Tag: Drupal

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Notes from Drupalcamp Atlanta 10/27/12

These are my notes from dcATL.
  • Josh Clark @globalmoxie
  • The mobile future
  • Mobile is a new platform. What do we do with the new platform?
  • How do we do more with mobile?
  • Sensors give us super powers.
  • Mobile provides the opportunity to interpret the environment, think of augmented reality.
    • Think of ways to use camera and audio in classroom, like prof mentions case and it pop ups on device.
  • Table Drum app usess augmented audio.
  • AnyTouch turns everyday objects into interface objects.
  • Leap Motion moves touch interface into 3d space, natural gestures.
  • Natural gestures are the next break through in interfaces.
  • We need to design for natural gestures.
  • Windows 8 is intended to work with any input interface. Hugely challenging.
  • Medical field is using all sorts of special sensors with mobile devices to drive data collection.
  • Personal sensors make sense of our environment.
  • But we don’t need more operating systems, interfaces.
  • Remote control is an answer.
  • Ambiguous control among devices is coming, think of phones in cars. Your car rings. When you park the car, the interface follows you. Migrating interface.
  • http://bit.ly/day-glass– A day made of glass from Corning.
    • One smart device somewhere that is driven by ambiguous interfaces
  • Wii U
  • Grab Magic http://bit.ly/grab-magic
  • http://bitly.com/proto-gestures
  • Sifteo cubesare social toys.
    • Download software as it needs it.
  • Web is just in case, everything is loaded in case we need it. Needs to move to just in time, software loaded when we need it.
  • Passive interfaces just work on their own, doing the things they need to do to perform the functions they are designed to do.
  • Devices will get both dumber and smarter.
  • Metadata is the new art direction – Ethan Resnick @studip101
  • A cloud of social devices
  • Look beyond the interface, beyond the device, the presentation to the content and the services.
  • Push sensors
  • Think social not FB
  • Your ecosystem
  • We’re all cloud developers
  • Mind your metadata
  • New input methods
  • The future is here
  • Eric Webb @erikwebb
  • See slideshare
  • Evaluating modules
    • Supported version, maintainer rep, usage, # of open issues, usage over time.
    • Record before and after install using Devel module
    • Search for tag ” performance ” to weed out general issues.
    • What to look at
      • When does it run?
      • How does it scale?
      • What if it fails?
      • Does my site care?
      • Do I need this module?
    • ID the problem
    • Where problems occur
      • Page building like views and panels
      • External web services
      • Overall complexity
        • Views in panels in panels….
      • Misconfigured components
    • Keep records, establish a metric, adopt a definition of done, don’t hide behind infrastructure
  • Types of caching
    • App level caching is not really configurable. Tings like menus, forms
    • Component level caching, user facing stuff like blocks, views, panels
      • Best to speed up for authenticated users
    • Page level caching is important mostly for anon users
  • Configuring Drupal

  • Randall Kent @randallkent rkent@sevaa.com
  • http://bit.ly/dcatl-services
  • Web services as the tip of the iceberg.
  • REST is the key to getting at the stuff in Drupal. REST is one way to create an API on Drupal.
  • REST
    • built on http
      • GET, POST, PUT, DELETE
    • Client/Server
      • Separates ui from data storage
    • Stateless
      • All info necessary to process request must be included in the request itself
    • Cacheable
    • Layered
    • Uniform interface
  • /myapi/node – gets XML
  • /myapi/node.json – get JSON
  • REST console for Chrome
  • http://github.com/randallkent
    • DrupalREST.php
    • DrupalREST.net
  • See http://drupanium.org
  • David Bassendine @dbassendine
  • Open data, social, business tools
  • Few modules for consuming services
  • Always start with looking on line for a module
  • REST vs SOAP
  • Get to know the API you are working with
    • URL and path structure
    • Testing in browser for GET, POST requires extension/plugin
  • Services client for D7 will consume Services from another Drupal instance
  • REST API and Query API handle some RESTful APIs that serve json
    • See red mine module for example
  • Core HTTP API for other services
    • drupal_http_request($url,$options(headers,methods,data))
    • Slightly diff D6 & D7
  • Last 2 require custom modules to do the work
  • Krumo – http://krumo.sourceforge.net/

  • Talking to Web Services – Resources

  • Matthew Connerton @connerton
  • AJAX allways for there fresh of data in the browser page with refreshing the whole page.

