Four Kitchens Blog

Today I looked through my collection of links and realized I have enough resources pooled up to put together a decent little post on browser devtools. In case you’re not familiar, development tools ship with each web browser, enabling us to analyze and debug our increasingly complex websites and apps. From finding a background color to profiling frame rate issues, browser devtools bring sanity to the world of frontend development.

Field collections are at the same time one of my most favorite and least favorite aspects of working with Drupal 7. Since they are entities they can be extremely powerful and flexible site building tools, and I see lots of unrealized potential in that, on the other hand theming can be tricky and, for lack of better word, generally feels “icky.” There is little documentation online about best practices with almost all links pointing back to this thread on how to theme field collections. The proposed solutions in this thread are a mixed bag — mostly bad — but some that may work, but they certianly don’t follow any best practices in drupal theming. I’ll admit I have shipped field collection theming that, while working, did make me feel “dirty.” Read on for a clean solution that — while simple — is maintainable and, hopefully easy to follow.

4K news this week:

• Workshops for DrupalCamp Austin have been posted! Check them out here!
  • Please note: camp registration does not include workshop registration. When you register for DrupalCamp Austin, you must also select the training you want to register for. If you already bought a ticket to DrupalCamp and want to register for a workshop, you can still do so. Just select the workshop you’d like to register for, and don’t select a DrupalCamp registration. If you have any questions about registration, email shout@drupalcampaustin.org

Find us at DrupalCon Portland:

• Chris Ruppel will be giving a great talk on the Modernizr module. If you’re a frontend perf nerd, you will not want to miss this. More info here.
• We’re providing two training workshops. Both of them have one spot left, so if you’re on the fence, you should snatch up the last slot now!
  • Integrating Node.js + Drupal
  • Advanced Responsive Design with Sass and Compass

Four Kitchens recommends:

• Pine Street Biscuits: Recently featured on Diners, Drive-ins and Dives, Pine Street Biscuits serves deliciously baked biscuit creations like this chicken sandwich below. (I want this in my belly now!)
  

We at Four Kitchens believe native mobile applications — the things you download from the App Store or Google Play and install on your smartphones or tablets — are a stop-gap technology that will be replaced by web applications that run inside browsers. Here’s why:

• Many “apps” are simply dumbed-down versions of websites. This is frustrating to users who want to access the full capabilities of those websites.
• Maintaining a website and multiple versions of apps (iOS, Android, Windows Mobile) in multiple flavors (the so-called “HD” apps for larger screens) is expensive and inconvenient.
• Apps were originally invented because websites couldn’t tap into the capabilities of mobile devices. Now, wrappers like PhoneGap and native Device APIs expose websites to your device’s senses: touch (gestures, multitouch), sight (cameras, ambient light sensors), sound (microphones), motion (compass, accelerometers), and location (GPS, proximity detectors).

Everything is converging on the web. Or, rather, reconverging on the web. But there’s just one, tiny thing — a single, critical flaw on popular mobile devices — that will prevent web apps’ ascendency and continue to prop up the “need” for native apps. It’s not hardware-software integration, which is quickly being solved with clever APIs and libraries. It’s not frontend performance, as increased processing power and better JavaScript support will level the playing field. It’s much simpler than that. It’s a matter of psychology.

It’s the icon.