By AndrewE on

**WARNING RANT MODE DETECTED**

Hi forum,

I apologize in advance for this mess but it's something I need to get off my chest and it reflects my experience as a newbie trying to use Drupal.

I was attracted to Drupal for the same reasons as most people, i.e. it's interactive potential. And I still believe it is an amazing thing once you learn how to control it and boy would I love to know how!!! However after more than a month now of trying to use it off and on I have reached the stage where I think I'm going to give up out of sheer frustration and despair. At every new step there is an obstacle greater than the one before and often one that I simply cannot resolve and have to let go. For instance i recently tried installing the image module but it required imagemagick which I hadn't a clue how to install and after reading their instructions on their website I had even less of a clue so that stopped me using the image module. I also wanted to change the primary menu bar of my marvin templated drupal site, the one that includes "archive, search, books" etc and change it to my own categories but then I couldn't figure out how to make independant pages, let alone how to change the menus. I constantly find the defintions of Drupal compnents to be confusing (taxonomy, nodes etc) Anyway, I tried different approaches for a couple of weeks but all in vain. I also wanted to add a simple footer image that resembled the top banner image of my site but again I couldn't figure that one out either.

*sigh*

So the question I ask myself is how come so many people use Drupal out there successfully and I can't even do the simplest of things? Have I become such a loser? Is there something I have been missing all along? Perhaps Drupal users are all computer geniuses?

But then I know that's not true since many of you, i'm sure, were also newbies like me so how did you overcome it?

What path would you recommend I take to being able to use Drupal successfully?

Please give me some pointers...please...I still want to fight and win this battle!

Thank you for your patience. Sorry for the rant.

FrancisQ

You can see the pathetic fruits of my labour with Drupal here:

http://www.andreweglinton.com/drupal/?q=

Comments

grohk’s picture

grohk commented

Look. Making these site *really* good isn't easy. The key to any piece of software like Drupal is to learn how and why things work. I know volumes more about Drupal and I owe it all to patience. Reading, searching and asking questions are your tools. Use them. Most of these questions have been asked before ad naseum, save yourself the grief and search before you ask.

Lately, I have taken to hanging out on the #drupal-support IRC channel on Freenode...If you know how to use IRC, you might want to swing by sometime.

In conclusion, take a breath...relax. Your site is coming along fine. As long as it is not spitting out white pages with error messages you are already half way there. Baby steps.

Now, what is your first question?

---
Code Orange: Drink Your Juice

silverwing’s picture

silverwing commented

and I've had those moments where I knew I was going to give up and go back to postnuke or xoops or something else. But I'm sticking with it, despite how hard it seems to be.

So basically, what grohk said. (that sounds like a curse ;0) If you're willing to spend some time with it, it'll work for you.

silverwing

www.landofmidnight.com
www.projectpby.com

sepeck’s picture

sepeck commented

that sounds like a profound proverb or a curse. :)

Drupal will drive you insane as you learn the vocabulary. I am very good with servers. So things that seems seem easy to me are hard for others. What I am learning, is the php and usability stuff. How to put together the modules to work for me and not put in stuff that I will never use.

Druapl is a box of parts. You can assemble the parts in a number of ways and everyone wants different pictures. The flexibility is what's driving you nuts. Stick with it and have fun.

-Steven Peck
---------
Test site, always start with a test site.
Drupal Best Practices Guide

silverwing’s picture

silverwing commented

A couple weeks ago I was struggling to get my forums just the way I wanted. (With containers.)

Today, I went back to it and got them done in no time. (Although I do wish I could do all the forum 'stuff' on one page, instead of cycling back to settings...)

Point being, it takes time to learn this. But (imnsho) worth it.

silverwing

www.landofmidnight.com
www.projectpby.com

sepeck’s picture

sepeck commented

If you can think of a way that could make forums a little easier to manage suggest it.

Make a mock up in a paint program or something and then go over why it would be better usability. Start a new forum thread with it and hopefully you will get positive and not so positive feedback and a nice discussion. The last time this happened we ended up with those nice tabs which really help things out.

The coders sometimes just need a target and it's easier when there is a picture that has had it's fundamental structure discussed to death that can really push it towards the posible.

I don't use forums, so I have no idea what might help.

-Steven Peck
---------
Test site, always start with a test site.
Drupal Best Practices Guide

ggalopin’s picture

ggalopin commented

Very interesting comments, that you gave here, grohk.

I'm a writer. A journalist. Not a programmer. And I've been looking for the best CMS for more than two years. I tried, during months, many of them, all in PHP/SQL. Xoops, Xaraya, Mambo, b2evolution... none of these encountered my needs. Drupal did. But with a lot of work. Drupal is very complex, compared to others CMS, but so "intelligent".

So I understood that more needs come with more complexity. May be you should ask yourself, before trying to understand Drupal, if it is the right tool for you.

You don't say if you tried others CMS, but if not, you should take a look @ www.opensourcecms.com.

I don't know either what's your job is, your goal, but what I can conclude now, is that CMS are made to programmers by programmers. Not so user friendly, if you don't have any notions of template, php and things like that.

