Fusion Accelerator and Drupal 7

Moving into Drupal 7 territory

Fusion is making serious headway into Drupal 7! After many months of working with Drupal 7 and Skinr, the decision was made to create a skin tool for Fusion itself, and we brought the tool in house. We could not ask our customers to wait any longer.

Fusion themes are now dependent on the Fusion Accelerator module. Fusion Accelerator includes a fork of Skinr called Fusion Apply. It also includes other features such as a grid tool for themers to use to easily create new Fusion ready grids. The Fusion Apply Rules module allows you to quickly create rulesets for the application of your skins to different pages and regions of your site.

If you’re already using Fusion and Skinr, we’ve written some documentation on updating your current theme. You can see many of these items in our documentation here:Getting Started with Fusion Apply and here: Creating Fusion Apply Styles.

If you’re already using a Fusion sub-theme for Drupal 7, you should also see our general upgrade documentation here, and if you’re using Drupal 6 and want to move all the way to our lastest versions, then Converting Drupal 6 to Drupal 7 themes is the place to go.

Theme updates?

We’re working hard to update our themes as quickly as possible. We’ve got one all new premium theme for Drupal 7, and two updated themes, as well as updates for Fusion Core and Acquia Marina. If you already own a Fusion theme, you’ll receive an email when your theme is updated. Look for a post on our Drupal Commerce based themes, coming soon!

Anything else?

You bet! If you’re interested in responsive theming, have a look at Fusion’s development release on Drupal.org. That’s right, we’re adding responsive features into Fusion! We’re very excited to be doing this, so keep an eye on us for more information on this too!

Updating Drupal

Today I shall show you how to upgrade your Drupal web application to latest stable version.

It is strongly recommended that you always keep your Drupal site up to date with the very latest minor release available, to remove known security vulnerabilities and existing bugs.

How to find out that our Drupal site needed to be updated?

Well, it’s quite simple. Your Drupal installation is smart and notifies you about the new version available at Drupal.org. All you need to do is to check the status report of your Drupal application.

To check STARUS REPORT login as Super User ( the user uame you selected during installation).

Then go to Administer-Reports-Status report.

If your Drupal installation is not upto date then you would notice some alerts like the following

You can notice the current version of Drupal is 6.16 and Drupal is showing that it’s not secure to continue with this installation. Further, it is also indicating the version needed to installed, in this case the most recent version is 6.20.

Backing up the current installation

The first thing we need to do before patching Drupal is to take the site off-line. It’s a Drupal utility. You can find this utility under site configuration - site maintenance. Now select off-line button and save configuration. You have to login as a super-user to do so. This is a cool feature of Drupal which shows a message to the visitors that the site is currently under maintenance. For some reason if you need to log out of your Drupal site during patching you can always log back in. To do so write your domain name and then put /user (e.g. www.example.com/user).

It is very important backup the database because should anything go wrong with the database while you are patching Drupal or even modules you can always turn back to your old database.  There are several ways to back up the database; I am going to use the most common tool available i.e. phpmyadmin. So, you first have to login to your webhosting control panel.  Then go to phpmyadmin utility.

Select the database you wish to backup

(I am using the picture of a live site that is way I have hidden the name of the database for security reason.)

Click on the Export utility.

Now, scroll down to the bottom and save the file out as a default SQL file

We have completed the second step. Now it’s time to backup our additional resources such as custom configuration file, contributed modules and themes, and site's uploaded files. If other files have modifications, such as .htaccess or robots.txt, back those up as well.

Drupal keeps all the custom user configuration and files in a directory called “sites”. So, if we simply copy this directory and keep it in a safe place we are good to go ahead and patch our Drupal installation.

We are done with the archiving of our Drupal site. It’s time to move forward and start the upgrading process.

1. Download the latest and stable Drupal version from Drupal.org. In our case it’s Drupal 6.20.

2. Unpack the new Drupal version in your local computer.

3. Fire up your favorite ftp client, I am using filezilla, and login to your ftp account.

4. Upload all the files and folders to your Drupal installation directory except for sites directory, .htaccess and robots.txt file. [This step is very critical so do it carefully.]

5. We have performed all necessary steps to upgrade our Drupal installation. Now it’s time to check whether our patching was successful or not.

6. To check that head over to the Reports-status report and examine.

7. You would notice that when status reports loads it recognize now that we have Drupal 6.20. That means we have upgraded our Drupal installation successfully.

8. Now run update_0.php by visiting e.g., http://www.example.com/update.php (replace  www.example.com with your Drupal installation's domain name and path). This step will update the core database schema to the new Drupal installation.

9. Drupal would prompt you now to follow these instruction of the above image. We have already done these during archiving of our installation. So, you can move forward and continue.

10. Last thing we would want to do is to take our site online. For that, we would go to site maintenance-select online and save configuration.

Well that’s all. You seem to have successfully updated your Drupal core.

Drupal Content Related tips and Tricks

17. Showing similar or related content in the block to improve stickiness

It’s a common feature in CMS to show a block of related content items or similar content. This interests the user as he can read similar entries on your website and stay longer on the website. It will also increase the chances of your website being bookmarked.

