Think Simply Web Design

Note: this post contains code for Drupal 5 - if you're using Drupal 6, you'll have to adapt it to get it to work (this page might be a good place to start).

The default homepage for a new Drupal site is the /node page that lists all content types that are marked to be promoted to the homepage. It's easy enough to change the homepage to a certain node (like a simple page) or a more customized homepage.

But something that has always bugged me is that the /node page is still just sitting out there. At any point an informed user can type in the /node path on any of my Drupal sites and see a listing of much of the content on the site. Of course, we haven't taken any time to style such a page to render nicely and it just seems unprofessional to have page sitting out there that will never be used.

Overriding Core Paths

Recently, we decided to start doing something about these default pages that weren't being used. For all of our sizable Drupal projects we create a module specific to the project that is used for gluing our overall project together. One of frequently used hooks used in a Drupal module is the hook_menu() function. It is used to tie callback functions to URL paths.

Usually hook_menu() is used to create new paths, but it can also be used to override the action tied to paths defined in Drupal core modules. The code below shows how we use this function to override the /node path to return a 404 not found page instead the default node list.

[NOTE]This code is Drupal 5

You'll notice 2 menu paths returned here. The first is a path for our homepage (/home) tied to the function sitename_home(). The second is an override of the /node path that is tied to the drupal_not_found() function. You will this override path is called when $may_cache is false. The hook_menu() function is called twice, first with $may_cache set to TRUE early in the bootstrap process and second with $may_cache set to FALSE later in the bootstrap process. Placing our override in the latter ensures that cached menu items will be overridden successfully. If you are overriding non-cached menu items you may need to got the extra step of making sure your module menu items are invoked later in the bootstrap process by changing the weight of your module in the system table of your database.

An intranet web application we've been working on involves a lot of data entry. One feature that helps when typing in a large number of small numbers is being able to use the enter key like the tab key. Instead of tabbing over to the next field on the list, you simply press enter. It's a small difference, but it's easier to reach, people are used to it from Excel, and over enough time, it makes a big difference.

The application used jQuery, and there didn't seem to be any canned solutions from that camp. We knew it had to be possible, so we did a little searching, and sure enough, found a script on "internet.com." It's rather messy, and isn't the most elegant solution, but it tells us that we simply need to capture the enter key press event, find the text box, and give it focus.

So let's go through the process of converting that basic flow to jQuery. We could have made this a jQuery extention, and probably will at some point, but in the interest of time, it's just straight jQuery code.

We start out by creating a function to run when the script is loaded, and finding all <input> boxes that have the .data-entry class (the class gave us better control over which text boxes this functionality should work with).

textboxes = $("input.data-entry");

Next, we capture the enter key (and all other keys) with the "keyDown" event. Since this is jQuery, event will be captured on all the textboxes we just found, without need a loop.

$(textboxes).keydown (checkForEnter);

Now we need to check and see if it was the enter key that was pressed, and if so, perform our tabbing functionality. We define the function "checkForEnter", accepting the "event" argument. That argument gives us the keyCode for the key that was pressed - the enter key is #13.

If that statement returns true, we know the enter key was pressed, and that we need to give focus to the next textbox. We need to get at our array of textboxes from the initialization function, so we'll define the "textboxes" variable at the very top of our page, outside of any functions. Now that we have the array, let's find out where the current textbox (sent to us in "this") is in it using the "index" function.

currentBoxNumber = textboxes.index(this);

So we can find out what the next box is by simply adding one to that number. Let's make sure we're not at the end of the array first.

if (textboxes[currentBoxNumber + 1] != null) {

If that works, now we simply change the focus, and select the text inside it.

Our functionality is in place. Before we're finished with the function, however, we need to stop the enter key from doing what it normally does, which is submitting the form. Normally, this is a bit of a pain to do reliably, but jQuery gives us the "preventDefault" function. Between that and returning false with our function, the form won't submit automatically.

Note that when the user gets to the end of all the textboxes, the above code doesn't run, so the default functionality does work and the form is submitted automatically when they reach the end.

Trying it out, we found out that it only worked in Safari. Not good. We looked back to the original script and noticed browser detection in use. Apparently that _was_ important - no worry, however, jQuery has browser checking build in, and we can simply examine the $.browser property to switch between the slightly different events.

And that's it - now we can move from box to box using the enter key.

I recently installed Stuffit Expander on my Windows machine to open a .sit file from a client, and during the installation it wiped out all of my application settings including all my email settings for Thunderbird (thanks Stuffit, I didn't really have anything else to do that day anyway).

I only use a handful of extensions for Thunderbird but had a heck of a time finding one that I realized I just couldn't do without. The extension is called TB Quickmove and is used for quickly moving emails from your inbox into other folders. I am persevering to implement David Allen's GTD productivity methods and this extension make that effortless.

I simply setup 4 shortcuts for moving my emails to 4 folders.

1. Archive - for reference only
2. Todo - actionable items to be done today or tomorrow
3. Someday - actionable items to be done when I get the chance or it requires someone elses action first
4. Receipts - I've got to keep all my email receipts handy in the case the KGB... I mean IRS... ever comes knocking on my door.

The idea is to always keep you inbox empty and sort your actionable items from the rest so you can stay sane.

TB Quickmove can be found on Mozilla's Addons page, but only an old version that is not compatible with Thunderbird 2.0.

I finally found TB Quickmove 0.4.3 on an obscure Spanish site, but to help anyone else who might be interested, I'm posting it here for download.

Download TB Quickmove 0.4.3