function template_preprocess_block(&$variables, $hook) {
$variables['theme_hook_suggestions'][] = 'block__custom';
}

Your custom template should have the name block–custom.tpl.php. This is in Drupal 7, BTW.

My site has a vocabulary for event categories. The vocabulary has a hierarchy
which is one deep. For one of the parents, “Kids Programs”, I needed to be able to establish a different look & feel on each node view. I set this up via context, using node type event and path “kids/events/*” vs path “events/*” to establish the difference. That worked great until I got to the comment pages. I wanted a user who was commenting on an event to maintain the same context, even while on “comment/reply/nid”. So, I created a condition to check if a node was an event and if it had a category which was within Kids Programs. Then, I had this condition be checked via both hook_nodeapi and hook_form_comment_form_alter, which allow the context be set for all flavors of node viewing.

Here’s where I use the hook hook_context_plugins

/**
* Implementation of hook_context_plugins().
*/
function events_context_conditions_context_plugins() {
$plugins = array();
$plugins['events_context_conditions_context_condition_kids_event'] = array(
'handler' => array(
'path' => drupal_get_path('module', 'events_context_conditions'),
'file' => 'events_context_conditions_context_condition_kids_event.inc',
'class' => 'events_context_conditions_context_condition_kids_event',
'parent' => 'context_condition',
),
);
return $plugins;
}

Next you have to tell Context about your new condition, using hook_context_registry:

/**
* Implementation of hook_context_registry().
*/
function events_context_conditions_context_registry() {
return array(
'conditions' => array(
'kids_event' => array(
'title' => t('Custom Condition: Event node page'),
'plugin' => 'events_context_conditions_context_condition_kids_event',
),
),
);
}

Now we write our new class, events_context_conditions_context_condition_kids_event, extending condition_context. The class has two values, 1 means the node is tagged with at least one kids program, 2 means it isn’t.

class events_context_conditions_context_condition_kids_event extends context_condition {
function condition_values() {
$values = array(
1 => t('Event of type node in a Kids Program category'),
2 => t('Event of type node not in any Kids Program category'));
return $values;
}

//If the node is not an event, then you are done
if($node->type == 'event'){
//Assume there are no kids program terms, then set this to 1 if you find one.
$kids = 2;
//First gather all the terms in the event category vocabulary
$cats = taxonomy_node_get_terms_by_vocabulary($node, 4);
foreach ($cats as $cat) {
//This is the Kids Program term itself
if($cat->tid == '19') {
$kids = 1;
} else {
//Get all the parents of this term
$parents = taxonomy_get_parents($cat->tid);
if($parents){
//Check each parent to see if it is the Kids Program category
foreach($parents as $parent) {
if ($parent->tid == '19'){
$kids = 1;
}
}
}
}
}
foreach ($this->get_contexts($kids) as $context) {
$this->condition_met($context,$kids);
}
}
}
}

The only thing left is to make sure this condition gets checked whenever we might be displaying a node:


/**
* Implementation of hook_nodeapi().
*/
function events_context_conditions_nodeapi(&$node, $op, $teaser, $page) {
if ($op == 'view' && $page) {
if (module_exists('taxonomy')) {
if ($plugin = context_get_plugin('condition', 'kids_event')) {
$plugin->execute($node);
}
}
}
}

/**
* Implementation of hook_form_alter() for comment_form.
*/
function events_context_conditions_form_comment_form_alter(&$form, $form_state) {
if ($nid = $form['nid']['#value']) {
if (module_exists('taxonomy')) {
if ($plugin = context_get_plugin('condition', 'kids_event')) {
$plugin->execute(node_load($nid));
}
}
}
}

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!

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.

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.

I added settings.php to a .gitignore file and checked the whole thing in to master, because I don’t ever want my sites folders to track the settings for a given location. Then, I moved up the sites code I developed earlier and checked it into a dev and production branch in git/sites. I created the bare repository for git/drupal now too.

