categorized it based on functionalities:
Theme switching modules:
mobi_loader, Accessibility, Mobit, Mobile Theme, Mobile Devices
Redirection modules:
Mobile Device Detection module.
Mobile theming:
.mobi theme, iUI, bluemobi (with accessibility), Mobile
SMS modules:
SMS framework, SMPP
Mobile publishing:
Mobile Media Blog and dotgo
Mobile payments:
Mobillcash, Mobile Codes
Please feel free to find more information at

http://www.mobiledrupal.com

How to integrate a Picture Gallery in Drupal

Gallery module embeds Gallery2 (http://gallery.menalto.com) inside Drupal installation to support photos, videos and other content. There is support for 2 types of image blocks and a navigation menu, inserting of images into nodes via an input filter, TinyMCE support, syncing of users between the two applications

Requirements

Gallery 2.3
Drupal 6.x

Installation Procedure

Step 1. Install Gallery 2 and Drupal. Gallery2 should be inside your Drupal installation so that it’s accessible by the same website. If you installed Gallery somewhere else, you can create a symlink to it from inside your Drupal site or you can move Gallery2.

Step 2. Make sure that ‘Image Block’ and ‘Image Frame’ plugins are installed and activated in Gallery2. Check them in the non-embedded Gallery.

Step 3. Log out of Gallery 2 (non-embedded) - people have reported errors relating to sessions if this is not done.

Step 4. Copy the gallery.module to your Drupal modules/ directory.

Step 5. Enable the gallery module by going in Administer -> Site building -> Modules in your Drupal installation (admin/build/modules).

Step 6. Then go to Administer -> Site configuration -> Gallery (admin/settings/gallery) and configure the path to your Gallery2 installation using the install wizard provided there.

Step 7. Enable the ‘Gallery Block’ in Administer -> Site building -> Blocks (admin/build/block).

Step 8. The Gallery module user administration is now available in Administer -> User management -> Gallery users (admin/user/gallery). You should at least check the ‘User settings’ (admin/user/gallery/settings).

Step 9. G2Image (Gallery G2Image module): If you install G2Image (http://g2image.steffensenfamily.com) as either a standalone or TinyMCE plugin you will have an excellent image chooser for Drupal/Gallery2.

Blueprint - A CSS framework: Installation and Quick notes

BlueprintCSS is a CSS framework, designed to reduce your development time.
It gives the developer ,a solid foundation to build his own project on top of, with an easy to use grid structure , sensible & typical typography, very useful plugins, and even a style sheet for printing.

Advantages of BlueprintCSS are

* Tutorials available in multiple languages
* Plenty of articles from around the web
* Resources and Tools for Blueprint development
* Plugins for making the grid fluid or/and add sprites
* Frameworks and Themes to get a quick start with Drupal, Wordpress, Joomla etc.
* Availability of Forks,Mods and Alternatives if Blueprint is not quite your thing
* Browser Compatibility

The official website for Blueprint can be found at BlueprintCSS.org
Here’s a quick tutorial on how you start using BlueprintCSS.

Installation Steps

I BlueprintCSS should be put in your site’s CSS directory. After that, add these lines to the of your web pages.




BlueprintCSS is now ready for consumption.

Files in BlueprintCSS

The BlueprintCSS framework has a few files you should check out. Every file in the ‘src’ directory contains lots of clarifying comments.

Compressed files (which goes in the HTML):

* blueprint/screen.css
* blueprint/print.css
* blueprint/ie.css

Source files:

* blueprint/src/reset.css ->This file is used to reset CSS values that browsers tend to set for you.

* blueprint/src/grid.css->This file is used to set up the grid .

* blueprint/src/typography.css ->This file is used to set some default typography.

* blueprint/src/forms.css ->This file is used to include some minimal styling of forms.

* blueprint/src/print.css ->This file is used to set some default print rules, so that printed versions of your site looks better than they usually would. It should be included on every page.

* blueprint/src/ie.css ->This file is used for includeing every hack for IE6 and 7.

Scripts:

* lib/compress.rb ->This is a Ruby script for compressing and customizing your CSS. Setting a custom namespace, column count, widths, output paths, multiple projects, and semantic class names.

* lib/validate.rb -> This is used to Validate the Blueprint core files with the W3C CSS validator.

