So Many Fish

A Drupal site I’m working on requires links for each event that would add the event to the user’s calendar. I’d like to provide this functionality for iCal, Outlook and Google. Drupals Calendar module offers something similar out of the box–there’s a feed which can deliver a an ics file on a per-day basis. I found some great instructions on how to deliver the ics for a single node. This method handles repeating event really well, but I just can’t make it deal with all-day events. No matter how I set my all day events up, the ics file delivers a start and end time. I’ll keep digging and hopefully find a solution.

To add the event to a Google calendar, I wrote a little code in my template.php file. Here’s my code, combined with the code from above to handle the single node ics feed:

function THEME_preprocess_node(&$vars, $hook) {
if ($vars['type'] == 'event') {
$node = $vars['node'];
$ics_link = "/calendar-single_ev_date/ical/".$node->nid;
$from = strtotime($node->field_ev_date[0]['value']);
$to = strtotime($node->field_ev_date[0]['value2']);
$event_title = str_replace(' ','+',$node->title);
$from_date = date('Ymd',$from);
$to_date = date('Ymd',$to);
$from_time_EST = date('His',strtotime($node->field_ev_date[0]['value']." UTC"));
$to_time_EST = date('His',strtotime($node->field_ev_date[0]['value2']." UTC"));
if ($from_time_EST == '000000' && $to_time_EST == '000000') {
$google_link =
'http://www.google.com/calendar/event?action=TEMPLATE&text='.
$event_title.'&dates='.$from_date.'/'.
$to_date.'&
location=CUSTOMER&trp=false&sprop=website:www.example.org&'.
'sprop;=name:CUSTOMER';
}else{
$from_time = date('His',$from);
$to_time = date('His',$to);
$google_link =
'http://www.google.com/calendar/event?action=TEMPLATE&text='.
$event_title.'&dates='.$from_date.'T'.$from_time.
'Z/'.$to_date.'T'.$to_time.
'Z&location=CUSTOMER&trp=false&'.
'sprop=website:www.example.org&sprop;=name:CUSTOMER';
}
$repeat_string = $vars['node']->content['field_ev_date']['field']['#children'];
$regex = '/^<div>(.*?)<\/div>/';
$matches = array();
if (preg_match($regex, $repeat_string, $matches)) {
$search_strings = array('Repeats',' .',' ',' ');
$replace_strings = array('repeats','.','+','+');
$repeat_string =
'&details=Note:+This+event+'.str_replace($search_strings, $replace_strings, $matches[1]).'
++Google+Calendar+does+not+allow+us+to+set+up+this+repeat+for+you.
++Please+use+the+Repeats+button+above+to+do+so,+if+desired.';
$google_link .= $repeat_string;
}
$vars['add_to_ical'] = "iCal";
$vars['add_to_outlook'] = "Outlook";
$vars['add_to_google'] = '<img src="http://www.google.com/calendar/images/ext/gc_button1.gif" border=0>';
}
}

Google has a great API on how to use this functionality. It handles all day events perfectly, but doesn’t seem to have any way to deal with repeating events, despite the “All day” checkbox you get on their site. I put a note for the user in the description box, which is unideal but will have to do.

We’re going to add some icons for iCal and Outlook, and we’ll be pretty much set.

Hey James, thanks for your help with this!

Posted in: Drupal 1 Comment »

A site I’m working on has quite a few search forms. Basically, for each of the node types, we want to give the user an easy option to restrict search to only that type, ie events, blog posts, as well as a few custom content types. Sometimes the node types will be presented by taxonomy term, so that the user should be able to easily search through events tagged “toddler,” for example. Here’s how to construct these search boxes and place them into blocks.

First, construct a view which lists all of the content you’d like to search together. For example, I’ve created a view called Event List. In it, I filter based on node type == event. I add another filter from the Search group, “Search: Search Terms”. This filter is exposed and optional. On “empty input”, select “Show All”. I created an argument for the taxonomy term and also choose a few fields. Then, I created a page view and gave it the path “events/%”. In the Basic Settings fieldset, change the setting “Exposed form in block” to “yes.” Save!

Now, when you go to the Blocks page, you’ll see a block called “Exposed form: Events-page_1″ (or something nicer if you name your page). You can just drag it to a sidebar for testing, but later on you’ll probably want to restrict where this block appears.

When the block is displayed on /events/all, it searches all events. When it is displayed on events/toddlers, it only searches within events tagged toddlers. Just what we wanted.

Posted in: Rails Add Comment »

Context is a great module, but the settings page is a little misleading. You can set a context to operate when a node tagged with a term. You can set as a reaction that one of your menu items is made active. However, when you navigate to the page for that node with the menu loaded into a block, the active item is not indicated. Works fine if the menu is on the main part of the page, but not in a block. This is true for any menu — primary, secondary or custom.

We’re working on a site which has the subnavigation in a sidebar. It’s going to be used in a lot of different ways, but the simplest use case on this site is a blog, split into four categories. Each category will be treated as its own mini-blog. The four categories will be in the sidebar. When you’re viewing a post in the Book blog, then the Book link should be active in the sidebar.

It turns out this is really easy to do if you use Menu Trails, in addition to Context. Let context set up the display of the block holding the menu, but then associate each category with the correct menu item in Menu Trail. Together, they will present the menu when you want it and highlight the correct link.

Posted in: Rails Add Comment »

After thinking about the set up in my previous post, I decided that I wanted a good way to push changes from the dev to the production site. So, I found Simon Hamner’s post on using submodules for this and made some modifications. I also got the whole setup working with 3 sites, dev.my-project.local, my-project.local and www.my-project.com.
(more…)

Posted in: Drupal, Git, Hosting Add Comment »

Here’s my steps for setting up a Drupal production and development site, with Drupal core and modules under separate Git control and running the whole thing under Passenger. I got most of this framework from Version Control Blog, but instead of using separate repositories for Drupal core and modules, I use branches. In addition, I include the details of my Passenger setup.

One thing I really like about how Version Control Blog illustrates this process, is setting up the project with an older version of Drupal and then upgrading at the end, to show how simple it is. I will definitely follow that path.
(more…)

Posted in: Drupal, Git, Hosting Add Comment »