Drupal Ace

Solved: Strange Drupal image problem

Drupalace — Sun, 25 Mar 2012 08:49:50 +0000

If I've not been posting much lately, it's been for the following reasons: wanting to get a good external blogging client working (more or less solved; stay tuned!), and a strange sudden loss of ability to place inline images into posts.

For the latter, I use the WYSYWIG and IMCE modules, and the IMCE WYSIWYG Bridge module to tie them together. But a while back, I suddenly lost the ability to put images inline. Sure, everything appeared to work normally, but nothing would show up in the node.

Studying the URLs of the non-appearing images revealed clues to the cause. Crazy business: IMCE was slapping the code width="0" height="0" onto all of the images it touched. I could even see the "0 x 0" dimensions popping up automatically in the IMCE window, without my leave; why?? Needless to say, an image with zero dimensions doesn't show up...

I went nuts looking for a solution within IMCE and other settings, and also in server settings (what else would explain a problem occurring on multiple sites?), all with no luck. Finally, a simple search on the Drupal.org forums turned up this suggestion: Disable ad blockers. Really?? Yep. I disabled extensions in my browser, and IMCE now leaves images unmolested, with natural dimensions intact. Huzzah!

One small oddity: The linked thread suggests Adblock for Chrome as the offender. I figured Adblock must be the culprit in my Safari browser too... but I saw I didn't have it enabled to begin with. Poking around a bit, the homewrecker in my case turned out to be the YouTube5 extension (a HTML5 video player). Huh. Wouldn't have figured that out on my own...

So. If you've got inexplicable problems with IMCE or anything that tosses up a window, try turning off browser extensions before you go nuts poking around on the server or through obscure Drupal settings.

(Above happy face inserted smoothly through the good graces of a restored IMCE.)

Click here and read more!

Test post using MarsEdit 3.4.x

Drupalace — Tue, 20 Mar 2012 02:30:52 +0000

Is MarsEdit 3.x now ready to make me the happiest Drupal-based blogger ever? It just might be! (And if this intended excerpt actually gets posted as an excerpt, all the better…) Read on.

Click here and read more!

Test post using MarsEdit 3.4.2

Drupalace — Mon, 19 Mar 2012 03:23:11 +0000

Per several previous posts, I'm still trying to get the nifty blogging client MarsEdit to play nicely with my Drupal sites. The deal-breaker in the past: Drupal apparently doesn't provide MarsEdit with a list of available text filters (not MarsEdit's fault, as I understand it). MarsEdit uses the default input format, such as a safe Filtered HTML format – but as a site admin, I typically want something hairy and robust like Full HTML. Hmm, here in this trial version of 3.x, I don't even see a choice for input format. Who knows what's going to happen.

But the worse problem in the past has been this: Whatever I post using MarsEdit initially appears all right on the site, but "breaks" as soon as I further edit it (which is generally necessary, as MarsEdit doesn't support all of the Drupal fields I want to play with. This inability to foresee all of a Drupal site's fields is unavoidable, given the build-it-yourself unique setup of any given Drupal site, and can't be blamed on MarsEdit.) Line breaks disappear upon editing, and the post becomes one big mega-paragraph. That shatters any time-saving benefit of using an external client.

Will the problem remain under this trial version of MarsEdit 3.x? The software instantly recognized all of the sites I'd set up within MarsEdit 2.x (other than the above-mentioned lack of any input format choice); that's one nice thing to see. Now, how will it handle a new post? This post, now on what is a neatly distinct third paragraph within MarsEdit, is set to use Drupal as its System Name setting and Blogger API as its System API setting. And with that, I now click "Send to Blog"...

Post-send edit: Wow, was that a failure. The post Title disappeared, and part of the first paragraph appeared as the Title instead! The rest of the first paragraph – the portion too long for the Title, I assume – just disappeared. Now I have to fix the title by hand and recreate the first paragraph. NOT good.

That said, here's the happy news: I've edited this post to fix things, and paragraphs did not break! That's a first for me with MarsEdit!