That's the "dark side" of Opensource anyway, but it's just a beginning. And so rich !

Good luck.

GG

AndrewE’s picture

AndrewE commented

I like the community feel of Drupal forums! Thanks for all input. It helps relinquish the negativity that easily sets in as a result of much time spent for little apparent progress.

Drupal seems to be the platform for me. I am also a writer, currently living in Tokyo and working mostly in playwriting, poerty, short stories. I want to create a site that will allow for the possible collaborative creation of a play. The basis for my idea is that a chosen group of writers participate in the writing of a play. Only the participants can add new writing to the play but non-participants are able to comment and observe. It would also be a site where individual user blogs are available, a book review page and things like that.

So far from what I have seen Drupal is the best platform for my needs although apart from Drupal I have only tried wordpress and B2evolution which were both oriented towards individual use more than collaborative/community based work.

ggalopin thanks for the link, I'd love to see your site if its up and running.

I have a question: Is it necessary to learn PHP in order to use Drupal properly?

If so where should I begin?

The only web language I have learnt in any measure is html but that seems to be less and less relevant in today's internet usage.

freyquency’s picture

freyquency commented

1. you don't need to know php to use drupal properly. with php knowledge you can help improve drupal or change things a bit more but it's not necessary.

2. it's not your fault that you are confused. drupal needs better documentation in many areas. A lot of things are from the point of view of one installing drupal on a server of their very own, ie. "to the right of me lies my server, it's plugged into my power strip with my ps2." Many people use third party hosting and so the documentation tends to be really confusing about pretty straight forward tasks. for example, on my third party host the path to imagemagick is /usr/local/bin/convert which is where the host installed the program. You don't have any way to install it if you are using a third party host, they have the computer there with root access.

As for the 'primary links' try setting them in the main configuration area, it seems to work for me, but not when doing it in the specific theme configuration.

silverwing’s picture

silverwing commented

I can see why there are a lot of writers here. Drupal seems to be more about the content than the community (but does a good job at both.)

I choose drupal because I wanted to put some writings online, and this system gave me a way to do it that is more logical than, say, a *nuke system (which puts community first, then content as an afterthought).

PS: I love tokyo! actually, all of Japan!

www.landofmidnight.com
www.projectpby.com

robertdouglass’s picture

robertdouglass commented

FrancisQ,

among the developers and users who have mastered Drupal, there is a widespread urge to support those who have difficulties. That is because every person who masters Drupal brings something new and positive back to the community, whether in the form of intelligent postings at Drupal.org, documentation, bug reports, or new/improved code. Therefore you will find lots of people who will help, if they can. But, you will need to make a list of the things you want to do and ask very specific questions so that the people with knowledge and know-how can share with you in a targeted way.

Stick with it, it is well worth it!

- Robert Douglass

-----
visit me at www.robshouse.net

jluster’s picture

jluster commented

I am a writer, a former soldier, and - as far as my friends are concerned and always apt to tell me - not the tallest fir in the forest in general. That's why Drupal appeals to me. Any of the other systems you mentioned, and some you didn't - I've tried them. I'm even reasonably sure that I could have make them work for me, but at first glance they screamed "l33t k1d", ate my resources, or were written in executable line noise rather than in a manner conducive to understanding what was going on. And no other CMS or "weblog" software had a developer community as approachable and intelligent as this one. That's the facts. I stuck it out, learned by looking at other people's code, and today my site simply rawks. And that's thanks to Drupal.

sepeck’s picture

sepeck commented

Your site is so cool.

One of these days I'll catch up....no wait, you had a head start...darn.

heh

-Steven Peck
---------
Test site, always start with a test site.
Drupal Best Practices Guide

jasonwhat’s picture

jasonwhat commented

I've seen the constant complaints in forums that a question has already been asked and answered in a forum. While this is true often, the search capabilities are not up to the task of providing the relevant links. I've found that Google is a much better way to search drupal than drupal, becuase Google handles, relevance and recent searches well. Half the time here I get a search response with a bunch of links to Drupal 4.1 or something. Which, brings me to another thing, it is also difficult to figure out differences between versions. Many people work hard on documentation, but like all os projects, documentation lags greatly between versions.

Finally, I know your pain about trying to figure out simple things. It's like the old dictionary problem, "how am I supposed to look up a word alphabetically when I don't know how to spell it?" Those of us with no programming knowledge can find many things painful and might get a bit of riducule for asking the easy questions. Like the time I asked how to pull info. out of a database field. All I wanted to do was pull the information that was displayed in one profile field out and display it- still haven't figured that one out.

That said, the Drupal people are usually very friendly and eager to help. While I feel your pain, I have to marvel at the hours and brain power people put in to make this system better for perfect strangers... well, imperfect strangers in my case.

AndrewE’s picture

AndrewE commented

OK now that my spirits are high again thanks to all your encouragement I shall get down to some specifics.

First off to remedy the image module issue.