There are many modules available , you can see a Comparison of Similar / Relevant content block modules, But I would recommend you use this simple option of showing relevant content block using views module you can find the article here.

Using Views 2 and Drupal 6 to Create a Related Pages Block make sure you read the comments on the page as the solution itself is slightly old.

For drupal 6 sites there is another module available which can do similar function which is Taxonomy Quick Find . It has more configurations like you can configure each block to only show individual node types (eg, one block for page and a completely separate block for blogs) and Each node type on each block can also have its own limit

18. Slide show of your content

Generally the homepage of a website would have slide show of the latest items or important nodes / images you want to highlight. This can be achieved in many ways. Usually people may think jquery plugins but the best way to do this in Drupal is to go for views slideshow module.

You could rotate entire nodes, categories, image galleries, etc Its also a great space saver. Places where you had multiple images or multiple items such as RSS feeds or category listings can now be presented in a slideshow >>> Views Slideshow

Views Slideshow has many features and has lot of supporting modules too. Read the module page properly. It even has links to external articles which are very good.

19. How to use images in drupal

A common confusion is how to add the image support to drupal. There are so many modules and snippets,which one would be the best ? What do most people use ?As a newbie you may have these FAQs in mind.One another thing I wonder is should I host my images remotely on Flickr , Picassa or should I keep it local.Check out this article which will help you.Drupal Image support for Nodes. If you are planning to use Flickr then you can check out Drupal and Flickr Integration

20. Don’t need the body field ? .

As you know each content type be it story , page or new CCK content type has a body field , If you don’t want it , you will have to create a new CCK content type, then Goto administer › Content management > Content types and Edit the type you want, erase the label 'Body'. Using a blank label will remove the field.

21. Converting  nodes from  one type to another.

Often we create content types and then we realize that its difficult to manage so many content types and wish we had created fewer types. Or simply you want to convert from one node type to another.  Node Convert  adds a menu tab "Convert" on the node view page, i.e. node/1/convert, which gives the ability of converting the node from its current node type to another node type. Also it gives the ability of transfering all the custom CCK field values of the current node type to the destination CCK fields, or discard them

22. Using Drupal forums - The forum module of drupal is very basic and when compared
    to other forums softwares like vbulletin or simple machines it lacks features & functionality . Question is why would you use drupal forums.? I would say
    that if you want a basic mechanism for discussion and don't anticipate a huge
    group of users, then you can go with inbuild forum module as it fast and easy
    to maintain. If you install a third party module like vbDrupal or Simple
    machines integration then may have to wait for upgrades if you are not a
    developer.  Also you are at the mercy of the free support offered by the community if you have any issues with the modules.  Read this postDrupal Forums – Enhance, Integrate and get Inspirations.

23. Site Search - I personally don’t like Google site search. Drupal search results is much better. You can use Porter stemmer module to improve your search effectiveness. This module implements the Porter stemming algorithm to improve English-language searching with the Drupal built-in Search module. The process of stemming reduces each word in the search index to its basic root or stem (e.g. 'blogging' to 'blog') so that variations on a word ('blogs', 'blogger', 'blogging', 'blog') are considered equivalent when searching. This generally results in more relevant search results.  You can also use  views + views_fastsearch to build "section search" or custom advanced search pages for your drupal website.

24. Large files (audio) - If you are using audio module in drupal there is a limit to size of audio files which can be uploaded. After much research I have found that the following can be used to increase the filesize limit of audio files.  and also to bulk upload your audio's

Drupal Troubleshooting related tips and tricks

11. White screen of death ( Completely blank page)

Occasionally a site user or developer will navigate to a page and suddenly the page content disappears, and is completely blank. No content. No errors. Nothing. This often, but not always, happens after updating a module, theme, or Drupal core. This is what is referred to by most members of the Drupal community as the White Screen of Death or WSOD. There are several reasons why this might occur, and therefore several possible solutions to the issue.  Check this page for more infohttp://drupal.org/node/158043

12. Not sure what to do use “Flush Cache Function”

Drupal has a caches for all your content so whenever a page is requested, it doesn’t have to generate it dynamically all of the time (quering the database), it can pull it up from cache. This speeds up the website as it reduces the amount of PHP processes and SQL queries being made.

Whenever you see that your site acts strangely or your changes to themes are not reflecting, you must Flush Cache. Flushing your cache clears out your Drupal cache and allows the site to rebuild itself with up-to-date information. Click on the left most icon on your Administration menu to invoke Flush Cache related functions.

