October 2006 Archives

I blog on a wide range of topics. Because of this, my blog one day might focus on Bible study and the next on a trip I took and the next on some site improvement I'm making on one of the web sites I maintain or help maintain. I'm guessing that some visiting my site probably get whiplash and probably have a hard time knowing what to pay attention to.

Solution: Crossite module. I've written a module I've dubbed "Crossite" which uses the multi-site features of Drupal to share nodes between them.

This solution provides a kind of ultra-cheap aggregation of information on the various sub-sites. All the sites share the users, nodes, taxonomy information, but have their own themes, settings, and cache. The main feature provided by this plugin does two things. First, a node is categorized as "belonging" to a given site based upon the taxonomy terms it has been filed under. If a node has no matching taxonomy terms, it is treated as if it belongs to the default site.

The second half of this functionality is a redirect that is performed when viewing nodes that belong to a different site. If you click on a link that leads to a node page for a site that belongs to another and does not belong to this site, you will be redirect to the node's page on that other site. A node might belong to multiple sites or all sites simultaneously if it has the correct terms attached to it. In fact, one term might even link a node to multiple sites.

A secondary feature is that it adds a new property to node objects, named "sites". This returns an array of sites to which the node belongs. This can then be used to determine how to theme pages or do other custom tid-bits.

I'd like to make a "Crossite_view" module to distribute with the parent module to further facilitate this by allowing sites to have specialized list views. The configuration of the system is a kludge and needs to be incorporated into the UI to make installation easier/possible. Right now, you have to modify the "settings.php" file for all the sites. Anyway, I'm waiting for my CVS account on Drupal.org before publishing the module.

In application, I've expanded my web site now to include two domains I've owned for awhile but had been hoping to use for other purposes. I don't think those other things are going to happen just now, but I wanted to use them in the meantime.

This site, Andrew.Sterling.Hanenkamp.com will focus on the "life" stories about things happening with me and my family, my general opinions, etc. I will also use this site as the primary aggregation site for all the other articles. The main list will feature those articles as other headlines between the "Life" articles. I will probably provide a master feed of all my web contributions as well. I'd like to have something like the Newsvine seed where I can pull in articles, comments, and other bits I post on other sites as well---such as links to my Boomer Bulletin articles.

I will feature technical stories about computing, Perl, Java, programming, web, software, Apple, Linux, etc. on Contentment. That site formerly hosted my CMS efforts, which are now defunct. I had, briefly, also planned on using it as a place to discuss church site development or provide project management tools to teams building church web sites. However, one is already being handled by the Churches group on Drupal Groups. The other proved to be too ambitious for me to do in the time I could spare between everything else I do when not at work.

My Bible studies will be featured on Open Scripture. This site reflects my desire to know my Bible and "Open Scripture" describes a kind of mini-motto that describes my take on the Christian life. I purchased this domain in the hopes of helping create some kind of Bible study/collaboration tools. Again this has proven to be too ambitious and probably premature. In the meantime, I will use it to share my personal Bible study.

My web site continues to evolve, bit by bit. It's kind of a fun little project to dink with every few weeks and is enough to keep me entertained at home.

Cheers.