Richard Castera

Drupal – Check if a User has a specific role

Richard — Fri, 05 Mar 2010 15:37:48 +0000

Here is a quick way to determine if a user has a specific role

roles))) {
    // Do something.
  }
?>

Drupal – Adding Javascript to your module

Richard — Thu, 04 Mar 2010 15:32:42 +0000

When creating your own Drupal module, you may need to add some styling or Javascript to improve the usability of your module. Here is how to do it.

drupal_add_js(drupal_get_path('module', 'MODULE_NAME') . '/common.js');

Similarly you can add CSS to your module as well

drupal_add_css(drupal_get_path('module', 'MODULE_NAME') . '/styles.css');

Drupal – Use hook_form_alter() to set redirect path on the form

Richard — Wed, 03 Mar 2010 15:21:11 +0000

One popular use of this hook is to change the destination of a form submission. Here is how it is accomplished:

Excellent Analytics – Import Google Analytics into Excel

Richard — Tue, 02 Mar 2010 15:00:23 +0000

I ran into this nice Excel Plugin that lets you import web analytics data from Google Analytics into a spreadsheet. It’s an open source project and 100% free to download and use for individuals and businesses.

Wordpress – List Scheduled Posts

Richard — Mon, 01 Mar 2010 14:53:28 +0000

If you ever wanted to show you readers posts that are scheduled to be published, here’s how to do it.

have_posts()) {
    while ($result->have_posts()) : $result->the_post(); ?>

CSS – Cross Browser Opacity

Richard — Sun, 28 Feb 2010 19:35:44 +0000

A little hack to set Cross-Browser opacity.

.setOpacity {
      opacity: .75; /* Standard: FF gt 1.5, Opera, Safari */
      filter: alpha(opacity=75); /* IE lt 8 */
      -ms-filter: "alpha(opacity=75)"; /* IE 8 */
      -khtml-opacity: .75; /* Safari 1.x */
      -moz-opacity: .75; /* FF lt 1.5, Netscape */
}

WordPress – Disable Auto Save

Richard — Thu, 25 Feb 2010 15:51:50 +0000

WordPress’s Auto-Save feature is a really nice but there are some drawbacks… this feature increases your database usage. So for those of you that are on really bad shared hosting accounts or just want to turn it off, here’s a quick way of doing it.

Open and insert the following line in your wp-config.php file.

define('WP_POST_REVISIONS', false);

Another method is to remove all of the entries from the database from time to time. You can do tun this query to do it::

DELETE FROM wp_posts WHERE post_type = "revision";

Prototype JS – Determine if an object exists in the page loaded

Richard — Thu, 25 Feb 2010 02:41:56 +0000

I’m so use to using jQuery that I usually don’t have to look up documentation on how to use certain functions. They almost come naturally because it’s so English-like! Unfortunately Magento uses Prototype as it’s native choice of Javascript Frameworks. I sure wish they would have chosen jQuery! I think they would have more people jumping on their platform. I’m sure they have a good choice for it. Anyway, here’s how to check:

if($('id_of_element') != undefined) {
    alert('Object exists.');
}

Magento – Check if a User is logged in

Richard — Thu, 25 Feb 2010 02:09:00 +0000

You may want to check if a user is logged in with Magento, possibly to display a link or promotional item. Here’s how to do it:

helper('customer')->isLoggedIn()) {
    echo("Anonymous user");
}
else {
    echo("Authenticated user");
}
?>

Magento – How to Display the Product SKU

Richard — Thu, 25 Feb 2010 02:04:01 +0000

Sometime you may need to display the product Sku on the category page. This is easily achieved:

getSku()); ?>