My Blog

One of my latest discoveries is HOOK_admin_menu_output_alter().
This handy little thing allows you to add links to your admin menu quite easily.
Use it like this:

/**
 * Change the administration menu content before it is rendered.
 *
 * @param $content: A structured array suitable for drupal_render(), containing:
 *       menu: The administrative menu of links below the path 'admin/*'.
 *       icon: The icon menu.
 *       user: The user items and links.
 *
 * Passed by reference.
 */
function MYMODULE_admin_menu_output_alter(&$content) {
  $content['menu'][] = array(
    '#title' => t('New blog post'),
    '#href' => 'node/add',
    '#weight' => 10,
  );
  $content['menu'][] = array(
    '#title' => t('Edit HP'),
    '#href' => 'admin/bloggers-hp/sort',
    '#weight' => 10,
  );
}

If you don't need the drop-down, with core's toolbar you can even have more flexibility like this:

/**
 * Implement hook_page_alter().
 */
function MYMODULE_page_alter(&$page) {
  global $user;

  if (isset($page['page_top']['toolbar']) && user_access('access administration menu')) {
    // Remove toolbar for user 1 and admins since they have admin-menu
    unset($page['page_top']['toolbar']);
  }
  else if (isset($page['page_top']['toolbar']) && in_array('editor', array_values($user->roles))) {
    // Editors
    $page['page_top']['toolbar']['#pre_render'][] = 'ihmodule_toolbar_add_editor_links';
  }
  else if (isset($page['page_top']['toolbar'])) {
    // Bloggers
    $page['page_top']['toolbar']['#pre_render'][] = 'ihmodule_toolbar_add_blogger_links';
  }
}

/**
 * Pre-render function which dynamically adds links to the toolbar for editors.
 */
function MYMODULE_toolbar_add_editor_links($toolbar) {

  if (drupal_is_front_page()) {
    $toolbar['toolbar_menu']['#links'][] = array(
        'title' => t("Edit"),
        'href' => 'admin/bloggers-hp/sort',
    );
  }

  return $toolbar;
}

/**
 * Pre-render function which dynamically adds links to the toolbar for bloggers.
 */
function MYMODULE_toolbar_add_blogger_links($toolbar) {

  $toolbar['toolbar_menu']['#links'][] = array(
      'title' => t("New blog post"),
      'href' => 'node/add',
  );

  return $toolbar;
}

Here are all the commands, starting from creating a new copy of a drupal repository and up to creating the patch to be published in the issue queue, the examples are for drupal core but the same may apply to contrib modules and themes too.

Get the code
git clone --branch 8.x http://git.drupal.org/project/drupal.git

Change directory
cd drupal

Create a branch
git checkout -b branchnme
e.g.
git checkout -b 766458-seven-rtl-112

Add untracked (new) files
git add path/to/file
e.g.
git add themes/seven/ie7.css

Commit changes
git commit -a -m "commit message"
e.g.
git commit -a -m "issue 766458-seven-rtl add ie7.css"

Update origin
git fetch origin

Make your code apply to the latest version of the code
git rebase origin/8.x

Create patch
git diff origin/8.x > patchname.patch
e.g.
git diff origin/8.x > 766458-seven-rtl-112.patch
Or, if you want your patch to include author attributions (some credit for you) you should use:
git format-patch origin/[branchname] --stdout > [project_name]-[short-description]-[issue-number]-[comment-number].patch

This littel jQuery snippet will take a drop-down select and display it as a list of radio buttons :

    // Turn  select into radio buttons  
    $('select').each(function(i, select){
      var $select = $(select);
      $select.find('option').each(function(j, option){
        var $option = $(option);
        var $radio = $('');
        $radio.attr('name', $select.attr('name')).attr('value', $option.val());
        if ($option.attr('selected')) {
          $radio.attr('checked', 'checked');
          var active = 'class="active"';
        }
        $select.before($radio);
        $radio.wrap($(""));
        $radio.after($option.text())
      });
      $select.remove();
    });

Create a script :

sudo mysql -p -e "show tables in jbryce;" | tail --lines=+2 | xargs -i echo "ALTER TABLE {} ENGINE=MyISAM;" > alter_table.sql

run the script :

sudo mysql --database=jbryce -p < alter_table.sql