Over the years, we've relied on RSS feeds for many different tasks.
Ten years ago, we used RSS feeds to create news sites, pulling in articles from multiple different sources.
Five years ago, we set up RSS feeds to automatically send our updates to social media.
Now we still use RSS feeds. In 2020, we use RSS for some of our software projects. Github provides RSS feeds for our plugin releases. We take the release information from Github and import it to our sites to show our changelogs.
Several years ago I suddenly got an automated message from my web host telling me that my account was using too many resources, and I would soon have to upgrade. This surprised me quite a lot, since the only thing on there was my blog, which was small, and I never wrote, so no-one ever visited.
I contacted support and asked them what had caused the error message to send. As it turns out, a bot was trying to break into my WordPress login form. It was simply trying usernames and passwords in a classic brute force attempt to guess a username and password combination. The problem was that it was trying over 100 times per second. This means that my login page was loading 200 times per second, once for the form, and once for the failed login notice. My server was melting.
Page builders, page builders … you’re all pretty. Can’t we all just get along?
Say you have limited web design experience, you need a website, and you’re on a budget. You’ve decided a WordPress page builder is right for you. Congratulations! You’ve just stepped into a hornet’s nest of "mine is better than yours because …"
Much like the tribe wars between Mac and PC devotees, page builders have their tribe wars too. People like what they like, and they’re comfortable staying with what they know. And let’s face it, learning something new is time-consuming, and sometimes hard, depending on your experience. But time moves on, technology advances, and what worked really well before might not work well anymore, and so you have to look for new solutions—better solutions. This is where I am.
One of the important aspects of keeping your Drupal 8 site up-to-date, secure and performing well is to remove unused modules.
There are a number of reasons why you would want to do this:
One of the most common questions in our training is how to add custom CSS or Javascript to a Drupal site.
The best solution, of course, is to add it to the theme (preferably a sub-theme); however many times site builders and editors don't have access to the codebase of a Drupal site.
To accomplish this, you can use the Asset Injector module. This module combines CSS Injector and JS Injector from Drupal 7 into one.
Let's get started...
Sometimes a client complains that their photo-heavy site takes "forever" to load and that is a major issue for their users. The truth is that nearly 50% of web users expect a site to load in 2 seconds or less, and will usually leave a site that doesn’t load within 3 seconds max. That could equate to money lost, and no one is happy with that situation.
Other times, a client wants to be able to upload their own images, but has no clue why that 10 MB file errors out every time.
You kindly explain that their image file sizes are too big and need to be made smaller in order to upload and have faster page loads. That even if they "shrink them down" using the WYSIWYG editor, that doesn't count. The site will still load slowly. TIP: The optimum file size for pics uploaded to the web is 500 KB or less per image (the less the better).
This is usually followed by, "What does that mean?" Or, "How do I do that? I don't have Photoshop, and wouldn't know how to use it if I did."
And now is when you send the client a link to this blog post, because in 5 easy steps, we will show them how to resize and crop an image quickly... without having to buy any software! Let's get started....
You need a web site. You’re not a coder. You’ve dabbled in Wordpress enough to know that the blog you created years ago when it was all the rage doesn’t make you a webmaster.
Enter page builders. A page builder is not to be confused with a SaaS site (Software as a Service) like Wix or Square Space. SaaS sites are fine for the complete beginner, but you know how Wordpress works, and you know just enough about site building to be dangerous, but not enough to build without a little visual guidance. You’re creative, by golly, and you will not be constrained! Much.
If this is you, then page builders can be the answer.
It’s the challenge of creating something that will “wow” and go beyond what a client could have ever imagined possible that is motivating and exciting to me as a designer. Whether it’s a logo, business card, brochure, or website, the designer will be making the “look and feel” decisions for their client’s company. These decisions determine how that company presents itself to potential customers/clients and in some cases before the client ever talks to them. A designer is the first line of communication from that company to the world. Their design can be the determining factor in whether or not a business is successful. That’s a BIG deal, and a huge responsibility.
Do you have data supplied to you from a client or outside application that you need to create a table to house and then display back the information in a Joomla! site? Fabrik can make this a very quick and easy process for you using the import feature.
Let’s take a look at how to import and display data from a CSV file.
The Bridge theme is a highly customizable, creative multi-purpose theme for WordPress and as of November 2019, it includes Elementor and WPBakery, two of the best page builders for WordPress.
Now that the media module is in core (watch our class on the Media Module here), we're starting to see some contributed modules come along that help fill in some of the gaps. Not being able to replace an image, pdf, or video is one of the most notable issues with the Media module.
So if you had a PDF that gets occasional updates, the only recourse you would have is to upload a new version and then head over to every node where the pdf is used and change it out. There has to be a better way!
Well, now there is: the Media Entity File Replace module from Brian Osborne.
Drupal is well known for its flexibility in managing and presenting content. Drupal View Modes allow you to render (display) a Drupal entity or entities (like nodes) in a certain way, based on a particular context.
This tutorial will demonstrate the usage of Drupal View Modes with an example. We will install and also use the modules Field Group and Display Suite.
Let’s get started!
Most people agree, that sliders or carousels give your WordPress site a professional and fresh look. The Metaslider Plugin adds this functionality and provides some interesting customization features to give each slider a unique look.
Keep reading to learn how to integrate this useful plugin into your site!
When Layout Builder was introduced into Drupal 8 Core, it gave Site Builders a tremendous amount of flexibility previously reserved for Front End Developers (or Themers). While it represents a major leap for Drupal, there are still some shortcomings in the module, and that's where some great additional contributed modules are really helping.
In this blog post, we will highlight three of the best modules currently available. (Note: more are being added all the time!). For a complete list of contributed modules for Layout Builder, visit https://www.drupal.org/docs/8/core/modules/layout-builder/additional-modules.
For years, Drupal site builders have endured a less than great experience with any media they wanted to use. It was difficult to manage and reuse images; let alone video, audio, and other media. A number of excellent contributed modules tried to bridge that gap in Drupal 7; however Drupal 8 committed to having a media manager in core.
As of December 2019, that wait is over with the Media module now officially out of "experimental" and fully integrated into Drupal core.
Tables are very useful to present data, especially data related to numerical values. People find it easier to read and interpret the data (identify patterns and establish comparisons) when it is presented in a table layout so that relative complex information can be presented concisely.
The TablePress WordPress plugin allows you to create and manage tables within your site. Keep reading to learn more about this module.
