Blog

Using Feature Flags with Sculpin

How I've started using feature flags within a client's Sculpin website.

My first six months at Transport for Wales

It's been a busy six months since I started working as a Lead Software Developer at Transport for Wales.

Introducing a Drupal distribution for meetup websites

I'm starting development on a new Drupal distribution for building meetup group websites.

Continuous Integration vs Continuous Integration

My views on the definitions of "continuous integration".

Weeknotes: July 24th

Windows utilities, continuous integration and delivery, and writing tests.

Going "Full Vim" for my development work

I've recently been using Neovim for all of my coding, as well as for my blog posts and slide decks.

Weeknotes: June 12th

Developing on Windows, organising dotfiles, and helping organise DrupalCon.

Weeknotes: June 5th

Starting at Transport for Wales.

Presenting from PDF slides using pdfpc (PDF Presenter Console)

My notes from using pdfpc (PDF Presenter Console).

Published my first Docker images on Docker Hub (ADR Tools, Sculpin, rst2pdf)

I recently released my first images to the Docker Hub, for ADR Tools, the Sculpin site generator, and rst2pdf.

Docker resources

A list of Docker resources that I've compiled.

Decorating an Entity Metadata Wrapper to add and refactor methods

How to use the Decorator design pattern with Drupal 7's EntityMetadataWrapper to extend it, and add and refactor custom methods.

Cleanly retrieving user profile data using an Entity Metadata Wrapper

How to use Drupal 7's EntityMetadataWrapper to cleanly retrieve user profile field data.

Survey results from my DrupalCon Europe session (Test-Driven Drupal)

Here are the results from the session survey for my DrupalCon session (Test-Driven Drupal) on Drupal automated testing and test-driven development.

Test-Driven Drupal presentation from DrupalCon Europe

Links to the video and slides from my automated testing session from DrupalCon Europe.

Ignoring PHPCS sniffs for PHPUnit tests

How to exclude certain PHPCS sniffs within your PHPUnit tests, so that you can write your tests methods how you'd like without getting coding standards errors.

Drupal automated testing workshop notes

If you attended my automated testing with Drupal workshop this weekend, here are the links.

UIs that I've Rebuilt with Tailwind CSS

A collection of all of the UIs that I've rebuilt using Tailwind CSS for talk demos etc.

Upgrading the Dransible project to Drupal 9

How I recently upgraded the Dransible example project from Drupal 8.8 to 9.0.

Renaming gray to grey in Tailwind CSS

How to change the colour "gray" to "grey" in Tailwind CSS.

Interview with a Drupal Expert (with Code Enigma)

I recently did an interview with Code Enigma for their blog.

Creating a custom PHPUnit command for DDEV

How to create a custom command to run PHPUnit commands in DDEV.

Migrating to Drupal 8: Introduction

An introduction to the 'Migrating to Drupal 8' blog post series.

Coloured output with PHPUnit and GitHub Actions

How to have colours in your PHPUnit output when running with GitHub Actions.

Streaming with Spabby (Gary Hockin) about Drupal

I recently joined my friend Gary on his stream to discuss Drupal.

Speaking at DrupalCon Europe 2020

I'm excited to be speaking again at DrupalCon, this time online at DrupalCon Europe.

10 years working full time with Drupal and PHP

10 years ago today, I started working for Horse & Country TV in what was my full-time Drupal development role.

Speaking remotely during COVID-19

I've been quite busy during this lockdown, giving talks remotely at conferences and user groups.

My first blog post published for Inviqa

My first blog post has been published on the inviqa.com website.

Presenting on Tailwind CSS and Ansible at CMS Philly

I'll be presenting on Tailwind CSS and deployments with Ansible at CMS Philly on May 1st.

Test-Driven Drupal on Gitstore and Leanpub

The work-in-progress codebase for the example application is now on Gitstore.

Using the pcss extension for PostCSS with Webpack Encore

How to use the .pcss file extension for PostCSS files with Webpack Encore.

