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Mar
31

Months ago, I wrote this way-too-complicated Views set of blocks so that the child menu items would appear beneath the text of the parent page.  It was ridiculous.. I had like 15 blocks and I hadn’t even finished entering in new pages yet.

Today I decided that I would make another puch at getting this website migration done.  Ended up frustrated at the idea of having to write a new block view each time I created a new page.  Apparently they weren’t even showing up in order. Oy!

So, I googled “drupal child page block” and found the Menu Block module.  Absolutely amazing!  It does exactly what I wanted.. cleanly!

So… have you ever used the Primary and Secondary links feature on your theme and wondered “how the hell do I display any menu items deeper than that?”

Well, that’s what this module does. It provides configurable blocks of menu trees starting with any level of any menu. And more!

So if you’re only using your theme’s Primary links feature, you can add and configure a “Primary links (levels 2+)” block. That block would appear once you were on one of the Primary links’ pages and would show the menu tree for the 2nd level (and deeper) of your Primary links menu and would expand as you traversed down the tree. You can also limit the depth of the menu’s tree (e.g. “Primary links (levels 2-3)”) and/or expand all the child sub-menus (e.g. “Primary links (expanded levels 2+)”).

Pretty simple, eh?

(I’m actually shocked this module didn’t exist before.)

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Jun
19

I gotta say that I love this combo.  Drupal is in myshort list of programs to use for developing sites.  Zen is seriously the best starting place for theming.. without having to start from scratch.

Today’s playtoy:

  • Drupal 6.12
  • MySQL 5.0.45
  • PHP 5.1.6
  • Zen Theme 6.x-1.0
  • Meta Tags Module
  • Nice Menus Module
  • DHTML Menu Module  (Standard install for me – makes life so much easier!)

Other module installations that I am not yet using:

  • Views
  • CCK
  • SiteMap
  • Menu Per Role
  • Webform
  • TinyMCE

This is to be a really simple informational site featuring an awesome US locations map created in Flash, and a subtle curve design.

I have the system installed and up-to-date.. I have the modules and theme installed and up-to-date.. I have the Flash map created and ready to install.. and the CSS for the design is totally kicking my butt.  Granted, most of this is my fault because I was not documenting like I should.. and I changed something and cannot for the life of me remember what it was… and now my navbar is no longer showing in FF.  argh!

SO.. I’ve cleaned up my mess.. and I am starting over.  Most of my issue has been the fact that IE and FF are just not friends.  Although IE is not standards compliant, it likes my design better than FF does.  It allows the navigation bar (and search box) to be on top of the background image, while FF hides it. It also doesn’t mind an image sitting in the bottom right corner, while FF’s image follows the text.

Well, I should get back to it.  This project had today as an ideal deadline.  :)  ~ e

Update: And, thank God, I made it!   :)  All was fixed in time and works wonderfully.  Now, I just need to figure out how to rotate an image on page refresh as part of the background image.. and I’ll be all set!  :)  Sigh.

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