Ok so i'm running drupal 4.5.1 on a third party server which doesn't have imagemagick installed. So my first question is how to install imagemagick.

The second question, once imagemagick is installed, how do I create the sql tables "mysql -u username -ppassword drupal < image.sql"?

After doing both of the above are there any other alterations I need to make in order for the image module to work?

I think that is asking already quite alot so I will leave it at that for now.

Hope to hear from you sometime soon.

Merry Christmas everyone!

Ever grateful,

FrancisQ.

ezheidtmann’s picture

ezheidtmann commented

What sort of access do you have on the server? Can you get a command line? In any case, the easiest way is probably to ask your host to install imagemagick. All you need is the 'convert' utility.

You can load the image.sql file the same way you loaded the database.mysql file when you first installed Drupal. It's a text file that tells the server what to add to the database.

sepeck’s picture

sepeck commented

to load the sql tables, I like to add the dba.module.

You can then just copy and past the contents of the sql file to the execute script tab from within Drupal itself.

-Steven Peck
---------
Test site, always start with a test site.
Drupal Best Practices Guide

AndrewE’s picture

AndrewE commented

I added the dba.module but cannot figure out which files to copy and paste into the execute script tab for the image.module. Please assist. Many thanks.

FrancisQ

sepeck’s picture

sepeck commented

open the image.sql file with notepad (NOT WORD, NOT Wordpad)
Copy the entire contents to the execute script tab.
Click the execute butten.
Done.

Now go to the modules section and enable image.module
Define a taxconomy/category and make image a REQUIRED node.
go set the convert path (full path to the program

set some more settings.

have fun

-Steven Peck
---------
Test site, always start with a test site.
Drupal Best Practices Guide

Jaza’s picture

Jaza commented

The best tool out there for executing SQL (such as the SQL to create a new database table that you have) is phpMyAdmin. You can get it at www.phpmyadmin.net - your hosting provider REALLY SHOULD have this installed for you to use, particularly if you don't have shell access (on my host, it's available through MySQL databases -> phpMyAdmin, using cPanel). Ask your hosting provider to install it for you, if it's not there already - or get a better provider!

Using phpMyAdmin, you can click on the 'drupal' database, click on the 'SQL' link, paste in the SQL to create the tables, and then click 'run'. I believe that Drupal's dba.module allows similar functionality, but phpMyAdmin is much more powerful (as well as very user friendly), and sooner or later you're going to want to use that extra power.

Jeremy Epstein
www.greenash.net.au (soon to be drupalised)

Jeremy Epstein - GreenAsh

freyquency’s picture

freyquency commented

in phpmyadmin you would click "go" to execute the script, or you could optionally browse for the file on your pc and click go. of course that may have been changed before or after my phpmyadmin version.

media girl’s picture

media girl commented

phpMyAdmin as saved my butt a number of times. I find it much easier to interface with the db via its GUI rather than by command line.

One thing to be aware of. When installing a SQL table via script (as in adding a module's database changes), after clicking "GO" many scripts will just do everything required, while some will only load in the commands for the changes, and not actually execute them. So after pressing "GO," it's important to look at the top of the page and see what the status message says. If it says "Changes have been made" or something like that, you're gold. But if it gives you a bit of code, and a red link saying something like "execute PHP script" then you click on that, and then everything is done.
--
mediagirl.org

stevryn’s picture

stevryn commented

I would be lost without it!

crazybooks’s picture

crazybooks commented

(I can make a page look purdy, but I've only just figured out some basic stuff about php, after 2 months of drupal, and I can upload ftp)
For relatively un-leet people like me, there are a multitude of cheapish webhosters that come with imagemagick or the like already installed. The ones I've been with in the past have even automatically installed drupal (I found this out after a botched attempt at installing 4.5; they had 4.4, so it was just a matter of learning how to update it.)

I've heard some bad things about the parent company of this place; http://hasweb.com , but they are handy for 'script beginners' who CAN install, but lack the necessary skills to do it as well as the more leet among us ;)

So things have been relatively painful, up until now; I'm learning to skin use the phptemplate engine, and need to find a way to theme flexinodes. Oh, and patching.

AndrewE’s picture

AndrewE commented

I loaded the dba.module and it seems to have worked ok because I now have a "database" option in my control panel. However, when it comes to copying and pasting the sql file for the image module I'm not sure what I should exactly copy and paste. Could someone please advise me of the correct file and if I need to wrap the text with any markings or something?

I asked my server about imagemagick and it seems to be already installed however I'm praying there's not going to be a 'path' issue between the image module and imagemagick because I'm not sure how to deal with paths yet.

I was also able to play around with the primary menu settings and enter my own categories, however as for the forums category I cannot get the "forums" menu button in the primary menu to connect with any of the forum pages that have been created. What can I do to enable this?

The other thing I wanted to get done over the Christmas break was adding a footer image to my site. Basically I want to use the same green smoke jpg that was used for the header. Does anyone know how to add a footer image?
http://www.andreweglinton.com/drupal/?q=
Thank you very much.

