Anyone familiar with developing with Drupal will be very familiar with how we use hooks to leverage functionality provided by other modules and the core itself. We use them as part of the course when it comes to wanting to tweak data or even extend some core functionality, but how do we expose our own hooks for others to be able to alter what our custom modules do without the need for a developer having...
Openlayers has a Drupal module which enables you to add maps to your site. We added locations and categories to the events on CoventryMotoFest.com, and wanted to be able to show maps of certain event categories - or just all of them. Once you get playing with Openlayers, though, you quickly find that it doesn't look that great. Whilst MapBox provides incredible customisation of the map itself, the popups and layer switcher just don't look...
We've done a fair bit of reading around lately, thinking through different ideals on content construction. There's a fine balance to be struck between atomic units of content, vs. an enormous amorphous blob of formatted HTML, and articles like this by Wim Leers and sessions like this provide great food for thought. ComputerMinds recently sponsored the site for Coventry Motofest, and I was lucky enough to be part of the team. We've done a few...
In recent months there has been much hype over the newest addition to Apple’s product portfolio: the Apple Watch. It’s undoubtedly an impressive looking piece of kit and Apple have been quick to show off its many features in an attempt to get developers thinking up weird and wonderful applications to make the most out of this whole new approach to how users both consume and interact with their content. But what does the Apple...
On April 21st, Google updated their mobile search algorithms to boost the rankings of mobile-friendly web pages, whilst conversely decreasing rankings for pages that have been designed only for large screens. This change is likely to have a big impact on many Drupal sites, and ComputerMinds have seen a surge in requests for retrofitting responsive themes onto existing Drupal sites. More information about the change - which is commonly reffered to as ‘mobilegeddon’ can be...
We are really excited to be a gold sponsor for the Bristol Drupalcamp. The event takes place on the 3rd and 4th of July and we will hopefully be bringing some super exciting drupal powered remote control cars - watch this space!
We like our sport here at ComputerMinds, especially when it's local (and we are not just talking table football in the back office). So when we had the chance to support some local events we jumped at it. First off we have the Bristol Harbourside Triathlon - this event is now in its sixth year and takes place on the 14th of June. ComputerMinds will feature as the number sponsor so our lovely logo with...
Queues are a wonderful way of separating different parts of a system. Once you have separated those parts you can do lots of interesting things, like be more fault tolerant or have a more responsive front end for your users. For example, lets suppose that we have a website on which we can book a holiday. We can choose lots of different options and at the end of the process when we've booked the holiday...
I'm at Drupalcamp London 2015 today, I'm planning to attend: 1. Applying domain driven design when building Drupal modules using Symfony components - Should hopefully be a nice session about getting 'off the island'. 2. Uk (and European) user groups - a BOF session that's close to my heart, as I've been a previous group organiser and have attempted to get the different groups to get together before. 3. Drupal.org in 2015: What's coming next?...