Todd Ross Nienkerk

What CVS does to (some) designers

There’s been a lot of talk lately about how Drupal designers shouldn’t have to learn CVS. Nothing new to see here, really — just the same tired, self-fulfilling arguments about how much CVS sucks, how developers also hate using it, and how designers shouldn’t be expected to learn something so… technical.

Jake Strawn of Drupal Dynamics and I are teaming up to propose a Accelerated grid theming using NineSixty session for DrupalCon Paris. (To be fair, he beat me to it and was gracious enough to add me as a co-presenter.)

Our session will cover the following basics of the 960 grid system:

• What is 960.gs?
• Using the NineSixty theme as your starting point / parent theme
• Understanding the grid-x, push-x, pull-x classes
• Why a grid-based system can help speed up theme development
• How to break the 960-pixel limit

In the last month, I have presented sessions on 960.gs and the NineSixty theme at DrupalCamps in Copenhagen, Helsinki, and Stockholm. Most recently, I co-presented a session at Drupal Design Camp Boston with Nathan Smith, creator of the 960 grid system. You can download the slide decks on our “Presentations” page.

Note: This HOWTO covers Drupal 6.x.

By default, Drupal adds an .error class to the form element itself: textarea, select, input, and so on. Sometimes, that’s not good enough. Maybe a client needs the label’s color changed — or a big, red border encompassing both the label and input elements.

This can be achieved by overriding theme_form_element() to add an error class to div.form-item, the div that wraps all elements in a form.

Our website has been featured on 960.gs, home of the 960 grid system! This is quite an honor, as we’re big fans of grid-based design — especially 960.gs — and have begun implementing its principles and techniques in virtually every project.

Photo by Franco Folini on Flickr (CC-Attribution-ShareAlike)

Despite being held on a Saturday, more than 15 dedicated Drupalers showed up for Day 4 of the San Francisco Drupal.org redesign sprint. Here’s what was achieved.

After many months of deliberation, we’ve decided to totally rebrand Four Kitchens. It was a tough decision — there’s so much work that needs to be done — but we decided, in the end, that our firm needed a new look.

Our goals for the rebranding are:

• Identify Four Kitchens as a leading Drupal consulting firm.
• Raise awareness of our design skills and portfolio. (We’re not just scalability experts!)
• Create an iconic brand that associates the Four Kitchens with quality, respect, and community involvement.

Please check out our ideas below. Any feedback is welcome. We really need your help!

Four Kitchens logo: version 1

Inspiration: Building a website is like reading a book. First, you ride your fixed-gear bike to a locally owned, vegan bookstore and pick out something about World Trade Organization-sponsored coups. Then you turn the book over to see how much it costs. Finally, you pedal home — uphill — and buy it on Amazon in a hot minute.

We at Four Kitchens are devotees of the scrum method of development. When we celebrated the birthday of our Project Manager and Certified Scrum Master Shannon Hinshaw, we could think of nothing more appropriate than a SCRUM-ptious cake:

Task: Eat the cake (999 points)

Web Chef Aaron Stanush “mugs” for the camera. Get it?

Drupal themer extraordinaire Morten.dk, currently ranked #7 on Google for “king of Denmark”, has been bugging us for a Don’t Mess with Texas mug. Well, “bugging” may not be the right word. “Profanely demanding” is more appropriate.

Finding one was surprisingly difficult. While (lesser) cities like Dallas and Houston are lined with shops hawking rattlesnake heads and scorpions encased in plastic, there doesn’t seem to be much demand for Texas memorabilia in Austin.

Except at the airport, where you can find your name stamped on a fake Texas license plate or worn chunk of fencepost.

So, after scoring the great city of Austin for tacky crap, we proudly present Morten.dk’s Don’t Mess with Texas mug:

Morten.dk’s Don’t Mess with Texas mug

BarCampAustin 4 graphics have arrived, and they are totally rad. Congrats all around to the fine folks who made them happen.

DJ Dillo: BarCampAustin 4 logo

“CVS Instructions” tab on the Author Taxonomy module

Drupal’s CVS is now more user-friendly!

As part of the Documentation Sprint at Drupalcon DC 2009, web chef David Strauss built a “CVS Instructions” tab for Drupal.org. The tab provides concise, step-by-step instructions on how to check out, commit, patch, tag, and branch any module or theme. A simple drop-down box at the top of the page allows the user to select the version of the module or theme they want to work with, and the instructions are updated to display exact, copy-and-pastable commands.