Running Drupal 8.8 with the Symfony Local Server

How to use Symfony's local web server to run a Drupal 8.8 website.

Testing Workshop at DrupalCamp London 2020

This year, I’m teaching a workshop at DrupalCamp London.

Using PSR-4 Autoloading for your Drupal 7 Test Cases

How to use the PSR-4 autoloading standard for Drupal 7 Simpletest test cases.

Live Blogging From SymfonyLive London 2019

Speaking at DrupalCon Amsterdam

I’m going to be attending DrupalCon Europe again this year, but for the first time as a speaker.

Using Transition Class Props in Vue.js

Adam Wathan shows a more Tailwind-esque approach to writing Vue.js transitions.

Test-Driven Ansible Role Development with Molecule

Some resources that I found for testing Ansible roles with a tool called Molecule.

Speakers and sessions announced for DrupalCamp Bristol 2019

DrupalCamp Bristol is returning next month, and the accepted speakers and sessions have just been announced.

Testing Tailwind CSS plugins with Jest

How to write tests for Tailwind CSS plugins using Jest.

Restructuring my tailwind.js configuration files

How I’ve started structuring my tailwind.js configuration files in preparation for Tailwind 1.0.

Easier Git Repository Cloning with insteadOf

How to simplify 'git clone' commands by using the insteadOf configuration option within your .gitconfig file.

Rebuilding Bartik (Drupal’s Default Theme) with Vue.js and Tailwind CSS - part 2

A follow-up to my original post on rebuilding Bartik with Tailwind and Vue.js.

Published my first NPM package

Yesterday I published my first module onto NPM, and it’s a plugin for Tailwind CSS to be used alongside Vue.js.

Rebuilding Bartik (Drupal’s Default Theme) with Vue.js and Tailwind CSS

How I rebuilt Drupal’s Bartik theme using Vue.js and Tailwind CSS.

DrupalCamp London 2019 - Tickets Available and Call for Sessions

DrupalCamp London early-bird tickets are now available, and their call for sessions is open.

Debugging Drupal Commerce Promotions and Adjustments using Illuminate Collections (Drupal 8)

Using Laravel’s Illuminate Collections to debug an issue with a Drupal Commerce promotion.

Quick Project Switching in PhpStorm

How to quickly switch between projects in PhpStorm.

Examples of using Laravel Collections in Drupal

Some examples of using Laravel’s Illuminate Collections within Drupal projects.

Experimenting with events in Drupal 8

Trying a different way of structuring Drupal modules, using event subscribers and autowiring.

Null Users and System Users in Drupal

Announcing the Null User and System User modules.

Drupal 8 Commerce: Fixing 'No Such Customer' error on checkout

Fixing a Drupal Commerce error when a user tries to complete a checkout.

Croeso PHP South Wales!

Last night was the first meetup of Cardiff’s PHP South Wales user group.

How to run Drupal 8 PHPUnit Tests within Docksal from PhpStorm

How to configure PhpStorm to run automated tests within Docksal.

Drupal Bristol Testing Workshop

Yesterday evening, I did my first workshop, held at the Drupal Bristol user group.

How to Use Environment Variables for your Drupal Settings with Docksal

How to leverage environment variables with Drupal and Docksal.

Creating a Custom PHPUnit Command for Docksal

How to write custom commands for Docksal, including one to easily run PHPUnit tests in Drupal 8.

Back to the future with Git’s diff and apply commands

How to revert files using Git, but as a new commit to prevent force pushing.

How to put your PHP application in a subdirectory of another site with Nginx

How to configure Nginx to serve a PHP application from within a subdirectory of another.

How to split a new Drupal contrib project from within another repository

How to use Git to split a directory from within an existing repository into it’s own.

Drupal 8.5.0 Released

This week, the latest version of Drupal 8 was released.

Tweets from DrupalCamp London

I wasn’t able to make it to DrupalCamp London, but here are some of the tweets that I saw.

Yay, the Mediacurrent Contrib Half Hour is Back!

Mediacurrent’s "contrib half hour sessions" are back.

