Drupal + Being and Time

I'm continuing to explore Drupal amid some reading, blocks, menus, content.... Searching for content to practice upon, I checked one of the old (1997-8) introductory pages - Brian's course notes - and found my closing sentences were utter drivel! [Well it was a surprise to me.]

Although the prospect of a winter through spring clean is daunting, it will also prove an exciting completely about-time refresh.

Drupal is forcing me to do things I should have done ages ago:

• Separate the content from styling;
• Separate the static (historic) content from dynamic;
• Review the graphics;
• Thinking about audience(s);
• - and related content and solutions (archive, computer aided learning, prototyping).

Don't panic about the colour scheme in the screen shot below, this one allows authorised users to alter the colour, font size and width (see the very top line). Accessibility is a must this time, plus printer friendly content. The flexibility is quite amazing. There are errors on the page illustrated, the theme is not compatible with the latest Drupal version; but it works. I've gone through my own introductory page and stripped out the FONTS, TABLES and other superfluous HTML tags. What is a real conundrum is the front page.... The A,B,C I mentioned before may come to the rescue as 'this site' will just feature static content at first. So all I need is a menu in the sidebar. Users won't need to register, which may require a multi site config to develop the open source collaborative book.

It's cool to find there is a version of jQuery in Drupal. With a bit of PHP code I can fade text onto the screen - like many other sites and one of many effects to learn (and use sensibly!). Keith's DOM scripting will also finally come in handy through the dark months. I can't wait for the next NW England Drupal meet, it seems ages since the Cornerhouse get together. I'd put the modules and themes in the default directory, oops - that's sorted now. Need to explore content creation, the theme files and templates (CSS!) and the CCK (content construction kit) and views modules. Aarrrgh! Must also dream and think, dream and think, dream:think ....



Have a great week!