Dec 31, 2020

The Accidental Coder 2021 is Here!

TAC new logotype - the rhino in running clothes
The Accidental Coder has undergone a lot of changes over the past year, not the least of which is an improved UX/CX.
Image of a megaphone.
Dec 31, 2020

A New Hope

2021 loading like an app
New Year's Eve. With this anno horribilis almost in the rearview mirror, my thoughts turn to 2021, and hope springs eternal.
The Accidental Coder and a thought bubble.
Jan 1, 2021

Cards with Randomly Selected Backgrounds

Lotto card
One of the enhancements to TAC v3 is that the cards on the home page have randomly selected backgrounds. This tutorial shows how it's done.
Image of a lecturer.
Jan 6, 2021

The Case of the Incognito Apostrophe

Cartoon apostrophe in sunglasses and spy hat
It started with a simple plain text field and quickly became a mystery...how to force twig to unmask an apostrophe.
  • Drupal 9 D9
  • Drupal 8 D8
  • twig
  • Drupal Planet
Image of an idea lightbulb.

Tip Articles

Where Are My Custom Term Fields? - 2020 Dec 30
Programmatically accessing a term value - 2019 Aug 14
Accessing subfield data in twig - 2019 Aug 14
Comment Counts in Twig - 2019 Aug 13
When Mojave's Finder Can't Find It - 2019 Jan 13
Updating to Drupal 8.5 with Composer - 2018 Mar 11
PHP - When is a Quote not a Quote - 2017 Sep 13
Computed Field - the Usual Rules Don't Apply - 2017 Jul 23
Redirecting HTTP to HTTPS - 2017 May 24
Programmatically create a term reference entity field - 2017 May 5
Don't Hack Core! - Breaking Drupal's Cardinal Rule - 2016 Mar 22
Making the ssl Connection in Drupal - 2015 Sep 22
To Be, or Not To Be: the Empty Entity Reference - 2015 Apr 9
Omitting Drupal's admin overlay from selectors - 2015 Mar 5
What a difference a space makes - 2015 Mar 2
Drupal Overrides - Comment Approval Page - 2015 Jan 9
Invoking the calling class in a static inherited environment - 2014 Dec 18
Determing if an array has duplicate values in PHP - 2014 Dec 18
In a Rush? Install with Drush! - 2014 Dec 12
roundDown for php - 2014 Dec 9
PhpStorm and xdebug in the browser - the missing instruction - 2014 Dec 5
Don't Stress Over Local Passwords - 2014 Nov 29
Vertically aligning list items - table déjà vu - 2013 Dec 31
Giving Nodes a Wardrobe - meet page_is_node() and drupal_is_front_page() - 2013 Nov 25
Drupal and permissions - avoiding 'The directory sites/default/files is not writable' error - 2012 Apr 29
Protecting menu entries in Drupal 7 - 2011 Jun 11
Swapping OpenJDK for Sun JDK on Ubuntu - 2011 Feb 6
Creating a Custom Content Type with Fields from a Drupal Module - 2011 Feb 2
Curing a Domain's Split Personality - 2011 Jan 4
Dumping a Single MySQL Table - 2010 Sep 4
On Being a Blockhead - 2010 Jul 8
No Soup for You! - 2010 Jun 18
Ubercart - There Were Problems Getting a Shipping Quote - 2010 Apr 23
Woes_0: Retrieving the CORRECT File Name in Drupal - 2010 Apr 22
Drupal - Making 2 Links from a View Field - 2010 Apr 15
Drupal - Low Memory: Not Always a WSOD - 2010 Apr 14
Drupal 6 Multi-Site...Where Are My Images? - 2010 Apr 10
The Secret to drupal_add_js - 2010 Apr 8
Fee Fid Fo Fum - Retrieving an Image with a FID in Drupal 6 - 2010 Apr 7
Where is my Drupal View pager?? - 2009 Oct 5
Theming the Drupal Views 2 Mini Pager - 2009 Jun 14
A Cleaner Gentler PHP Variable Dump - 2009 Jun 10
Dec 31, 2020

Switch to Match

PHP 8 introduces the match expression, a different take on the switch statement.
Image of a yard sale sign.

Here's some of what I've been reading in tech: 

Pattern Lab - A framework for component-based web sites
The Python Mega Course - A complete Python 3 course.
The Complete Guide to an Effective Card-Style Interface Design - Introductory design tips for card layouts.
Relationship of grid layout to other layout methods - Grid and flexbox.
  • Image of an open book. ReadMe