    Sample code for AJAX in Drupal7
  • Replaces AHAH, which is a good thing. Pulls lots in crooks stuff
  • “use-ajax” class
    • drupal_add_library(drupal.ajax) to get Ajax in.
    • Pulls jquery in
  • $form[‘#ajax’]
    • drupal_add_library(drupal.ajax) to get Ajax in.
    • Blur is the default trigger.
  • It’s may ease the pain of the auth code stuff.
  • Check Drupal API for AJAX Framework docs.
    • includes/ajax.inc
  • Using #states in Form API
  • Ctools modal to open modal boxes for editing and such.
    • “ctools-use-modal” class
  • Doug Vann dougvann.com
  • Module filter is cool
  • DraggableViews
    • Makes rows of views draggable
    • Can be rearranged by drag and drop
    • Has AJAX
    • No relationship required
    • Could use this to provide a sort on Lesson topics based on order in the topic grid
    • Use this to rearrange stuff on the topic list view itself on the home page
    • No subsets or at least not easily handled
  • Nodequeue
    • Collect nodes in an arbitrary order
    • Requires relationship in order to bring stuff into proper scope


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Blitz – Recommended for Drupal Testing

In the spirit of continuous integration and making load testing a fun sport, our paid plans have just two simple dimensions: How much you want to scale out and how long you want to rush. We do not impose any limits on how many times you run the load tests.You can easily increase your concurrency from 250 to 750 users on the free plan simply by inviting your friends to blitz. Well add +25 referral credits to both of you when your friend signs up!

via Blitz – Making load and performance testing a fun sport.

GIve it a try at http://blitz.io/gcb7uX6lS5oXx.

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Mediacurrent Blog Takes An Inside Look at the Omega Theme

http://www.mediacurrent.com/blog/inside-look-omega-theme

When people say “mobile first” in referring to web design & theming, it’s not just a mentality or something people say in a “the way it ought to be” sort of sense. They literally mean, designing the mobile theme first, then adding on CSS for tablets, desktop, and wide desktop themes. In a technical sense, it means that the global.css that contains the basic design elements of the site is loaded no matter what device you are using to view the website. Then, CSS3 Media queries determine what the size of the window is and additional stylesheets will be tacked on; either “narrow”, “normal” , or “wide” – depending on the width of the device…

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Data.gov to be Open Sourced for World-Wide Deployment

http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/datagov_to_be_open_sourced_for_world-wide_deployme.php

Ambitious but largely defunded open government data platform Data.gov is now working with counterparts at India’s National Informatics Centre to offer an open source body of code known as the Open Government Platform or “Data.gov-in-a-Box.” It’s the kind of move that, in theory, the political Left can support because of its impact on transparency and government accountability and the political Right can support because it puts government in a role that emphasizes facilitating innovation and economic development. It sounds like a very smart way to deal with the declining financial support for Data.gov itself. It could be a big win…

The code for the platform is based on Drupal and you can download a copy from Github at https://github.com/opengovplatform/opengovplatform.

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CUNY’s Open Source “Commons in a Box” A Big Win For Open Source in Academia

With a $107,500 grant from the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, CUNY has announced that it will now begin work on the “Commons in a Box” project, assembling its software into a single installation package. This means that other colleges and universities will be able to easily create their own academic platforms. News of the project came with the announcement that the Modern Language Association will take part in its development and will use the platform to create an MLA Commons for its members.

The project has been built using open-source tools, including WordPress (which enables multisite blogs), BuddyPress (a WordPress plugin that turns the blog into a social network), and MediaWiki (the Wikimedia Foundation’s wiki software). As a proponent of open-source technologies in education, that makes the Commons in a Box project a win in my book. It isn’t simply that the project will put the tools to create their own academic networks into the hands of schools; it’s that the Academic Commons development team has been sharing its coding back with the open source community, with WordPress plugins for example that have been downloaded over 100,000 times.

Inside Higher Ed: “Commons in a Box” & the Importance of Open Academic Networks

CUNY’s project joins a number of other major university projects including Open.Michigan, ELMS @ Penn State, and Open Scholar @ Harvard that are using open source software and licensing to develop sophisticated collaborative learning and research spaces. Given the collaborative nature of legal practice, law schools should be at the forefront of these sorts of projects.