FrancisQ
(aka The New Drupal Convert)

silverwing’s picture

silverwing commented

if you want a background for the footer, I beleive that you can specify it in your style.css.
silverwing

www.landofmidnight.com
www.projectpby.com

chx’s picture

chx commented

The file which contains the SQL commands to change the database always have the extension .mysql (at least in the case of Drupal modules). If you have PHP and MySQL, it is almost 100% that you have phpmyadmin installed. With that, it's a piece of cake: you have an SQL tab, which has a "Or Location of the textfile :" field, so you may upload image.mysql there and phpmyadmin does the rest.

If oyu have imagemagick installed , just ask where it is, you should get an answer like /usr/local/bin/convert so that is your path which you may enter on the page http://www.andreweglinton.com/drupal/?q=admin/settings/image where it asks for Imagemagick Convert path:. Convert is not mandatory for image, but helps a lot.

About paths -- admin/settings/image is an example of a Drupal path, and you need to deal only with these. That path above to convert, called a Unix path is needed very, very rarely. Drupal paths however, are needed for a lot things: for example when you edit your menu with the menu module, you use Drupal paths and so on.

About confusing words. This is not so difficult as it sounds. Any page that you can create is a node. There are several node types, but every user editable page is a node. Other pages are machine generated.

To have a mental grip on taxonomy, I'd suggest visualizing an orchard. You see trees, the trees have different size of trunks, branches, limbs and there are apples hanging. Do you have that picture? OK, now label the trees "vocabulary", all kinds of trunks, branches, limbs "terms", and the apples "nodes". Now you have a very good starter picture on these things. Now read the admin/help/taxonomy page (you may need to switch on help module). Read only "An example taxonomy: food", and the Notes just after it, and think on it a little.... OK, now read the entire page.

--
Drupal development: making the world better, one patch at a time. | A bedroom without a teddy is like a face without a smile.

AndrewE’s picture

AndrewE commented

chx thanks for this. The picture of the orchard does help to visualise what's going on and I will try keeping it in mind whenever I attempt to deal with paths and whatnot a little later on.

Thanks alot!

FrancisQ

ezheidtmann’s picture

ezheidtmann commented

You need to set the forum vocabulary to get rid of the message "No forums defined."

First, you need to create a forum vocabulary. Go to administer, categories. Click "add vocabulary". Fill out the form and be sure to check "forum topic" under "Types." If you already have a vocabulary you meant to use for forums, edit it and add the "forum topic" type. You probably need to add some terms to the vocabulary as well.

To associate this vocabulary with the forum module, go to administer, settings, forum. Pick the vocabulary you want to use from the first drop-down.

I hope this helps!

AndrewE’s picture

AndrewE commented

Thanks clydefrog I now have the forum link working and I'm sort of half way there to understanding vocabulary and terms and nodes!!

I know it's silly but I'm actually quite pleased with myself
*grin *grin :)

Thanks sooooo much!!!

FrancisQ

ezheidtmann’s picture

ezheidtmann commented

To add the image to the footer, go to administer, settings. Add this to the "Footer message":

<img src="/wherever/the/image/is/on/your/server.jpg" />

AndrewE’s picture

AndrewE commented

Thank you all for your help.

Ok I attacked the footer image since it seems like the easiest thing on my list at the moment.

I did as clydefrog said above and the image is now showing however it does not sit flush along the bottom like the top image does along the top. I think this has something to do with the settings in style.css. I'll try tweaking it tonight to see if I can come up with a solution but if anyone knows why it is please let me know. That would be cool.

Then I'm wondering can I kill two birds with one stone and add the site copyright blurb ["All written material on this site is the property of its owners and/or The Green Room."] over the footer image? Is that possible?

FrancisQ.

grohk’s picture

grohk commented

I use this CSS rule in my layout.css file to center everything in my footer and pad it out

#footer {
clear: both;
padding-top: 4px;
padding-bottom: 10px;
text-align: center;
margin-left: auto;
margin-right: auto;
}

But this depends on what theme and template you are using. This will work if your theme gives the footer an id of footer. What theme are you using?

Also, I use GD instead of Imagemagik, have you tried to use it?

---
Code Orange: Drink Your Juice

AndrewE’s picture

AndrewE commented

hey grohk

I'm using the Marvin template, I searched last night for the footer section in style.css but it doesn't seem to be there, in any case it does not have a footer id. Perhaps with the Marivn theme it is not possible to add a permanent footer that sits along the whole page?

grohk’s picture

grohk commented

Ok, I looked at the source of the chameleon/marvin theme on my test site and the rule you are looking for is in the themes/chameleon/common.css file. Look for this:

#footer {
font-size: 0.8em;
padding-top: 2em;
text-align: center;
}

and add these two lines within the curly brackets:

margin-left: auto;
margin-right: auto;

See if that does it.

---
Code Orange: Drink Your Juice

AndrewE’s picture

AndrewE commented

Grohk many thanks for taking time to look at the source!

Unfortunately it does not seem to change anything.