Click here and read more!

I have a Russian namesake

Drupalace — Fri, 10 Feb 2012 05:53:04 +0000

So while checking out the latest and greatest Drupal 7 themes recently, I came across... the Drupalace theme.

"Funny. You'd think I'd remember posting that. And creating it, too."

Huh. Maybe my daily bowl of lead paint chips in milk isn't such a good idea after all.

But then I see that I'm not suffering a memory issue; rather, the creators of the theme are a Russia-based Drupalace. See? There's the site, in all its Cyrillic glory. Like this site, my Eurasian doppleganger's presence features an original character derived from the Drupal logo character (or a not-so-original character, I might say – where have I seen those playing cards before?), though its stogie-chomping persona certainly exudes a more ruffian-like air.

As I'm not up to reading the site's Russian content, I'm unable to say anything more about my evil Slavic twin. Or not evil twin; I know nothing about the site's goals or creators. Sure, I'd prefer to see those folks avoid the duplication of this site's name for their site and theme, and instead create a unique name of their own. (Granting the benefit of the doubt, it's true that Drupalace.com isn't exactly a global houseworld name, and thus possible that the Russian folks simply weren't aware of an existing Drupalace – although that scenario would require that they were so uninterested in the .com domain that they didn't even check its availability.)

Oh well. I'm not going to fuss about it for the moment; it's not as big a shock as the discovery not long ago that a web shop's site was outright stealing my EDAM content and labeling it as the shop's own. (To my surprise, the shop was agreeably quick to take the stolen content down when I requested so.) Just be aware that if you see that DrupalAce and its theme, there's no relationship to the original Drupalace.com.

In any case, to have a bit of fun with my unexpected find, I thought I'd switch this site over to the Russian Drupalace theme for a while. However, that theme is for D7 only, while your true-blue Drupalace.com is still running on D6. That's a work in progress I need to get back to right now. I recently experimented with a D6 to D7 upgrade, only to find that I need to first gain a better understanding of how to get around the upgrade process's unsightly lack of support for bringing D6's image nodes intact into D7. Off to the slave pits. (Ah, Drupal. One thing you never leave me short of is things to do.)

(Edit, several hours later: No luck yet on bringing D6 image nodes into D7. Man, it's a stumper.)

Click here and read more!

Test post using MarsEdit 2.4

Drupalace — Thu, 26 Jan 2012 02:44:36 +0000

I've previously blogged about using MarsEdit with Drupal – and the unfortunate shortcomings that keep me from using this otherwise great blog editing software for all but a few specific types of Drupal posts.

I've stumbled across a suggested change online, from a writer who seems much happier using the combination. Oddly enough, he has his MarsEdit posting settings specify Movable Type, not Drupal, as the blog software. Hmm, I don't see why that should be or why one would even think to try that… but for fun, I'll try it here.

Will report afterward on what I find…

Click here and read more!

Upgrading from Drupal 6 to Drupal 7: problems and solutions

Drupalace — Thu, 22 Sep 2011 08:30:22 +0000

Following my first look at Drupal 7 and my notes on building a "sandbox" Drupal 7 site, here's a report of my next stop in going 7: upgrading a site from Drupal 6 to Drupal 7.

Someday you'll likely want to do the same. But this is a major upgrade, not a trivial "Drupal 6.19 to Drupal 6.20" kind of affair. "Yeah, one of these days I need to get around to that", you say... while your poor D6 sites fidget anxiously... like nervous freshmen huddling outside the gym locker room... fearing the gauntlet of cackling seniors daring them to walk on in....

Oops, sorry; serious flashback. Anyway, a major upgrade is a can't-avoid-it-forever exercise, so let's charge in. I ran into problems during my experience (gee, there's a surprise : / ), but I managed to fix them as outlined below. If you've got a Drupal 7 installation running and are ready to uplift an old site or two, read my tale and let me know if it's of any help!

Click here and read more!

