Drupal Articles

Shot in the dark, I know, but its going to be at least a month before I'll have time to build this correctly. I wouldn't ask if it were not for fear that the idea will loose momemtum without a place for interested folks to get together soon... Plus, I imagine a few folks might understand how useful this module could be. Thus, here's a shot in the dark, and basic spec of how the module is to work:

zengarden.module -- a module that enables an open-source approach to a drupal theme framework, and reusable CSS library. Yes, in many its kind of like the zen garden, but really more like listamatic... Here's how it would work:

In Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan, there is rather odd scene (actually, that movie is one long odd scene...) where the audience is introduced to "the genesis device". At one point during that scene Spock notes that "it's a timeless truth that it has always been easier to destroy than to create."

However, sharing that line from Star Trek is not entirely the reason why I am writing this post. nYou see Spock's somewhat haughty observation fired a synapse that gave birth to this post, and thus it became a "blog-worthy" introduction.

Last night, I had a rather profound "ah-ha" moments with the new Forms API and php-template. The end result is the first node_form.tpl.php file I've ever written. The screenshot below is of a story form, with all those node options that use to be on the bottom floated to the left in a sidebar fashion.

As drupal is now blessed with this new form API, every single form on the page, be it uploads, menus or taxonomy selections is now available to be thrown around just as is the case in node.tpl.php. Amazingly, it handles AJAX uploads, and node-type and even user variables.

The other night, while working at "my office", I ran into a hipster who I knew from high school. We cycled through the usual cliche selections on the coffeeshop conversation menu: discussing atheism, exsistentialism, and the question "what makes one piece of art better than another", ect. However, the conversation soon turned to an ad-based artsy/alternative publication he had secured some seed funding for.

His goals struck me as difficult; he sought to build a community of volunteer contributors, with revenue coming from ads (two red flags which become a uber-red flag because of their dependencies on each other, imho). I began giving him some advice, and ideas -- and it was at that moment that I realized Drupal, in terms of design, planning, and development isn't an inherently geeky subject, or skill. Looking over my projects over the past few months, it appears to be a platform which attracts the artists and musicians, the progressives, the forward thinking businesses, the world changers -- those whom, in the words of Apple, think different.