Drupal Café at the Venice Grind, January 6, 2009 @ 6pm

Posted by christefano on January 3, 2009 at 11:24pm

Start:

2009-01-06 18:00 - 20:00 America/Los_Angeles

Organizers:

design_dog

christefano

lee vodra

Event type:

User group meeting

It looks like Lee and I will be out of town for the next LA Drupal meetup (and maybe DrupalCamp San Diego, too) so we'll be meeting friends, having coffee and talking Drupal at the Venice Grind on Tuesday, January 6. Afterwards, we might go to dinner or have a soak in the hot tub. You're invited!

When: 6pm to 8pm on Tuesday, January 6, 2009

Where: Venice Grind at 12224 Venice Blvd, Los Angeles, CA 90066

Topics

This isn't a meetup so there aren't any predetermined topics! If there's something that you want to talk about, bring your laptop, a copy of Pro Drupal Development or whatever else you need.

If you want to jump in the hot tub back at Christefano and Lee's new place, please bring a bathing suit and a towel.

Location

We're meeting at the Venice Grind café on the corner of Venice Blvd. and S. Centinela Ave. Their phone number is 310-397-2227.

If there are too many people and we need more space, we can rendezvous at Coffee Connection, which is right around the corner.

Sign up!

Sign up by logging in and clicking the "Signup" button below. Knowing how many people are interested in attending can help us better select good locations in the future. People who sign up will also have last minute details (if there are any) sent to them before the meeting.

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Comments

sounds like good fun

Posted by design_dog on January 4, 2009 at 1:06am

sounds great to me. be nice to kickback and
shoot the Druppy Poopy.
bathing suit?? ** doh
Do they have any good bran muffins
or Oatmeal cookies?
I'm looking forward to a Latte and
seeing you guys there.
I'm trying to check out that new grid theme BlueTrip.
http://drupal.org/project/bluetrip
from the Drupal 7 theme discussion.
Sounds like good fun/ thanks!

Sounds chill

Posted by Miguel-gdo on January 4, 2009 at 5:32am

So I´ll be hopefully making my way out there. Thx for putting this together & glad I saw this.

I´m sure I´ll bore you all to tears w/my newb questions. ;)

That's right around the corner from me

Posted by highermath on January 4, 2009 at 11:23pm

Unfortunately, we are doing a datacenter move that day, but who knows, maybe I'll be finished by then.

(you might say I'm a dreamer, but I'm not the only one)

Hope to make it

Posted by karasicpark on January 4, 2009 at 11:34pm

Would love to be there--depends on how the what I have due Weds am.

Like the idea of informal meetups

Posted by gusaus on January 4, 2009 at 11:55pm

Definitely think we should mix in more impromptu, possibly project or industry oriented meetups with the regular sessions. Possibly we could fire up the Dojo Dimdim (http://groups.drupal.org/node/17810) and tackle something fun like merging databases and implementing single signon!

Gus Austin
PepperAlley Productions

Gus Austin

Sounds like fun

Posted by Benno Sebastian on January 6, 2009 at 2:01am

I will be there. looking forward to see everyone in the new year.

I should be there

Posted by Chris Charlton on January 6, 2009 at 5:05am

I should be there. :) I'm sure they sell coco, which is my fav. I'll bring my Pro Drupal Development book, but I'd like to hear what other readers have thought about the title(s) they've been reading on Drupal and related web technologies.

Chris Charlton, Author & Drupal Community Leader, Enterprise Level Consultant

I teach you how to build Drupal Themes http://tinyurl.com/theme-drupal and provide add-on software at http://xtnd.us

Coming fr S. OC! No late trains so I drive. Want wiki in Drupal!

Posted by DrupalPal-1 on January 6, 2009 at 6:54am

Just before you posted this (on Sat), thanks for kindly phoning me, inviting me, and asking me about this, Christefano; and BIG THANKS FOR PUTTING THIS ON!</b?

