g j

g k,

g <down arrow>

g <up arrow>

The ‘g’ tells vim to move only a screen line instead of a virtual line.

$base_url = 'http://www.example.com/shared';

For the purposes of this example, say I wanted to replace the word shared with the word sample.

There are probably many ways to achieve this.  Based on last week’s experience, perhaps this is most appropriate:

:s/shared/sample

But again I found myself automatically wanting to make use of an even earlier tip.  I wanted to navigate quickly to that last word and use ‘cw’ to change it.  I couldn’t figure out how to do this quickly so I decided to look it up.  Here are some options:

$2bcw

$bbcw

Both of these options move the cursor to the end of the line ($), then back 2 words (2b or bb), then change word (cw).  Of particular interest to me here was the “b” command, which complements the “w” command nicely.

Seasoned Drupal hackers will be screaming Views at this point.  The catch is that CiviEvents are not stored as Drupal nodes, so views won’t work.  (Note:  If we were using Drupal 6.x, we could use Views 2!)

So I set about researching other solutions.  Here’s a rundown:

• CiviReport – This is the solution recommended by the CiviCRM team.  Custom reports are provided to the end-user via the Eclipse BIRT plugin
• CiviCRM Custom Search – Another solution recommended by the CiviCRM team
• Embedded SQL in a Drupal Page

I loved the simplicity of the 3rd suggestion.  No need for report viewing software.  Canned reports can just be added as Drupal pages on an ongoing basis.  Access to these reports can be provided via Drupal roles.  It seemed to be in keeping with *the Drupal way*.

Here’s my approach:

1. Create a new basic Drupal content type “Canned Report”
2. Use the Content Access module to limit access to this content type (View-only for the roles I care about)
3. Set up a Menu to list each of the “Canned Reports” – display this menu for only the roles I care about
4. Create content -> Canned Report for each of the reports my customer requires

For example:

1. Participants by Event

This report is similar to the one you get when you click CiviEvent Summary in CiviCRM.  However, it lists all events instead of the most recent:

Screenshots:

• Creating the Participants by Event Report
• Viewing the Participants by Event Report

PHP Code:

<?php
$rpt  = "<table class='canned_report'><tr>";
$rpt .= "<th>Event ID</th>";
$rpt .= "<th>Title</th>";
$rpt .= "<th>Start</th>";
$rpt .= "<th>End</th>";
$rpt .= "<th>Max. Participants</th>";
$rpt .= "<th>Total Participants</th></tr>";

$qry  = "select ev.id, ev.title, ev.start_date, ";
$qry .= "ev.end_date, ev.max_participants, ";
$qry .= "count(par.id) 'participants' ";
$qry .= "from civicrm_event as ev ";
$qry .= "left join civicrm_participant as par ";
$qry .= "on ev.id = par.event_id ";
$qry .= "group by ev.id order by ev.start_date";

$rptqry = db_query(db_rewrite_sql($qry));

while ($rptrow = db_fetch_array($rptqry)) {
   $rpt .= "<tr><td>";
   $rpt .= $rptrow["id"] . "</td><td>";
   $rpt .= $rptrow["title"] . "</td><td>";
   $rpt .= $rptrow["start_date"] . "</td><td>";
   $rpt .= $rptrow["end_date"] . "</td><td>";
   $rpt .= $rptrow["max_participants"] . "</td><td>";
   $rpt .= $rptrow["participants"] . "</td></tr>";
}
$rpt .= "</table>";
print $rpt;
?>

2. All Events by Start Date

This report is just a simple list of all CiviEvents ordered by start date.

Screenshots:

• Creating the All Events by Start Date Report
• Viewing the All Events by Start Date Report

PHP Code:

<?php
$rpt  = "<table class='canned_report'><tr>";
$rpt .= "<th>Event ID</th>";
$rpt .= "<th>Title</th>";
$rpt .= "<th>Start Date</th>";
$rpt .= "<th>Start Time</th></tr>";

$qry  = "select ev.id, ev.title, ev.start_date ";
$qry .= "from civicrm_event as ev order by ev.start_date";

$rptqry = db_query(db_rewrite_sql($qry));

while ($rptrow = db_fetch_array($rptqry)) {
   $start_date = explode(" ", $rptrow["start_date"]);
   $rpt .= "<tr><td>";
   $rpt .= $rptrow["id"] . "</td><td>";
   $rpt .= $rptrow["title"] . "</td><td>";
   $rpt .= $start_date[0]  . "</td><td>";
   $rpt .= $start_date[1] . "</td></tr>";
}
$rpt .= "</table>";
print $rpt;
?>

Notice that I included a class=”canned_report” in the table definition in the above examples.  This allows you to easily style the reports using CSS. For our client, I simply chose to let the current Drupal theme handle the styling.

