Tutorials
This section gives easy to follow instructions on various aspects of computing. Ranging from simple day to day tasks through to more advanced techniques.
Automated backups
Q - What's the easiest way to ensure my work/photos/music is backed up?
A - Use Xcopy in a shutdown script ...
Create \allwork\backup.bat with the following code in it:
%windir%\system32\xcopy.exe "d:\allwork\*.*" j:\backup\allwork\*.* /d /y /s
pauseThen [File] > [run] > gpedit.msc > Windows settings > scripts > shutdown > add > D:\allwork\backup.bat with a Script Parameter of //I continued »
Transparent Nice Menus Tutorial
This tutorial will show how to add semi transparency to nice menus backgrounds and then to adapt Garland theme to add a background image to the right sidebar.
As always remember to backup your site before experimenting.
Firstly download and install nice menus onto your site. For ease choose a left style menu and place in the right sidebar. you should now have something that looks like this.
continued »
Garland Simple mod Tutorial - (part 2)
An example of what will be achieved by the end of this tutorial can be seen at www.venturacottage.com Using a fresh install of Drupal5 > Using [Windows explorer], Go to themes folder > make copy of Garland folder and rename custom > open custom folder > > open style.css in notepad and alter the lines... see full tutorial at http://www.venturacottage.com/garlandmod2.htm
Events block space saver
Q - How do I force the Event block wording into one line and remove the (Event) tag?
A - Use CSS...
Add the following to the bottom of your style css, this avoids altering the module, which as well as not being a good idea would also be overwritten when you upgrade:
/**
* Should force event block wording together and remove (Event) and ical icon
*/
span.event-timeleft {
display:inline;
padding-left:5px;
}
span.event-nodetype {
display: none;
}
.ical-link {
display: none;
}Adding content to site via email
Wouldn't it be great if adding articles and images to your website was as easy as sending an email. It can be, here is a quick tutorial on how to add this functionality to your site.
Firstly you need to setup a unique email account that the site can use eg website@YourDomain.com.
Whatever gets sent to this email account (from approved users) will be published automatically on the site, any spam or non authorised users will be ignored - clever!
Now download and install the following:
http://drupal.org/project/mailhandler continued »
Dealing with fancy fonts
When designing a website, extreme caution has to be used when dealing with fonts. Basically usless it is one of a very limited fonts that come preinstalled with Windows or Mac computers, it may look wonderful on your PC but no one else will see it as you intended. If you have to use a particular font stick to using it the headlines and Sub heads, these can be specified in the style.css like so: continued »
Garland Frontpage Squares tutorial
As promised here is the web frontpage mod I was telling you about. It works on the idea of highlighting up to nine areas of the website. Most importantly it takes three key story categories (in the test site Personal, Fruit and Entertainment) and lists the four most recent (or popular) articles in each area. It also takes the TOP story and enlarges the font, puts it in bold and illustrates it with a picture. If no picture was added to the node then a generic image representing the category is substituted. continued »
Quick Faqs
Q - How do I force the Topic box further down the node add form?
A - Tweak the taxonomy.module...
Find the following line and altser the weight from -3 to 1, that way it will appear below the body text box:
$form['taxonomy']['#weight'] = 1;============================
Q - How do I create dynamic URLs that will change when I move the site?
A - Use php print ...
Simply alter the link:
<link type="text/css" href="themes/dropdown10/page-front.css" rel="stylesheet"/>to become...
continued »
Visually impaired browsing
For those who are blind or visually impaired the internet can be challenging to get the most out of. There is software available to help but much is poor or overpriced. Thankfully there is also some great free utilities that make surfing a breeze. It provides keystrokes from all the commands (as you need to be able to see to use a mouse. The attached video gives a flavour of what can be achieved.
Web links:
http://www.webbie.org.uk/
http://www.screenreader.net/
http://theblindblogger.blogspot.com/
Mandatory Groups Video
This video talks you through setting up, configuring and using Mandatory Groups by rol. Using PHP to create an assignments system for a school class is challenging. Adding pupils to a subject is fine but when the year is finished and they move up a class. You need an easy way to avoid adding them back in manually.
Top of the class
Client brief:
Using PHP to create an assignments system for a school class is challenging. Adding pupils to a subject is fine but when the year is finished and they move up a class. You need an easy way to avoid adding them back in manually.
Method:
Is described in detail at
http://nandrsteer.com/schooltest/wiki/getting-more-courses-and-groups
Result:
Mask email address from Spammers
Client brief:
Feedback is important so an email link on a website is the easiest way to achieve this. Unfortunatly spammers have automated software that trals websites looking for anything with an @ sign to harvest and sell on to junk mailers. We had to find a way around this.
Method:
By using javascript code we can pass the elements of the email address to a programme that will reconstruct it and pass it on correctly to the email programme. Here's an example of this technique at work:
Mr Nobody continued »
Add background image to node
Client brief:
Show the different styles of illustration INCLUDING within the welcome article.
Method:
Using Firefox's Firebug I identified the div controlling this articles elements as:
Firstly I tried adding properties to:
.sticky but that would limit the use of this feature - so instead
In [theme]/style.css i added the following
#node-30 {
padding: 1em;
background: #000 url(http://www.leetoons.com/images/total.jpg) repeat-x
scroll 0% 100%;
border: 1px solid #e7e0db;
margin-bottom: 200px; continued »
css and templates tutorial for beginners
a tutorial for all those of you trying to understand this tricky subject is available here.
