Sometimes you just need to connect to earth: a desk chair story

Nathan Page
16th May 2018

Steven and I had been encountering (fairly savage) static electric shocks from our desk chairs.

For a number of months we'd been noticing the issue, each "crack!" seeming louder and more painful than the last. Almost every time we walked across the room, our chairs would greet us with a stab to the hand. The comedy value grew just as the frustration did; we'd enjoy listening for that signature sound whenever our colleagues returned to their desks, and laugh according to how loud a sound the tiny lightning bolts could muster. Some of the most entertaining shocks were the ones...

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Got a config schema error on saving a view?

14th May 2018

We ran into an obscure error recently, when saving a view that used a custom views plugin. It was supposed to be a very simple extension to core's bundle (content type) filter:

InvalidArgumentException: The configuration property display.default.display_options.filters.bundle.value.article doesn't exist. in Drupal\Core\Config\Schema\ArrayElement->get() (line 76 of [...]/core/lib/Drupal/Core/Config/Schema/ArrayElement.php).

Several contrib projects ran into this issue too: Drupal Commerce, Search API and Webform Views integration. There's even a core issue that looked relevant... but it turned out to be a simple, if perhaps surprising fix. If you ever run into it, it will have a different property (i.e. due to whichever plugin or default...

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Creating multilingual variables

A super quick blast from the past today; a Drupal 7 based article!

I had some work recently to create a new "setting" variable for one our Drupal 7 multilingual sites, which meant creating multilingual versions of those variables. I soon found out that there is very much a correct way - or order - to achieve this as I got this one very wrong (I had to re-instate my DB!). So here I am writing a very quick guide to help those from my wrong doings.

(This guide assumes you have a multilingual site setup with [i18n's Variable translation...

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Rebranding ComputerMinds - Part 4: Pattern Lab

Part of the series
Rebranding ComputerMinds
3rd May 2018

We didn’t see this project solely as a chance to rebrand and rebuild for ourselves, it was also an opportunity to try something new and expand our collective knowledge with the potential for using with clients in the future. We had been discussing using Pattern Lab for Front End development for some time and this was the perfect opportunity to try it out.

Patten Lab allows the creation of component-driven user interfaces using atomic design principles. This means we can create modular patterns all packaged up nicely that can be assembled together to build a site. Plus we can use...

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