Why is you have the meeting (at least seemingly the tech part) for only 2 hours? (and at 8pm, given LA traffic, some might not even get there by that time!)?
Love the hot tub plans-- yeah! I'll be sure to bring a bathing suit! (Plus a clear plastic bag for the laptop - even in the tub, gotta compute!)
I quite appreciate you're gesture to move this 1hr early (from 7pm to 6pm) so I might be able to catch a train home to S. OC, but bad then some upsetting news:

I then found out the darn last train (Amtrack Pacific Surfliner) leaves at 10:10pm from Union Station (and darn Metrolink cuts out at 6:30pm), and given the Grind (in W. LA) closes at 10pm (and us programmers just start getting up to speed at 10pm!), that last train isn't enough time to catch station (even to get to Union Station in 10 mins).
1. You know, Nov. 4th we California passed a ballot measure 1A for high-speed train from LA to SF, but who really needs that (and at a cost I think of 1 billion!)? How about something practical, like EXISTING rail & train service that runs all night, like other major cities have?! If that were the case, I wouldn't even have to check the schedule, wouldn't even have to worry, knowing that when I got there, there would soon be a train. So what's with that? What's the deal with EVERYTIME I want to party in super-contested no-parking Hollywood, I can take rail there but I can't get back home! --Making it impractical to plan on rail to also get you back, even though it stops right there!-- since the last rail ends at about 11:30pm) Seems instead of some bullet train across the state, we just need the EXISTING rail & trains RIGHT HERE to operate all night (as other big metro areas do) so folks can depend on them (as know they will be able to get back home if they use them!), and so actually make use of public transport (besides a day job --where you NEVER have to work late) and so go green! I wonder if the auto makers (and taxi companies?) are behind (just as auto-makers were in the downfall of the first LA rail system), so to prevent folks from really depending on it. Ugh!
So, sadly, I'm driving. Which means, at least for my case, you don't have move the meeting early to 6pm. Indeed, for all (most?) folks who are driving (now me, too), 6pm is worse, the original 7pm is seemingly better due to the 5pm rush hour. But is too late to change? I'm flexible.

For me, my main goal with Drupal is to get a wiki working that is at least as good as MediaWiki (used by Wikipedia) which includes WYSIWYG editing and storing text in HTML under the hood. Pointers appreciated! :-) On that note,

I found this highly-enthusiastic 2-year old post http://www.EmpowerThyself.com/MediaWikiIsObsolete and will be giving that a spin.
Christefano kindly emailed me recent http://StarbowConsulting.com/node/111 which has a lot of detail but doesn't look to encouraging, beginning quote[Doing a good wiki in Drupal 6 is surprisingly hard].
Similarly Christefano says it would take him about 5 hrs to get a good Wiki running, and kindly says he'd help me on it (I'm hoping at this meeting.)
In prep for this meeting, I'm planning to install on a Dreamhost account a fresh copy of the latest Drupal (6.8), then immediately-following http://drupal.org/project/devel per Christefano's recommendation that it's essential for such customization.

Thoughts appreciated!

Sincerely, -DrupalPal :-)

Glad you'll make it! The

Posted by christefano on January 6, 2009 at 8:06am

Glad you'll make it! The meeting is set to start at 6pm but we don't really have anything scheduled or set in stone. I'll be there a few minutes early to reserve that hard to describe athenaeum area that has the pillows and discarded newspapers.

This will be more of a social event than structured meetup and I encourage you to have fun at the café (and save yourself time later!) by having your Drupal install up and running before you come. (I recommend installing a Drupal 5 site, as well, so that you can keep your options open and upgrade it to D6 later.)

"Recommend installing a Drupal 5 site" --When 6.8 is out?? Why?

Posted by DrupalPal-1 on January 6, 2009 at 9:10am

If the software was only in 6beta I could understand, but at 6.8, why would I want to bother with 5? --Is 6.8 not stable? Or aren't the key modules ported to 6 already? (If so, why not?)

The question is, what

Posted by christefano on January 6, 2009 at 9:56am

The question is, what features do you plan for your site to have? If you start it in Drupal 5, you can always update it to D6 later as long as you use discretion when balancing features with which contrib modules you choose.

Here's what I mean. Do you want a "recent changes" page? The Drupal 6 version of Recent Changes is in development but a critical bug in it has only been fixed in the Drupal 5 version. (This probably isn't a problem if all pages are public and you don't use any node access modules.)

Do you want inline diffing? The LifeWire Diff module is only available for Drupal 5. If you don't mind or prefer 2-column diffing then Diff is available for Drupal 6.

