By interactiveallstar on

Hi

I've just finished my first 'proper' Drupal site - check out www.morrisfurniture.biz - I'm looking for any feedback please (good or bad).

The site uses Mootools for the front page to create the sliding div effect, and loads of other stuff such as SiFR- has taken 3 months to learn Drupal and build - i'm just glad it is finished!

If you have any comments good or bad i'd love to hear from you.

Cheers

Martin

⋅ Categories: Drupal 5.x

Comments

Mark Theunissen’s picture

Mark Theunissen commented

Looks good! ;)

Mark

Code Baboon
Drupal based services

KayGee’s picture

KayGee commented

Fantastic job!

I have a couple of questions, if you don't mind. I'm guessing you have a taxonomy structure like below (I'm a beginner, so correct me if I'm wrong) :

Furniture
 - Living Room Furniture
   - Displays
   - Mirrors
   - ...
   - ...
 - Dining Room Furniture
   - Dining Tables
   - Dining Chairs
 - Occasional Furniture
   - Coffee Tables
   - ...
   - ...
   - ...
 - Bedroom Furniture
   - Bedframes
   - Wardrobes
   - ...
   - ...
   - ...

I'm also assuming that you've used the Views module, and if so, I can't seem to figure out how you created the table (just above the footer) on the home page showing your taxonomy structure. I also wanted to ask about how you created the mootools effects, but I figured I might as well understand how something as simple as Views works first. :) Thanks.

Kirk

interactiveallstar’s picture

interactiveallstar commented

thanks for your comments - most appreciated!

You are spot on about how the categories are built. To create the table on the front page I created a block and then used some code I found on this site - i can't remember who wrote it so I can't give them a 'thanks'. I tried using views but find them a bit confusing to be honest!

Here is code. Basically you set the vid(vocab id in this case for the furniture category) and tid which is taxonomy id (living room furniture, dining room furniture etc) 


$vid = 8;  

$tid=35;
$items = array();
$terms = taxonomy_get_tree($vid,$tid);
foreach ( $terms as $term ) {  
    $count = db_result(db_query("SELECT COUNT(nid) FROM {term_node} WHERE tid = %d", $term->tid));  
    $items[] = l($term->name, "taxonomy/term/$term->tid");
}
if ( count($items) ) {  
print'<div class="minimenu">';
print'<ul class="menu">';
print '<li>Living Room Furniture</li>';
print theme('item_list',$items);}
print'</ul>';
print'</div>';
$tid=36;
$items = array();
$terms = taxonomy_get_tree($vid,$tid);
foreach ( $terms as $term ) {  
    $count = db_result(db_query("SELECT COUNT(nid) FROM {term_node} WHERE tid = %d", $term->tid));  
    $items[] = l($term->name, "taxonomy/term/$term->tid");
}
if ( count($items) ) {  
print'<div class="minimenu">';
print'<ul class="menu">';
print '<li>Dining Room Furniture</li>';
print theme('item_list',$items);}
print'</ul>';
print'</div>';

$tid=37;
$items = array();
$terms = taxonomy_get_tree($vid,$tid);
foreach ( $terms as $term ) {  
    $count = db_result(db_query("SELECT COUNT(nid) FROM {term_node} WHERE tid = %d", $term->tid));  
    $items[] = l($term->name, "taxonomy/term/$term->tid");
}
if ( count($items) ) {  
print'<div class="minimenu">';
print'<ul class="menu">';
print '<li>Occasional Furniture</li>';

print theme('item_list',$items);}
print'</ul>';
print'</div>';
$tid=38;
$items = array();
$terms = taxonomy_get_tree($vid,$tid);
foreach ( $terms as $term ) {  
    $count = db_result(db_query("SELECT COUNT(nid) FROM {term_node} WHERE tid = %d", $term->tid));  
    $items[] = l($term->name, "taxonomy/term/$term->tid");
}
if ( count($items) ) {  
print'<div class="minimenu">';
print'<ul class="menu">';
print '<li>Bedroom Furniture</li>';
print theme('item_list',$items);}
print'</ul>';
print'</div>';

To integrate the mootools effect on the home page I created a separate page template for home page (page-front.tpl.php) which drupal automatically uses for the homepage. Unfortunately mootools is incompatible with jquery that is built into Drupal so I removed the lines which include the jquery script in the header and replaced them with the ones for mootools.

"http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd">
print $language " lang=" print $language ">

print $head_title

print $head
print $styles

print base_path() . path_to_theme() /mootools.js"> print base_path() . path_to_theme() /effect.js">@import " print base_path() . path_to_theme() /print.css";


print phptemplate_body_class($sidebar_left, $sidebar_right); print $onload_attributes >

print $header;
KayGee’s picture

KayGee commented

Martin, thank you for the info! I've been trying to use Views to produce the kind of output that you have, with no luck, so I'll definitely be using that piece of code. Thanks again, I really appreciate it!

Kirk

ajayg’s picture

ajayg commented

Very beautifully and elegantly done. There is just one design element, I think, is not apporpriate.

The "explore furniture collection" menu on the left side (on inner pages) is the only design element that is flushed to the left margin where as every other element on the sidebars is not. (At least that what looks like in IE6). Also it does not have top left corner rounded.

If this was done on purpose, to stand out, it looks it was left inadvertantly and not on purpose. Make it look a lot different. Right now it is kind of subtle and does not look good. It needs to have margins on all sides like other blocks.

interactiveallstar’s picture

interactiveallstar commented

Hi - many thanks for your comment - always good to hear peoples opinions. You guessed correctly - I wanted the 'explore furniture collection' bit to stick out more than the other menus, it is really the most important nav element as far as the business is concerned.

I can see what you are saying about the layout - i'll maybe find another way to make it stand out in the version 2 site.

Cheers

Martin