Drupal SEO and Traffic Related tips and Tricks

13. Once you have your drupal website up and running, you need to do someSearch engine optimization. Even if you have already done SEO, this article will give you some new insights and pointers and help you increase your website traffic and SERPS. Drupal is very strong in SEO that is why I am still hooked on to it.  Top Drupal SEO Modules, Tips and Tricks to increase traffic
14. Social bookmarking and sharing helps bring traffic to your site and increases SERPs.  I have myself struggled with many different modules, kept changing and finally learnt few good ones which does the trick. Check this page to decide what you should be using >> Best Drupal Sharing and Social bookmarking module reviews
15. Twitter integration can be as simple or complex as you want it to be. The reason is twitter has lots of features and you may want to seamlessly integrate with twitter. Depending upon your needs you will either pick up a module or you will write a small HTML or PHP snippet. Check this page for Drupal and Twitter integration ( Posting , Tweeting, Pulling )
16. URL Alias and Auto Aliasing is achieved using  PathAuto , But what about the old aliases you have created? It will show up as duplicate content on your website and Search engines will hate that.  Use Redirecttogether with PathAuto Module and you will get a good SEO Friendly site J.

When using PathAuto module it is very important that the uniqueness of the URLs is maintained, else it will be seen as duplicate content by search engines. You can add date to avoid this problem.

Drupal Moderation and Administration related tips and tricks

5. Controlling spams, Cleaning up , Purges etc.

Drupal is best used for community websites. But if you keep community website open for users to post content or comments, you will only end up seeing loads of spam. Spam is dangerous if not cleaned since if you use Adsense account,  your account may be disabled, since spam post may violate adsense guidelines.   First you must know how to control spam, read this post  Stopping spam in Drupal – Users, Posts, Comments, Next you must know how to manage after the fact, meaning after your website has been spammed, for that check this post    5 drupal modules to Purge users, Clean-up Spammers and Spam posts

6. Flagging content - To further control Spam and take help from your forum or website members use Flag Abuse module.  provides default abuse flags for nodes, comments and users and gives an administrative interface for reviewing and resetting said flags

7. Regular Drupal housekeeping

Keeping the website free from junk and removing old and unwanted  posts is also very important.  We often get stuck because there is not bulk method to do this effectively. Even if you want to purge users or comments, we have to struggle finding the right modules to do that. Check this post for solution Deleting / Purging Cache, Users, Nodes, Comments (Housekeeping)

8. For plain simple mass deletions, without much options, check out this page

9. Backing up your website - If you are a new to drupal then you MUST take backups before making any major changes or installing major modules so that you can restore the original in case things screw up. During my early years, I myself have wasted several precious hours since I did not take the backup and had to  work several hours to restore the site. Use  Backup & Migrate module that helps making this task

10. Installing Themes and modules in the right directories

This causes issues later on, when you have to upgrade the drupal to next version . Follow the directory structure recommended, that way it will be easy to debug.

/<Your drupal-root >
  /includes
  /misc

  /modules      <-- core modules here
  /profiles
  /scripts
  /sites
    /all
      /modules  <-- contributed modules here

Drupal Configuration related tips

1. Customize Error Pages of your website.

Drupal gives a default error  when a  user  navigates to a web page that they don’t have permission to view or a page that is not found. This is okay but not useful enough for users. To better manage your 403 and 404 pages you can create your own pages and mention the URLs of those pages here..

http://<website URL>/admin/settings/error-reporting

Further you can also use http://drupal.org/project/logintobogganmodule to show login block on access denied pages. This works well for community websites.              

2. Speeding up database tables

If you have a large website with lot of database reads, DB maintenancemodule will optimize the administrator-selected tables in the database during regular cron.php executions. For MyISAM tables, OPTIMIZE TABLE repairs a table if it has deleted or split rows, sorts table indexes, and updates table statistics. For BDB and InnoDB, OPTIMIZE rebuilds the table. Note, MySQL locks tables during the time OPTIMIZE TABLE is running. Optionally the user can select to attempt a REPAIR TABLE in the event errors are found during attempted OPTIMIZE TABLE. If you enable this ensure you have proper working backups.

OPTIMIZE works best on tables with large deletions (e.g. cache or watchdog), however MySQL will reuse old record positions, therefore in most setups, OPTIMIZE TABLE is unnecessary unless you just like defragmenting. The Overhead column in phpMyAdmin's database view is the most common way to determine the need of an OPTIMIZE TABLE query. It essentially shows the amount of disk space you would recover by running an optimize/defragmentation query.

Think of OPTIMIZE TABLE like defragmenting your hard drive. Sure your system will run without it, and it might even be fast, but isn't it nice to run a defrag when you can?

3. If you have not done the overall optimization and want to learn how you can speed up and optimize your drupal website read all about it here. This article has simple things like configuration changes to using some modules. How to Speed up and Optimize Drupal 7

4. WYSIWYG Editor is there a better option ?

You should add a WYSIWYG editor to your drupal website. Contributed module a WYSIWYG editor has all the functionality and integrations with popular editors.  You will have to use IMCE along with WYSIWYG editor for image support.

If you are looking for a fastest and light weight WYSIWYG Editor for Drupal,  Then Whizzwyg is the answer. Fastest and smallest WYSIWYG Editor but features rich.

In old days there was no proper module to have WYSIWYG editor on your drupal webite. There were many options available , in case you don’t want to use WYSIWYG editor