In the Marvin style.css file the section that deals with the top image (which is how I want the footer image to look) goes like this:

body {
background: #fff url(druplicon-watermark.png) no-repeat;
float: middle;

p.s. I tried removing the ./ from the assignments but it still claims that the default image path is incorrect :(
font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;
color: #000066;
}

The 'druplicon-watermark.png' file is the one I modified and put my current green smoke pic into that is currently at the top of the site.

Perhaps there is a way of applying this type of coding to the footer as well? Boy I'm way out of my depth here so these suggestions may actually not help matters...

freyquency’s picture

freyquency commented

there's no such thing as far as I know called float: middle. also, you may have to overwrite any css specified in another stylesheet, eg: /misc/drupal.css.

grohk’s picture

grohk commented

Look at the footer...Is this what you want?

http://www.proscenium.org/

---
Code Orange: Drink Your Juice

AndrewE’s picture

AndrewE commented

Yessss!

That's what I was hoping for! How did you do it? Also is it possible to get that footer all the way over to the left so there is no white gap at all? IF not it doesn't matter it looks already far better than the footer on my site right now!

Wow i'm so pleased!

Thanks alot man.

p.s. is proscenium.org going to be a theatre site? If so I'll link to your site if you want...

It's snowing in Tokyo today...a rare thing indeed.

grohk’s picture

grohk commented

I made a change to the chameleon.theme file, and moved this statement:

  if ($footer = variable_get('site_footer', '')) {
    $output .= " <div id=\"footer\">$footer</div>\n";
  }

out of the main content table so that I had this:

  $output .= "  </tr>\n";
  $output .= " </table>\n";

  if ($footer = variable_get('site_footer', '')) {
    $output .= " <div id=\"footer\">$footer</div>\n";
  }

  $output .=  theme_closure();
  $output .= " </body>\n";
  $output .= "</html>\n";

  return $output;
}

There might be a cleaner way to do this purely in CSS, but damned if I could find it.

---
Code Orange: Drink Your Juice

AndrewE’s picture

AndrewE commented

Ok I think I've almost cracked the image.module.

However when i go to administer>images I get this message:

Default image path DOES NOT EXIST - fix in Site Configuration
Default thumb path OK
Temporary image path OK
Image vocabulary assigned

Now I have checked and double checked the default image path. I followed the image.module instructions that says create a folder called 'images' at the root of your drupal installation, I did this then inside the 'images' folder I created a 'thumbs' folder which appears to be recognized. I can't for the life of me figure out why the default image file is not recognized. I set permissions to chmod 777 (readable & writable) on both folders. I double checked all backslashes etc but still the same.

this is what my image settings look like:

http://img143.exs.cx/img143/2022/screen7ip.jpg

grohk’s picture

grohk commented

Path can be relative. Try removing the ./ from in front of your assignments.

---
Code Orange: Drink Your Juice

AndrewE’s picture

AndrewE commented

Tried several things for the paths but still won't work. Grrrrr.

Get this message again:

Default image path DOES NOT EXIST - fix in Site Configuration
Default thumb path OK
Temporary image path OK
Image vocabulary assigned

I fixed a hundred times in site configuration but nothing gives...this image module is really stubborn!

sepeck’s picture

sepeck commented

does the file directory exist? Are the permissions correct?
I use a directory called "images" off the root of my drupal directory then use a sub directories to seperate out stuff
images/
images/thumbs/
images/gallery/
images/temp/

-Steven Peck
---------
Test site, always start with a test site.
Drupal Best Practices Guide

AndrewE’s picture

AndrewE commented

Happy new year to all the drupal community!

Believe it or not I'm still struggling with the image module...Ha!

When I try to upload an image I'm getting these messages instead of my image:

warning: rename(tmp/tmpthumb_a899b9ed5d41f9abcf1320e0435cb71a.jpg,images/thumbs/thumb_a899b9ed5d41f9abcf1320e0435cb71a-3.jpg): No such file or directory in /home/eglinton/domains/andreweglinton.com/public_html/modules/image/image.module on line 827.

warning: rename(tmp/tmpimg_a899b9ed5d41f9abcf1320e0435cb71a_640x480.jpg,images/a899b9ed5d41f9abcf1320e0435cb71a-3_640x480.jpg): No such file or directory in /home/eglinton/domains/andreweglinton.com/public_html/modules/image/image.module on line 835.

warning: Cannot modify header information - headers already sent by (output started at /home/eglinton/domains/andreweglinton.com/public_html/includes/common.inc:344) in /home/eglinton/domains/andreweglinton.com/public_html/includes/common.inc on line 155.

Does anyone have any idea what these strange messages mean?

My site address has changed to this: http://www.andreweglinton.com

grohk’s picture

grohk commented

The first problem looks like a directory permissions problem...Do you have the rights to /tmp? or is that a tmp you created? Make sure your permissions are set correctly so that Apache can read and write those directories.

The second error is common and addressed in the troubleshooting FAQ:

http://drupal.org/node/1424

---
Code Orange: Drink Your Juice

AndrewE’s picture

AndrewE commented

As always, many thanks for the response.