Then, I went back to my local machine and removed the sites I had developed. I added them in as submodules instead:
$ git submodule add ssh://<snip>/git/sites sites/dev.my-project.local
$ git submodule add ssh://<snip>/git/sites sites/my-project.local
$ git submodule init

I made sure that each site was tracking the right branch and then checked the changes into the application branch of my project. Next, I added the remote repository:
$ git remote add origin ssh://<snip>/git/drupal
$ git push origin master
$ git push origin modules-and-themes
$ git push origin application

Now, I’m ready to clone this onto my host machine
$ git clone -l git/drupal/ production
$ cd production
$ git fetch
$ git checkout -b modules-and-themes
$ git rebase origin/modules-and-themes
$ git checkout -b application
$ git rebase origin/application

and check in its application
$ git submodule add ssh://<snip>/git/sites sites/www.my-project.com
$ git submodule init

I pushed this up and pulled it down to my local machine, so now both repositories know all about my three sites. I will only serve the two local sites locally and the www.my-project.com from my host, but I can live with that. I like that I can work on the two branches (dev and production) on the various sites, merge changes and commit the results as submodules into the application branch of my Drupal site.

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.

So, to begin with, create a folder with a fresh download of Drupal and commit it to Git. At the command line:

$ drush dl drupal-6.15
$ mv drupal-6.15 my-project
$ cd my-project
$ git init
$ git add .
$ git commit -m "Drupal 6.15 imported"

Now create the branch for your modules and download some modules for it:
$ git checkout -b "modules"
$ drush dl cck
$ git add .
$ git commit -m "CCK 6.x-2.6 imported"
$ drush dl views
$ git add .
$ git commit -m "Views 6.x-2.8 imported"
$ git status

Now create the branch for your actual Drupal project:
$ git checkout -b application

Create two sites folders, one for a dev site, one for production:
$ mkdir sites/dev.my-projectlocal
$ mkdir sites/my-project.local

Copy and rename sites/default/default.settings.php over to the two new sites folders:
$ cp sites/default/default.settings.php sites/dev.my-project.local/settings.php
$ cp sites/default/default.settings.php sites/my-project.local/settings.php

Create the two databases in mysql:
mysql> create database my_project;
mysql> create database my_project_development;

The next step is to configure Passenger to send requests for my-project.local and dev.my-project.local to our Drupal application. For this, I need to edit my /etc/hosts file, adding these lines:
127.0.0.1 my-project.local
127.0.0.1 dev.my-project.local

I setup Passenger via Peepcode’s Phusion Passenger screencast, so my VirtualHost entry goes in a passenger_vhost.conf file and looks like this:
<VirtualHost *:80>
ServerName my-project.local
DocumentRoot /Library/WebServer/Documents/my-project
</VirtualHost *:80>
<VirtualHost *:80>
ServerName dev. my-project.local
DocumentRoot /Library/WebServer/Documents/my-project
</VirtualHost *:80>

Don’t forget to restart your server:
$ sudo apachectl graceful

Now you should be able to navigate to http://my-project.local and http://dev.my-project.local and install these apps as usual.

When you are done, check the two sites folders into Git:
$ git add .
$ git commit -m "Setting up development and production sites"

Don’t forget to block your webserver from exposing your Git files. Add this line to your .htaccess file:
RewriteRule ^\.git - [F]

Check it into Git as well. When I update from Drupal 6.15 to Drupal 6.16, Git nicely merges the changes to htaccess from the upgrade with my manual addition of this RewriteRule.

Now, here’s how to upgrade Drupal core. I have a copy of the latest Drupal release in my Downloads directory. I first switch back to my master branch, then copy the new Drupal files over to my project and then see what the changes are, just out of curiosity. I add them all in to master, then checkout modules and merge master into that. Then, I checkout application and merge modules into it.

$ git checkout master
$ cp -Rf ~/Downloads/drupal-6.16/ .
$ git status
$ git add .
$ git commit -m "Drupal 6.16 imported"
$ git checkout modules
$ git merge master
$ git checkout application
$ git merge modules

I’ll need to run the update.php script for each site, to update the databases, then I’m all set.

‘$(‘.indentation’, testCell).get(1)’ [undefined] is not an object.

Turning off the Theme Developer module fixed it!

%SystemRoot%\system32\drivers\etc\

Thanks, Wikipedia! Now, on both my development machine and my others, I can use addresses like app.local to see work in progress.

One additional point: in your Rails apps, puts will write to your Apache error log, which may be located here: /var/log/apache2/error_log.