Drupal 7

Recently I was working on a Drupal website and needed to add a new feature: to upload and display PDF files in the browser. As I browsed the options on drupal.org, I realized I would need to choose from several modules and decide on the most appropriate one for the job. Here is an account of my decision making process.

1.       The first step is to perform needs analysis. In other words, I needed to define what I wanted. Do I want to have fancy page-turning feature that some third-party vendors supply? Not at this time.

2.       My website is built with Drupal 7 so I need to have a Drupal 7 version. I also want to follow the general guidelines for choosing a Drupal module. Bascially, I want to choose a module that has several thousand downloads. This will ensure that it is stable and widely used and being actively supported with current bug fixes and security fixes. I try to avoid contributed modules that have a licensing fee.

I'm working on a project where the client's first experience with Drupal was disappointing. They are planning to redesign the site user interface to make it more user-friendly. We were discussing whether to redo the site in Wordpress or to continue with Drupal. Rather than writing another Drupal vs. Wordpress article, I decided to write about the Benefits of Using Drupal. Here's what I wrote to my client:
 
I'm sorry that your first experience with Drupal wasn't what you expected. I hope that you will give Drupal another chance. I've worked on many Drupal sites that worked very well and were easy to use.
 
There's a lot of benefits to redesigning your website with Drupal:

• A lot of the theme styling is already done and can be used with the new responsive theme
• Your current Drupal site uses a module called Context which has a drag and drop interface that allows you to drag and drop content, images and blocks and rearrange the page layout in many different ways. This way you can position the blocks in different places on the pages. You can have an unique layout on each page.
• The site also uses a module called Views which Wordpress doesn't have. It allows you to display pieces of content in listings on pages or blocks or slideshows or lightboxes. It's extremely flexible and powerful
• Drupal's taxonomy or tags system is very useful. You can enter one promotion or event and tag it with several location tags and have it show up on several different pages or blocks.

I look forward to doing the UX design and re-building your website with Drupal. It's a dream project for me to be able to do both the UX design and also to build it out. I'm sorry your first experience with Drupal wasn't what you expected. I'm confident that I can redesign and rebuild your website so that it more than meets your needs and also is easy to use. I'm planning on building a prototype so you can test it out and see how easy it is to update the content.
 
Would you like a FREE consultation and demonstration on the Benefits of Using Drupal? Contact Katy[at]SeascapeWebDesign.com today!

Related Article: Why Choose Drupal? Here are 7 Reasons

Seascape Web Interactive created a custom design for Abbotsford commercial truck parking company, TruckPark.ca. This business brochure site comes with attractive slideshow on the home page. This Drupal 7 website is mobile-friendly and displays beautifully on hand-held devices such as iPhones, iPads and tablets. It also looks great on your laptop or desktop.


Visit www.truckpark.ca today!

I recently got this error message while working on a Drupal 7.22 website. See screenshot.

Sometimes it's hard to find the sollution to this problem. The error message is so wordy and goes on for several lines. When searching Google for a solution, what search phrase do you use? Do you search for "Uncaught Exception in Shutdown Function" or "General Error: 2006 MySQL server has gone away"?

Here are some solutions to this problem.
1. Press F5 on your browser to refresh the screen. For some people, this simple step solved the problem.

2. Edit your my.ini configuration file to increase max allowed packet size.

Setting up a multi-site for Drupal can be beneficial in several ways. Multiple Drupal sites are sharing the same codebase. This makes updating Drupal modules simpler since you only need to do it once for all the sites in the multi-site installation. Each site has its own database, theme and unique modules. Here is a tutorial on how I set up a multi-site installation for Drupal 6. The procedure is much the same for Drupal 7. I’m using a managed VPS with LAMP stack, cPanel and WHM. (Web Hosting Manager) Also: CentOs 4.7/Apache 2.x/mySQL 5.0/PHP 5.2
 
Resource: http://drupal.org/node/348619

Seascape built this online news site to cover the upcoming Yellowknife City Council Election. We used Views to display Mayor Candidate profiles and Council Candidates. We added video interviews for each candidate. We added Ads and Polls, Issues and Opinion pieces. Editors and Reporters are able to add new articles easily. Articles are published upon Managing Editor approval. This site is built with Drupal 7.

Visit NNSLnewsroom.com today!

 

As designers and developers, we spend a lot of time creating new designs and implementing them, building the site, adding content and setting everything up so the site owner or administrator can take over. In the rush to get a site completed, several important steps could easily be overlooked. This article covers the most important steps to take when getting your website ready to launch. This is written for designers and developers but site owners and administrators will be interested in learning the site launch steps.

This article is written for Drupal websites specifically. But the main items apply to any platform such as Wordpress or Joomla. Here is an overview:

Introduction to Drupal Part 2

Here is part 2 of my Introduction to Drupal series.

Drupal is a popular Content Management System

• This means that the user can add new content and edit existing content.
• It is built with PHP and mySQL so it provides dynamic content

Drupal is Open Source

• no license fees
• available as a free download at Drupal.org
• maintained by global community of volunteers
• software is frequently updated to improve security, fix bugs and add new features

Seascape Web Design created this custom design for White Rock construction company, J Laan Construction. This business brochure site comes with attractive slideshow, custom blog with comments and a photo gallery. This Drupal 7 website is mobile-friendly and displays correctly on hand-held devices such as iPhones, iPads and tablets.

Visit J Laan Construction today!

Join us for our next meetup on May 10th at 7pm at the ABC Restaurant at 15373 Fraser Hwy. The doors are open at 6pm if you would like to arrive early, that's OK. Katy of SeascapeWebDesign.com will be presenting on How to Build an Intranet with Drupal 7. Katy recently built a documentation library for a company intranet. Come prepared to share your ideas and experiences on how to build an Intranet with Drupal.