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Boston Society for Architects (BSA) launched the completely revamped architects.org website this evening. The site was developed by Design&Co and OHO Interactive. The site is built upon Acquia Drupal and includes integration with the association management tool produced by ACGI.

Congratulations to the team at BSA – Adam, John, Jon, and Dan!

Internet Explorer has a 31 stylesheet limit for stylesheets that are added to pages using the link tag. Since this is such a large number this limit is usually not an issue but on more complex sites, especially Drupal sites with many enabled modules, hitting this limit is fairly easy. The consequence being that every stylesheet after the 31st will not load.

Thankfully many smart people have already tackled this issue and there are a few available solutions for Drupal 6 and a permanent fix in the core of Drupal 7.

There are two modules, IE CSS Optimizer and IE Unlimited CSS Loader, that you can drop in to resolve the issue.

There is also a way that you can resolve this issue in your theme's template.php file. The snippet posted below can be added to the YOURTHEME_preprocess_page function in your theme's template.php file. The original snippet was created by antoniodemarco and modified by ZoFreX. We have further modified it to include more comments and to only run if there are more than 29 stylesheets.

/*
 * Solve 31 CSS files limit in Internet Explorer
 * by converting link tags into @imports surrounded by style tags.
 * Only 15 @imports are included in each style tag.
 * This function will only run when there are over 29 stylesheets loaded.
 *
 * Notes: This problem can be solved by available modules but modules have the risk
 * of being overriden by other modules later in the load process. The theme layer
 * will one of the last things to have access to and alter $vars['styles']
 * 
 *
 * Original code - http://drupal.org/node/228818#comment-2609368
 * More info on IE limitation - http://support.microsoft.com/kb/262161
 */

 //Only run if Optimize CSS files is not on in /admin/settings/performance
 $preprocess_css = variable_get('preprocess_css', 0);
 if (!$preprocess_css) {

     //Get the total number of stylesheets, including those included with Conditional Styles Module
     $stylesheet_count = substr_count($vars['styles'], '<link');
     if (module_exists('conditional_styles')) {
        $stylesheet_count += substr_count($vars['conditional_styles'],0);
     }

     //Only run this function if there are over 29
     if ($stylesheet_count > 29) {
       $styles = '';
       foreach ($vars['css'] as $media => $types) {
         $import = '';
         $counter = 0;
         foreach ($types as $files) {
           foreach ($files as $css => $preprocess) {
             $import .= '@import "'. base_path() . $css .'";'."\n";
             $counter++;
             if ($counter == 15) {
               $styles .= "\n".'<style type="text/css" media="'. $media .'">'."\n". $import .'</style>';
               $import = '';
               $counter = 0;
             }
           }
         }
         if ($import) {
           $styles .= "\n".'<style type="text/css" media="'. $media .'">'."\n". $import .'</style>' . "\n";
         }
       }
       if ($styles) {
         //Adding styles configured with the Conditional Styles module
         $vars['styles'] = $styles . $vars['conditional_styles'];
       }
   }
 }

We've seen an increased desire by clients to add mapping to their websites – but they usually don't ask for it that way.

Clients begin by seeking new ways to visualize their information and make it easier to sort through information. In other words, they are looking for ways to make the content more relevant to the user.

Google Maps and Professional Associations

Some examples – I sat in a meeting today with an large professional association where the executive director talked about the "fire hose" of data their current site provides. It's too much; it's not relevant. His quick solution – not a better search or filters or better information architecture – is to show people and businesses near the user.

In his mind, nearer to me = more relevant to me.

A map view of search results is the ideal way to present this information rather than a filtered list. Why? Because maps offer a visualization of information that is easy to scan – and scanning is the way we all read on a screen.

Plot Custom Data on a Google Map for Universities

Here's another example – we launched a website for Lesley University last fall. Lesley offers off-campus programs in 250 sites across the US. I knew this – but it wasn't until I saw all 250 sites plotted that I understood at glance where they offer classes.

• I could see the clusters of regions where they work
• I could quickly see how far I would need to drive to take a course
• Clicking on the map pin showed me only the course available at that site

What's essential here is that the prospective student is asking a number of questions about the degree program: cost, time commitment, value, and course material. A standard text search is good for finding courses by name, but this isn't the only important decision factor. In this case a map more quickly answers other questions – how far will I have to drive? does this fit into my life?

Google Maps API and Google Maps Mash Up

The Google Maps API provides a way to plot your data on the Google Maps base. Plus you can plot third-party geo-coded information – such as transit stops – to add more value to your users. In addition, your users can add data to your maps such as polygons and lines plus the supporting meta-data.

See Examples of Google Maps Mash Ups

Drupal celebrates its 9th birthday today on January 15th.  Congratulations to Drupal creator and software visionary Dries Buytaert!  And what better way to celebrate the birthday of new software than to add a new release.  Today is also marks the official release of Version 7 Alpha 1.  9 years, 7 versions, and millions of users are quite a remarkable achievement.

We regularly see the power and efficiency that Drupal brings to website design and development projects.  Combining web content management, social networking, and work flow management Drupal is a great tool for many business needs.  It also is quite flexible as we've found out as we've been adding mapping and GIS functionality to social communities.  Drupal gives us a great productivity boost and gives our clients an easy to maintain and enhance website.

So Happy Birthday Drupal!  We're looking forward to another 9 years and seeing you turn 18!