Building the new PHPSW Website

Earlier this week we had another hack night, working on the new PHPSW user group website.

Queuing Private Messages in Drupal 8

Introducing the Private Message Queue module for Drupal 8.

Looking forward to DrupalCamp London

This weekend is DrupalCamp London 2018. I’ll be there along with a number of my Microserve colleagues.

Using Tailwind CSS in your Drupal Theme

What is Tailwind CSS, and how do I use it in Drupal theme?

DrupalCamp Bristol 2018 Statement

Unfortunately, we won’t be running DrupalCamp Bristol this year.

Writing a new Drupal 8 Module using Test-Driven Development (TDD)

How to write automated tests and follow test driven development for Drupal modules.

Publishing Sculpin Sites with GitHub Pages

How I moved my website to GitHub pages.

Introducing the Drupal Meetups Twitterbot

I’ve written a twitterbot for promoting Drupal meetups.

Turning Your Custom Drupal Module into a Feature

How to turn a custom Drupal module into a Feature.

DrupalCamp Bristol 2017 - Early Bird Tickets, Call for Sessions, Sponsors

In less than two months time, DrupalCamp Bristol will be back for our third year.

Fixing Drupal SimpleTest issues inside Docker Containers

How I managed to get my Drupal SimpleTest tests to run and pass within Docker containers.

Nginx Redirects With Query String Arguments

How to redirect from an old domain to a new one, and also to redirect from the root example.com domain to the canonical www subdomain.

Easier Sculpin Commands with Composer and NPM Scripts

In this video, I show you how I've simplied my Sculpin and Gulp workflow using custom Composer and NPM scripts.

Drupal VM Generator 2.9.1 Released

I’ve released some new versions of the Drupal VM Generator.

Building Gmail Filters with PHP

How to use PHP to generate and export filters for Gmail.

Simplifying Drupal Migrations with xautoload

How to use the xautoload module to autoload migration classes within your Drupal 7 migration modules.

Announcing the Drupal VM Generator

For the past few weeks, I’ve been working on a personal side project based on Drupal VM - the Drupal VM Generator.

Programmatically Load an Entityform in Drupal 7

How to programmatically load, render and embed an entityform in Drupal 7.

Automating Sculpin Builds with Jenkins CI

How to use Jenkins to automate building Sculpin websites.

Sculpin and Twig Resources

A list of resources that I compiled whilst preparing for my Sculpin and Twig talk at DrupalCamp North.

Updating Forked Repositories on GitHub

I just had to update a repo that I forked on GitHub. This is how I did it. Did I do it the correct way?

How to Define a Minimum Drupal Core Version

How to define a minimum Drupal core version for your module or theme.

2014

A look back at 2014.

Include a Local Drupal Settings file for Environment Configuration and Overrides

How to create and include a local settings file to define and override environment-specific variables.

Include environment-specific settings files on Pantheon

How to load a different settings file per environment on Pantheon.

Using Remote Files when Developing Locally with Stage File Proxy Module

How to install and configure the Stage File Proxy module to serve remote images on your local Drupal site.

Include CSS Fonts by Using a SASS each Loop

How to use an SASS each loop to easily add multiple fonts to your CSS.

Updating Features and Adding Components Using Drush

How to update features on the command line using Drush.

How to fix Vagrant Loading the Wrong Virtual Machine

Here are the steps that I took to fix Vagrant and point it back at the correct VM.

git format-patch is your Friend

An explanation of the "git format-patch" command, and how it could be used in Drupal's Git workflow.

Thanks

Thanks everyone or their comments about my move to the Drupal Association.

Drupal Association

Next week, I'll be working for the Drupal Association.

DrupalCamp London: What is Git Flow?

Here are my slides from my "What is Git Flow?" session at DrupalCamp London.

DrupalCamp London 2014

It's all booked, I'm going to be attending DrupalCamp London.

Some Useful Git Aliases

Here are some bash aliases that I use and find helpful for quickly writing Git and Git Flow commands.