Since there was no tmp folder in my drupal installation I created the folder myself. I then gave it full read, write and execute values. But it doesn't seem to work.

Are you suggesting that the tmp folder should be there by default?

grohk’s picture

grohk commented

Here is a screenshot of my settings for the Directories in the Image module.

http://www.proscenium.org/node/22/

I did have to create them, and you must ensure that the Apache process can read and write those directories.

---
Code Orange: Drink Your Juice

AndrewE’s picture

AndrewE commented

Unfortuately Grohk the link to the screenshot you posted doesn't seem to work. It takes me to your site but refuses authorization.

grohk’s picture

grohk commented

Sorry, node wasn't public. Try it now.

---
Code Orange: Drink Your Juice

AndrewE’s picture

AndrewE commented

still getting these messages:

warning: rename(images/media/tmp/tmpthumb_7023e52e346cc58906acd7f132d0b7b1.jpg,images/media/thumbs/thumb_7023e52e346cc58906acd7f132d0b7b1-10.jpg): No such file or directory in /home/eglinton/domains/andreweglinton.com/public_html/modules/image/image.module on line 827.

warning: rename(images/media/tmp/tmpimg_7023e52e346cc58906acd7f132d0b7b1_640x480.jpg,images/media/7023e52e346cc58906acd7f132d0b7b1-10_640x480.jpg): No such file or directory in /home/eglinton/domains/andreweglinton.com/public_html/modules/image/image.module on line 835.

warning: Cannot modify header information - headers already sent by (output started at /home/eglinton/domains/andreweglinton.com/publ

The first 2 messages point to these lines in the image module:
-line 827:

// Rename Thumbnail
if (!@rename(_image_tempthumbname($node), $node->thumb_path)) {
drupal_set_message(t('Cannot save thumbnail image to %path.', array('%path' => $node->thumb_path)), 'error');
}

-line 835

// Rename generated sizes.
if (is_array($node->image_list)) {
foreach ($node->image_list as $k => $v) {
$node->image_list[$k]['fname'] = _image_filename($node, $k);
if (!@rename(_image_tempname($node, $k), $node->image_list[$k]['fname'])) {
drupal_set_message(t('Cannot save resized image to %path.', array('%path' => $node->image_list[$k]['fname'])), 'error');
}

I don't think the code is an issue here because I never modified it, it comes straight from the download.

I have double checked permissions on all the folders involved.
I have double checked the spelling of all folders and paths

Might there me some sort of permission issue to do with my server - one that I cannot set personally but only my provider can set? If so I haven't a clue what to ask the people who run my server because they are not drupal specialists...

I think I will try posting this message also in the troubleshooting forum to see if others have had this problem.

Man this image module really is a complicated piece of work - is there any alternative apart from that module for displaying images? I mean apart from a 3rd party host like imgaes shack or something? I read about a version of gallery being ported to drupal I wonder if that is any easier?

Well I guess I'll just have to keep on running an image-less site for the moment...

:(

FrancisQ

Visit The Green Room (site in the works)

dallasgrant@newswire.ws’s picture

dallasgrant@newswire.ws commented

I truly understand your pain. Drupal is not always easy at all ... in fact it can be quite bothersome at times.

Before this, I was a Mambo person (and I still have one site that works best with mambo) Mambo does seem much better laid out at first, and is much easier to use with better documentation, but it lacks behind Drupal in many ways for usability ... something kept drawing me back to Drupal. At first, Drupal seemed perfect for my mayoral race (ran for mayor of my city last year, and running again this year) because it seemed very simply laid out. The more I use Drupal, the more I am drawn too it.

There are still many things that rack my brain about Drupal. The main problem I have now is themes. I prefer html themes with simple php codes added. I am lost when it is a full php theme and I do not have a clue on how to alter it.

My suggestion is to read the message boards heavily. Drupal is a bit confusing, but most of it is simple as long as you know how to control your server. Most important steps you need to realize is how to run cron jobs and how to administer your database. if you need a better server, I suggest https://arteryplanet.com/ they are very low cost, installs Drupal (and other software) for free, and consistently keep their servers up to date. To give a clue on their low cost, I have a 3GB account with 15 domain names for 23$ a month. They have very reasonable rates for a single domain name.
--
Dallas Grant
http://NewsWire.ws

AndrewE’s picture

AndrewE commented

Congratulations on being elected mayor! Which city is that?

I'm afraid the title of my original post is becoming less and less fitting to my experience with drupal. When I first wrote the forum entry I was too used to simple html coding and since I was quite good at it I could get a site built in no time. But turning to drupal set me back to square one. But now after a few weeks of using drupal on and off I am starting to gain more confidence and that boosts morale in a big way.

As for my server, I cannot fault them at all. I'm with 101sitehosting.com a small Canadian company run by a great guy called Gerry! I'd recommend them to anyone. THe initial doubts that arose about my server should actually have been direct at my inexperience instead.

