Blajax

Overview

Blajax eases working with blocks both for a user and a site admin. It adds a toolbar to each block that enhances drupals standard block behaviors. This is, besides, somehow similar to the "contextual links" approach in Drupal 7 and thus there will most likely be no 1:1 port for D7. I'll leave the project open to see if D8 will still leave a gap or provide Ajax powered block refresh ootb.

Features

• Configurable toolbar with optional functions (probably more to follow):
  • Hide - if a user is allowed to disable the block, he can do this with one click. He no longer needs to leave the current page to edit is profile settings.
  • Minimize/maximize - any block that may be disabled can instead be minimized to a simple caption bar.
  • Refresh - depending on configuration and permission, the user may refresh the single block without having to reload the entire page. Very helpful e.g. while editing a node.
  • Configure - depending on permissions, a direct link to the block's configuration page
• Auto-refresh Each block can be configured to update itself via Ajax within individual intervals.
• Full REST fallback - All functions except auto refresh will also work on browsers without Javascript enabled.
• Customizeable appearance - choose between icons and/or text links, determine jQuery effects and behavior as you like.
• Full theming support - all visuals can be overridden with custom icons, css and templates or theme functions.

Screenshots

Known issues

• In rare cases, strange results may occur when refreshing/maximizing blocks in the admin section and the admin theme is different from the administrator's default theme. If this happens, just add the admin/* path to the JS exclusion list in the general settings form.
• If the toolbar is set to only show when hovering blocks, it will flash up for a very short moment after a block just has auto-refreshed. This could be handled by adding "visibility: hidden;" to div.blajax-toolbar but note that this destroys the fallback functionality for users having JS disabled. You should set the configuration to "toolbars only with JS enabled" in that case.

Dependencies/Requirements

Although not mandatory, it is highly recommended to have the JS callback handler installed in order to improve your overall site performance.

Instructions

See README.txt for further details.

Similar projects/credits

Blajax was inspired by hide-this-block and Block refresh and still uses some fragments of their code and ideas. While blajax focuses on integrating and merging their functions and adding much extras, you should consider using one of them if you only need one dedicated function.