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i18n : Best practice
- a. Install i18n module
- b. Add all the required languages in admin/settings/language
- c. Configure the “Language negociation” to “path prefix only” in admin/settings/language/configure
- d. Configure the “Content selection mode” to “Current language and language neutral” and check the “Switch interface for translating” in admin/settings/language/i18n
- e. Make some variables multilanguage by adding a few lines in you settings.php file :
/** * Multilingual settings * * This is a collection of variables that can be set up * for each language when i18n is enabled. * These are the basic ones for Drupal core, * but you can add your own here. */ $conf['i18n_variables'] = array( // Site name, slogan, mission, etc.. 'site_name', 'site_slogan', 'site_mission', 'site_footer', 'anonymous', // Different front page for each language 'site_frontpage', // Primary and secondary links 'menu_primary_links_source', 'menu_secondary_links_source', 'menu_default_node_menu', // Contact form information 'contact_form_information', );
This is the reason why I checked the “Switch interface for translating”, so if you go to “admin/settings/site-information” or “admin/build/menu/settings” and switch the language you can change the Site information and menu per language.
To be sure, you should see “This is a multilingual variable.” next to each variable you put in the settings file.
i18n : Menus and primary / secondary links
After a lot of problems with i18n and primary links, I finally decided to read the i18n documentation from A to Z, and the solution was there at page 2.
Image handling
filesystem
public : /sites/default/files
every files are downloadable, they can be hidden via permissions but accessible through file system
private : /system/files
drupal control file download and show 403 if no permission
cck
imagefield D7core
Depends on filefield D7core : ajax uploads
-> restriction on image : type / size / resolution
-> features : alt / title tags with tokens, default image
-> display : image, link, path, IMAGECACHE preset
further config / features
-> “full” gd library (not default on debian like) or this link
-> uploadprogress install it with pear [pecl install uploadprogress]
-> max file size (htaccess or php.ini) : [post_max_size = 100M] and [upload_max_filesize = 2M] directive
imagecache D7core : presets on cck + views
Depends on imageapi D7core and gd library [aptitude install php5-gd]
call with [print theme('imagecache', 'imagecache_preset_name', 'original_image_filepath', "alt_tag", "title_tag", "custom_attributes_as_class_or_id"); ]
-> play with size, rotation, + effects – desaturate (bw conversion) – sharpening
-> create image on demand. if file doesn’t exist, image cache create it
imagecache_actions D7 ?
-> “layer style“ : Watermark (place an image over a source picture), Background, text overlay, canvas manipulation
-> colors : colorize image, invert, darken / lighten
-> feature : rounded corners, alpha blending, file format switcher
imagecache_profiles
imagecrop / imagefield_crop : js resizing
imagefield_extended : Add additional data to images other than the default Description, Title and Alt.
image_fupload : upload multiple images with one simple click
bonus :
image integration with wysiwyg
wysiwyg D7ready + tinymce (see wysiwyg config) + imce D7ready + imce_wysiwyg bridge D7?
activate in “button and plugin” > imce (wysiwyg > tinymce config)
alternative to imce filefield_insert “use a cck filefield for uploading images and send the image to the RTE”
lightbox integration and plenty of gallery modules…
Multisite setup
The goal is to have a single drupal core to handle multiple sites / instances
1. installation
install drupal as usual
2. directory structure
inside site/ create a directory for each of your site named yoursitename.tld
inside yoursitename.tld create
- directories for the specific modules and themes (you can then split it in contrib/ and custom/) + files
- copy settings.php and adapt db site’s specific values
- put the modules used by every sites (cck, pathauto, devel, admin_menu, …) in site/all/modules
3. virtual host
- DocumentRoot is the same for every sites : that’s where your installation sits (/var/www/drupal6 for example)
- ServerName is the name of your site (!), drupal will use it to map the name of your site.tld with the site/ directory structure
4. pros
- update core / shared modules only once
=> you can create a script to run cron for all sites - quick creation of new sites
5. cons
- on core issues, all sites are down…
- high load of the server
- you have to manually run update.php on every site (it can take times when a site may be + – down)
6. sharing databases / tables
it’s possible to share data between sites.
example: if you want sitea and siteb using the same users, but with different content, you will have
- 3 databases for the 2 sites, (1 for content sitea / siteb, 1 for shared tables)
- shared tables (users, sessions,…) must be have the prefix of the shared database in settings.php / Database area ( shared_db. with . for sql join)
- a default prefix (indicated only once) for other tables
- to permit a same user login on sitea AND siteb, install single sign on module
$db_prefix = array( ‘default’ = ”, ‘users’ = ‘shared_db.’, ‘role’ = ‘shared_db.’, ‘sessions’ = ‘shared_db.’, );
note : it’s also possible to have only 1 databases with same prefixes for common table and different prefixes for the other ones (this time prefix without . ’cause we use the same db)
note : you can also take a look, at this video with interesting server settings
=> an other interresting module (not tested yet) : Domain
Concat multiple rows in one
I will take an example to explain this tip.
imagine we want to export our drupal users with their roles. if a user has 3 roles, the result of the join query will be 3 rows for him.
Using GROUP_CONCAT will give us all roles in one single row.
SELECT u.uid, u.name, u.mail,
GROUP_CONCAT(DISTINCT r.name SEPARATOR '/') as roles
from users u
inner join users_roles ur on ur.uid = u.uid
inner join role r using(rid)
GROUP BY u.uidnotice here the GROUP BY u.uid (otherwise all users will be concatenated in 1 row).
Order your nodes by most recent post OR comment date
Hello,
ever wanted to sort your nodes by post or comment date like forums do ( last “action” first) ?
you can do that easily with mysql and greatest select
SELECT n.nid, title,
GREATEST(n.created, last_comment_timestamp) as dateup
FROM node n
INNER JOIN `node_comment_statistics` using(nid)
order by dateup desc