Posted by hagen on April 23, 2008 at 9:10am
Start:
2008-05-27 09:30 - 16:30 GMT Event type:
User group meeting
Our office is finished since few days.
Now we have a place to meet.
cocoate.com EURL
32 rue du Pla
11510 Fitou
France
Main Topics are:
- What are you doing with Drupal?
- Multisite Installation
- How to build an Environment for Drupal Development
Languages:
- english (probably the best)
- german
- french
We provide WiFi, Coffee, Baguette, Wine and a nice environment.
Fee:
15 Euros to cover our costs
If you want an Invoice for your tax please register here
http://cocoate.com/en/2008-05-27-Drupal-User-Group-meeting-Southern-France
See you in Fitou
Hagen
Comments
3 attendees :-)
So far we are 3 attendees at the first User Group meeting.
See you tuesday the 27th of May in Fitou!
can't attend
Sorry folks, but I can't come after all, tomorrow, got tided up in a family matters.
Please post some comments here after the meeting so we can see how it went. Keep in touch
Cheers
Darko
Me neither :-(
I have to fly to the UK for a (presumably different) family matter :-(
However, I'd like to answe Hagen's questions:
Main Topics are:
I run an open source project, who's website is www.greensocs.com. I use Drupal for everything (maybe this isn't the best idea - but....) I TRY to use CCK for almost everything on the web site. so, for instance, I am using CCK to run the projects, issue tracking, etc etc...
And, Im struggling to keep up - in theory, I should not spend my time running the web site, but I do. So, I'm always looking for somebody who can help :-)
I dont have a multi-site instilation, but I am beging to think about and environment for drupal-development as, if/when I ever find somebody who will help, then they will probably not want to work on the live web-site (indeed, I shouldn't either but I'm just a dirty rotten hacker!!!)
This is an increasingly large issue, as I have submitted patches to modules etc - so - I need to track modules, find out if the patch hs been accepted, etc etc...
So - I'm thinking somethink like having all the modules on an svn repo would be a reasonably plan, but then, probably enforcing check-ins to have some sort of link to a drupal issue number... - Then a bit of hacking to "track" those things.....
I'm open to ideas - I'd rather contribute to some other work than do any of this myself...
Cheers
Mark.
answers
I'll give my answers to:
What are you doing with Drupal?
I am web developer. I work mainly for: http://www.overseaspropertycentres.com/ who sells properties using Drupal web site. Other sites I developed with Drupal:
http://hydradirect.com/
http://bizzenergy.com/ (this one interacts with Oracle database, gets energy quotes etc, I used to work for Oracle and know it well)
http://www.simplybritish.eu/ (under construction)
Multisite Installation
In my experience easiest thing is to install each instance one level down below the domain, so mydomain.com/instance1, mydomain.com/instance.2 etc.., where each sub site starts at one level down, so home of site one is mydomain.com/instance1/home
Each instance has its own files sytem code, but if you know unix its easy to copy files over multyply directories. Also you can mix and match drupal versions or even different cms's (i.e mydomain.com/jumla1), and with good look and feel skills make it all seem as one site (if you want).
How to build an Environment for Drupal Development
I have simple system, where I use shell script to copy site to play area, so I have master site, than I run script that copies site to play site. There I can do development freely, I can experiment and brake site, if it gets broken I copy site over again. Once I have something that work I implement back to the master site. Than (important) , I copy site over again so I start again with exactly the same copy as main site, than experiment again... etc
What about the DB? The code
What about the DB?
The code side shoudl be easy, and I think SVN provides a "cleaner" and more scalable way of doing it than a straight copy, but - thats one thing.
The DB side is WAY nastier. If you make a change to your modules in your "play area", which changes the DB - what do you do?
If it's "just" an update to the modules, adding (e.g.) an extra column, then, hopefully when you copy your scripts accross, and run update.php, everything is good to go (you hope).
BUT - what if
a) the update requires some data to be set in existing entries in your DB
b) the update is actully to existing data
c) or a million other cases...
Something like this looks promising -
http://www.codeproject.com/KB/database/ScriptDB4Svn.aspx
except, I dont want to be checking in database changes from the live site on every user access!!!!!!! - and it would have to be automated. If I do something really strange, fair enoug, I shouuld have a conflict that I need to resolve, but in all other cases, this should be automatic... somehow...
The thing is, it would be great if Drupal kept user data and config data separately - but sometime (often?) user data is bound-together with config data.... - thnk CCK and worry!
Maybe I am worrying about nothing - but....
Cheers
Mark.
database copy
I forgot to mention what I mean by mean copy the site, I mean database too, each site have its own database, below is my example script
Scenario:
example.com lives in database1
play.com lives in database2
so each time I run my script database and file system of play.com gets refreshed with the data from example.com, in effect, each time I run this script I delete the site play.com and copy site example.com in to play .com, from that point play.com is independent of example.com
export db from example database
mysqldump --add-drop-table -h localhost -u username -ppassword database1 > opc.sql
import example database in to the play.com database
mysql -h localhost -u username -ppassword -D database2 < opc.sql
delete play.com directorie structure
/bin/rm -fr /var/www/vhosts/play.com/httpdocs
copy example files to play
cp -r /var/www/vhosts/example.com/httpdocs /var/www/vhosts/play.com/
rm -f /var/www/vhosts/play.com/httpdocs/robots.txt
cp example/robots.txt /var/www/vhosts/play.com/httpdocs/
rm -f /var/www/vhosts/play.com/httpdocs/sites/default/settings.php
cp example/settings.php /var/www/vhosts/play.com/httpdocs/sites/default/
chown -R user:group /var/www/vhosts/play.com/httpdocs
is it that easy?
Fair enough - but what happens if you make a change in "play" that you want to be published on example...
(normal case!)
If it's "just" code - fair enough - but if it needs DB changes then
a) if it's a module with an .update - no problems (we hope)
b) if not, like it's updating existing database entries - now we have a problem of merging database
Thats when I get more scared..... when your script has to go 2 ways, and requires "conflict resolution" between "example" and "play"
simple changes only
this is only ment for simple development, and yes, it is crude, so anything you do on play, once you are happy with you need to re-do on the example db, so the key is to do things in small steps and to keep re-freshing the play db.
I am working on improved version of this system, I'll try to publish it when ready