Web Design and Development. Graphic Design and Retouching.

I've been using Open Terminal Here, which gives you a button to open the terminal at the current Finder window. Useful, but not without issues.
Just found http://homepage.mac.com/thomasw/OpenTerminal/ which, as an application rather than an AppleScript, is nice and responsive.
Gives the option of using pushd rather than cd, too.

Just noticed this: http://drupal.org/project/dcss
Looks interesting and could be quite useful. Think I'll try it out at the earliest opportunity.

http://drupal.org/project/drush_make
Use it. That is all.

There's a module for that...
devel has a setting at admin/settings/devel to switch Drupal mail to log emails instead of sending them out.
Set "SMTP library" to "Log only".
Puts useful debug data into $messages, too.

Recently, I built a site for a recruitment agency. Each advertised vacancy has a userreference field (userreference is bundled with the CCK module) to associate the vacancy with the relevant recruitment consultant.

One of the nice features about userreference is that it lists all the nodes that reference a certain user on that user's "user" page (the default page they see when they log in). You can enable this by editing the field (go to Manage Fields for the content type you're using) and selecting "Reverse link". Really simple.

However, I was asked to amend the listing to include another CCK field, a vacancy reference number, to make the listing more useful for the consultants. The listing is generated by usereference's implementation of hook_user and trying to override this seemed a little heavy-handed.

So I didn't bother. I used Views and ended up with something much more useful.

The view itself is really simple: I set up a normal node-based view and added the userreference field as an argument. By passing it the ID of the logged-in user (choose "Provide default argument", then "User ID from logged in user"), the view only displays those nodes whose userreference field matches. Excellent! A couple of minutes configuration later and I had a table-based view with sortable columns and all the information the consultants need to hand.

To add it to the user page, I set up a block display and on the block configuration page I set it to appear on the user page. To finish off, I unchecked the "Reverse link" option. No coding required, and a much more useful page for the consultants. Win!

I find I'm depending on Drush more and more for my Drupal development.
While my iMac is happy with Drush, as is our main dev server, I couldn't get it to work reliably on my MacBook until I found this lovely node: http://drupal.org/node/222611
Basically, I have some issue on my MacBook (unsolved, haven't spent the time) where localhost doesn't work properly and I have to use 127.0.0.1
So, by changing the database connection line in settings.php to point to 127.0.0.1 instead of localhost, Drush works.
Which is ace.
Although, I'll have to remember to do that for all my dev sites. Maybe I'll look into that localhost issue....

The UK's first DrupalCamp will take place at the BBC in Manchester, June 13th-14th.
The plan is for a wide range of talks and workshops for everyone from Drupal newbies to Drupal ninjas. Sign up for free at http://drupalcampuk.eventbrite.com/

Jon Hicks writes about the new Mac-friendly interfaces for Opera 9.5 and Firefox 3. In the article he mentions how the Opera icon desperately needs an update and how he'd love to do it. I flippantly said to a friend the other day that I don't use Opera because I don't like its icon in my dock, but I really do find it distracting. Now, if anyone can make a cracking browser icon it's Mr Hicks, so please, Opera, for the sake of all us fickle designer types, ask him to do it!

Some fabulous designs gathered together by WebDesignerWall.

Brief but interesting interview with Dries Buytaert, about Drupal's history, plans for its future and Acquia's role.

Great article on A List Apart about handling complex layouts with dynamic content: http://www.alistapart.com/articles/fauxabsolutepositioning
There don't seem to have been any exciting discoveries in CSS for a while, and I seem to have been distracted by PHP recently, so I'll enjoy messing around with this.

BarCamp Manchester was fantastic and I can't wait for the next one.

Huge thanks to all involved in organising and sponsoring the event: believe me, it was worth all the trouble and expense. The venue was great, the food was great, the after-party was great. Did I say it was great? Hats off to the Idiot-in-Chief: putting something as good as this together can't be easy.

So, what happened on the day? Loads of interesting people, talks, presentations and conversations, and to top it all free food *and* free drink! When NorthPack get a chance, they'll be posting videos of the talks, so all those who weren't there can get a taste of what they missed. But only a taste: I don't think video can capture the real buzz and energy of people happy to be there sharing and discussing what they know.

Can't wait for the next one.

Quick reminder: Drupal NWUK user group is meeting on Wednesday at the MDDA. Whether you know Drupal inside-out or would just like to know what it's all about, come along (if you're going to Leeds GeekUp you'll just have to be in two places at once: we'll try to avoid clashes in future).

Seeing that Drupal 6 is out I think we should have a quick gallop through all the new features, but everyone's more than welcome to jump up and say whatever they want to say (and if it's about Drupal, even better!). So any projects, topics or questions, bring 'em along.

And if there's time maybe we'll have a look at the new Views alpha for fun :P (in fact, if you've already tried it out, come along and talk about your experiences).

It's on the shelves! http://drupal.org/drupal-6.0
Chris and I will run through the new features at the Drupal user group next week.

Chris and I have sorted the time and place for our Drupal training course in Manchester: Wednesday 9th April at the MDDA.

Pop to the menusandblocks website for more info, or give one of us a call if you've got any questions!

This course is an introduction to Drupal, but we'll be covering a lot of ground, from installing and administering a Drupal site to developing modules. Even experienced PHP developers will find this useful, as we'll be showing you the Drupal way of doing things.

For anyone who's already up to speed on what Drupal has to offer we're planning future courses that will look at theming and module development in even more detail.