You theme with the mark-up you have, not the mark-up you'd like to have.
That's the essential truth that designers and front-end developers new to Drupal need to understand. You don't get to construct your pages from scratch, building out essentials, never a wasted div, never an extraneous class. No, you have to flip the entire process around. With Drupal you're getting markup shot at you from a...
A brief exchange on Twitter with Jen Simmons (@jensimmons) and Morten Heide (@mortendk) about how to best incorporate a site logo into a Drupal theme got me cogitating on this question. Jen tweeted:
...What should go is the habit of hardcoding content into the theme. #separationplease #drupalwtf
—@jensimmons
"Content"? Hmmm. This got me pondering: Is a logo "content" per se? My immediate response...
Yesterday, we had a Drupal Association Board Meeting to discuss upcoming DrupalCons. The meeting ran very long as we discussed and debated what criteria we should consider in selecting cities for DrupalCons in 2012, 2013 and beyond. Passions ran hot at times as we hashed out our thoughts on our evolving process for making these decisions.
What is the purpose of DrupalCon?
What components make...
Certifications in software make me sneeze. Or roll my eyes. Or shrug. Yes, I'm a skeptic of certifications, and leery of motives of people pushing them. To me, certifications are a way to make money not from clients but from peers. It's like a tax. Do not pass Go. Do not collect $200. Instead, pay thousands to some firm so you can get that seal of approval. And in the end, does it mean anything?...
Okay, it's a whimsical title. But on this Ada Lovelace Day, I was thinking about how, if Ada Lovelace were alive today, she no doubt would be in technology. After all, the creator of the first "computer" wouldn't stop there, would she?
In my daily life I get to work with some amazing women who are working in, with or on Drupal. I wrote an appreciation over at PINGV Creative.
The Way Drupal Theming Was
When I started Drupal theming in 2004, it was all a bit overwhelming. Back then, the core theme engine was something called Xtemplate, and it gave the impression to the n00b themer of being a great big mess. When you looked at the page template, it was one big blob of markup and logic, and it was very hard to figure out to change just about anything. What's more, it...
Comic: XKCD #225.
Open Source has been around for quite some time, but odds are most people you ask won't know what "open source" is. This isn't because open source is obscure, but rather it has slipped into the mainstream, and unless you're already in the know, there's no real reason you will have noticed it.
But open source is here, and it's growing.
Linux maximus
Linux was written by Linus...
The more the merrier (or at least more accurate). Take a few moments to fill out the A List Apart Survey. This isn't just for designers.
Garland has been a good thing for Drupal, overall, mainly for the color module. Anyone remember what it replaced in Drupal core? Yeah, it was pretty ugly. Context is important. So even though Garland is something of a front-end developer's nightmare, it has its purpose for the new Drupal user wanting to do at least a modicum of customization to the site's look, without resorting to coding.
And it...
Yeah? Maybe?
[update: maybe not. see comments.]
#D7UX [Tweeted] is about Drupal 7 user experience work.
#D7CX [Tweeted] is about upgrading Drupal contrib modules to stable Drupal 7 releases when Drupal 7 itself is released. Over 100 contributed projects now bear this commitment, which is just awesome!
To me, that leaves #D7DX – a focused effort to get some rockin' Drupal 7 design themes going....
Having just returned from DrupalCon Paris 2009 with mixed feelings as to how I forged my own experience there, I thought I'd put down some thoughts on conference attendance and participation — what (not) to do.
Don't minimize the jet lag factor.
I had an 8-hour shift in going to Paris, and my first day there after touching down around 7am was pretty much lost in the fog. The second day was...
What I apparently have been bookmarking on del.icio.us:
Now that's a pretty tag cloud! I guess I bookmark Drupal-related stuff a lot.
--Or should I say: Damm in America!
One of the great discoveries during DrupalCon Barcelona 2007 was the fabulous Damm label of brews. The local Barcelona beer was everywhere, in every establishment. And it is delicious!
Back here in America, I looked around but could not find it anywhere. It did have a distributor, apparently.
But now it does. Last week I found Estrella Damm six-packs in the big...
Is the future really free?
It seems we've entered an age where there's a land-grab happening for personal data and attention time. Look at all the web start-ups backed by venture capital. They aren't investing out of philanthropy. There's value there. YouTube is "free" but Google paid over a billion dollars for it. Why?
Here's a hint: It's not about the Tube.
Chris Anderson's Wired article was...
It has come time to consider a phone system. While most of the company clan uses mobile phones for personal calls, we do have sales and support that do need real phones, with voicemail, multiple simultaneous dialtones, etc. We tried the Vonage thing, but that had too many "can you hear me now?" moments for a business to suffer, so we went to the multiple Qwest lines, which required little in...
Sign up via this link and get extra space!
