Images not showing up in Ubercart site – Problem solved!

So I have fixed the problem that the images would not appear in my store, which I have built using Ubercart – which is awesome! So easy to use!

Anyway – the solution was soooo simple.

All I had to do was to go into module preferences and turn off ‘imagemagick’ in ‘Image API’

This is all it took. Basically it was looking for Imagemagick when it could have been using the built in image viewer instead. It is now doing that and everything works perfectly!

The site is going really well at the moment and I really think it could actually be used as a shopping site in the future  🙂   I am also going to take a look at my parents website soon too, since they are the real reason I am learning all this stuff! I am grateful to them for that. I would never have got myself to learn these things if it weren’t for them. Don’t you just love family 😀

Good Drupal Modules

OMG, I haven’t left the house in two days! I have got a lot done tho, it has been completely worth it.

I have got a site that seems to be doing what I want it to and I got it looking kinda sweet too! (By the way – I decided to use a more developed theme to help me get it to look good, I know that I wanted to do it on my own but it seemed so daft when there are such good themes out there!)

Here is a list of the modules that I have uploaded and why-

Actually before I do – just in case I didn’t explain properly before (and to help me understand it more) I better just explain what modules are. Basically the modules in drupal are the functions that it can perform, sort of. They are activated within the administration menu and then after that more menus will appear in the admin menu and the website will be able to do more stuff.

So for example one of the core modules that comes with drupal, is the ‘poll’ module which allows you to put a poll or question on the site and then people can vote. Also there is a module for user login and search. Like, all the things you want to have on the site will be a module. And a lot of these modules will be contributed modules which means that they are made by contributers, who then allow us all to use them. So they all fit with drupal but they have to be downloaded separately from the drupal.org site. The contributed ones can be really great and I think most people do use them.

I have downloaded the following so far –

Image – This is the first module I downloaded and I did this so that I can add images to my blog posts and pages in the site.  I have later downloaded another image module. (tho not sure if it was the right thing to do yet)

Image Cache – this is the other image module that I downloaded and I did this because on Learn by The Drop it was recommended and he did a video showing how to make an image gallery by using this module.  I have not managed to get this to work tho….  but thats another story.

Image Field and Image API are another two that I got to go with image cache. It seems to be quite normal for contributed modules to work together and so you have to download one or two at a time.

Mollom – this is a security module that will protect from spam.

Path Auto – I got this to help with naming the urls for the site so that they are nice names and not node/7 or whatever.

Wysiwig – This is a ‘what you see is what you get’ module that means that I can now write blog posts and make bold and italics and stuff without using code. Makes it easier I think.

IMCE – I am not really altogether certain about this one, I downloaded it while I was doing a video tutorial and I thought it had something to do with uploading photos within the wysiwig but I am not sure now as that part of it doesn’t seem to be working terrible well.

Google Analytics – I got this so that when the site is up and running I will be able to track it well and see how it is doing.

Views – This is the module that lets you make different views like galleries I think.

Token – To be honest I can’t remember why I got this one but I think it works with another one.

Skinr – I had to get this when I got my new theme.  More about that later

Lightbox2 – I think I got this for the Image cache module but as I said thats not working so good at the moment.

Filefield – I think this goes with Image Field.

Ubercart – wow this module is sooo amazing!!!  It is like a fully set up shop!  Everything is there all ready to be customised. There are catalogues for the products, product pages where all the info is filled in, upload images, delivery prices, checkout, different payment methods. And the whole thing has real good admin with it too for all the orders and the tracking and all that. Its going to be soooo awesome – My site already looks like a shop and I haven’t even really started yet!  I love this one so much!

So yeh – those are my modules and as you can see there are a few issues that I am having so I hope to have these ironed out over the next few days or weeks or whatever.

Feels good to have made some progress.

First Bad Day

So I have just had the first sh*t day.  I feel really annoyed!