Anyway I really appreciate the input from fellow drupal users. I just wish there was some way I could repay all those that have been helping me.

sulleleven’s picture

sulleleven commented

maybe smarty as the template engine would be easier for you. the template files do not require any php.
to brush up on smarty, go to http://smarty.php.net

you can download smarty theme module right here on drupal.

otherwise, phptemplate is the best alternative, i think.

alaa’s picture

alaa commented

I did two very popular one day drupal introductory sessions for newbies with my LUG.

they seemed to help people quickly bypass the initial hurdles of setting and configuring a drupal website, they where also a good way of transfering some tips and experience so people won't get stuck on questions like how do I create menus for category pages etc.

I think efforts like this could go a long way in helping make drupal more accessible and empowering less technical users, it need now be volunteer work only I'm sure some people would pay for a drupal training workshop.

I'm thinking about doing a drupal bootcamp that would take people from 0 web knowledge all the way to writing their own themes and simple modules but this will need funding.

anyone has similar experiences?

cheers,
Alaa
--
http://www.manalaa.net

AndrewE’s picture

AndrewE commented

Unfortunately your training takes place a little far from where I live (Tokyo) but the idea alone is a great one.

Thanks alot.

FrancisQ

Visit The Green Room (site in the works)

Tpyo’s picture

Tpyo commented

well perhaps Druplette is the wrong gender, but I couldn't think of anything else.

I was looking for information on how to attack my first theme and ran across this thread. The sense of community here is heartwarming and impressive.

I was reading this thread and came up with a really silly idea, that it is so simple and do able that's it almost scary.

I'm always reading about authors looking for a good CMS, but find the doc's lacking and at best confusing. It seems Drupal has attracted a lot of authors, mainly due to its abilities. But the authors all seem so fustrated that the doc's are so poor.

Duh! ... there's the answer.

Sure you can't program, but you can write and not being a programmer is actaully a very large advantage for writing Docs ... you're not going to assume someone already knows this or that. And you've been trained on word usage. Sometimes the improper use just one word can can make or break the way a program is installed. "I know I said that, but I meant this."

Here's my suggestion to the Authors.

  • Find a module you need to use or like
  • contact the module maintainer and ask if you could rewrite the Docs (most programmers - hate writing Docs and its not what they do best)
  • Rewrite the Docs over and over until you're happy with it. Most Docs are going to be less than a page.
  • Give the Docs to another Author and watch what they do with your instructions. Where the grey areas are, where you can be more percise (any programmer will tell you - this is a very large learning experience)

    • This is so simple, I really think it will work. But the authors are going to have to contact the programmers. Most people find it hard to ask for help and not only that - how the heck do they know you're a professional writer?

    You know by this time next year, we could have more Docs than Forum Postings. And if programmers aren't spending thier time answering questions, they could be programming.

    Think about being a programmer for a sec, "ah, I don't mind writing programs for Drupal, but I just don't have the time it takes to answers all the silly questions, over and over again after I release the program. I find it exhausting"

    well there's that silly idea and just think it came from someone who can't even sppel wery wel.
    --------
    I just posted the above, when I suddenly began laughing. I find this so very funny. Not only is the above very do able - ROFL

    .... we even have a book.module to use as a tool -- at least for the main Drupal manual.

    We could even havea new slogan.

    Drupal
    ... the CMS where the left and right lobes work as a team

    Rick Cogley’s picture

    Rick Cogley commented

    I've been looking at CMSs to find one I like for over a year, using cmsmatrix and opensourcecms. What I tried and comments:

    * Tikiwiki - interesting, dynamic, messy. Weak support for Japanese (supports utf-8 but mail and search don't work), and no Japan community. There were just too many problems and huge dissent on their IRC channels. During my brief test, a whole chunk of the dev team broke off to form tikipro, which is a good concept but not really "done" enough. Uses smarty for templating.

    * e107 - I like this one - easy to configure, setup and was "clean" compared to others. Has a community in Japan and supports Japanese well, I think. No Jp needed but I use this for my parent's site. The content items look "static" and seem to be suited toward shorter "blog like" snips of info, rather than what a writer would like.

    * phpWebsite - looks like candy but is ultimately unsatisfying. There were too many issues.

    * Xoops - very active in Japanese and easy to set up. Strange menu system, but the modules that work, just work. Amazing the hoops you have to jump thru to create a static page and show it on the menu. I use this for my daughter's site. It has a port of the pukiwiki module and a well-developed forum, and those were her primary needs. Templating is easy to understand.

    * Mambo - looks really nice, but when you start pushing the envelope, it breaks here and there. I had got into this one fairly deep several times, and there were just too many things that did not work. The Japanese support is spotty, though there are sites using it on an older version which has good translations. The new version (as of now) is not really finished, and it looks like all the various core files do NOT support Japanese. Gave this up over Christmas and tried Typo3.

    * Typo3 - seems like it does everything, but, there is a hugely steep learning curve. I gave up after reading hundreds of pages of docs, and installed Drupal after a year's break. I feel stupid when I try to use Typo3, despite the things I love about it: the extensions to it are updatable via an interface in the admin system which is just very well done. If I were a programmer, this would be nice, I think.

