Drupal

I recently attended DrupalCamp Austin and went to several sessions on mobile. It was a little funny how they contradicted each other. One session would talk about how mobile is the way to go then another session would talk about going responsive. I've been on the fence on which I think is the right approach. I've done lots of mobile sites, but I hadn't jumped into the responsive world yet. So for a recent project, I decided to give it a try.

First off, what do I mean?

By mobile, I'm talking about creating a site with a different HTML/CSS markup but serving the same content. When I do mobile, I generally use a tool to determine if the user is on a mobile device and then I serve the different content designed for the mobile device.

Last week I attended the Acquia webinar 'Protect Your Drupal Site Against Common Security Attacks'.  It was a nice primer on how the Drupal Security Team functions and some basic ideas about Drupal security. 

When web developers moved from table-based to non-table-based layouts, the syntax change was relatively simple: use a <div> element instead of <table>, <tr>, or <td>. The hard part was learning how to use position, float, and clear in your css to make it all look right.

Drupal is a powerful content management system. I sometimes joke with clients that I've used every CMS out there but I landed on Drupal because of its flexibility and power.

The truth is, I'm an opportunist; I pull together a suite of solutions based on budget and requirements. Sometimes I may do everything in Drupal. Sometimes, however, I may pull in a different solution even though Drupal could do it too. I use Drupal as the foundation, but other products can be integrated.

I think everyone should try working this way. Don't spend hours and hours to get Drupal to do something when there is a great product right next to you.

Yesterday I ran across a module called Display Suite that blew my mind. This module fills a gap in Drupal that I was only vaguely aware existed, but now that I know it is there I can’t see myself building many sites without this module installed.

I'm a fan of the OpenLayers module in Drupal 7 (and 6 too, for that matter) and here's why you should be too.

You can allow for both latitude/longitude mapping, KML property boundary mapping, geocoding entered addresses (with a helper module) and more. With this module, you can input the geo data and then display all your information on a map.

For the last two weeks, I've talked about A Developer's Perspective on Mobile Websites (part 1 | part 2). This week, I'd like to close out by going through a couple of the decisions I make for each mobile site I make:

Last week, I talked about A Developer's Perspective on Mobile Websites. This week, I'd like to take that a bit further and discuss special considerations for mobile development. 

Editor's note: This article is out-of-date. Please check out our post on Drupal Mega Menus Revisited. 

Mega Menus have become all the rage in navigation user inteface. When you have a large list of items for a dropdown menu a mega menu makes an efficient way to display the list.  An excellent example of a mega menu is on the White House's website.

Andrew posted an article on Mobile Website Design this week. In it, he talks about a designer's perspective on the mobile audience. From a development perspective, mobile website development is a breath of fresh air. As I began writing, I realized I touched on a topic of interest to me, and I hope you. I'm planning to break this up with a different piece of this mobile topic each week for several weeks.