I spent some time tonight finishing the module selection and site setup for Cashkeeperscanada.com. We’re doing a re-launch of the site in June using Drupal 6. Tentative date is June 7th, 2008 (6/7/8).

Drupal 6 has been released. Announcement here I’m really excited about this release because there’s been major performance improvements, and it paves the way for building some really exciting community applications.

We’re in the middle of re-building CashKeepers Canada to use Drupal 6 and we’re adding some really neat functionality into it. We’re expecting another month before final release.

Wow, this was a really tough one. I learned how to totally redesign the Drupal contact form without hacking a single line of core.

Here's what we needed.

So I’ve been making some progress and here’s what I’ve come up with based on current feedback.

1. Getting Started:
   1. Tools of the trade: Text Editors or IDEs, resources
   2. Key Concepts: Nodes, Taxonomy, hooks
   3. Base Drupal Install in 20 Minutes
2. Drupal Modules
   1. Core Modules
   2. CCK
   3. Views
   4. Panels
   5. Social Networking Modules (module selection may vary)
      1. Buddylist
      2. Invite
      3. Userpoints
   6. Collaboration Modules
   7. Activism & Advocacy Modules
      1. Petitions
      2. Forward
      3. Event + Signup
   8. Modules for Ecommerce
      1. Ecommerce
      2. Ubercart

I’m pretty excited, got my CVS account today.

I’m working on a mini-feed module for Drupal. Minifeed takes a user’s activity and places it on their profile in an easily digestible format. Some social networking sites have used this tactic recently, and I want to make it more accessible to the Drupal community.

So I’ve been thinking about this for a while now and here’s my first draft at an outline for a drupal recipie book.

1. Getting Started. This would a be a list of things you should know, resources you should have at your disposal, and some key concepts before the book would start showing its value. Might be things like setting up a test environment, some basic drupal terminology, and an overview of drupal at a farily high level.
2. About Drupal Modules (ingredients)
3. Recipies
   1. Social Networking Sites
   2. Media Hosting Sites
   3. Rating Sites
   4. Corporate Sites

Well now that you're seeing this post it means that my server rebuild is complete. I wiped away three years of cruft and clutter and now up and running with a fresh install. People should notice some performance improvements, but the real advantage to me is that the system is again organized and clutter-free.

I thought of making my own contrib to drupal, but didn’t have an idea about where to start.

Now I might have an idea for a tinyurl -style module that extends path.module so that tinyurls are automatic.

I’ll write out a quick plan and see if it’s worthwhile.

I think it’s a good idea to disable caching on test sites. I just spent 20 minutes trying to figure out a problem with some css and it came down to pages keeping cached css files in the drupal cache, not my local browser cache.

At least that’s what appears to happen. When I disabled the cache my changes mysteriously appeared. When I had removed my browser cache the symptoms had previously remained.

Why couldn’t this have been so simple before?

I was looking for a way to embargo and unpublish my articles in drupal, and didn’t find the solution until just last week.

Scheduler is so indespensible for me that I’m surpised it’s not in Drupal core. I suppose an argument could be made that this feature isn’t actually required, especially when features like archive are used as intended. I think it’s more valuable in the creation of corporate sites. I’m using it to pre-populate a run of specials, which I’m setting one to expire at 23:59 at night, and the next one to show at 00:01 the next morning.