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By webservant on
I manage a radio station that uses Simian from BSI. The program is capable of putting out a file for use on the station website.
I know very little drupal, and even less php so this seems very daunting to me.
I would like the Simian file to reside in the directory where drupal is installed. I don't want it to be visible to the general public. The file can be called whatever we want.
Simian has 21 different variables that can be used. The variables have raw html in them, so this solution needs to respect and properly display them. Example spaces are denoted as There are html line break markers in some of the variables.
So, where do I start? How do I proceed, and does anyone want to collaborate on this project?
Thanks in advance for any and all help.
cntrytwist
Comments
It would be helpful to know
It would be helpful to know more about exactly how the file is setup. Could you perhaps post a copy of one?
Simian Data file
Here is the contents of the file I've called data.php
Starting PHP code
After spending the last hour and a half working this over, here's what I've been able to make work. I've set my broadcast computer to upload a file into a folder on the server root called simian.
I've put this into a block and it displayes the info in the bsi_current variable.
However, this is just the "I can make this much work for a now" fix to the issue.
I would like to take this to the next level, and make it easy for others to use this functionality. I would like to be able to configure blocks just by checking off the variables I want to display. Can this be made into a module? I'll move this along as far as I can, but that's not going to be very far because I don't know much about drupal and php.
You shouldn't need to use a
You shouldn't need to use a module for this. Simply create a block that contains that code, or any of the other variables you would like to call. For example, create a "Now On Air" block and setup the PHP code to display the current song and the next song.
Good suggestion, but
If you read the previous post, this is exactly what I did. I've even gone a step further, and setup 3 pages containing the information from several of these variables. I've also added these pages to a menu which only shows on those pages. Works great. No issues except...
What I'm after here is a way to make this easier to manage by a, dare I say it, sit admin who doesn't know PHP and shouldn't have to deal directly with it. Since we know how many and exactly what variables Simian puts out, we should be able to create a module that can create pages and blocks containing only those variables we want to show. And it should be easy as checking or unchecking the variables to display.
Any takers on this?
Thanks again for your input and your suggestions. In advance, thanks for any and all help.
I'm not exactly sure what
I'm not exactly sure what you are looking for here. I understand the need to keep PHP away from your day-to-day admins. I'm currently building a site for administration by high school teachers and am dealing with the same thing. That said, what would you like this module to do? Generate blocks containing key Simian variables? I am not fulling see what you would like this module to be able to accomplish.
More detailed...
Well, after playing around with this a bit more, it is becoming more evident what a module could do to make configuring this easier to manage.
1. 3 Blocks - Current, Played, Coming Up
2. 3 Pages - Current, Played, Coming Up
The module would control these pages and blocks by just enabling the display of the variables by using check boxes. We could have the blocks and the pages pre formatted, or we could even include the formatting of the blocks in the module to give total control without having to manage the php side of things.
Hope you can help with this.