Download Different Versions of Drupal with Drush

How to download different versions of Drupal core using Drush.

Quickly Apply Patches Using Git and curl or wget

How to quickly download a patch file and apply it to a Git repository in one line.

Useful Vagrant Commands

Here are the basic commands that you need to adminster a virtual machine using <a href="http://vagrantup.com" title="The Vagrant Home page">Vagrant</a>.

Don't Bootstrap Drupal, Use Drush

Avoid bootstrapping Drupal manually in your scratch files - Drush has you covered!

Create a Zen Sub-theme Using Drush

How to quickly create a Zen sub-theme using Drush.

Going to DrupalCon

Precedent are sending myself and two of our other Drupal Developers to Drupalcon Prague.

Creating Local and Staging sites with Drupal's Domain Module Enabled

How to use aliases within Domain module for pre-production sites.

Some useful links for using SimpleTest in Drupal

Here are some useful links that I've found when researching about unit testing in Drupal using SimpleTest.

Display Git Branch or Tag Names in your Bash Prompt

Whilst watching Drupalize.me's recent Introduction to Git series, I thought it was useful the way that the current Git branch or tag name was displayed in the bash prompt. Here's how to do it.

Leaving Nomensa, Joining Precedent

Yesterday was my last day working at Nomensa. Next week, I'll be starting as a Senior Developer at Precedent.

The Quickest way to Install Sublime Text 2 in Ubuntu

After reading numerous blog posts about how to install Sublime Text 2 in Ubuntu, this is definitely the quickest way!

Creating and using custom tokens in Drupal 7

This post outlines the steps required to create your own custom tokens in Drupal.

Checking if a user is logged into Drupal (the right way)

How to check if a user is logged in by using Drupal core API functions.

How to use SASS and Compass in Drupal 7 using Sassy

Use PHPSass and the Sassy module to use Sass and Compass in your Drupal theme.

Open Sublime Text 2 from the Mac OS X Command Line

How to open Sublime Text from the command line.

Accessible Bristol site launched

I'm happy to report that the Accessible Bristol was launched this week, on Drupal 7.

My Sublime Text 2 settings

<a href="http://www.sublimetext.com/2" title="Sublime Text 2">Sublime Text 2</a> has been my text editor of choice for the past few months, and I use it at home, in work, and on any virtual machines that I run. So rather than having to manually re-enter my settings each time, I thought that I'd document them here for future reference.

Reflections on speaking at UnifiedDiff

Yesterday evening I went along and spoke at the UnifiedDiff meetup in Cardiff.

Display a Custom Menu in a Drupal 7 Theme Template File

The code needed to display a menu in a Drupal 7 template file.

Writing an Article for Linux Journal

I'm absolutely delighted to announce that I'm going to be writing an article for Linux Journal magazine's upcoming Drupal special.

Install and Configure the Nomensa Accessible Media Player in Drupal

This week I released the first version of the Nomensa Accessible Media Player module for Drupal 7. Here's some instructions of how to install and configure it.

My new Drupal modules

After a busy few days, I've released two new contrib Drupal modules.

Dividing Drupal's process and preprocess functions into separate files

If you use a lot of process and preprocess functions within your Drupal theme, then your template.php can get very long and it can become difficult to find a certain piece of code. Following the example of the Omega theme, I've started separating my process and preprocess functions into their own files.

Writing a .info file for a Drupal 7 theme

An example .info file for a Drupal 7 theme.

Prevent Apache from displaying text files within a web browser

How to prevent Apache from displaying the contents of files like CHANGELOG.txt.

How to add a date popup calendar onto a custom form

How to use a date popup calendar within your custom module.

Forward one domain to another using mod_rewrite and .htaccess

How to use the .htaccess file to forward to a different domain.

Checkout a specific revision from SVN from the command line

How to checkout a specific revision from a SVN (Subversion) repository.

