pl00 is my wordpress theme. You’re looking at it. And pl00 v2 is the latest version of this theme.

pl00 is a minimal theme that is easy to customize

Why did I create pl00? Because I was sick of digging through lots of code to make little changes to the stock themes provided with wordpress. pl00 uses a tiny bit of css, most of which is from my lightweight stylesheet template called ‘lifto’. I can’t take all of the credit for pl00 though – the tabs are straight from the grandmaster himself, Doug Bowman.

keywords:
fixed width, three columns, valid CSS, valid XHTML, white, simple, widgets, widget ready, 3columns, right sidebars, SEO friendly, gravatars, hover effects, text-only (well, mostly text-only).

Here are some extra vanity shots of pl00 on flickr. Sexy!

Download pl00.zip from wordpress.org.

Lately I’ve been trying to understand how AJAX is changing the experience that Drupal users will be having in the near future. This is particularly important as a Drupalista given the redesign currently under way. Here are some great looking modules that should be ready a bit sooner than the redesign. Warning: these modules might not be ready for primetime yet.

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Drupal forms are awesome, until they suck and then there’s always
http://www.lullabot.com/articles/modifying-forms-5-and-6

The sugary sweetness of the media temple knowledge base
http://kb.mediatemple.net/

Simon Schama’s A History of Britain documentary series
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simon_Schama%27s_A_History_of_Britain

A site that catalog’s all of the very best SMS messages that people send
(864): sometimes i wish i was able to text my cat and tell him i miss him and that i’m thinking about him
http://www.textsfromlastnight.com/ (Warning: NSFW) via @creativestable

Open Space has a new Drupal website that make it easy for staff members and volunteers to access information and archives online.

I also redesigned Open Space logo and branding as a part of this process.

A Quick Start Guide for a Standard CMS Using Drupal 5

These are the basic steps I go through each time I make a Drupal site. They are not a secret. The very fact you’re reading it means it could not possibly be a secret. Nice try, though.

A Drupal site can be made in many different ways, the steps below will lay the ground work for a site that is user friendly and behaves itself. This guide is not intended for hardcore development geeks or first time users – it’s just a blueprint for creating a safe and solid CMS with Drupal.

I’ll be expanding this post and also creating another page for Drupal 6 sometime soon. Keep your pants on. Thanks to Amy Steen for her input on this guide!

PS. There are lots of ways to make a site with Drupal and if you think you have a way I’d love to hear about it.

s3cr3t formula

• Download and install the latest version of Drupal 5
  • Make sure to set the database collation to UTF8_General_ci
• Create some sub directories in sites/all directory (sites/all/modules and sites/all/themes)
• Register your admin account, pick a secure password
• Change user registration settings to “Only site administrators can create new user accounts” (user management > user settings)
• Create writeable files directory (follow alert box) – this directory will hold the files you’ll upload
• Run cron for the first time (follow alert box)
• Configure “clean-urls”, you might need to edit .htaccess (site config > clean urls)
• Install some base modules into sites/all/modules directory:

• Enable extra core modules like uploads, path alias, etc.
• Change default input to full html (site config > input formats) Note: if you’re intending your site to have many users you’ll want to leave the default input format as is
  
• Create “default” role (user management > roles)
• Configure “default” role for fck-editor

And that’s it, at least for now. There’s lots left to do on your way to making a fully functional site, but hopefully this will give you a headstart. I’ll be updating this guide as often as is necessary, please let me know if you’ve got suggestions.

Part of my job entails that I summarize parts of web development into client lingo. The other day I had to come up with a list of basic requirements for a CMS that will be built for the client by their internal IT department. Here’s what I came up with:

• Basic text editor
• Add pages, edit existing pages and delete pages
• Multiple templates for different kinds of pages
• Print pages and also export pages to .pdf format
• Ability to ‘archive’ content
• RSS publishing (so that other sites can publish your content)
• Upload, reference and store files (.doc, .pdf, etc)
• Add, edit, disable and delete menu links
• Automated site map of your web pages for search engine optimization
• Meta data management for search engine optimization
• Ability to create simple online forms and polls to collect information
• Contact form(s)
• Workflow capability for content approval (ie. draft)
• Automated logs changes and edits (versioning)
• Backup capability
• Online help documentation
• Website statistics
• Search function

Disclaimer: Of course, Drupal handles most of these things but Open Source isn’t always an option

zoe keating http://www.zoekeating.com

crystal castles http://www.myspace.com/crystalcastles

chemical brothers http://www.myspace.com/thechemicalbrothers

beach boys http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Beach_Boys

Sp0xx6 is the latest version of my Drupal UI. It’s a minimalist concept, great for populating sites with content quickly and for first-time users.
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Stratford Hall is a Drupal-based site I built while at Trapeze Communications.

Design by Neil Tran.

I find javascript particularly useful to make up for the shortcomings of IE6 and that is what this post is mostly about. (more…)