How many plugins does it take to get a working site?

July 29, 2009 · Posted in Content Management System · 1 Comment 

Well I know that my most recent post was going on about the problems with WordPress plugins, and there being 10 versions of any one plugin rather than the dev community working together to make one good plugin.

Well this post is to gripe about the number of Drupal plugins it takes to get a workable website. honestly on my WordPress site I have 7 plugins, each addressing a specific need. On Drupal, a site with a blog and pages? 18 plugins, and I am not counting core or even core optional modules. Really if you are just wanting a CMS use WordPress or Joomla or something simpler.

Why use Drupal? Couple of killer plugins, and FLEXIBILITY.

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Drupal: Define a new block area in your theme

July 9, 2009 · Posted in Content Management System · Comment 

I really struggled to get info on this one, and drupal.org’s search keeps turning off due to being overloaded. I find the Drupal template or theme I am using generally does not have blocks where I want them for inserting ad slots or just block elements.

I am using Drupal 6 and wanted to define a new block area at the top of the page for banner ads, how is it done?

1. In the theme folder in the theme definition file my_theme_name.info add the following (usually at sites/all/themes/theme_name/my_theme_name.info):

regions[banner_top] = banner top

2. In the file page.tpl.php (in the same folder most likely sites/all/themes/theme_name/):

<?php print $banner_top; ?>

3. And this is the thing that catches everyone, in the admin area:

Go to admin/settings/performance and at the bottom click on the “Clear cached data” button.

If you now navigate to admin/build/block and you should see your new block highted. You can edit page.tpl.php to get your positioning, and there is no need to flush the cache again.

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