Other:

* blueprint/plugins/ -> Which contains additional functionality in the form of simple plug-ins for Blueprint.

* tests/ -> Which contains html files which tests most aspects of Blueprint.

How to use Blueprint

The best way to see how BluePrint is used, is to go through the commented CSS files, or the source code for the example page, which is bundled with the download.

Typography

Typography.css does not need any customization: just drop it in, and it’ll give you some nice default text styles.

The typography.css file also sets a baseline of 18px. This means that every element, from line-heights to images has to have a height that is a multiple of 18. This may seem a bit tedious, but the results tend to look great.

Print.css has some options where you can fill in your domain name, so that relative links are shown in parenthesis behind the text link on print. Without filling in your domain name, only remote URLs work properly.

The grid

By default, the grid is 950px wide, with 24 columns spanning 30px, and a 10px margin between columns.

If you need fewer or more columns, use the compressor found in lib/compress.rb This file has many options, which are explained in the comments in that file

If you prefer to do this manually, use the following formula to find the new total width:

Total width = (columns * 40) - 10

The first thing you do, is surround your grid with a container:

Here’s my site!

You then use div’s with one of the .span-x classes to set how many columns the elements should span. Here is an example

Header

Left sidebar

Main content

Right sidebar

You can also nest columns any way you want. Check out this file and this file for some more advanced examples of using grid.css. Here’s one example of nesting columns:

Header

Left sidebar

Box1

Box2

Box3

Main content

Right sidebar

Footer

Again, this is pretty simple when you get the hang of it. Just remember:

* Use the “last” class in your last column
* Make sure the columns in a row add up to 24 and you should be fine.

Grid.css can do a lot more than this, however. You can prepend and append empty columns, pull or push images across columns, add borders between columns, and use multiple containers to create almost any layout. Check out the comments in grid.css and the example pages for more information.

Drupal eCommerce Framewrok Setup and Configuration

DESCRIPTION:

Drupal eCommerce module aims to provide an eCommerce framework such as shopping cart for your Drupal website.

INSTALLATION :

It is assumed that you have Drupal site in version 6.x is up and running. Please back up your site and database.

Step1: Download and install the token module for drupal:
http://drupal.org/project/token

Step2: Download and install the rules module for drupal:
http://drupal.org/project/rules

Step3: Download and install the views module for drupal:
http://drupal.org/project/views

Step4: Download and place the entire ecommerce module directory into your desired contrib modules location: eg. /sites/all/modules/

Step5: Enable core modules by going to(use administration Menu module for easy administration of Drupal driven sites): > Administer > Site Building > Modules.

With E-Commerce 6.x, each modules are grouped according to function. It is very important to install ecommerce modules in a particular order because of dependencies.

Here is the correct order:

(1) enable the Common and anonymous purchases modules
(2) enable the customer.module
(3) enable the receipting and store.modules
(4) enable the Product API and the address.module
(5) enable the checkout.module
(6) enable the buy now, cart and availability.modules

(Optional) The payment gateway module for paypal is included in the default download of Drupal eCommerce.

Once you have enabled the main Drupal eCommerce modules you can now start to setup your store by visiting ADMINISTER -> ECOMMERCE CONFIGURATION.

Step6: Drupal eCommerce 4 introduces a cleaner administration section. You can find E-Commerce settings in two blocks - Just click on Administer then click on:

E-Commerce — day to day administration of your store, managing orders etc.
E-Commerce configuration — your store settings.

You can find individual module settings are also listed there with their descriptions.

Step7: Create new products via: > Create content > Product

Step8: Optionally, enable the cart block via: > Administer > blocks :: Shopping Cart

REFERENCES & LINKS
Main Site : http://www.drupalecommerce.com
Features list : http://www.drupalecommerce.org/features
User Documentation : http://www.drupalecommerce.org/documentation
Support : http://www.drupalecommerce.org/help

Drupal.org Links:

Project Page : http://drupal.org/project/ecommerce
Handbook : http://drupal.org/node/50350
Support Queue : http://drupal.org/project/issues/ecommerce

eCommerce user group : http://groups.drupal.org/ecommerce
Mailing List : http://lists.heydon.com.au/listinfo.cgi/ecommerce-heydon.com.au
(Mailing list subject to change)

Developer Links:

Developers API : http://www.drupalecommerce.org/api
Developers Docs : http://www.drupalecommerce.org/developers