ToddGee.commie

I'm always having to look this up on drupal.org, so I thought I'd just put it here once and for all.

(FWIW, you can read about it here: http://drupal.org/node/764100 among other places.)

To enable the firefox spell check when using the fckeditor module, add these lines to the file .../sites/<site name>/modules/contrib/fckeditor/fckeditor.config.js (path assumes you built the site and checked out the module with the drupalGitDeploy.sh script, part of my Drupal Script Library):

FCKConfig.FirefoxSpellChecker = true ;
FCKConfig.BrowserContextMenu = true ;

I always add it to the very bottom of the file so as not to confuse the update process as this is a diff to a file under git control.

For the ckeditor module, it's much the same. Add these lines to the file .../sites/<site name>/modules/contrib/ckeditor/ckeditor.config.js:

config.disableNativeSpellChecker = false;
config.browserContextMenuOnCtrl = true;

This post describes the work I have done to create "template sites".  Template sites are Drupal installations created and maintained with initial setup done to speed the creation of a new site.  The template sites can be duplicated onto a new domain and database loaded with a single simple script.

The conversion of the Drupal project to Git took me somewhat by surprise.  I have recently found some time to upgrade my Drupal script library. Before the upgrade, this library used CVS to install Drupal and contributed modules and to query the status of installed components. Now that CVS usage is no longer supported, I had to modify the relevant scripts to check-out and update Drupal core and contributed modules via Git instead.

While I can completely understand the migration to Git from a developer standpoint.  Drupal is developed in a distributed manner and a distributed SCM system makes perfect sense.  Managing patches from many developers is a lot of work -- and being burdened with a crufty system like CVS just creates more work.  HOWEVER, Git is less than optimal to use as the basis for a pure Drupal implementor's role.  Because Git downloads the entire repository history on a clone, the size of an installed site skyrockets, taking longer to install and back-up.  This can be worked-around by using a zipfile based installation, but then one looses the ability to stay up-to-date to a branch.

Back to the modifications made to the Drupal Script Library...  The biggest changes are:

I am a Java developer and use Eclipse most every day.  However, as you can see on this blog, I do a fair amount of Drupal work and have dabbled in writing Drupal modules.

A few releases of Eclipse ago, I spent quite a bit of time installing the eclipse PDT project on top of my eclipse for Java installation. I remember it taking quite a bit of time to sort things out.

The other day I sat down to write a Java program to solve a Triazzle puzzle (ask me if you want it) and noticed that the version of eclipse installed on my personal machine was rather dated.  So, I downloaded and installed the lasted version of the Helios release.

I figured I might as well install the PDT on top of it and looked thru my notes on how I did it before.  Well, it turns out that this is a very well supported operation now.

For the simple directions, see the PDT page on the eclipse wiki:
http://wiki.eclipse.org/PDT/Installation#From_Update_Site
 

So today I finally got around to installing VirtualBox on my lappy.  I had been using VMWare for many years.  I had bought a license several years ago, upgraded a couple times, and had used VMWare Player after it was made free (as in beer).  Often, however, I found myself having to patch the source for the kernel modules to get them to compile on my Fedora install.

I had often heard good things about VirtualBox so I thought I'd give it a shot.

First I had to decide between the two editions -- the free (for personal use / evaluation), but closed source standard edition and the open source edition (OSE).  I decided to install the non-open-source edition as I have need of some USB devices.

The rpmfusion rpm repository provides yum access to the OSE version of VirtualBox; but to install the standard version via yum, one must install the virtualbox.repo available straight from Sun Oracle.  I followed the instructions on this page

http://www.thelinuxdaily.com/2010/05/how-to-install-virtualbox-3-2-on-fedora-13/

...and it worked fine.

Often with the sites I've built, I have to explain over and over again how to attach an image using the FCKEditor (or CKEditor)/IMCE combination that has become part of my standard template install.

This is a mini-tutorial on how to attach an image.  If I sent you to read this and you still have questions, just let me know!

To upload an image:

1. click the icon in the editor toolbar.  
2. In the resulting pop-up, click the 'Browse Server' button. 
3. In THAT pop-up, you can click the 'Upload' button at the top of the page. 
4. A file chooser dialog will appear, click 'Browse...' to find the image file you want to upload.
5. Click the 'Upload' button and the image will upload

This process will create various-sized thumbnails you can reference.  Those thumbnails will have prefixes added to the file name to differentiate them.

I'm writing this page mainly as a way to not have to type it all in any more.  I do/have-done a fair number of free websites for various groups and causes.  I've done some paid sites as well.  Often I find myself walking someone thru what a theme is and how I can bust them out a simple site quick if they choose to use a free theme.  The rest of this page is that discussion. 

This page discusses a Drupal website, specifically the visual design (or template) of the site.  This is known as the "theme" in Drupal speak.

Drupal is a "Content Management System" -- a system that allows people to modify the website by using the website.  Generally, a user will log in and then add and update pages, and update the operation of the site.  Drupal makes this fairly easy.  Drupal has a modular design which is used by many community contributions that have been created for the Drupal system.  These contributions provide with enormous power to make a high-functioning website.

A Drupal website be broken down into three things: 

At the CDMUG meeting on Thursday, April 29th, 2010, I gave a presentation on my Drupal Script Library.

The introduction for the event was:

I recently added the script drupalUpdate.sh to my Drupal Script Library.  This script will update a site completely from the command line.  It calls drupalCVSDeploy.sh to update the site then calls the drush update command to update the database.

Today I renamed the drupalManageFCKEditor.sh script to drupalManageLibraries.sh.

drupalManageFCKEditor.sh was a script I had written to help with the installation and maintenance of the FCKEditor library that is required to make the Drupal fckeditor module work.  It allowed downloading the latest version of the file and looking inside the installed directory for modifications to the original files.