Balsam Design News

Balsam Design has launched another client site. This one for Waltham, MA based SaaS company Aprigo.

The site was built on a highly customized installation of Drupal and is fully integrated with their application.

Some key feature:

• Highly customized user registration
• Custom invite module
• Complex block views of news and forum topics
• Granular control over CCK field access based on three unique user roles
• Custom homepages for registered and unregistered users

http://aprigo.com

Balsam Design has launched an online photo gallery for Grill 23.

See it in action here:
http://grill23.com/photos

The site is built on an older version of Drupal (Drupal 5) and makes use of the CCK, Views, ImageCache, and Thickbox modules.

This had me scratching my head for the better part of today.

Prior to launching a site, I generally update to the latest versions of all the Drupal Modules used. (Often, new releases come out during development. So before I hand off the site to my client, I make sure everything has the latest release.)

I ended up updating about 11 modules for this site: http://utest2.bostonwebhost.org then proceeded to make a few tweaks here and there.

Imagine my surprise when my previously pretty news section (which features a YouTube video) was suddenly all askew.

After some serious troubleshooting (it didn't occur to me at first that the CSS ID had changed!) I finally discovered the source:

id="video-cck-youtube-flash-wrapper-1"

had changed to:

id="emvideo-youtube-flash-wrapper-1"

Whew.

As you probably know if you are visiting this site, Drupal is the de facto standard CMS around here. One of the things that makes drupal so powerful is its taxonomy system to sort node into categories.

One of the most common taxonomy terms clients request is US States. Imagine a national site where users can create data (nodes) about events that have happened. One piece of information you might want to store about that node is the state in which the event took place. The proper way to do this is with taxonomy.

The problem with this is that it is tedious to enter each state as terms in the taxonomy. Enter the Taxonomy XML module. (Grab a copy of it from the preceding link)

The Taxonomy XML module allows you to import XML files into your taxonomy vocabulary as terms. So where do you get the XML file that contains all of the states? Right here!

Balsam Design has dove into the world of personal/family blogs with the launch of two new sites: www.toastandcereal.com and www.slippingpigeon.com.

This new service seeks to fill the void between stock wordpress blogs and full CMS websites, giving the clients unique, eye-catching, and incredibly intuitive designs and interfaces.

The blogs are based on the OpenSource Drupal Content Management System (CMS) and feature custom photo galleries, user comments, and a very unique designs.

Contact Balsam Design for pricing information on your own custom blog.

Balsam Design has launched a re-designed site for software development company Adaptive Engineering.

The client had two requirements: a Return on Investment calculator and a block for their new podcasts.

Balsam Design created a custom database and JavaScript for the calculator and OpenSource CMS Drupal for the podcasts. All was seamlessly integrated into their existing website.

The new site also features some funky animated team members, depicted as ants, which uses ActionScript 3.

Balsam Design has launched a new E-Commerce site for Amali Jewelry.

The old static HTML site was migrated to a customized Drupal Content Management System site. Balsam Design integrated the clients merchant account so that Amali Jewelry customers can purchase and pay for the products directly on the site.

Head over to Amali Jewelry for beautiful hand made Earrings, necklaces, bracelets and rings.

Balsam Design has launched a new site for the Rhode Island Free Clinic.

The site features a simple, easy to navigate front end and a robust Drupal CMS backend that allows the client to easily edit site content and images.

Contact Balsam Design for pricing information on your own website.

Balsam Design has launched two new sites this week:
Carmen Lozar and The Hornitz.

Both sites were designed, developed, and deployed entirely by Balsam Design and feature custom image loaders and, in the latter project, dynamic multimedia content.

Congratulations to Carmen Lozar and the members of The Hornitz on their new sites!

Balsam Design launched a new site for Concourse software developer Adaptive Engineering. The site was designed and developed in under a week - launching in time to correspond to the launch of their new software.

The site can be viewed here.