Now, one of the biggest challenges is that there are multiple instances of the “image_attach” sections on a single content edit form, one for each category. The Drupal 5 version handled this by naming these by appending the category name to the fields. This allows the submitted form value for “iids” to be an array of categories. Each category itself being an array of image iid values.

For the life of me, my Drupal 6 version of this functionality failed to maintain the category arrays. After some frustrated hair pulling (hmmm…. no wonder my hair is so short), I remembered to take a look at the FAPI docs.

http://api.drupal.org/api/drupal/developer–topics–forms_api.html/6

An important thing to note: notice that $form['access'] has a '#tree' => TRUE attribute. this setting retains the full tree structure for all elements under it when it is passed to $form_state['values']. you must explicitly declare this anywhere you wish to retain an array’s full hierarchy when it is passed.

So, Drupal 6 collapses form elements where possible by default. By adding the #tree attribute, the hierarchy of form elements is maintained in the form_state submitted. Eureka!

Here’s an example of what I was getting without the #tree attribute:

And now with the #tree attribute set to true, the form hierarchy is retain and not collapsed:

I’m sure most of you doing Drupal development are saying “Duh!”. Well, let’s just say I really didn’t know. Thought I’d throw it on the blog so I don’t forget.

Blessings.

What we have done is to install APC on the MediaTemple DV in order to improve performance to some degree by taking advantage of op_code caching.  Now, this is not a silver bullet for performance folks. This is just one piece of a total tuning exercise. Be forewarned.

[Note: You are on your own as with anything we present. We do not warranty nor represent explicitly nor implied that this will actually work for you. In fact, you might just hose things up badly. Don't call us, we warned you.  ]

1. Install Developer Tools and Enable Root Access

Log into your MediaTemple Account Center and go to the “Root Access & Developer Tools” page. If Root access is not enabled, you’ll need to enable it. Be sure to set a massively secure password on this!

Also, if the developer tools have not yet been installed, then click the button to install them. Wait until the installation has finished before proceeding.

2. Install APC

Use your favorite SSH client to log into your server via SSH. Once you have logged in, you will perform the following commands:

• cd /usr/local/src
• wget http://pecl.php.net/get/APC-3.0.19.tgz
• gunzip -c APC-3.0.19.tgz | tar xf -
• cd APC-3.0.19
• /usr/bin/phpize
• ./configure –enable-apc –enable-apc-mmap –with-apxs2=/usr/sbin/apxs –with-php-config=/usr/bin/php-config
• make
• make install

3. Let PHP know about APC

Now perform the following actions to modify your APC installation. (Thanks to TimLinden for the details)

• vi +/extension_dir /etc/php.ini
• press i
• press enter to start a new line
• type extension = “apc.so”
• press esc and then type :wq to exit and save (if you mess up type :q! to quit without saving)

4. Drupal APC customization

Thanks to an article from 2bits, we made the following modifications to the php.ini to set some specific APC configuration options.

• vi +/extension_dir /etc/php.ini
• press down arrow
• press down arrow
• press i
• press enter to start a new line
• type apc.apc.stat = 0
• press enter
• type apc.include_once_override = 1
• press enter
• type apc.shm_size = 64
• press enter
• press esc and then type :wq to exit and save (if you mess up type :q! to quit without saving)
• service httpd stop
• service httpd start

For those that don’t need key press by key press instructions for the php.ini, here is what we added to the php.ini

extension = “apc.so”
apc.apc.stat = 0
apc.include_once_override = 1
apc.shm_size = 64

Hopefully this will help you get things started. Obviously, we are still testing and tweaking but this has provided some good improvements for a few sites that are located on a MediaTemple DV 3.5 server.

At first I began thinking about something using the Drupal search collections to perform a search and then show node results. This might be nice on a more commercial and large content site. In this case, this is a niche site and they are already doing a good job of tagging content with terms.

Thanks to a quick Google search, I found an excellent article over at DrupalEasy for creating a related nodes by term block using Views 2. (Yay! one of my favorite modules.)

For those who don’t want to type the argument code, here it is. This loads the current node object and create a string of terms. This is used to find other nodes with the same terms.


$node = node_load(arg(1));
if($node && $node->taxonomy) {
foreach($node->taxonomy as $term) { $terms[] = $term->tid; }
return implode('+', $terms);
} else { return; }


Now in my case, I also did not want the currently viewed node to show up in the list. (That would be weird.) So, add another argument for Node: nid. Set the option to provide a default argument if argument is not present. Then set the default argument type to Node ID from URL and finally check the box to exclude the argument.

