“If you’re open to the potential for every day to be one of the
best days of your life, today just might be.”

Roscoe Village, Chicago -January 14, 2009

West Loop, Chicago - January 20, 2009

Lincoln Park, Chicago - January 20, 2009

The Long Room, Chicago - January 25, 2009

Roscoe Village, Chicago - March 7, 2009

St Charles, IL - March 21, 2009

Uptown, Chicago - March 28, 2009

Washington DC - April 3, 2009

Washington DC - April 4, 2009

Washington DC - April 5, 2009

St Charles, IL - April 16, 2009

Avon Lake, OH - April 27, 2009

Avon Lake, OH - April 27, 2009

St Louis, MO - May 2, 2009

Starved Rock State Park, IL - May 3, 2009

Western Springs, IL - May 31, 2009

ORD - June 4, 2009

West Palm Beach, FL - June 4, 2009

St Charles, IL - June 11, 2009

Uptown, Chicago - June 19, 2009

Uptown, Chicago - June 27, 2009

Chicago Loop - June 27, 2009

Wheaton, IL - June 14, 2009

St Charles, IL - June 10, 2009

Millennium Park, Chicago - July 1, 2009

Navy Pier, Chicago - July 2, 2009

Museum Campus, Chicago - July 11, 2009

Wheaton, IL - July 17, 2009

Roscoe Village, Chicago - July 20, 2009

Detroit Lakes, MN - July 23, 2009

Wheaton, IL - July 28, 2009

ORD - August 1, 2009

Williamsburg, New York - August 2, 2009

Theatre District, New York - August 4, 2009

Bolton, CT - August 10, 2009

Bolton, CT - August 10, 2009

Bolton, CT - August 10, 2009

The Long Room, Chicago - August 19, 2009

Chicago - August 26, 2009

Wicker Park, Chicago - September 5, 2009

Ukrainian Village, Chicago - September 6, 2009

Wheaton, IL - September 30, 2009

West Town, Chicago - October 2, 2009

West Town, Chicago - October 2, 2009

MDW - October 6, 2009

on the way to Milwaukee, WI - October 17, 2009

West Town, Chicago - November 7, 2009

Roscoe Village, Chicago - November 20, 2009

Wrigleyville, Chicago - November 23, 2009

Lakeview, Chicago - November 25, 2009

Chicago - December 14, 2009

“Your life is like a regular expression; it doesn’t matter how crazy it looks to other people, as long as you find what you’re searching for.”

The content management is built with WordPress and utilizes several plugins to maximize functionality for the site’s users and for those maintaining the content. The administrator can add polls, view site statistics, write articles, and direct users to related information. The WordPress Cross Linker plugin was modified to display a tool tip with a word’s definition to help keep readers informed.

The ads are served through OpenX and run on JavaScript invocation codes that are included in the sidebar. The administrator can start ad campaigns, upload images, and place ads in very targeted locations on the site.

Registration is handled separately, and managed through a customized admin panel. Once a user logs in, they can search for providers of green products and services in their area, view vendor profiles, post on the bulletin board, and participate in quizzes to test the health of their home and their Carbon Dioxide emissions.

One of the biggest challenges was handling the drop down menus, which open on click and close when users click outside of the menu. Additionally, the largest drop down contains three floated lists that hold subcategories of the “Educate” category and their respective articles. Creating this list required a custom query to the WordPress database. The PHP for this query and the JavaScript for the button events is below.

