By DudeistMonk on

I just talked to the guy who is giving me this project..

Apparently his client is obsessed with having the site not reload between pages, so the guy contracting me wants me to use iFrames to control content *shudder*, I assume I'd just have to edit the navigation to target the iFrame, and have each page other page use a second bare bones template except for home which would be the full shell template?

Does that make sense?

I know this is getting ridiculous considering I'm not experienced with this system at all yet, but there is good money in it for me and I want to make sure I can handle this before I sign on.

Thanks again,
Chris

⋅ Categories: Drupal 6.x

Comments

nevets’s picture

nevets commented

Note that technically you are still reload the page, just part of it.

Note that there are typically link outside the main navigation, you would have to deal with those also.

Personally I think you would be making a site that makes leveraging Drupal hard and maintaining the site difficult.

vertazzar’s picture

vertazzar commented

maybe the client wants everything ajax'd?

DudeistMonk’s picture

DudeistMonk commented

I think the client is just clueless according to my guy he "wants a cool site with no loading."

It was my guys idea to use iFrames to "trick him", and then now he realizes he need some way for the client to edit things ect. and want to hire me to put it into drupal (he wants drupal, hence me using a CMS I don't know yet). Personally I think it defeats the purpose of having a CMS + iFrames are the devil and are going to kill his search ratings but who am I to argue with the money.

If you guys know a better way to do this please tell me and I'll see if I can convince them, I don't know AJAX :( and in fact I have no idea what your talking about...I'm really a front end guy.

nevets’s picture

nevets commented

When clients ask similar questions I try to get to the root of what they hope to achieve. Neither iframes or ajax guarantee a performance improvement and I would argue with a CMS any improvement will be minimal. Unless your client is still using a 300 baud modem most of the page delay is images and possibly javascript processing. Modern browsers cache both the css and images so page based images (those that are part of theme) are really only an issue the first time loaded. Bottom line one can waste a lot of time on such a task a reap little benefit.

DudeistMonk’s picture

DudeistMonk commented

Guys I appreciate what you are saying. I'm a professional WebDev, I understand all that and personally I think its a really dumb idea. I know this is not the purpose of a CMS, nor is this truely eliminating loads. I realize the futility in it and I brought it up to my contractor, but I'm not going to let money walk away from me.

I'm a sub-contractor and the contractor says "The client want's so and so by the end of the week and there is good money it." So I'm trying to make that happen, I'm just looking for other options that might make this less back-***wards/making sure I can pull off something this stupid. Get me?

Thanks again,

Chris

vm’s picture

vm commented

ajax = inline reloads of specific page elements using ... well... ajax
There are some modules which may help already in the downloads area. Otherwise, you'll have to learn ajax in order to implement it.

Which would be the way one would do what the client is asking. I don't see how you will implement iFrames into a drupal tehme in such a way that every region is essentially an ifram witout tearing drupal apart. Even then I forsee issues with parts of the site losing some of the dynamics because soem regions will change and others won't.

DudeistMonk’s picture

DudeistMonk commented

Yeah as I'm playing with drupal I'm realizing how ridiculous his iFrames idea is. I should have know that this wouldn't be a simple job :(

I need to check look into these AJAX calls, if anyone knows a good tutorial or where I can get that component that would be great, if not I'll start researching.

yelvington’s picture

yelvington commented

... that there is such a thing as firing a bad client.

DudeistMonk’s picture

DudeistMonk commented

So my contractor finally realized that all this frames/ajax crap was...well...crap.

So now I'm building this sucker normally...It's a really simple site that has no purpose being in Drupal but I can't argue with cash. I'm using "zen" to build a sub theme for it and right now I'm trying to sort out how the site is going to function as far as the news posts. This is the project in its standard HTML configuration http://base.osirisfund.com/ if anyone has any other tips, for how to achieve this functionality.

Thanks again,
Chris

vm’s picture

vm commented

create a custom content type with the cck.module and it's addon's to handle "news and/or updates"
list that content type with the built in taxonomy.module listing (After assigning terms to your vocabulary and tagging your content with those terms)

or use the views.module to build a query to pull specific (as specific as you want) data from the database.

DudeistMonk’s picture

DudeistMonk commented

So I figured out installing and enabling CCK and created a term with taxonmomy ("newspost") and then assigned to it a new CCK content block...but how do I set where this displays (I need it to display at the bottom of my main page and on my news page)?

This is the test site I'm working from on my server http://webstudiodelta.com/osiris/

Also how do I edit what appears on my main page (in order to add that opening blurb there)? Although I guess I can do that with a "mission statement" field. + how do I add the main page to my navigation?

This forum is a life saver, btw...I owe you guys big time...according to my contractor this is not going to be the only Drupal site coming my way so once I get good with this stuff I'll be sure to contribute back.

vm’s picture

vm commented

assigned to it a new CCK content block

I'm not sure what that means. Blocks are handled in administer -> blocks. You can drag and drop from that aforementioned screen or turn off javascript in your browser and use the weight system directly. Blocks are placed in regions which are defined in the theme.

DudeistMonk’s picture

DudeistMonk commented

Uhh yeah sorry my bad, terminology confusion, I forgot that "block" has a very specific meaning in drupal.

I mean that I created a new piece of content using "Create Content" and assigned the taxonomy term to it.

vm’s picture

vm commented

you will want to read the documentation on the taxonomy module in the documentation area. Also of note, enable the help.module in drupal to get to the help pages that are already available in core.

vm’s picture

vm commented

adding blurbs of text and images can be handled in multiple ways. For many it depends on personal preference as well as some other variables as to how to accomplish most any task in drupal. How long will it live there, will I need to use it in other places, and so on. Therefore there is always more than one way to skin a drupal (cat).

you can put it in a block and define new regions, you can add it directly to a tpl.php file that alreay resides in the theme
you can add a custom front page.tpl.php file to handle how the front page will display.

