Announcement

Diving into Drupal 8

Laura — Wed, 17 Feb 2016 20:56:03 +0000

Diving into Drupal 8

We monkeys are re-designing our site and using Drupal 8 for the first time! We've been watching the progress and are excited to test it out. Dave will be writing about the technical side; documenting his challenges and successes. He's been working with Drupal since 2007 and version 4.7. Personally, I started using it actively in November of 2008 but initially I was only adding content in the form of galleries and blog posts to my art website.

Now I'm considerably more involved in the backend: installing and configuring modules; SEO optimization; and social media integration.

Since I'm not sure what we'll be encountering along the way, I'll share with you some of the functionality I'm curious about:

WYSIWYG text editors. Dave likes to write his blogs in code, but for me and most of our clients, a functional, user friendly, customizable WYSIWYG editor is critical.
Non-text content. How will Drupal 8 work for different content types: embedded videos, GIFs, slideshows, inserted images. What mobile challenges might we encounter with the different file types?
Any new ways to ensure content is easily shareable and discoverable? Specifically how social network cards, metatags, RSS feeds, and XML site maps are currently the backbone of that structure.
eCommerce solutions. We have three client sites with online shops; how will Drupal 8 integrate with external payment systems, SSL certificates, and how easy will it be to migrate over.

Dave set up our dev environment yesterday, and I must say that my initial reaction is positive! In regards to the general backend, it's clean and the placement of menus is familiar. I was disappointed that drop down menus were still not part of the core and found Admin Toolbar to add that functionality. For our Drupal 7 sites, we are using Adminimal, but it did not play well with the dropdown menu, so other than that we're using the basic back end.

The most impressive thing for me is the "Quick Edit" function which allows users to edit directly on the view screen; woohoo, inline editing!. From the other side of the office, Dave is grumbling a bit as the first content migration is missing some of our data.

Some other questions we hope to answer during our initial prodding:

How difficult will it be to migrate custom built tools?
How much of our existing schema and content can be easily migrated?
How difficult will it be to import or recreate Features from Drupal 7?
Will user permissions be similar to Drupal 7 or will we have to rebuild/rework the permissions grids?

Stay tuned for our adventures learning Drupal 8!

Laura Wed, 02/17/2016 - 12:56

Drupal 8

Re-design

Announcement

Designing for the New Facebook Fan Page

Laura — Tue, 10 Jun 2014 16:53:20 +0000

Designing for the New Facebook Fan Page

We finally got the new Facebook design, so we updated our page! Check it out! We've included a free Illustrator template at the bottom to help you layout your own pages.

Profile Picture

Another chance to use our new bolder monkey head. The recommended upload size is 180 x 180 pixels and it will be displayed at 160 x 160 pixels with a 5 pixel white border.

Cover Photo

Although the actual image sizes didn't change, the new layout hides part of the cover photo with buttons. The cover photo is still 815 x 315 pixels, but the viewable area is partially obscured across the bottom by the profile picture, page name, the buttons, and page info. I like to keep the main content in the 656 x 236 pixel active area shown below, although clearly there is additional space above the profile photo. Keep it bold and clean! A cluttered cover photo can detract from your content and will look especially poor on mobile devices. Here's a free Illustrator template.

While updating your graphics, it's a good time to make sure they comply with Facebook's guidelines.

Laura Tue, 06/10/2014 - 09:53

Attached files

Free Facebook Illustrator Template by Monkeys at Keyboards

Template

Facebook

Announcement

Designing for the New Twitter Layout

Laura — Wed, 30 Apr 2014 21:41:05 +0000

Designing for the New Twitter Layout

I just updated our Twitter page! Check it out!

The new much larger logo really shows off our new bolder monkey head. Soon you'll see it on our website and other social network pages.

The recommended upload size is 400 x 400 pixels. I left a margin so that the logo has breathing room.

Twitter sizes the top banner at 1500x500, The actual viewable area is quite a bit shorter due to the top margin of 46px.

Of course we chose our monkey orange for a theme color.

I especially like the pin a tweet feature! I'll be using it for this post.

This post edited by the Revise It! Team.

Laura Wed, 04/30/2014 - 14:41

Twitter

Announcement

Now Accepting Bitcoin!

Laura — Mon, 21 Apr 2014 22:01:11 +0000

Now Accepting Bitcoin!

We are now accepting Bitcoin payments! Developing and testing a Bitcoin eCommerce environment for one of our client has inspired us to join!

"Bitcoin uses peer-to-peer technology to operate with no central authority or banks; managing transactions and the issuing of bitcoins is carried out collectively by the network. Bitcoin is open-source; its design is public, nobody owns or controls Bitcoin and everyone can take part. Through many of its unique properties, Bitcoin allows exciting uses that could not be covered by any previous payment system." - Bitcoin.org

Laura Mon, 04/21/2014 - 15:01