Lesson 42: Fine-tuning the UI by Theming Forms In Drupal 6.0

This lesson builds on the previous lesson about theming/template files in Drupal 6.0 by examining the specific topic of forms. Taking control of the user-interface is key in building world-class websites and web-applications with Drupal, and the 6.0 release give you more power than ever in controlling your UI.

In this lesson we explore some options best practices and strategies for applying theming to forms.

Lesson 41: Theme Template Files for Drupal 6

Sunday, February 17 at 19:00 GMT (11 a.m. PST, 2 p.m. EST, 20:00 CET)

As part of Josh's deal with DmitriG to get him to cover Drupal 6.0's actions and triggers support (see lesson 40), He is going to do a lesson covering the advances in Drupal 6.0's handling of theme templates (those tpl.php files we all know and love).

In short, Drupal 6 brings a lot of the best practices that developed around template files in 5.0, and puts support for them into Drupal Core, as well as implementing a new standard in the core modules that contrib/custom developers can aspire to and emulate. The new omnipresence of template files radically simplifies the process of overriding the output of theme_functions, as well as making things more hospitable to designers.

The objectives for this lesson are to create a good introductory screencast to this concept, and then talk about some advanced functions/use-cases.

Lesson 40: Actions, Triggers, and the automated life.

dmitrig01 has stepped up to the mic this week to show us the new features of Drupal 6's Actions alongside the new core Trigger module.

What are they, and how do you use them? Actions are like stored procedures. That is, they are a series of pre-defined steps that Drupal can take in order to accomplish a task or three. Sort of like a macro, but not nearly as dangerous. Trigger.mod is the beast that fires off some Actions when the time is right, the user is right, the save process for executive blog posts has just begun, or when an registered user reads a certain news article for the fourth time. Get it? Good, Now step inside the machine and see how to set it all up!

After covering the basics, dmitrig01 will even show us how to leverage the core system to write some of our own Actions and Triggers. This is one of the new, exciting features in Drupal 6 and all the cool kids will be using it soon, so check it out at the same Dojo channel, same Dojo time.

http://webavant.com/dojo1

Lesson 31: Debugging Drupal 6

Chx has stepped up to the plate and will do a lesson on debugging your Drupal installation. What is debugging? It is how you figure out what is wrong with your code that then allows you to actually fix the little bugger.

Chx is going to be going through and working on bugs in core. He will show you how he tracks them down and then he'll squash 'em. So bring your buggy code to class and we'll all go on a bug hunt. This is great stuff for not only getting your own code to run smoothly but it is a great way to get in an help out core Drupal. Even if you don't know how to fix a bug once you find it, being able to find them and give detailed information on where they are and what they are doing is a HUGE help in getting Drupal 6 out the door.

special guest illustrator

Lesson 27: Hook_menu changes in Drupal6

Hook_menu! The word strikes fear in the hearts of many. There's been a number of improvements in the new Drupal 6, and Pwolanin will be giving us a breakdown on the upgrades.

One of the things we learned today was how to add a link to a menu item the D6 way:
See the PHP snippet

We also covered two new table fields for the menu system, mlid and plid. Menu Link ID, and Parent Link ID. They have their own in-depth Handbook page as well.

The streaming audio on http://webavant.com/dojo1 does NOT work today. Please use Teamspeak to listen to the lesson. We'll have it fixed soon.

Devel Module Quickie

A quick screencast showing off the virtues and power of devel.module, a true must-have for any drupal developer.