Blog

Technology

Modifying your site's email "From" header

By default, all email sent from your site uses the site email address configured at admin/settings/site-information as the "from" address. On most sites this is set to something generic, like "webmaster@example.com" or "noreply@example.com". However in a lot of mail clients, when the email reaches your inbox, it appears as being just from "webmaster" or "noreply". Wouldn't it be better if it appeared as being from "Your site" or whatever you have set your site name to be?

Technology

Drupal hits Belfast!

Less than a month after DrupalCon Paris and I'm back from an awesome Drupal Camp in Belfast. It was a jammed pack couple of days with two presentation tracks, along with break out rooms, a documentation sprint and usability testing. Oh and a very successful Drupal Surgery too. Over 50 people attended and came from all over Ireland, as well as from Scotland and England.

Technology

Coder Module: Upgrading your code to Drupal 7

Drupal 7 code freeze is almost upon us, and you may now be considering upgrading your modules and themes. To make that process as easy as possible, I've been working hard to update the Coder module with all the necessary Drupal 6 to Drupal 7 reviews to help you identify where in your module or theme you need to make changes.

Technology

Migrate module: handling encrypted passwords

Last month I blogged about using the Migrate and TableWizard modules to migrate users and nodes from the CMS Made Simple content management system to Drupal. Since then I've been using them more and more and have implemented a number of the migrate hooks to manipulate the data during the migration process.
Technology

Using Chaos Tools module to create exportables

Recently I created a patch for the migrate module so you can export content sets, paste them into your module and have them automatically imported. This works in much the same way as Views handles default views in code, with the version in the database overriding the version in code. Using the Chaos Tools (ctools) module it was, relatively, easy to add this functionality. Here are the steps involved if you want to add it to your own module.

Technology

CiviCRM Developer Camp

This week I went to CiviCRM Developer Camp in London, UK. I must admit I've never used CiviCRM and downloaded and installed it for the first time the day before! The camp, which was un-conference in style, was held over two days, and over 20 people attended. It was meant to be a camp for experienced users, but given the varying degrees of knowledge of the people attending, I think it was less techy or advanced than originally intended.

Technology

AJAX-ifying Drupal Node Forms

Recently, for the first time with Drupal 6, I needed to create a form where a variable number of fields could be added to it by simply clicking a 'Add more' button.  I wanted to design a node form where users could create a custom compilation album of their favourite tracks.  However the number of tracks would vary from album to album and so I wanted a way for users to be able to add more fields to the form without reloading the page.

Technology

Creating multi-step node forms

Recently I needed a create a multi-step node form in Drupal 6. Unlike other forms in Drupal, it wasn't as simple as configuring a new submit handler that sets $form_state['rebuild'] to TRUE. After trying a few different ways and a bit of searching, I found the solution. The trick is to hide the 'submit' button and use hook_form_alter() on the 'preview' button to regenerate the form for step 2. However, this is probably best explained with some sample code to illustrate.

Technology

Drupal goes to Galway

Just a few short months on and I'm back from yet another awesome Drupal Camp Ireland. Over 60 people attended having traveled from all around the country, and even from further afield such as Scotland, England and the U.S. The camp ran over two days and included many presentations from building a simple site to writing secure code to documentation.

Technology

DrupalCon DC was Awesome!

Two weeks after heading off to the US and I'm finally back home in Ireland. DrupalCon DC was fantastic and, while I'm glad to be home, part of me wishes it didn't have to end so soon! Twice a year it tantalises me with 4 days of non-stop Drupal talk, learning loads of cool stuff and hanging out with some really amazing people. No wonder I quit my job after DrupalCon Szeged and started Annertech - it's just an awesome community! Here are some of the highlights of the conference for me.