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Add AJAX to a Webform in Drupal 7
The Webform module is wonderful. It provides us a quick and easy way to add forms to our site, and takes care of the form handling. And, it’s all done through an easy to use GUI. With the release of Drupal 7, the Form API got tweaked a bit. More specifically, the AJAX handling of forms is now quite a bit more straight ahead. I recently had a site build where I needed a contact form to be submitted using AJAX. A confirmation message would replace the form after a successful submission. Unfortunately, there’s no release of the Webform Ajax module for Drupal 7, so I had 2 choices: 1) Use the Form API, write my own form validations and submit handling to store submissions in the database and send emails out, or 2) use the Webform module and alter it to use AJAX. From the title of this blog, you know that the latter was the winner. Let’s get started.
Continue reading: Add AJAX to a Webform in Drupal 7 »
Social Evolution of SEO: Search Results Influenced by Your Social Network
For all those SEO fanatics, you know that for years the best way to acquire organic rankings in search results was to have pages containing quality content and targeting the right keywords to earn external links. Social media is changing all that. Let’s call it…the Social Evolution of SEO.
For many of us, our social media experience began with reconnecting with high school or college friends on Facebook, friending our favorite band on MySpace (Pearl Jam), or sharing on Twitter (“Go Mavs! Dallas takes home the NBA Championship!”). Now social media and search engines are harnessing that data, and serving it up to you in useful and relevant ways (hopefully). This is the best way to “connect” with current and potential customers on a personal level. Continue reading: Social Evolution of SEO: Search Results Influenced by Your Social Network »
Managing Drupal sites with AEgir: Getting Started
AEgir has been a hot topic among Drupalers these days. In case you’re not familiar with what AEgir is, it’s basically a Drush GUI that allows users to manage multiple Drupal instances under one unified interface. While this doesn’t sound like much on the surface, the ability to upgrade multiple Drupal sites, migrate and clone sites, manage backups, and create new Drupal sites all at the click of a button is pretty powerful stuff. Continue reading: Managing Drupal sites with AEgir: Getting Started »
Using the Pathauto API Drupal Module: A Simple Example
Pathauto is a wonderful tool. It’s definitely my oldest friend when it comes to Drupal modules. As the module has progressed, the API has become easier to use. This means we can make clean and beautiful URLs for our custom Drupal implementations, painlessly. For this example we are going to create a menu callback to display extra information about the blog content type. We will then use the Pathauto API to create the customizable url aliases.
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Taking Advantage of Git Submodules with Drupal
While building Drupal websites, we end up building modules for all sorts of random tasks – anything from simply reorganizing the contents of a node object or adding fields to the Site Information page to views plugins or huge integrations. It’s not unusual to have both in-house and contributed modules for which you or your company are the maintainer, that you use across many project. The problem is this: if you have twenty projects running your in house module and it requires a security update, you’re stuck manually updating each project by patching the files and then following your normal workflow. Your contrib modules can take advantage of Drush for updates, but Drush won’t solve the problem of ongoing project based module maintenance. Continue reading: Taking Advantage of Git Submodules with Drupal »
The Scary World of Data Migration… From HTML Pages to Drupal 7, Part 2
So we’ve successfully used QueryPath to extract our data from the flat html files. Now, it’s time to put that data into our Drupal 7 site.
There were some great Drupal 6 modules to handle data imports like Feeds and Node Import. Unfortunately neither of these are fully baked for Drupal 7. Fear not, though, there is a way. As in Drupal 6, you can easily load the Drupal runtime in custom scripts. This gives you access to the full Drupal 7 API, and in the case of data migration, easily allows you to programmatically create nodes. I’ve already set up my content type, and named it “review”. I’ve also set up a folder called “qp” in the Drupal root directory where my custom php file will live. Let’s get started: Continue reading: The Scary World of Data Migration… From HTML Pages to Drupal 7, Part 2 »
User Targeted Content with Drupal: Device Geolocation
Targeted content towards a specific user based on their personal information is the holy grail of website marketing. Most, if not all, large ecommerce sites have some form of targeted content implemented to make the site more relevant to its visitors.
An example of this is on Ebay.com, where they utilize this technique to display auctions on items that are similar to what the user has been searching for. By doing this, users might be compelled to keep exploring the site and ultimately buy something, which is the point.
Consider the following situation, you’re building a site where users can purchase tickets for concert events across the country. Rather than just displaying a static list of hundreds of events, why not just give the user exactly what they’re looking for by showing them events near them. Continue reading: User Targeted Content with Drupal: Device Geolocation »
Pay-Per-Click Ads: Better Ad Copy Means Better Performance
A client of ours called me today for a quick brainstorming session on why his paid Google ads weren’t generating any clicks. He owns a Dallas vintage furniture store and sells his products online as well. Turns out, the answer was simple: his PPC ads showed copy about one of their product lines, but the click through URL for the ads was taking visitors to the home page..which didn’t show any products! Disconnect! Continue reading: Pay-Per-Click Ads: Better Ad Copy Means Better Performance »
Build a Drupal 7 Content Type Search Block in 5 Easy Steps
I recently had a need for a search form in a sidebar, that would search a specific content type. Since the content type I needed to search for was already indexed by the search module, I wanted to stick with core Drupal searching. I didn’t really want to mess with altering an advanced search form, so I came up with the following solution, which only took 5 easy steps.
Continue reading: Build a Drupal 7 Content Type Search Block in 5 Easy Steps »
Re-Inspire Yourself for Creative Side Projects
I started an animated short film with a while back and to be honest, the project, although having started strong, has lost most of it’s momentum. The film is called Dreams is a story of a little boy’s frustration with sleep, and his jealousy of the thrills his friends get from going to bed because they are so excited about the wonderful world that is in store for them once their eyes close for the night. Continue reading: Re-Inspire Yourself for Creative Side Projects »
