By tgeller on
After a much longer process than I would have liked, I've updated tomgeller.com to Drupal 7.
Along the way I merged it with my old portfolio site (gellerguides.com) and made fundamental design changes. I wrote a bit about the process on my blog, at http://tomgeller.com/upgrading-and-redesigning-tomgellercom-drupal-7 .
You can see the old version (for a while) at http://temp.tgeller.com.
I'm still not completely satisfied with everything, and would appreciate any comments you could offer. Many thanks!
Comments
Great site!
I noticed that your picture in the header is output as a view. Is this to change it based on page views? If that's the case, would context have been a little more efficient?
Just a thought.
Your video tutorials on Lynda.com are terrific by the way. That's what made me a Drupal junkie in the first place (yeah, it's all your fault!).
MrPhilbert
Thanks for your nice comment!
Hey, MrPhilbert! Thanks for being so kind.
The photo at the top rotates at random; the only way I could think to do that without custom programming was Views. Here's how it works:
1) Create a collection of images. I did it by putting the each image into a node, then giving those nodes a title that contains the string "Header portrait". (The nodes themselves are unpublished.)
2) Make a View that selects only nodes with "Header portrait" in the title.
3) Sort = random.
4) Items viewed = 1.
5) Create a Block display for that View.
6) Put that block in the header region.
And there you have it!
My old site (currently still archived at http://temp.tgeller.com) had a theme based on Marinelli (http://drupal.org/project/marinelli), which has some header-rotating code baked in. (Interestingly, I think that code isn't under the GPL... it might not be proper to host on drupal.org. But I never raised a stink.)
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Tom Geller * tomgeller.com * Oberlin, Ohio
See my lynda.com videos about Drupal
I didn't realize the header image was randomized.
Very simple solution. That would also work great as a random add generator as well as other similar solutions.
Yes, although there's a more-robust solution for ads...
Yup, I use the same system to randomize the endorsement near the top of the page. :)
By the way, if you want really robust ad serving, see http://drupal.org/project/ad . It does random display, but also tracks everything (and has some other tricks).
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Tom Geller * tomgeller.com * Oberlin, Ohio
See my lynda.com videos about Drupal
I prefer a custom content
I prefer a custom content type instead of a "magic" title for things like this.
That's another way to do it
I considered doing that, nevets, and normally I think that's best. I decided to try doing it this way instead because I'm the only person maintaining the site; I don't have to worry about someone else accidentally creating a node with that "magic" title. This way keeps the "create content" page cleaner, of course. :)
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Tom Geller * tomgeller.com * Oberlin, Ohio
See my lynda.com videos about Drupal