PHP

//connect to WP DB
$om_con = mysql_connect(DB_HOST, DB_USER,DB_PASSWORD);
$om_db = mysql_select_db(DB_NAME,$om_con); 

// FOR every term_id in wp_term_taxonomy WHERE parent = 10
  		// compare term_id in wp_term_taxonomy to term_id in wp_terms
		// FOR every alignment:
			// build up an array of subcategories with name in wp_terms
			// compare term_id in wp_terms to term_taxonomy_id in wp_terms_relationships 

					// compare term_id in wp_terms to term_taxonomy_id in wp_terms_relationships
					// FOR every alignment:
$sql = " SELECT  wp.ID, wt.name, wp.post_title, wp.guid FROM wp_term_taxonomy AS wtt
		LEFT JOIN wp_terms AS wt ON (wtt.term_id = wt.term_id)
		LEFT JOIN wp_term_relationships AS wtr ON (wt.term_id = wtr.term_taxonomy_id)
		LEFT JOIN wp_posts AS wp ON (wtr.object_id = wp.ID)
		WHERE wtt.parent = '10'
		ORDER BY wt.name ASC, wp.post_date ASC ";  //ORDER BY category alphabetically, subcategory alphabetically, and post date

//hold the result
$res = mysql_query($sql, $om_con) or die( mysql_error() );

//count the number of rows in the result
//(so we can split it up into 3)
$numRows = mysql_num_rows($res);

//instantiate variables for the loop
$sub_cat_name = '';
$rowcount = 0;
$doonce = true;
$thirdsCounte = 1;
$dosecondpass = true;

//while we still have rows in the result
while( $row = mysql_fetch_assoc($res) ) {
	//increase the row counter
	$rowcount++;

	//each row represents a subcategory of the bigger wp category "Educate"
	//if it is the next subcat...
	if ($sub_cat_name != $row['name']) {
		//put the name of the subcategory in the variable
		$sub_cat_name = $row['name'];

		//if the row number you are on is still less than the total number of rows divided by 3
		//AND if we have not already done this once...
		if( ( ($numRows/3) < $rowcount ) && $doonce ) {
			//reset the variable so we do not repeat this
			$doonce = false;

			//build a variable that will end the left list and start the center list
			$msg .= "\t\t</ul>
	</li>
</ul>
<ul class=\"clearfix third_width_list\">
	<li>". $sub_cat_name."
		<ul >\n";

		}//end else if you're in the first column

		else if( (( 2*($numRows/3)) < $rowcount) && $dosecondpass ) {
			//reset the variable so we do not repeat this
			$dosecondpass = false;

			//build a variable that will end the center list and start the right side list
			$msg .= "\t\t</ul>
	</li>
</ul>
<ul class=\"clearfix third_width_list\">
	<li>". $sub_cat_name."
		<ul >\n";

		}//end else if you're in the second column

		else {
			//else, if you are starting a new subcategory, end the preceding subcategory and start the next
			$msg .= "</ul>
	</li>

	<li>". $sub_cat_name."
		<ul>\n";

		}//end else if you're in the third column 

	}//end if it IS a new subcat

	//else, if it is NOT a new subcategory, then it must be the articles within the subcats
	//add to the output variable to print the link to each article
	$stringWithoutAmps = str_replace("&", "&", $row['post_title']);

	$msg .= "\t\t\t<li><a href='".get_permalink($row['ID'])."' title='".$stringWithoutAmps ."' >".$stringWithoutAmps."</a></li>\n";

	}//end else if it is NOT a new subcat

//the very first subcategory will not need to have this stuff, since there was nothing above it
$msg = ltrim($msg, "\t</li>
</ul>");

//echo the stuff that starts the ball rolling
echo "<ul class=\"clearfix third_width_list\">
	<li>";
//print out the message
echo $msg;
//print out important closing tags
echo "</ul>
	</li>
</ul>";

JavaScript

//using the Mootools domready event
window.addEvent('domready', function() {

    //GLOBAL CLICK EVENT
    document.addEvent('click', function(e){

		//any time you click the page, the educate drop down will close
        document.getElementById('triple').style.visibility='hidden';

    });
    //capture events
    if (document.captureEvents) document.captureEvents(Event.CLICK);

    //BUTTON CLICK EVENT
    $('nav_educate').addEvent('click', function(e){
        //prevent bubbling up to the global click event
        if (!e) var e = window.event;
        e.cancelBubble = true;
        if (e.stopPropagation) e.stopPropagation();

        //show the educate dropdown menu
        document.getElementById('triple').style.visibility='visible';

    });

});