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Drupal in the post-page era | GarfieldTech

http://www.garfieldtech.com/blog/drupal-post-page-era

Drupal today is very page-oriented. Every request that comes in is responded to with a full HTML page. It is possible to return something else, and finally in Drupal 7 there is, sort of, native support to do so with delivery callbacks, but by and large any non-page response is an after thought at best and a hack at worst. The entire system is built around the assumption that we’re returning an HTML page. Why else would we still load the theme system and form system for an auto-complete callback?

We’re moving to a future where what we see on the web is a serious of HTML fragments tailored to our preferences or prior history. Drupal needs to move past its page orientation to function efficiently on the future web.
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OpenPublic Drupal – A Solution for U.S. Courts?

OpenPublic is an open source content management system based on Drupal and tailored for building websites for government

via By the people, for the people | OpenPublic.

From the same folks who brought us Open Atrium, OpenPublic is a Drupal distribution that has been tailored to meet the security, accessibility, and transparency needs of the Federal government. So, is it a solution for U.S. courts? Certainly using a platform like Drupal would provide courts with the ability to create custom websites while maintaining a standard backend that could be used to provide greater access to court decisions, rules and forms. Does anyone know if any courts are using Drupal for their main website?

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Robert Douglass on Solr and other Search Back Ends For Drupal

Apache Solr is a powerful and flexible mechanism for performing site search on a Drupal site. Join us as we talk with Robert Douglass about all things Solr in Drupal, including new features and functionality and future development plans. Also, as a bonus, you will hear Robert use the word “de-baconify” in the context of Solr and Drupal.

Acquia Podcast 16: Robert Douglass on Apache Solr and other Search Back Ends Acquia.

This podcast covers mush that is going on with Drupal, Solr, and search in general. Lots of good, current information.

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DrupalCon 2010 Notes: Case Studies in Academia: ASU and Johns Hopkins

Session page on Drupalcon site.

  • Arizona State University
    • central service that includes support for Drupal
    • Drupal support and consulting includes module development and data integration
    • provide shared web services that support php generally
    • brought standards for web experience to ASU in 2006
    • Drupal provided enough options, tools, variation to make it attractive across departments and schools
    • worked hard on building community around Drupal users
      • built successful user group
      • user group is part of the job, Drupal as their day job
      • brought Lullabot in for training
    • lots of buy-in
    • brought consistent user experience, support
    • increased content reuse
    • some challenges
      • clean up of unused sites
      • growing pains
      • slow change, trying to change institutional perception, showing Drupal as legit
    • lots of Drupal developers on campus, not all development occurs in the web dev group
  • Johns Hopkins University
    • Drupal used for grants sites
    • driven by limited budgets and resources
    • CCP
    • lots of funding sources drove static sites
    • K4Health
      • brought in Drupal as a platform
      • uses OG for site w/in sites
      • web services to integrate existing old data
      • uses Google search appliance
      • custom modules
        • InMagic import
          • document management system
          • needed to import this legacy data into Drupal
          • makes use of web services hooks to InMagic
        • file cart
          • light weight way that users are allowed to d/l files, specifically allowing use in developing countries
        • OG toolkits
          • uses OG to create private collaborative areas and then use public features to make work public
          • glues a lot of other modules together
          • looks like it makes use of OG easier.
        • KSS search
          • access multiple search engines through a single search interface
        • e-learning

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Drupal’s Missing Edit Tab: A Checklist to Solve Node Editing Problems

From time to time a user may not be able to edit a Drupal node and you end up tearing your hair out trying to figure out why. Sometimes the solution is obvious, and sometimes it is not. This post will take you through some of the main reasons for the problem along with suggested solutions.

via User can’t edit a node – Drupal troubleshooting | fused.

So this crops up way too often for me: a user doesn’t see the edit tab when they should. It could be a lot of things and the linked blog post covers the possibilities (with pictures). From the mundane, a particular role doesn’t have edit rights to a given node type, to the exotic, the user’s role doesn’t have rights to the input filter used to create the node, this post covers it all. Certainly worth a bookmark.