Basically I was feeling quite good about it all after creating the layout and I added firebug to my firefox and decided that I would set about adding a banner to the top of the page and changing the colour of the background. But it wasn’t that easy!

I got myself a bit confused. I actually got really really stressed out coz I couldn’t find where the html file was! I know – it seems so stupid now but I was going through all the folders for ages looking for this file ending .html or .htm. But of course there isn’t one! I feel so dum and frustrated about how much I don’t know and also a bit annoyed that I had to Skype my brother to ask him about it >-(

It was ok tho – he was real nice about it and explained a few things to me that I didn’t really know before so I guess I benefited from swallowing my pride and asking him and I guess I will have to do it again about a million times because I’ve set myself such a mammoth task!!

What he explained to me in simple terms, was that php is just a scripting language and that erm… it sorta has rules in it like “if this happens, then this happens” I think. And so there is no physical html file, there are just these php files that tell it what to do and also there are the css files. So he then explained that if I was to make changes to the site I will have to make changes to the .css files and that these are in a sort of heirarchy with certain files over-riding others so its important to be careful about where the changes are made. So for example I should not be making changes to the base.css file as it is (as the name says) the base. There are other files such as the style.css file that I should be looking at to make my changes. It does of course say this in the READ ME file within the themes folder but I didn’t think to read that!

So that might be a bit of a problem as I jumped in there as soon as I had firebug installed and I played about with a whole load of things in the base.css file.  Ooops

I have to tell you tho that the first thing I did was to make the changes in firebug and believe that I had changed the website, that was until I watched this video tutorial on it and realised that it only shows you what the changes would look like and I have to go manually into the file to actually implement them. I liked that video actually, it was real easy to understand. Its great that there are so many resources out there for people like me who need to learn a lot!

I realised yesterday that I am so excited to have the internet in my home and to have the time and energy to try to do something really difficult because it is giving me so much opportunity to learn and opening my eyes to what is out there! Its just amazing really. An the best thing is that even if it doesn’t work out I will still know more at the end that I do now. I kinda wish I started to get interested sooner but then I would have missed out on many hours of tv and partying 😀   There is a time and a place for everything and I think now might just be my computer time…

For a moment there I forgot how mad and frustrated I am!

I am tearing my hair out!!

Coz after all that and realising that I had been changin the wrong file, I also realised that my subtheme folder that I made seems to be in the wrong place. It is inside the themes folder but not inside the genesis theme folder. But the other sub-themes are inside the genesis folder. So I think mine is wrong.

So I just dragged it into the genesis theme folder and now its lost everything and the website is completely blank. Just a white page.  Hmmmmm

Time for that backup already?….

WHY?

Why would I try to use drupal to create my own website when I have no experience of ANYTHING website-creation related at all? Why would I not get someone else to do it for me or at least use an easier process?

Why am I trying to do something that is so time consuming and so mind-boggling and evil? Why would I do that to myself?

Well basically I gotta, coz my brother can and if he can do something then I should be able to do it too. Otherwise he will be better than me at somethign and that is NOT GONNA HAPPEN.

Except that it already has coz he has already created a website for my parent’s business using drupal, and his own website using wordpress and a whole heap of other geeky internety things.  And I have done nothing.

This is all about to change, however, as my parents have asked me to update their website for them as super-brother hasn’t got time. This is my chance to prove myself – to show that I too am capable of great geekiness!

So yeh – thats the WHY explained in general terms and I think after writing it down it is confirmed again in my mind and I feel stronger again. So all good….

But it doesn’t really make me feel any better coz I am still unsure of what I am doing, frustrated out of my mind and about to scream at the computer with extreme and unbridled RAGE!!

I am trying to learn html, css, theming and all sorts of other things that I don’t even know what they are, and its slowly killing me. I feel stupid and useless.

And yet – it can lift me u as well, its sort of addictive that feeling when something goes right. Its not like a normal victory, its a huge victory every time that something goes right! I feel great, I feel like I could take on the world. I want to do more! 

I AM the Geek, I am the drupal warrior!