Adding Custom Theme Templates in Drupal 7

Today, I had a situation where I was displaying a list of teasers for news article nodes. The article content type had several different fields assigned to it, including main and thumbnail images. In this case, I wanted to have different output and fields displayed when a teaser was displayed compared to when a complete node was displayed.

Installing Nagios on CentOS

How to install Nagios on CentOS.

Create an Omega Subtheme with LESS CSS Preprocessor using Omega Tools and Drush

How to create an Omega subtheme on the command line using Drush.

How to use Authorized Keys to Create a Passwordless SSH Connection

How to generate a SSH key, and how to use to log in to a server using SSH without entering a password.

Site Upgraded to Drupal 7

As the vast majority of the Drupal websites that I currently work on are built on Drupal 7, I thought that it was time that I upgraded this site.

How to Install and Configure Subversion (SVN) Server on Ubuntu

How to install and configure your own SVN server.

Create Multigroups in Drupal 7 using Field Collections

How to replicate CCK’s multigroups in Drupal 7 using the Field Collections module.

Imagefield Import Archive

I've finally uploaded my first module onto Drupal.org!

Proctors Hosting the next Drupal Meetup

Proctor & Stevenson are going to be hosting the next Bristol & South West Drupal meetup.

Proctor & Stevenson

I’m moving jobs.

Display the Number of Facebook fans in PHP

How to use PHP to display the number of fans of a Facebook page.

Easily Embed TypeKit Fonts into your Drupal Website

How to use the @font-your-face module to embed TypeKit fonts into your Drupal website.

Use Regular Expressions to Search and Replace in Coda or TextMate

How to perform searches using regular expressions.

Create a Better Photo Gallery in Drupal - Part 2.1

The missing code to get totals of galleries and photos.

Create a Better Photo Gallery in Drupal - Part 3

Grouping galleries by category.

How to Create and Apply Patches

How to create and apply patches, ready for the Drupal.org issue queues.

The Inaugural Meetup for the South Wales Drupal User Group

If you do Drupal and you're in the area, come and join us for the first SWDUG meetup!

Review of the Image Caption Module

My review of Drupal’s Image Caption module.

Create a Better Photo Gallery in Drupal - Part 2

Updating the galleries’ created and modified dates.

Create a Better Photo Gallery in Drupal - Part 1

How I started converting and migrating a Coppermine photo gallery into Drupal.

Review of the Admin:hover Module

My review of Drupal’s admin:hover module.

Review of the Teleport Module

My review of Drupal’s Teleport module.

Add a Taxonomy Term to Multiple Nodes Using SQL

How to add a new taxonomy term to multiple nodes in Drupal using SQL.

Create Virtual Hosts on Mac OS X Using VirtualHostX

How to use the VirtualHostX application to manage virtual hosts on Mac OS X.

Change the Content Type of Multiple Nodes Using SQL

In this post, I will be changing values within my Drupal 6 site's database to quickly change the content type of multiple nodes.

Create a Flickr Photo Gallery Using Feeds, CCK and Views

In this tutorial, I'll show you how to create a photo gallery which uses photos imported from Flickr.

10 Useful Drupal 6 Modules

A list of 10 contributed modules that I currently use on each Drupal project.

Create a Block of Social Media Icons using CCK, Views and Nodequeue

How to create a block of social media icons in Drupal.

Improve JPG Quality in Imagecache and ImageAPI

How to fix the quality of uploaded images in Drupal.

Quickly Import Multiples Images Using the Imagefield_Import Module

How to use the Imagefield Import module.

Create a Slideshow of Multiple Images Using Fancy Slide

How to create a slideshow of images using Drupal’s Fancy Slide module.

Quickly Create Zen Subthemes Using Zenophile

How to use the Zenophile module to create a Zen subtheme.

Conditional Email Addresses in a Webform

How to send webform emails to a different email address based on another field.

Using ImageCache and ImageCrop for my Portfolio

How to create thumbnail images using the ImageCache and ImageCrop modules.

Style Drupal 6's Taxonomy Lists with PHP, CSS and jQuery

Getting started with Drupal theming by styling Drupal’s taxonomy lists.