    * Drupal - when I first looked at it, there were some issues. Now, Drupal supports Japanese / UTF-8 without a problem. The admin section takes a bit of getting used to, but mostly, everything JUST WORKS and it has what I want. I love the taxonomy system - what a dream - and love the fact that there is a clear concept throughout. I don't buy into the democracy thing for software design - too many opinions in different directions not following any set of rules. THis leads to a mess in many cases, not consistency.

    So, I kind of cut my teeth on various other CMSs getting used to a lot of concepts as I mess around trying to find my legs. Hang in! Drupal is making me smile every day!

    Rick Cogley :: rick.cogley@esolia.co.jp
    Tokyo, Japan

    srlinuxx’s picture

    srlinuxx commented

    You can see the pathetic fruits of my labour with Drupal here:
    http://www.andreweglinton.com/drupal/?q=

    Dang, looks pretty good to me.

    I suppose some of your frustrations could be alleviated by possibly using a distro with package management. Or finding one of those getting started with linux guides and learning how to install stuff.

    As for hacking those themes, yeah, that's rough for the php challenged. That's no reflection on you personally. Similarly as above, you could always try to learn that cryptic language. I've tried, but it's just too thick for me. :P The php site has some great docs, but... well, perhaps you have a longer attention span than me.

    And yep, I hear ya on that wording of things of drupals. It took me a while to sorta get the hang of it. It took me 2 months I think before I tried to implement a taxonomy to classify my posts.

    I for one just use html where possible. For image inclusion = html. Links = html. Formatting articles = html. That's my shortcut. I've read about a lot of folks having trouble with that image module, so there must be some trick to it.

    I guess I ain't much help really. I just mainly wanted to say your site looks good and just hang in there. Most of your troubles will get better with more experience. Just keep pluggin along - you'll get it.

    --You talk the talk, but do you waddle the waddle?

    Steven’s picture

    Steven commented

    The PHP required for theming Drupal with PHPTemplate is much simpler than the code in the rest of Drupal. All you need to do is learn some basics of PHP (outputting text, if statements, etc). It is definitely worth the investment: you can also use small pieces of PHP code in Drupal itself, as a block or a page. There are many code snippets floating around, created by other users (there is a section in the handbook for this) which can just be used "as is". But with some basic PHP knowledge, you can easily customize them too.

    --
    If you have a problem, please search before posting a question.

    marketanomaly’s picture

    marketanomaly commented

    It has taken me all day just to figure out how to change the font size in the title text. Still doesn't work.

    All the answers on the form seem to come as random hearsay.

    michelle’s picture

    michelle
    she/her
    Primary language English
    Location Wisconsin, USA
    commented

    If you're having problems, it's better to start a new post than to respond to a two year old one that has nothing to do with your problem.

    You'd change the font size in CSS. I suggest getting firebug for firefox to pinpoint the exact CSS for your theme.

    Michelle

    --------------------------------------
    My site: http://shellmultimedia.com

    karynl11’s picture

    karynl11 commented

    Well, I really hope that I can get the hang of this quickly. I am a technically adept layperson, but definitely not a programmer. I chose Drupal because my internal marketing department really wants to create a close-knit community where we can share and support a team environment. We want so much more than blogging software, so Drupal seems perfect.

    However, working with content management software has not really prepared me for configuring it AT ALL. I am working with a third party host who will allow Drupal 4.7. They have installed it via their installation module, and I am attempting to set it up.

    Initially I could see 4 themes, but when I downloaded several more and installed them into the theme folder, I could no longer see anything when I click on themes in Admin. I get a blank page.

    So I tried installing a couple of the theme engines the same way--ftped the folders with the theme engines into the theme engine folder (inside the themes folder). Still nothing....By the way, when I view the files from the host's file manager I don't see the main theme engine there...the one that is supposed to be installed with the basic package. That doesn't mean its not there, I guess. The file manager is kind of weird. (I am on Powweb, if that tells you anything). So I am working my way through the documentation which I find is not really targeted to a beginner. Often I'm lost at when I run into an unfamiliar word...(for instance, what is Cron....) Anyway, I hope I can get a handle on this. It seems like a great tool, but I don't have a month to take off my regular work. I was hoping for something I could make easy to use and accessible for my whole team. Was I wrong to choose it? Let me know what you think. Thanks...sorry if that was too long... :>/

    KARYN LOWE

    michelle’s picture

    michelle
    she/her
    Primary language English
    Location Wisconsin, USA
    commented

    If you're using 4.7, make sure you're getting compatible themes as we're on 5.1 now with 6 in testing. I wouldn't advise starting a site on 4.7 at this point, but that's up to you. If you have questions, please make a new post. Tacking on to the end of a 2 year old post won't get as many people looking at your issue. It just happened to be in my tracker so I looked at it.

    Michelle

    --------------------------------------
    My site: http://shellmultimedia.com

    donricha’s picture

    donricha commented

    You are right, it's tough but well worth it.

    How do your eat an elephant?

    Ans: a bite at a time.

    Donz