It's the little details that make the difference in a clunky design and one that communicates with brevity and elegance. One thing that I've always hated in my Drupal blog is the wordiness of my author/date/comment line. You know what I'm talking about. In node.tpl.php it's the stuff you get when you print out $links.
Well, I resolved to make things cleaner in the next blog theme I work on, so that I can get displays more like this:
By jibbajabba on 21 Feb | 1 comment
Rather than this:
February 21, 2007 - 10:06am
jibbajabba's blog | 1 comment
I know it seems like such a minor thing, but it's little things like wanting to change that, but being too lazy to go figure out how to do it that keep me using the default display in my themes. Well, no more. On the bike blog (Love & Sprockets) I'm going to do it this way:
By <?php print $name; ?> on <?php print format_date($node->created, 'custom', 'd M'); ?> |
<?php
print $comment_count . ' comment';
if ($comment_count != 1) { print 's'; }
?>Or using the format_plural function, which chx pointed out:
By <?php print $name; ?> on <?php print format_date($node->created, 'custom', 'd M'); ?> |
<?php print format_plural($comment_count, '1 comment', '@count comments'); ?>Ahhh. I feel better now.
Comments
02/22/07 @ 20:23
Agreed. After working with Drupal a ton I think the hardest thing about it is the styling.
02/22/07 @ 23:11
I just want to say that the theme of loveandsprockets.com is fantastic. Did you start that theme from scratch?
02/23/07 @ 08:47
@Lync: Thanks! Yes, it's a PHP Template theme that I designed.
02/23/07 @ 20:24
I advise looking at format_plural, format_plural($comment_count, '1 comment', '@count comments') -- this is shorter and translateable while at it. A template written for any recent Drupal version (4.7+) does not need $node-> in templates, I think.
02/24/07 @ 07:15
Thanks, chx. That's much cleaner.
02/26/07 @ 01:18
Do you know if this works with Drupal 5.1?
I tried it (and a couple of variations) and it looks like the comment_count variable is dead, or maybe it's just my install.
02/26/07 @ 05:50
Yes, you are right. The display of author and date looks much better this way. Now it is reduced to the real important parameters.
03/01/07 @ 11:39
There are lots of variations to reduce text, but leave all information
04/22/07 @ 12:49
Looks better now.
These little details are easily configured in Drupal so it's not a problem :)
05/26/07 @ 14:20
Have you enabled the comment module.
As I know, the comment module is "responsible" for this.
08/09/07 @ 04:27
I tried it (and a couple of variations) and it looks like the comment_count variable is dead, or maybe it's just my install.
09/05/07 @ 16:53
And we the situation, if my skin is .theme?
09/05/07 @ 17:43
Sorry, can't help you there. I'd ask your question on drupal.org in the theme section.
01/21/08 @ 00:08
Good stuff! I love Drupal.
Justin
02/26/08 @ 10:42
Actually, drupal is the best cms out there.
02/27/08 @ 09:25
Hi,
Pardon my ignorance, i see drupal sites looking like typical wordpress blogs. Drupal users however swear that it is superior. Care to enlightenment me?
Thanks.
02/27/08 @ 11:03
It really depends on what your needs are. If you want a simple blog, Wordpress may work for you. If you want more, then you have to do your research. There are a lot of articles and blog entries out there that will give you all the info you need to do a comparison, but it really comes down to requirements.
Google Drupal vs. WordPress
This site is really just a simple blog. But what makes it different, in my opinion, is how I handle sections and do classification of content. I wouldn't be able to do a lot of the classification / tagging of content I do here on a WordPress blog. I have deployed several WordPress sites for clients, and it really comes down to what your needs are.
03/28/08 @ 20:08
Thanks a lot, I searched on drupal.org and searched and tried and tried. Hours now. I should have found this post earlier.
04/27/08 @ 17:36
From my experience in drupal 5, the date is showm when $submitted is printed by PHP -- Not $links.
Maybe you could edit your post to reflect that, could be confusing for newbies.
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