Articles · Page 4
Notes from the team.
Core web vitals - First input delay
If your website gets a lot of traffic from search engines, and Google in particular, then you need to care about all the things that Google wants you to care about, including 'First input delay'.Read article →Get Hook-ed on Object-Oriented Programming
When writing a hook implementation, for example of hook_cron, there's often a tendency to write purely procedural code, like this:Read article →Migrating Drupal 7 Files into Drupal 8 / 9 Media entities
This article assumes a basic knowledge of the building of custom modules, the Drupal 8 / 9 Migration system, and the processes behind creating customised migrations from a previous version of Drupal.Read article →Custom node routes
Sometimes it can be handy to have extra pages for a node (or any entity). For example:Read article →Entity Extra Field module: display blocks & views amongst fields
I'm a fan of configuring things for display through Drupal's admin UI. It gives site builders confidence and power. What if you want to place blocks or views listings in amongst fields on pages of content? For example, to display:Read article →Context-aware blocks
Defining your own Drupal block plugins in custom code is really powerful, but sometimes you can feel limited by what those blocks have access to. Your block class is like a blank canvas that you know you'll be pulling data into, but how should you get that data from the…Read article →Meet Adam
Which team are you based in?Read article →Meet Steve
Which team are you based in?Read article →ComputerMinds are diversifying
The last year has highlighted to us all how important it is for the global community to come together and solve problems. We rate ourselves highly at ComputerMinds, and figure it's time to share and stretch our abilities to the full. So I'm here on this special day to announce…Read article →21 for 21 - The move more challenge
I think the majority of us would say that we are not moving as much as we were pre-lockdown and pandemic. If you are then well done! A lot of us have lost a commute and access to our usual exercise regime and are pretty stationary at home working and/or with our kids. Of…Read article →Meet James S
There are two James' that work for ComputerMinds, and two Steven's, which can get a bit confusing at times. Especially because the initial's of James Silver are the same as the initials for another colleague; Jen Smailes. It pays to double check you are tagging the right person…Read article →Apply Drupal 9 compatibility patches with Composer
Update! Since this article was written, a new 'lenient' composer endpoint has been created on Drupal.org to support using modules with Drupal 9 that haven't been marked as compatible with it yet. See the documentation, which boils down to adding a new common entry under…Read article →Core web vitals - how to debug and improve cumulative layout shift (CLS) issues
TLDR : Check your cookie popup!Read article →Reflecting on Drupal Slack
Over the last year or so, I've got quite engaged with Drupal slack. I've loitered in channels like #d9readiness and #config, discussed issues with members of the security team, and asked questions to module maintainers (and received answers!). But most of all, I've helped…Read article →Rendering fields in Drupal 9 (the right way)
Many of us at ComputerMinds have always taken pride on doing Drupally things the right way whenever possible, and then helping the community do so too. One of these things is displaying values from fields on content entities. We wrote before about how to do this in Drupal 7 and…Read article →A recipe for editing & translating over 100 fields
I recently released a new contributed module to aid translation on Drupal 7 sites: Entity Translation: Separated Shared Elements Form (ETSSEF). Yes, it has a convoluted name! It finally resolves a suggestion from years ago in an Entity Translation project issue, to allow…Read article →Recovering deleted content
Drupal 7 introduced the brilliant feature of letting users cancel their own account and with it various options for what to do with content they've created when they are cancelled. One of these options is to:Read article →Our 12 month contribution challenge so far
So we challenged ourselves to contribute back to the Drupal community this year. How are we doing? Here's a simple update on what each of us has done so far. Hopefully we'll see other ComputerMinds team members join this list by the end of the year.Read article →Customise scaffold files the right way
There are some key files like robots.txt and .htaccess which are often tweaked for Drupal websites. These can be considered part of the 'scaffolding' of a site - they control the way the site works, rather than its content or design. Any new release of Drupal core that includes…Read article →Drupal 9, it's here!
Update: Since writing this article the EOL of Drupal 7 has been extended from November 2021 until November 2022.Read article →12 month contrib challenge: XML sitemap
We've been busy recently, but that doesn't stop us at ComputerMinds contributing back to the Drupal community! For our latest multilingual website, we needed an XML sitemap with alternate links and hreflang attributes. This site uses separate domains for each language - for…Read article →Upgrading jQuery 1.x to version 3.x
I was recently tasked with upgrading jQuery from 1.9 all the way up the latest version of 3.x (3.4). And I seriously thought “There is no way jQuery is on version 3 already!”. How wrong I was. Thankfully I wasn’t the only one thinking this, a few of my colleagues were on my…Read article →Coronavirus Update
As the coronavirus outbreak continues to affect the UK, we thought it best to give you some guidance on how it may affect your site.Read article →Team Away Day March 2020
There are two types of people in this world: those that beam from ear to ear at the idea of a "Team Away Day" and those who put their head in their hands in dread and fear of the future. We at ComputerMinds take our Team Away days very seriously and try to be the former! We…Read article →Let's talk
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