Development/Production Environment

Right now I'm researching the best way to have a production and development environment for the new website. This is necessary because it seems when we are developing, we tend to break stuff on the website and we'd like to do that not in the public eye.

The problem is, there is no one standard way to do this with Drupal that I can find. The current recommendation is to use Subversion to make file changes and use backup/migrate to update the database. However, Subversion is very daunting to me as I have no experience in this area.

I need a plan and I need it soon, as our consultant contract runs out at the end of the month.

Creating Branch Pages

I've spent the last week or so creating our Branch pages for http://new.ppld.org/. Here's what I did, for future reference:

PART 1: Create the page

1. Create new Branch (content type). Open an existing Branch page for reference.


2. Track down a Branch image from Flickr or elsewhere and edit it for the page. Upload the image into the content type.


3. Add general information.


4. Go to Google Maps and create a map for the Branch. Create a custom embed at 290x300 and paste into Map field in content type. Input format is Full HTML.


5. Go to Flickr and create a Set with branch images (if they exist).


6. Go to Flickr Slideshow and create a slideshow for the set at 250x300. Embed the slideshow into the Slideshow field in the content type. Input format is Full HTML.


7. Look up Zip Codes for the Branch in Associate Director's report and add them to the Zip Code field in the content type.


8. Publish and save the page.


9. Add page to About the Library Block.


10. Add links to page on Library Branches and in pull-down menu.

Part 2: Create the tabbed menu

1. Open menu option in Drupal. Open an existing Branch menu for reference


2. Create the menu and add items. You will need to make feeds for Programs: Adults, Programs: Kids, and Classes. Add these links to the corresponding menu blocks.


3. Add tabbed menu links to the tabbed menu block.

Test in multiple browsers and resolutions.

new.ppld.org

Sharon and Nancy got the subdomain new.ppld.org to work, so the whole world can see what we're up to with the redesign.

We await the stampede, harhar.

Seriously, What the Hell?

I've been working on the branch pages lately. I made these tabbed menus for each branch page that link to related branch information. However, in IE 7, the tabbed menus in the corresponding "Programs-Adults" page don't display, for ANY branch. Every other tab works.

What the hell...

I'm seriously stumped here.

09/10/09 UPDATE:
After storming out of the office yesterday leaving a trail of obscenities, I finally managed to figure out the problem this morning. The tab label "Programs - Adults" was too long for the tab and as a result broke the entire menu when it was in the active state in IE 7. Weird that it only happened in the active state. I looked at the tabbed menu CSS but couldn't figure out how to make the active state expand more and since the tabbed menus are so finicky I decided to rename the tab to "Programs: Adults" instead of taking the time and effort to fix the CSS. Lame, I know, but there's only 1.5 of me and I need to move on.

"How Do I?" Revisited

I wrote earlier about making a "How Do I?" pull-down menu for the left navigational area of the new website. Yesterday I tried to do the same thing for a "Library Branches" pull-down menu on the right navigational area. However, I couldn't get it to work for that region, even though everything seems to be the same.

In the end, I found a more simple form command to use for these menus. The weird thing about them is they need to go to a URL when an option is selected. Here's the basic template for what I did:

Select One
PPLD
Google

Easy peasy