To Spring Forth

The Vernal Blog

Drupal > Wordpress migration part II: The ultimate Wordpress menu manager

Posted by Vernal 648 Days Ago

In my quest to convert CERF to Wordpress (see previous entry), I have run across the best menu manager I have ever seen.

The secondary navigation spec for CERF states that a few things must happen:

  1. When a user is visiting a site area (About Us, for example) the name of that site area must appear above the secondary nav. This gives the some good orientation about where he or she is in the larger context of the site.
  2. The child pages of that section (Our Staff, Our History, etc) must appear below the heading.
  3. The child page that the user is currently visiting must retain an active state (to further give notice of where the user is).
  4. Any grandchildren or great-grandchildren must be displayed when viewing their parent or grandparent (facilitating the display of third and fourth level pages).
  5. The grandchildren and great-grandchildren must display an active state upon display

Out of the box Wordpress provides some pretty nice menu features (using the get_pages function) but this spec is a little beyond what is available.

My hunt for a plugin left me passing up the popular Fold Page List plugin and moving onto Collapsing Page Menus by Cam Fraser. It was nearly what I was looking for.

I wrote to Cam and he agreed to make some quick modifications to the code. The world now has a very-reusable Wordpress menu manager that fits the bill for intuitive and accessible site navigation. Cam tells me he will be rolling the new features into the next version of his plugin. Look for it at his site. If you are in a rush contact me and I’ll send you what you need.

What’s next…

Coming up I’ll write about my solution for building the entire site information architecture using Pages while still allowing users to enter content using Posts (and making sure the right posts are aggregated on the correct pages). The solution is wonderful and really increases the flexibility of using Wordpress as a CMS. Once I clean the code up a bit I will make it available. For sure.

To Spring Forth

The Vernal Blog

It’s On: A site conversion from Drupal 4.7 to Wordpress 2.0

Posted by Vernal 656 Days Ago

Trading bulk for simplicity

I have begun work converting an existing Drupal site to Wordpress in the name of simplicity, sustainability, and cost savings.

I’ve long preached the content-management power of Wordpress as an effective and sustainable solution for small to mid-sized organizations. This should be a good demonstration of what it can do.

The project aims to:
Make it easier for CERF staff to manage content (using either the web interface or a desktop client)
Reduce hosting and maintenance costs (no nasty plugin incompatibilities and core hacking to make things work here…)
Increase the semantics and accessibility of the XHTML (I’ll be saying goodbye to wrestling html that is embedded within core php code)
Allow for easier image management (Say hello to drag-and-drop ajaxed-out image placement and manipulation…. nothing i’ve seen for Drupal can hold a torch to this stuff)
Create a platform for future growth at a fraction of the costs of previous development cycles

Well, this is going to be fun.

Over the next few weeks I’ll be documenting the process, pros, and pitfalls of the whole experience. It should be hot.

To Spring Forth

The Vernal Blog

Today I join the Eggplant Alumni Association

Posted by Jason 665 Days Ago

It’s official. As of today I have left the company I co-founded over six years ago as a wild experiment in organizing a tech cooperative across geographical boundaries.

There is a lot to say about it. I first question I am getting from people is why are you leaving Eggplant? You are Eggplant. Your nickname is EGGIE after all…!

The answer to that is really, really long and I’m still trying to work it out myself. The story gets ugly here and there and I won’t pretend it’s pretty.. but the large-picture is that ultimately Eggplant was an experiment. It had never been done before. It hasn’t been done since. We had no peers and we had no role-models. We had a ton of inspiration, talent, and ambition to change the world. That was enough to cruise on for 5 or so years but ultimately the challenge is too great for me. I’ve been the driving force behind Eggplant for far too long and am ready to hang up my hat. Here is how the challenge stacked up:

We were trying to create workplace democracy and a cooperative amongst a group of anti-capitalist geeks that were living in every corner of the world using primarily text-based communication methods (email, chat). Oh, and not one of them had a lick of business background. Ah we learned as we went and managed to to overcome most every obstacle, but really I think that if I have learned anything after six years it is in order to have true workplace democracy you need to be together. In a room. Face to face. Maybe eating pizza and laughing. If I were to try again I would do it no other way.

I can’t believe we made it this far.

This too has been an exhausting and sometimes impossible venture. It has been really heartwarming and inspiring at times. I’ve loved everyone I’ve worked with in one way or another… there have been many wonderful people involved here. We have even inspired many, many people to follow our lead. However, I think that it is time that I hang up my hat and close the door on that big purple vegetable.

At three different times in the history of Eggplant we have identified that fostering workplace democracy in a virtual environment is really tought to do. We keep identifying it, and alas, it keeps defeating us. It’s really bit us in the butt this time. Well, add me to the pile. I’m baba-ghanoush.

As far as I can tell the remaining three members of Eggplant (Jessi Berkelhammer, Micah Anderson and Linda Setchell) are going to keep plowing ahead with things. There are some great projects lined up and lots of fun assets to play with. I hope they do well with them.

I might have more to say on the subject as time goes on. For now I’m looking ahead and am in love with the idea of working alone for a while. I’ve been having fantastic day-dreams about spending time going clickety-click on straight-up design projects. I’ve got some good ones brewing, too. And then there is a really fun web-app I’ve been dreaming about for two years that might get to see the light of day…. Let’s hope so.

To Spring Forth

The Vernal Blog

Hellerwork International

Posted by Jason 673 Days Ago

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Hellerwork International is an umbrella organization for independent bodywork practitioners specializing in the Hellerwork practice.

We created a standards-compliant and beautifully crafted website for Hellerwork International that effectively meets it’s goal of being beautiful, useful, and communicative.

To Spring Forth

The Vernal Blog

Rural Vermont

Posted by Jason 677 Days Ago

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Rural Vermont is a nonprofit farm advocacy group here in our hometown of Montpelier, VT. In the early part of 2005 we worked closely with them to create a standards-based website and content management system that would look sharp on new computers but gracefully downgrade on the older computer equipment of many rural vermonters.

The site features action-alerts, breaking news, legislative information and archives of their previous newsletters all rolled into a nice autonomously-managed and beautifully crafted website.

To Spring Forth

The Vernal Blog

Chelsea Green Publishing

Posted by Jason 677 Days Ago

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Chelsea Green Publishing is a Vermont-based publisher of books on sustainable living and, more recently, progressive politics. They are the publisher of the renowned book Don’t Think of an Elephant by George Lakoff.

The ever-expansive chelseagreen.com sports a Vernal design and quite a lot of strategy as well.