There is a great deal of documentation on themeing in the documentation handbook that should be easy to work will considering your aformentioned skillset of being a professional web developer.

DudeistMonk’s picture

DudeistMonk commented

I figured out the linking to my main page thing, I missed that little detail.

For the top blurb on home I realized I can just create a custom block and set it only to display on main in the "top content" region, just like I set the login screen to only appear on my "login" page.

The only real question I have left before I can use this thing is; what is the name of the block that displays my "newsposts" as defined by taxonomy? I need to set that to display in my "bottom content" region on my main and news pages, right now it auto displays on main only.

vm’s picture

vm commented

taxonomy does not automagically produce a block. you can use views.module to create a block or dig into the modules available that deal with taxonomy, or write some php code.

DudeistMonk’s picture

DudeistMonk commented

Okay that was difficult and confusing to say the least but I've got it now...

Didn't even need to Taxonomy I don't think, views filtered to content type took care of everything.

Thanks again, VM.

...I'm almost ready to start styling this thing and its all down hill from there.

-Chris

DudeistMonk’s picture

DudeistMonk commented

So I still have a few questions.

The site is coming along http://webstudiodelta.com/osiris/

Anyone know how to get rid of all those extra titles and such that appear on my pages? I'm sure I could just hide them with CSS but there should be a better way, no? Just rip them out of the page.tpl file?

EDIT: Figured out how to add a field, needed to enable another portion of CCK.

EDIT: Figured out how to add a custom CCK field to a view.

vm’s picture

vm commented

every node is required to have a title. otherwise administration functions become difficult as the title is used as a visual reference when in content lists and such.

if you want to hide the title after node creation you can look into the auto_nodetitle.module which works well, or hide it (the title) with css.

enable css optimization in administer -> performance as it stands no one with IE can see the theme on your site as IE doesn't digest more than 30 stylesheets.

DudeistMonk’s picture

DudeistMonk commented

installed nodetitle and I was able to input into the nav titles,
still can't get rid of those titles for the pages though, and I actually don't think I can hide them with CSS without doing some major messing around, considering their parent class names seem to be used quite a bit.

http://webstudiodelta.com/osiris/news

The "News" in between my two "views"

Also is there a way to set field in a content-type not to display? I don't want to see "submitted by..." and that type stuff on this page for instance. http://webstudiodelta.com/osiris/news/01-08-10

vm’s picture

vm commented

view titles are different animals.

firefox with the firebug and webdeveloper addons helps a great deal with inspecting the elements and employing more specific css to target elements with specifity.

post display information is handed in administer -> themes , configure your theme as needed. Reading the getting started guide and using the search may be of benefit for answering questions of this nature.

I also suggest creating new forum topics for separate questions. As it stands now this thread is clouded with multiple Q & A. A user, who actually employes the search feature and gets this thread handed back in results has to fish through the conversation which isn't helpful.

dalegrebey’s picture

dalegrebey commented

I think the client is just clueless according to my guy he "wants a cool site with no loading."

Usually, when working with clueless clients, it helps to explain that the reason they are hiring YOU is because YOU are the expert; not them. Than go on to explain that using iframes is just a horrible idea and why. If they still won't listen... erm; I would abandon the project. Not worth the hassle. The whole thing will likely be like pulling teeth.

But... At either rate, look into using AJAX as much as possible or build the site in Flash?

my .2 cents

thorshammer’s picture

thorshammer commented

... would be to conclude that, since trying mixing iframes into a CMS is a bad idea (it IS), iframes of themselves are the devil (as already stated previously). Since no one here addresses why they say iframes are terrible, one will have to assume that some of the usual myths are at play here. And they ARE myths - the ones that say iframes = bad. Iframes have advantages and disadvantage like most any piece of web technology.

Chief among the myths is that they are search engine poison. FRAMES are; iframes guilty by association? Use a text-browser (like Delorie's Lynxview) and you will find you can view the contents of iframes along with the rest of the text-readable page. Search engines do the same. And by using dynamic page-building (e.g. PHP), a sitemap can index every single page including the various iframes linked to within it.

As for page-loading work, iframes certainly CAN reduce this substantially. When you have for example a corporate website with 10-15 main pages, each with a number of sub-pages, using iframes to manage all the sub-pages within each main group is quite efficient. Especially if the main page framework has somewhat of a load - animated Flash banner, for example. Within each group, you can select each of the subpages and reload only that content without touching the heavier framework.

And by using a script to detect the size of the page being loaded into the iframe, you can resize the iframe dynamically and eliminate the appearance of "partial page exposed, with scroll-bars" that is one of the considered drawbacks of iframes. (Although here there's somewhat of a tradeoff in terms of page-loading, and needs to be considered in strategizing.)

As for the "bad" "clueless" client's notion that page changes without reload is "cool" - there's merit to that. I personally love it when I use a webpage, and a piece of it - relevant only to what I want - changes. AJAX does a great job; when understood and used effectively, iframes can do pretty good too.

Just keeping the record straight. And God help me if I ever had to mix them with CMS!

dalegrebey’s picture

dalegrebey commented

Alright, well... a few good points there. Of course having pages without reload is a neat thing or reloading elements on a page without reloading is great.

I'd have to research the iframes search engine implications. It has been my understanding that when the frame is spidered, the engine follows it as a link (not embedded directly within the page)--any content within that frame than would be outside of its context. Will go back and research that a bit more. I guess, for this conversation though, that is neither here nor there.

...one thing I will say though, is that one of my favorite Drupal modules uses iframes--fckeditor.