Darren Mothersele

This Friday, 13th Aug, I will be presenting a case study at Drupal Focus on Publishers. If you are interested in hearing more about the use of Drupal in publishing then come along to this free event. I will be presenting a case study and talking about content aggregation, personalisation, and creating sites with premium subscriber-only content.

Now you can define Drupal blocks in your themes! With the Theme Blocks module I just submitted to drupal.org you can include blocks with your custom Drupal themes.

Sometimes you want a simple block for your Drupal site, and you have to create a module just to implement hook_block(). For simple blocks you end up creating the same code again and again for every site. Defining the template in hook_theme() then implementing hook_block() to make Drupal aware of your block. I have abstracted this process to make custom blocks as easy as adding a template file to your theme and a line to your theme.info file. See the project page on Drupal.org for more information.

There was no version of the markdown filter available for Drupal 7, and no existing issue on this in the issue queue at Drupal.org. I wasn't in an urgent need for this module, but I will need it on a project that is hoping to go D7 as soon as it is released, so I thought I'd use it as an excuse look further into the API changes in Drupal 7.

I'm working on the alpha2 release of Drupal7 and the D6 version of markdown checked out from CVS. I've posted the code up on drupal.org. Here's what needed to be done:

Working behind a firewall and need to get an up-to-date dev version of a Drupal module from the Drupal CVS? I was just stuck with this problem, but here's how I solved it.

Luckily, port 22 was open for ssh connection, so I tunnel the CVS traffic (port 2401) via my own server. Simple two step process:

The guys at Development Seed have released some awesome projects for Drupal. Just have a look at their Drupal projects page, wow! I've helped a few people get up and running with Open Atrium, and Managing News on Drupal, but I think their most important contribution to the Drupal ecosystem has been Features. Read on...

I was lucky enough to see Jakub Suchy give an awesome summary of Drupal security features today at the Drupal Camp in Prague. I would recommend keeping an eye on the DrupalCamp website for the video recording to be posted - essential Drupal viewing!

If you want to learn more about using Drupal in marketing, or meet some other Drupal users, then you should come along to the Drupal for Marketing event in London on evening of 29th October.

I will be doing a presentation on creating Widgets from content on your Drupal site. If you want to attend it's free but you need to register your interest on the Event Page

It's hot but raining in Paris. My suitcase was no match for Paris' cobbled streets. I arrived at the hostel drenched and dragging a now wheel-less case behind me. I'm not sure if any other Drupallers are staying in this hostel (FIAP) - but it's the best I've ever stayed in. After spending last weekend in a horrible smelly room in Edinburgh, this place is literally a 'breath of fresh air'.

Now I have to try and find the venue. Looking at Google Maps it looks like just a short walk away. It's raining still so I hope I've not underestimated the distance!

Sometimes you just need a quick solution, using the built in functionality of modules you are already using without adding extra modules to your site. For example, you might want to add a country field to a node using CCK without the overhead of a complex module like Location.

Here's an easy way, just use a standard text field, with a "Select List" widget. You then just need the data to create the options. Here's the data you need, ready to copy and paste into the options for the CCK widget.

I recently spent an interesting 8 days in Serbia, talking about Web 2.0, Social Software and its use in Youth in Action programmes. I'd never been to Serbia before and I immediately found some "cultural differences". You can see the view I had from my hotel window in the attached photo. Yes, a bomb! Not what I expected to see when staying in a hotel at the top of a mountain in a national park.