If you want to reuse images across multiple pages, you might want to use the Image module. It's under active development for Drupal 6 but the Drupal 5 is solid. Same for Timeline, Panels, Node Queue and other modules you might want to use.

Anyway, my suggestion is to install Drupal 5 as well as Drupal 6. That way you can see which better meets your needs. It's much more difficult to downgrade from D6 to D5.

Let's talk about it more tomorrow.

Thanks; of that, seems the entire prob is Recent Changes

Posted by DrupalPal-1 on January 6, 2009 at 2:03pm

Thanks! for the detailed explanation, including links to actual modules. I've looked at them all carefully:

**Drupal module candidates for a wiki like Media, and their status in Drupal 6**
module	need now	status	last mod	comments	prob
Diff	85%	done	2008-Sep-03	pretty essential and done.	0%
Panels	75%	alpha3	2008-Dec-30	Doing this later would seem like all the layout would have to be recoded, a big job.	30%
Recent Changes	70%	under constr	2008-Feb-26	That link you gave me suggests he got this this last-mod working (even though not released) for D6 wiki. But yes I DO plan to have private pages (totally exposed by that critical bug, which I see you talked about in June) though I could put the private pages temporarily elsewhere MAYBE. But in any cases, "recent changes" is such a basic function, so what is halting dev on this for nearly a year? --most especially if there is this critical bug? And how are D6 users surviving without some recent changes functionality?--They all have no private pages? --Or is there some alternate modules? Google Search[recent-changes module D6 OR Drupal-6] doesn't find solutions nor alternates.	90%
Revision Tags	50%	done	2008-Mar-14	From what I little understand on of this, I'd probably use it. Say for example one wants to say one WAS a member of school X (say to find the alums), if that's an applicable use.	10%
Image	40%	alpha3	2009-Jan-01	Might be useful not immediately but in a few months, and is already in alpha3.	10%
Node Queue	25%	rc3	2008-Dec-26	Seems more for making the site more entertaining & eye catching, can be added later; is RC3	10%
LifeWire Diff	20%	not started?		As you might suspect, yes I see it as just an aesthetic add-on to Diff (which is done) and sometimes-not preferred one as that, so no reason for D6. Wikipedia does fine without it.	10%
Timeline	10%	under constr	2008-Dec-12	Seems useful for much later, and is under active dev.

So, in your list of models, Recent Changes seems to be the only real weak link. But
it's serious.

So the question is, do you hold back on D6 wiki for this one thing? Or
say not put private pages up. I think probably the later. But I'm
quite worried why development has stopped and there are no alternatives.

wish I could make it but not

Posted by mike stewart on January 6, 2009 at 9:09pm

wish I could make it but not in the cards this night. :(

--
mike stewart { twitter: @MediaDoneRight | IRC nick: mike stewart }

Hats off 2 Christefano --4throwin the funnest computer mtg ever!

Posted by DrupalPal-1 on January 8, 2009 at 12:58pm

What a ball! That was the most fun computer meeting ever!
Anyone who missed it, really missed out.

WinSCPing Drupal 5... in the hot tub! How's Drupal coding -- in a hot tub?! I did it, along with 2 other buds.

Drupal Dinner Time! Plus all 6 of us (plus the owner of the house) stuffed ourselves with delicious sausages and garden salad, plus red wine & even red tortillas, which we all chipped in get & cook. :-)

Mmm... Geek Sausage! And needless to say Christefano also bent-over-backwards to get everyone's Drupal Qs answered, including countless suggestions on which Drupal Modules one needed to get the job done, what plans would work and which probably wouldn't, and why, generously sharing with us newer folk his abundance of Drupal knowledge, experience, and enthusiasm.

Design Dog, too, kept the party barking to the very end: the party went on to 4:30am. And I actually spent the night!

So HATS OFF TO CHRISTEFANO!
--when it comes to throwing a Drupal event for us newbies, you rule!

--Yours, DrupalPal :-)

We must get this on the front page!

Posted by gusaus on January 8, 2009 at 9:38pm

This most certainly will attract more females to Drupal!

Gus Austin
PepperAlley Productions

Gus Austin

sounds fun--sorry I missed it!

Posted by karasicpark on January 8, 2009 at 3:24pm

Sounds like it was fun...unfortunately I was working into the late hours.