Drupal

Just had to post this - we'll see if my husband notices.

Planning to be in Copenhagen for the event though whether or not I attend has yet to be seen!

The update of the Sunyata Retreat Centre is complete thanks to the efforts of Heather and the centre managers Bart & Marion.  I think I can safely believe that the site is in good hands as Heather takes over some of the foreground work that I had been doing previously.

Updates: Events list, Registration Form, Admin interface, theme layout, email address, removal of repetitious information, Ability to register/book for retreats/events online via credit card or laser card, general site clean up.

Hard at work from last night and this morning on tidying up the content and layout of the Sunyata Retreat Centre with Marion's daughter Heather.  Communication is great and I'm looking forward to seeing the final product! There won't be any changes of theme but I have hot-wired things so that there is less clicking around (thanks to the criticsm of the site that Heather was good enough to write, 5 pages!).  Hopefully now things will be more streamlined. We've ripped out a lot of repeatitious links that were really unnecessary.  Now if only I can figure out how to make information appear via views in a shadowbox - that would be cool.

Another nice detail is to be able to register for retreats online using a credit card!  This was in place but we never properly converted all of the existing retreats.  There were quite a few views related issues for me to answer, especially the admin side interface so that the center has full control over all of the content! 

Finally, what to do about shrinking the number of pages with detailed content?  Well, that's Heather's department and for that I'm forever greatful!

I'll post again when the changes go live.

I've always had a bit of a problem with the layout of my site.  For one, it had a green background.  For two, as much as I liked the bookmark, there were too many colors contrasting off each other.  But most importantly the theme did not reflect the title of the site - Stars in the Sky.  A few other content issues - that I would like to invite people to post their own opinionated blogs on the site, and that the site isn't solely to sell me - but to be informative and to a purpose.  So - with all of these things in mind, I've reduced the amount of content.  To find out about me, you need to go to the "About" page.  But for all other things - there are direct links off the main page.  Colors are a splash of gold with lots of light and a white background.

In other news: Drupal 7 - Alpha has been released!  I will be slowly migrating everything to a new D7 site over the next while. 

What do you do with a tortoise stuck in its shell?  You walk around it and occasionally poke at it with a stick which will either have one of two responses of either it'll stick it's head out or stay stuck. 

This is my description of the problem of creating the right user experience / interface for creating a booking form.

1. Need to enter retreats with the ability to 'book' or submit a deposit and register.
2. Need guest to fill out a form answering questions the retreat centre needs to know about their history, preferences, etc.
3. Need to be able to track and record all this information.

Keep in mind for this application Ubercard needs to look less like a "Shopping Cart" and more like a "Donation Box".  It took me awhile to suss out what it was tht I needed. 

Prime objective: create a content type that essentially integrates the exisitng fields found in my "Retreats" content type (includes calendar, sometimes repeating dates, linking to other content type like "teacher", associated images, etc) with the fields found in an Ubercart content type (in this case cost and that lovely "Add to Donation Cart" button). 

Opening "Products" and "Retreats" and "add new content type" resulted in the forementioned "prodding a turtle with a stick".  Not to be outdone, I did a search on drupal.org and found a lovely post started by Webchick explaining the concept of the Ubercart Class - prompting me to announce my love for her via twitter!  It was literally a light bulb turning on in my head as I had wondered what these mysterious "product classes" were but was a bit afraid to 'read the manual'... (for those of you who don't know me, reading the manual is scor's job... I usually throw myself full tilt in trouble before I even look for a manual). 

So now I'm doing the obvious - having created a content type magically by defining a new product class under the Ubercart Product menu - I can now add all of the pre-existing fields to mash up my desired "Ubercart Retreat" product which can in future be used to create retreats by the site admin!

That's item #1 on my list... stay tuned for how I solve #2!