Drupal

Planned Upgrade to Drupal 6.x

Alan — Thu, 28 Feb 2008 13:01:50 +0000

I'll be updating the underlying content management system of this website in the next week or so. I'll be moving it to Drupal 6.1. I know there will be a few features missing such as Similar Entries.

You'll also come back to a new look - ok, I'm cheating there, I'll be using on of the default themes while I'm waiting for contributed themes to catch up. That suits me, I wanted to change from this theme since it was looking a bit too busy.

I'll leave a maintenance message up, hopefully for only an hour or so.

Edit - I was going to upgrade today, but there's one feature I still want to have confirmed for Drupal 6.1, it's the ability to integrate with Feedburner. Currently I'm using the Feedburner module, but I've been looking at using the Path Redirect module instead. I'll probably hold off upgrade until I can happily integrate with Feedburner.

Improving the speed of a Drupal Site

Alan — Fri, 08 Feb 2008 17:58:30 +0000

I've had to look at a few options for improving performance on this site. I noticed that the introduction of the Feedburner module and moving the RSS feeds across to Feedburner had caused some performance issues.

As I write this, I'm making some changes to the site based on the Essential Steps to Speed up a Drupal Web Site series of articles.

The current change is to implement the Block Cache Module, so you may see a couple of pieces of content duplicated while I switch from dynamic to cached content.

Adding Feedburner

Alan — Fri, 08 Feb 2008 14:18:29 +0000

I'm in the process of swapping this site's RSS feeds over to Feedburner. It allows me to manage the feeds better and understand what readers use the feeds for. For a start, I had no idea how many of you subscribe to this site or which parts of it.

One of the many good points about Drupal is that it allows you (as readers) to subscribe to any category that you want to. You don't have to subscribe to the whole site. Currently I've only got the main site-wide RSS configured. If you want any of the others configured that way, then let me know. I don't believe readers will actually notice much difference in delivery, but if you do, again feel free to let me know.

One odd point is that the time for the initial load seems to have increased since changing to Feedburner. That is odd. Even weirder is that adverts have started appearing in the content. That's something I've avoided so far.

Looking for a New Comments Form

Alan — Fri, 08 Feb 2008 13:42:33 +0000

Leaving comments may be a little awkward for a while. I've had TinyMCE on since I started this site, but as a writer I've stopped using it. I can imagine it being awkward for users who aren't used to it and a lot of the features never seemed to work. It was never number one on my priority since readers can always leave basic messages - just don't try to do anything complicated.....yet.

Easy-to-use

I value easy-to-use above lots of functionality in this case. So I'm on the search for something better. I'll post back when I've installed something.

Suggestions

If you've any suggestions for a Drupal WYSIWYG editor, then please let me know - although that does mean you'll have to tackle the comment form :-)

Checklist module

Alan — Fri, 18 Jan 2008 23:24:18 +0000

I've been implementing the SEO Checklist from SpryDev SEO. Whether it will help with ratings is partly besides the point for me. I like the idea that it's helped me organise the site so that it's now a better, more easily, accessible site.

The checklist is a module you install within Drupal that then points to other modules that you should install. It also helps you navigate your way around the site to the configuration options. I'd recommend you try installing it.

One piece of advice, if you install the Trackback module as it states, then ensure that you enable the "One-way trackbacks" otherwise you'll end up with a lot of trackback spam, even for a small, but growing site such as this. Up to you if you moderate trackbacks or not. I suppose it depends on how you want to work.

Sister Site

Alan — Sun, 06 Jan 2008 14:05:09 +0000

Rather than just having a test site on a home server, I've been playing with different Drupal features over at this site's sister site at www.alancward.co.uk. I'm also using that site to host less professional articles than at this site. There may be some overlap as I put articles that may be of interest at both sites, but by and large I'll keep the articles and the sites separate with the odd article present on both sites.

Currently the two main content areas are the Cover Trail which started off as a practice place for the book module, but looks like it may live longer and articles on a linux HTPC.

Adding a new book

Alan — Sun, 06 Jan 2008 13:11:50 +0000

I've added the Book module to this site. It allows for easy navigation between related pages. The first book is going to be the Musical Creativity series.

I'm going through the articles assigning them to the book's outline. Unfortunately it does mean that some of the earlier articles may appear again on the front page.

Even after grouping a few pages together, I'm beginning to see how much easier it will make navigating the articles.

A few extra modules

Alan — Fri, 04 Jan 2008 21:02:51 +0000

I've added a few extra modules over the last couple of months in addition to those that I installed shortly after the initial build. I've just got round to installing:

- Technorati module

- Digg This

and have been using the following for a while:

- HTML Corrector - this has solved a lot of problems

- Search 404 - so you get friendlier 404 messages

- Theme Settings API - so themes can add settings

Drupal Themes

Alan — Thu, 06 Dec 2007 18:24:26 +0000

I'm trying out a few new Drupal themes. I was never really that happy with the original Garland theme. It worked as a basic theme to get going with, but I'd made a slight error in modifying it (my fault). If you were quick to notice, you'd have seen an image of a microphone in the top right-hand corner. Rather than try to fix it, I wanted to start afresh.

It's highly unlikely that I'll get to do any major theme customisation. There are too many other things to do to allow time for that.
So I tend to look for predesign and packaged themes. Even better when there are instructions included on how to tailor it to suit my needs.

One of the initial negatives about Drupal is that when initially installed, it's not very easy to look at. Often, the installations are sparse and almost mechanical in their presentation style.

Some of the themes over at Roople Theme.com looked good. Another positive is the presence of a forum dedicated to their themes.

I've settled on the Salamander Theme. There are still things that I'd like to change with the theme, but it will do for the time being.

For anyone looking to make their Drupal installation look better, then Neemtree.com.au has some good information to start with.

Blogrush doesn't work with HTML Corrector

Alan — Wed, 07 Nov 2007 16:25:52 +0000

After adding the HTML Corrector, I noticed that Blogrush (and not that site widget alone, some of the image adverts as well) were not displaying anymore.

The way around it is to create another input format that has free html input without the HTML corrector. It's also probably best to under the use of only the Administrator and not for general release for other user profiles.

Then apply the new input format to the blocks that weren't working properly with the HTML Corrector.

Blogrush itself was easy to add, it was the update to improve the site that stopped it working on this site for a short while.