Hat tip

Today I was hacking some mod_rewrite rules that looked like the following:

  # Ensure user logins occur securely
  RewriteCond %{HTTPS} off
  RewriteRule ^user https://%{HTTP_HOST}%{REQUEST_URI} [R=301,L]

  # Ensure administration pages are secure
  RewriteCond %{HTTPS} off
  RewriteRule ^admin https://%{HTTP_HOST}%{REQUEST_URI} [R=301,L]
  ... several more similar lines...

I wanted to replace the %{HTTP_HOST} with www.uoguelph.ca/.

The Solution

In a past life I would have tried a simple substituition.  In this case, I hesitated because I thought the regular expression to match %{HTTP_HOST} was going to be a little hairy.  What I tried to do instead was something like this:

1. Add www.uoguelph.ca/ to the copy buffer
2. Visually select %{HTTP_HOST}
3. Replace the visual selection with the buffer

Since I couldn’t figure out a way to do so  I ended up doing a bunch of manual text entry.  =(

The Real Solution

Coming back to the problem now, I decided to try that simple substitution command:

s/%{HTTP_HOST}/www.uoguelph.ca\//

Turns out the regular expression wasn’t so bad after all.  =)  Had I tried this in the first place I could’ve then used the dot command to repeat it on each of the lines I cared about.  

Learning from the Experience

1. KISS (Keep It Simple Stupid!)
2. Recognize the strengths of your tools and let them do what they’re good at

Note:

Astute readers may notice that I was hard coding the URL in those rewrite rults.  Don’t ask!  

(If you’re an expert mod_rewriter, please feel free to give me some pointers.)

*

So simple.   But that’s part of the point of this series.  To learn easier ways of accomplishing things I do all the time.  Previously I would have typed:

/the_word_my_cursor_is_sitting_on

Obviously that isn’t much more complicated, but one character is better than X characters.  For all X > 1.  =)

In normal mode (aka command mode), travel to the first character in the word you want to change and type:

cw

This will delete the word you’re sitting on and leave you in insert mode, ready to type in a replacement.

Variations

2cw – replace the next two words, or 6cw for the next six words, etc.

cW – a typical word is delimited by pucntuation or white space, using a capital W ignores punctuation and counts white space only

I will keep this post updated with links to other posts in the series.  Also look out for the vim and tips tags!

Archive

1. Replacing (changing) a word
2. Search for the word the cursor is sitting on
3. Search and replace (and KISS)
4. Moving around on a line

Have I missed anything?  Please let me know in the comments section.

Accessibility

• I18N
• Accessibility

Architecture

• Use Design Patterns (when appropriate)
• Graceful degradation/Progressive Enhancement
• Error checking on both client and server sides
• Use XHTML
• Logging
• API
• REST
• RSS/Atom
• microformats
• Test Driven Development
• Continuous Integration
• Web Hooks
• Rich Snippets

Look and Feel

• Separate content from design using CSS
• Provide stylesheets for various use cases:
  • Screen stylesheet
  • Print stylesheet
  • Portable device stylesheet
• Include Favicon
• Gracefully handle various screen resolutions

Security

• Limit # of login attempts to protect against dictionary attacks
• Protect against double submits
• Protect against XSS
  • Some nice strategies
• Protect against CRSF
• OpenID

Performance

• Speed (YSlow)
• Caching

Search

• SEO
• Provide a sitemap.xml (iif dynamic)
• Statistics, tracking, and Analytics

Update:  February 4, 2009 at 14:58

Leonard Lin just posted a thought-provoking, similar-but-different list of web infrastructure requirements.