Seacoast NH Drupal Group Meetup Minutes 5/09/2011

Meeting Minutes:

Kevin took the minutes, so he doesn't have to buy anyone a beer but himself (and he did!)

favorite movies to code by (today):

• Patrick: Tron & Season II of Metalocalypse
• Roger: The Hangover (even though he doesn't write a lot of code these days)
• Tanya: Labyrinth & 1776
• Bre: Goodwill Hunting
• Kevin: Kill Bill I/II
• Kate: 5th Element
• Donna: Star Trek (reboot)

Reminder: Adobe User group at UNH tomorrow at 1:30pm (5/10) http://nhaug.blogspot.com/

Ideas for DrupalCampNH 2011:

Interactive presentations were coolest at DrupalCon - lectures are snooze-fests
Presenters shouldn't be under-prepared (talk to each other beforehand)
Nerf guns - WebKenny presentation about D7 performance & security (shoot at mobile device users) = awesome
Promote sessions that engage the audience actively

Session Ideas:

Maintaining End-User experience

• lots of nodes
• no built-in workflow
• how to apply the traditional content publishing model?
• Ask Brian Travis (author of Pro Drupal 7 Windows Development - book has workflow coverage
• Can control editing vs. publishing, but there is no notification for approval process

Resources:

• Workflow module?
• Moder8 module?
• Book: http://www.amazon.com/Pro-Drupal-7-Windows-Developers/dp/143023153X

Content Editor best-practices

• WYSIWYG settings
• Be very very very careful if you PHP in body field because cron will index it and execute it
• PHP in a block will get run by cron
• What You See Is NOT What You Get

Personal experience with D7 in an enterprise environment

• - recommendation: turn off Overlay module (lightbox-like admin interface), clunky slow, and error prone!
• - Power users will still want to Replace new menu / shortcut system with old contrib module Administration Menu

Performance Notes: Install APC (PHP opcode cache) - makes Drupal scream (fast)

• - APC is a PECL package that gets referenced via apache
• - install APC first, tweak, test then add to httpd.conf file

Help Me Sell Drupal

• - Why Drupal? Why not Joomla, Wordpress, Mura, .NET, etc?
• - Assessing client needs and choosing the most appropriate technology
• - Segways into Drupal Workflow - how to make Drupal usable by a client after cutting the cord without driving off a cliff
• - If our staff already knows one tool, why switch to one with such a steep learning curve
• - D6 or D7?
• - When you know you have to extend your CMS, which one do you use?
• - Hacking a CMS versus extending a CMS
• - Where is Drupal going? Mobile, application framework, open-standards

What Contrib Modules Do You Need for a Drupal 7 Installation?

• - Chaos Tools
• - Views 3
• - Panels (optional, but useful)
• - What other contrib modules are available? Media?
• - Use 960gs system to create new layouts with Panels module

Misc:
NOTE: Get a video of the keynote from DrupalCon 2011 Chicago: http://www.archive.org/details/keynote_dries (slideshow only)

960gs system - why is a grid system awesome?
- column layouts

Drupal Deployment Topics:

Transitioning from Stage to Prod
- ant scripts to tar, gzip, dump db and unpack on new system

Patrick shared his copy of Watchdog magazine - get a subscription!!
- http://drupalwatchdog.com/