Site Alert

The Site Alert module is a lightweight solution for allowing site administrators to easily place an alert on their site, for example for maintenance downtime, or any general informational message. Alerts have start and end date/times, and can be assigned a severity level. Messages are refreshed by ajax and not subject to site caching, so changes made in the ui will be automatically displayed to users without necessitating a cache clear. The module provides a custom pane (recommended) and a block for sites not using panels.

Dependencies

Date Module (date, date_api, and date_popup). If you wish to use the content pane, you will need to have Panels installed on your site.

How to use this Module

To use with Panels:

• Enable the Site Alert module
• Add the pane to your desired page/variant. It is located in the 'Page Elements' section.
• Ensure that all necessary roles have the 'administer site alerts' permission. (All roles can view alerts)
• Create an alert (admin/settings/alerts)
• Enjoy your exciting new site alert!

To use the Block:

• Enable the Site Alert module
• Add the 'Site Alert' block to whichever region you wish it to appear in.
• Ensure that all necessary roles have the 'administer site alerts' permission.(All roles can view alerts)
• Create an alert (admin/settings/alerts)
• Enjoy your exciting new site alert!

Similar Modules

Bootstrap Site Alert - https://www.drupal.org/project/bootstrap_site_alert
Bootstrap site alert was based off of this module. It adds WYSIWYG functionality, but has removed the scheduling capability, and alerts are cached.

User Alert - https://www.drupal.org/project/user_alert
This module was much more complex administratively then we wanted, which was a simple way to place an alert on the site for all pages and all users.

Alerts - https://www.drupal.org/project/alerts
Works by attaching an alert to individual nodes. No way for a site administrator to create a site wide alert.

Sitewide Alert Message - https://www.drupal.org/project/sitewide_msg
This was the closest in functionality to what we needed, but uses php poller and an iframe, and we preferred an ajax/jquery solution.