Web Design & Development Articles
Insights and advice to help you keep up with the increasingly fast pace of change in web design, brand design and social & digital media marketing.
26/09/2018Best Modules for Drupal 8
Following our article 16 of the best Drupal 7 Modules, here is an up-to-the minute list of the best Drupal 8 modules. These are the ones we know will be vital on nearly any web design and development project.
Best Modules for Drupal 8 Admin ToolbarReplacing our old favourite 'admin menu' this module along with the Adminimal theme and the 'adminimal toolbar' module are a pleasure to work… Read More
18/09/2018Site Launch: The Swim School
We've just launched another site for a thriving Wiltshire business. This is a Drupal 8 site for a Westbury-based company offering swimming classes with locations across the north and south of England.
04/09/2018Migrating Turtlereality from Drupal 7 to Drupal 8
Over the Summer we've been busy behind the scenes upgrading turtlereality.com from Drupal 7 state to Drupal 8 - and it's been an interesting and enlightening process!
The Drupal migration system is not quite in its finished state, but it's useable enough for simple sites without too many complex data types or data display scenarios. The turtlereality.com site is fairly simple - compared to most of the sites we build for clients - there are a few data types and only a handful of different display types, which currently have to be… Read More
04/09/2018GDPR - A new Era for Data
The great GDPR rush is now, more or less, over. The email torrent reduces to a trickle and we have a chance to reflect on what it all means!
Last weekend I spent a number of hours dismantling the 30 or so hard drives that I've had stashed in a box in the office. These represent all of the computer upgrades that I've done since I started building PCs from components in about 1994(ish). Every obsolete hard disk was saved rather than binned because I couldn't quite figure out what to do with them - and so a huge store of data mounted up… Read More
04/09/2018Git submodules, Composer and DeployHQ
After enormous amounts of frustration, I've finally worked out a recipe for setting up Drupal development websites working with composer, git and deployHQ - the submodules were the fly in the ointment, here is how to work with them.
First, create a new Drupal web development project using composer
>$ composer create-project drupal-composer/drupal-project:8.x-dev my_site_name_dir --stability dev --no-interaction
Next, rename web to public_html - so it plays nicely with… Read More
04/04/2018Drupalgeddon 2 Averted - or How we Patched Everything in 2 Hours
Last week we had advanced warning of a critical security update to Drupal core versions 6, 7 and 8. The message was that we should do these updates immediately as a remotely exploitable hole was being fixed.
The patches were due for release at 7pm GMT and we waited with developers across the world as the Drupal site crashed briefly. By 8pm we had the new code and by 10pm all of our sites were either patched with the short term fix supplied by Drupal or updated to the new secure release.
The whole process was handled very… Read More
03/04/2018GDPR and Your Website
Disclaimer - this article is intended as a guide to how we may be able to help you comply with GDPR (General Data Protection Regulation). It does not in any way constitute legal advice. Introduction Data Protection law is changing on 25 May 2018. Organisations need to be ready for the EU's General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). This article is a guide as to how we may be able to help you get your website ready for GDPR compliance. It relates mainly to clients with Drupal and/or … Read More
09/03/2018Site Launch: Real Cooking
A first for Turtlereality! This is a Wix site for a local event caterer. Wix is a DIY drag-and-drop out-of-the-box website builder that could be a good option for businesses who are working to a smaller budget. And if you don't have time to do it yourself we can help you out and build the site for you. This is a basic one page site using one of Wix's many great templates. Drawbacks are limited functionality and scope for design but it's great for simple sites to get you online.
09/03/2018Site Launch: MH Consult
MH Consult are a longstanding client, we made their first website nearly 10 years ago, followed up by ugrading the site to Drupal 7 about 5 years ago.
We've now brought them right up-to-date with a Drupal 8 site that comes with what should be standard features these days; mobile-friendly, fast to load and highly secure.
The site showcases courses offered and has some great articles on navigating your way through the world of business. Check out Michael's books too including "Dragons’ Den: Grow Your Business: How to… Read More
31/01/2018Site launch: Olhoc Cowley
Another new site launch for a brand new client - https://olhoccowley.co.uk/
The website is built using Drupal 8 and features all the kind of things you would expect from a modern site - mobile friendly, fast loading, highly secure - plus a fully featured events calendar.
We've also created a set of email newsletter templates to help the church administrators connect with the community.