That check box can be misread. It is not saying that it is going to exclude the argument such that the argument has no bearing on the query. Instead it means that it will use the argument to exclude results with this argument value. (Just a little something with the words used.)

Really, the only other changes I made was to add the node type to the fields displayed and I wanted to be sure we didn’t always see the same results for each node. So, I added a “Global: Random” sort criteria to the view. This way I get a random set of nodes to display as related content. Keeps things a little more fresh that way.

13 minutes later, my block is showing related content by term.

Now, if you only want to consider a particular vocabulary, the PHP argument code is different.


$node = node_load(arg(1));
if ($node) {
$terms = taxonomy_node_get_terms_by_vocabulary($node, 1);
return $terms[1]->tid;
}
return false;


Blessings.

Photo by bas:il

Thanks to Google (NOT Bing. haha) we found a great little approach that was quickly placed into a Drupal template file.

if (@GetImageSize("http://www.testdomain.com/testimage.gif")) {
  echo "image exists";
} else {
  echo "image does not exist";
}

And according to the site, if you do not have GD installed you can try this code:

if (@fclose(@fopen("http://www.testdomain.com/testimage.gif", "r"))) {
  echo "image exists";
} else {
  echo "image does not exist";
}

We took the concept of the GetImageSize function to handily render web thumb shots from an external service, only if a valid image exists. This way we don’t show broken images to those Internet Explorer users.

via Developer Blog » Check if external image exists.

PLEASE NOTE: Inquiries are via email to Dave Mutchler (dave_mutchler@tsco.org)

Responsibilities: Manage existing websites: www.theseedcompany.org ; www.oneverse.org. Collaborate with other team members to revise and extend capability of the website and email communications in ways that strengthen partnership between investors and translation projects. Deliver and maintain content management system to improve quality and scalability of web, print and email communications. Develop and execute strategies for web-based tools that improve staff productivity.  Degree in Computer Science or equivalent experience. MCSD certification recommended. Experience with web development technologies. Competencies in MS Office applications and/or Open Office.

1. Work experience in e-communications design and programming.
2. Experience integrating content management/workflow.
3. Knowledgeable about back-end database programming for a database driven website.
4. Ability to plan and manage project delivery.
5. Knowledge of commonly used concepts, practices, and procedures in information systems.
6. Good communicator in person, on phone, and by email.
7. Responsive to organizational needs.

Minimum one year experience developing web applications. Experience with php, ajax, MySQL, and/or Drupal is a plus.

Contact Info: Email resume and cover letter to:  dave_mutchler@tsco.org

Comments: The Seed Company is an affiliate of Wycliffe Bible Translators and seeks to make employment decisions in accordance with applicable federal and state employment discrimination laws and regulations. As a religious organization, The Seed Company is entitled to make employment decisions on the basis of religious beliefs and practices of the applicant or employee. All positions require a personal commitment to Christ, evidenced by personal testimony and identification with a local church.

I was so excited, I couldn’t wait to try it out. So, nothing too empirical other than firebug net download times with my browser cache cleaned out.

Test Instance with 8 blocks making up a single node page with 100 generated users.
* Before the optimizer was enabled: avg. 4.4 secs total
* After the optimizer was enabled: avg. 2.9 secs total

The change boils down to this:

Open your php.ini file for editing (KB: (gs) HOWTO: edit php.ini). Add these lines:

For PHP4 (Replace the x.x-x with the version number you want to use.)

> zend_optimizer.optimization_level=15
> zend_extension=”/usr/local/php-4.x.x-x/zend/ZendOptimizer.so”

For PHP5 (Replace the x.x-x with the version number you want to use.)

> zend_optimizer.optimization_level=15
> zend_extension=”/usr/local/php-5.x.x-x/zend/ZendOptimizer.so”

Save the changes and quit.

That’s a decent improvement with all things considered. There are plenty of other optimization items that can be done, but since this site provide zero income, I’m not ready to pay any more for some of those non-free options.

I guess that leaves me with Drupal caching support, ZendOptimizer and MySQL Table optimization and indexing. No MySQL containers for me. If I ever move, it will probably be straight to a (dv).

Blessings!