Pimping my Drupal
I've taken a bit of time to start unpacking things after moving blog apps from WordPress to Drupal. It's starting to feel more like home – it'll take me some more time to really feel comfortable here, though.
Thinks I've added to make things more like my old WordPress config:
- Spam.module – I thought it was orphaned at Drupal 4.6, but it's still alive and well. I'd used this on weblogs.ucalgary.ca with great success (not quite as good as Spam Karma 2, but good enough to let me sleep at night)
- TinyMCE – basically the same WYSYWYG editor used by WordPress, but it's customizable, and seems to be more stable.
- Atom.module – adds an atom version of the syndication feed, if anyone swings that way
- Audio.module – podcasting support. Not quite as cool as PodPress, but still pretty swanky.
- Commentrss.module – exposes RSS feeds for comments (all, by tag, or by post)
- Graphstat.module – for me. a stats tracker thingy that makes shiny graphs 'n stuff.
- Hall of Fame (hof.module) – mostly for me – another stats tracker thingy, similar to Popularity Contest for WordPress.
- indexpage.module – generates tables of contents for various content types
- Notify.module – sends email to notify of new content – not what I was hoping for, since it doesn't support multiple distinct anonymous users.
- Pathauto.module – generates the schwanky urls for new posts automatically, rather than the stupid, stupid node/24234 style urls
- recent_blocks.module – generates the "Recent Posts" block in the sidebar, combined with the number of comments, etc…
- search404.module – intercepts borked URLs and tries to convert them into queries to try to do something useful rather than just barfing out a 404
- syndication.module – supposed to expose all RSS feeds in one handy dandy location, but doesn't appear to do that.
- tagadelic.module – creates those Super Kool Tag Clouds all the cool kids are using. I'll add it to the Archives page eventually. It can also add a block in the sidebar.
- views.module – generates custom pages listing stuff. Basically a handy database query manager and result displayer. Handy.
- workspace.module – I guess just for me – to track all content posted by a user, in one handy location.
Things I'm still searching for solutions to:
- Flickr photo album integration, ala FAlbum for WordPress
Flickr image posting within node authoring form, ala WordPress' Flickr Post BarGot that working- Comment subscriptions by email – anonymous users should be able to subscribe to any node and get emails when any new contents are posted.
Update: I've added a live module colophon , automatically listing whatever modules are currently installed (and active) on this copy of Drupal. It's not a fully featured as the WordPress Colophon plugin, because I couldn't figure out how to derive links for each module's website.
Hi Darcy,
thanks for your interesting experiences on Wordpress to Drupal conversions… currently working with MT, Wordpress AND drupal and I must say I can just congratulate you to the Wordpress move…
the Subscription thing you are looking for works with the “Subscription” module
http://drupal.org/project/subscriptions
it allows people to subscribe to ANY node type (yeah – that’s why a generic datamodel implementing ALL content types as nodes really rocks!)
cheers christoph
Cristoph, thanks for the tip. I'd installed (and then disabled Subscriptions) because it doesn't work well with Anonymous users – who will be the majority of commenters. It seems as though it provides a boolean subscription for ALL anonymous users, without a way to set email addresses.
oh – ok… I see
which Drupal version to you use…
I haven’t found that great “Advanced search” feature you used…
Also concerning anon comments di you see this post here?
http://www.foolab.org/node/1456
BTW: great header picutre switcher
cheers christoph
I’m using Drupal 4.7.0 – the advanced search dealie is built in.
I hadn’t seen that patch, but am a bit nervous to start patching core modules – makes upgrades dicy. I’ll look around for a way to use the API to tweak the form. I’ll be poking around in that part of the innards anyway to try to get email subscriptions and CoComment working…
Hi!
I assume you also didn't find those 2 essential comment features for
- subscribing comments
- remembering my comment data in a cookie
in a module, or at least not set them up?
can you mail also on this?
thanks,christoph
no such luck. this is the one thing that I’m still missing from back in my WordPress days…
HI D'Arcy, are you using the drupal performancing metrics module?
Chris – I’d actually forgotten about that! I just used a custom block with the script snippet pasted from the Performancing site. Adding the module now…
Is there any facility in Drupal for "real" browsing by tag (meaning: tag intersections and relations)?
Hi D’arcy, I’ve been researching anonymous subscriptions for drupal and came across a module built by C.Camper that he says you are using. CommentNotify.
I haven’t been able to see this in action.
I’m seeking a solution for anonymous users to subscribe to a node/taxonomy just like subscribe.
Are you using the commentnotify?
How can I see this in action?
Thanks in advance.
Hi D’arcy, I’ve figured out how to configure the commentnotify module.
To get it to work, I had to turn on the optional/required contact info for an anonymous comment post.
Makes sense now.
I’ll test it out and run in by my project manager.
It doesn’t do what he wants, but it is the closest I’ve been able to find.
I’m curious why you aren’t using it on your site.
I’d like to subscribe to this blog item to see how it works.
Are you going to install and run it on your production site?
Michael – I had to (temporarily) disable the module because it was responding to spam comments as well as legit ones, which got a bit noisy/annoying. Once that’s been ironed out, I’ll be re-enabling it ASAP.