development

Drupal changes so fast that it's hard to keep your head above water. Only now, are many site maintainers deciding to upgrade to version 6. The biggest reason for the delay, despite the amount of time version 6 has been out, is the slow going with various modules being updated.

So the question is... "How do I keep current with modules?", and "What new modules replace the modules I've been using?".

Well, much of this lies on your shoulders - such as reading the news. Fortunately, there are some tricks you can employ to get the information you need quickly.

Drupal provides a lot of default template files when it comes to page, node and block output.

There are, however, a few instances when you may want to theme a page based on the content type - such as having a dedicated page for when videos are viewed (I'm doing just such a thing on this site).

What you need to do then is tell Drupal about the dedicated and specific template file you wish to use for that content type. The way to do this is with preprocess functions.

This series of 8 videos will walk you through the process of starting to develop a real Drupal module. Most of what the videos cover are techniques for accomplishing the process.

Komodo is the PHP debugger I use on the Mac.

There's an easy way to start the learning process of using a debugger for PHP. You don't have to know how to compile Xdebug (at least if you're on a Mac).

The Devel module is a SUPER CRITICAL module which you need to use if you're even considering developing within Drupal.

One of the key elements to knowing what is going on while you develop your module is watching what happens.

Knowing how to search within the code of a project is what helps you learn any system faster.

The best way, I find, for learning is to look at what exists and then pick and pull from those examples to accomplish what you want.

An 18 minute video about REALLY researching existing code for modules. I reference a number of methods to do your research.