helping with a new site - using drupal 6 to build it. it's for a music label. I haven't had a chance to talk to the guys much yet about what they want, so it's very early stages & I'm testing some of the new drupal 6 modules that I haven't used before + some old favourites
I want to try an online store to sell file downloads and physical cds etc
I recorded this in reply to Rupert's rant about the inadequacies of blog format for posting videos online. every time I tried to upload it though my net connection in the hotel dropped out. so uploading now that I'm home
I think drupal / CMS is good for posting videos and highlighting promoted videos / content. it's great for collaborative projects too and the taxonomy / categories is one of it's best features
today 18/10/2008 was the Sydney Drupal Camp - held at University of NSW campus in Camperdown & hosted by the Drupal Australia Group. Ryan Cross did a fantastic job organising the "unconference" with assistance from many people in the group. I'm too tired right now to write up my notes about it - suffice to say it was a great event and I learnt a few new tips to try out. I'll try write more tomorrow & post the photos (I only took a few) after some sleep. I'd helped out by recording audio of the sessions which will be uploaded to the group site & available for those who couldn't make it.
attached are the raw notes I took during the day - pasted below for searching purposes. I spent all day in the "B" area - which was beginners, but they went through some of the new drupal 6 modules I haven't used much yet. area "A" was more for the hardcore programmers.
I went to the Sydney Drupal Usergroup - October Meetup last night - my first one in Sydney. previously I've only been to the drupal sessions at fosdem 2005 in Brussels as I'd never been to Brussels and wanted to see what it was like. I'd been using drupal for a couple of years at the time and was testing upgrades. initially this site was a custom made php site that I coded to let me do data entry for events / news items and display them on the site in the same format I used for the mail lists which had been running for a few years prior to the site - so at the time, the custom php site saved me time. but also I found I spent a lot of time getting the site to work and adding new features, so when a friend (thanks Damian) asked me over to try out some CMS's including Drupal and we got it working in about an hour, I was hooked! the format of the articles was not exactly the same as what the previous site had been using, but it was so much easier to manage! I can't remember the exact date I moved the site to drupal, but by looking at the the wayback machine pages, it seems to have been in june / july 2003 - maybe 23rd july??
so, back to the Sydney meeting...
I was surprised to see so many people there - probably around 25-30 people. I hadn't realised drupal was so popular in Australia - though to be honest, I hadn't really checked for a few years. even the European and USA conferences and meetings are really popular now! great to see!! and there's so many books available.
I'm going to try out ubercart with drupal. I've tried an older version of drupal's e-commerce package when the site was on 4.6, but there seems to be some good comments about ubercart so it might be worth a try too.
update: oops both are for drupal 5 :( another reason I should have stayed at drupal 5 for a bit longer. apparently within 1-2 months both should be ported to drupal 6. they're waiting for the final CCK & views (so I read)
DrupalCon was held recently in Barcelona. I didn't make it this year. the schedule looked good though, and from all reports it was the best drupalcon ever (as it is each year!!). there's a wrap up post on the drupal site with links to some of the slide presentations, videos of the sessions on archive.org - search for drupalconbarcelona2007 tag, or try the mirror site.
do u know if there's a NZ postcode, gps co-ord list available? drupal does some nice location things with gps co-ords and it might be possible to add the google maps to the venue/artists locations if u're wanting something like that?
the location module does it now for US postcodes, but I haven't seen a similar NZ based list. it'd be easy enough to create the data in correct format if such information exists and is freely available.
I think the post codes in NZ would have to pick a general co-ord as of course they cover a wide area.. eg pick a centre point or edge point. I saw the NZ posts maps of post codes, I guess we could always overlay them over a map with co-ords and make a rough list if need be. perhaps start with a couple of the larger cities if that's where most people are centralised?
similarly I'm looking for an Australian list also. I can get the postcodes, but don't have the gps co-ords
update: UK, Australia & NZ seems to be unsupported in google maps and yahoo maps so this probably won't work...
"The freelinking.module for Drupal implements a filter for input formats, creating links to existing content or links to new content creation via automatic linking of CamelCase words or words with double-square-bracket delimiters. It can be used 'wiki style' to provide links between content or easy creation of new linked content. It does not implement a 'wiki' type of content; this can be done with the flexinode module or using another core content type like blog or story."
- it added a menu (which you could remove/change if u prefer)
- it's gone away and found some CamelCase words that are in the content on my site (I'm assuming after a cron run on the site)
- some terms list 'create this content' - if u click this it will create a blog entry for the term. though it didn't seem to go an add all the existing articles that use the term into the content. (it's probably better for new content so would be better suited to AF site)
- the PixelPress term says 'view this content' - this one does take you to the existing article. this article has been modified and includes the filter. PixelPress is written multiple times in the article and each one links back to the freelinking list of terms.
- so you could probably modify the section it's linking to to goto artists/TermName rather than freelinkingTermName. (or wherever u wanted it to goto).
http://drupal.org/project/views - there's also a system called Views which are like database user views and allow different collections of information to be collected and then displayed once integrated into the theme. from this page: "This tool is essentially a smart query builder that, given enough information, can build the proper query, execute it, and display the results. It has four modes, plus a special mode, and provides an impressive amount of functionality from these modes."
theming CCK & views to create a scheduling grid (good examples of how to customise which could be applied to other CCK node types) : http://groups.drupal.org/node/2647
http://oif.eafarris.com/cck_theming_in_drupal_4_7 - this is the site of the creator of freelinks module. he's using CCK on his site and shows an example of how he made and themed a custom version of weblinks module in CCK
Drupal Theme Garden, is a place where you can see the work of Drupal artists in action. Artists who have (re-)designed their Drupal site, who have found Drupal a great basis for their artistic skills. On this site you can select different Drupal themes and see what the site looks like, then download the theme for your own Drupal based site.
DrupalSites.net is a directory that lists websites powered by the open-source content management system Drupal. They hope to demonstrate the flexibility of this CMS by listing all the different sites out there.
Lullabot creates drupal podcasts and videocasts with useful tips on how to use Drupal as well as new module introduction.
Lullabot designs strategies and open source solutions for companies weary from vendor lock-in, software license fees and the burdens of maintaining proprietary information systems. We have immense experience with Drupal and other open source software and stay current of best practices, latest trends and technologies. We provide consultation, training, development support, and documentation to help our clients harness the power of these constantly growing and improving applications.