Creating a Drupal 7 sandbox site

Drupalace — Mon, 12 Sep 2011 03:03:53 +0000

Following up on my review of the book Drupal 7 First Look, here's a closer look at the creation of my first Drupal 7 site: a generic "sandbox" site to be used as the base for future sites. While every Drupal site you or I create will call for its own unique setup, there are parts of a Drupal configuration that I'll likely want to replicate on any new site, such as installation of key modules, or creation of useful roles and vocabularies that I always end up using. I'd prefer to do those things just once, rather than from scratch every time; hence the sandbox site.

Here's what I did. Drupal beginners, see whether there's something useful in there for you.

Click here and read more!

Review of Drupal 7 First Look

Drupalace — Wed, 27 Apr 2011 05:47:00 +0000

Author: Mark Noble

Pages: 288

Publisher: Packt Publishing

Publisher's page: Drupal 7 First Look

ISBN: 978-1-849511-22-3

Summary: Good developer-oriented overview of what's new in Drupal 7.

Putting the book to work

Drupal 7 First Look (hereafter First Look) was released by Packt Publishing in November 2010, several weeks before the official release of Drupal 7 (D7) itself. "Learn the new features of Drupal 7, how they work and how they will impact you", runs the book's subtitle – a goal of interest to site builders awaiting D7's release at the time, and site builders now who've yet to approach D7 months after its release.

As with my previous review of Packt Publishing's Drupal E-commerce with Ubercart 2.x, I wanted to base a review on not just a reading of the book but a hands-on application of it. My guess was that First Look had its sights set on people like me: users with a Drupal 6 (D6) background and an interest in D7, but with little idea of what to expect. The Preface confirmed as much:

Click here and read more!

Coming up: Review of Packt Publishing's "Drupal 7 First Look"

Drupalace — Sat, 23 Apr 2011 17:02:23 +0000

The world is going Drupal 7, and Drupal Ace is right on top of... er, nothing. Although D7 hit its official release in January, I'm only now exploring its features and building a test site.

Learning a new version of a CMS can be a challenge. Fortunately, quick-acting authors are there to help with documentation and books. I'm accompanying my first look at Drupal 7 with, appropriately enough, Packt Publishing's Drupal 7 First Look. The book begins with a look at what's new in D7, moves on to overviews of installation and upgrading, site building, and administration, and then plunges into the deep nuts and bolts of theming, database changes, and other information for developers. So far, the earlier sections have been a helpful guide as I set up a D7 site from scratch for the first time.

I've been taking notes as I go, and will have a review of the book posted here shortly. I'll also have plenty to say in the future about Drupal 7 itself, which has surprised me with some great improvements in ease of administration, flexibility of content planning, and overall refined organization of features. Upgrading my sites to D7 (or at least those relying on D7-ready modules) actually sounds fun.

In the meantime, here are some links to get you started with exploring the latest and greatest Drupal. Anything in D7 you're loving (or not so loving) already?

Drupal 7 home | drupal.org
Drupal 7 - Easier and more powerful than ever | drupal.org
Make an Upgrade Plan | drupal.org
Drupal 6 contributed modules that are in Drupal 7 core | drupal.org
Drupal 7 First Look | Packt Publishing (Also see link to free sample chapter, "Site Building with Drupal 7")

Click here and read more!

Drupal site recipes

Drupalace — Mon, 18 Apr 2011 03:10:25 +0000

One common Drupal beginner question is "What kind of site can I make with Drupal?" – followed quickly by "How do I make that kind of site?". It's not hard to find answers. In addition to great Drupal.org resources like the Site recipes page, the Web abounds with lists of inspirations and how-to recipes for your next Drupal creation.

I recently ran across 8 types of sites you can build with Drupal – not a great resource with hands-on detail, but a nice pointer to some of the modules you'll find useful for a news portal, video-sharing site, and so on. I took some time to update my Links page with that article and even better resources. Take a look, especially under the directory and showcase headings; you'll find enough Drupal ideas and blueprints to keep you busy for a long time.

Are there more recipe and blueprint sites I should add to the links?

Click here and read more!