http://groups.drupal.org/drupal-newsletter A group to help organize and write the monthly Drupal Newsletter en http://groups.drupal.org/node/13206 <p>The <a href="http://groups.drupal.org/node/13187">Drupal Newsletter</a> is basically ready. If you have anything to go in, now's you're last chance.</p> <p>I'm trying to keep it lean. Have done this with several referenced wikis, which will become posts on d.o. <strong>@TODO:</strong> Peter should revise the interview at <a href="http://groups.drupal.org/node/13195" title="http://groups.drupal.org/node/13195">http://groups.drupal.org/node/13195</a>, at least to reflect working now at acquia. Before publishing, we need to move certain posts from the groups to drupal.org (or make them non-wiki), as they're linked throughout. Links in the newsletter need to be updated to the final resting places.</p> <p><strong>Referenced Sections: </strong></p> <ul> <li><a href="http://groups.drupal.org/node/13187">Drupal Newsletter</a> <li><a href="http://groups.drupal.org/node/13188">Upcoming Events</a> <li><a href="http://groups.drupal.org/node/13195">Interview</a> <li><a href="http://groups.drupal.org/node/13190">Case Studies</a> <li><a href="http://groups.drupal.org/node/13194">Resources</a></ul> <p>Aaron Winborn<br /> <a href="http://www.packtpub.com/create-multimedia-website-with-drupal/book">Drupal Multimedia</a> (my book, coming in September!)<br /> <a href="http://aaronwinborn.com">AaronWinborn.com</a> (my blog, all about Drupal)<br /> <a href="http://www.advomatic.com">Advomatic</a> (my work)</p> <div class="og_rss_groups"><a href="/drupal-newsletter">Drupal Newsletter</a></div> http://groups.drupal.org/node/13206#comments drupal newsletter Drupal Newsletter Wed, 16 Jul 2008 00:12:14 +0000 aaron 13206 at http://groups.drupal.org http://groups.drupal.org/node/13195 <h2><a name="getting-drupal-done"></a>Getting Drupal Done Interview</h2> <p>by Michael Samuelson (<a href="http://drupal.org/user/47411">mlsamuelson</a>)</p> <p>Any seasoned Drupaller will tell you that in addition to Drupal being great software, it's also a great community.</p> <p>There are a number of folks in the Drupal community that "get it" and make consistent contributions. The following interview is dedicated to uncovering a few of the tips, tricks and practices used by one of those individuals to Get Drupal Done.</p> <p><img src="http://acquia.com/files/pictures/picture-1649.jpg" align="right" /></p> <h3>Update to Interview with Peter Wolanin</h3> <p>The interview below was conducted before Peter joined Acquia as a senior engineer in June. Since then he's obviously been doing full-time work with Drupal, is using a MacBook Pro with system 10.5 and MAMP as well as the built-in apache and PHP, and added the Komodo IDE as a development tool. However, Peter is still using the same approaches outlined in the interview to get Drupal done.</p> <h3>Interview with Peter Wolanin, aka <a href="http://drupal.org/user/49851">pwolanin</a></h3> <p><i>What sort of work do you do on Drupal?</i></p> <p>I maintain a bunch of modules, though I've lagged a bit in updating them since I was putting lots of time into Drupal 6.x development.</p> <p>I got into Drupal through using it for our local Democratic club, so a number of the modules I maintain are due to that connection.</p> <p><i>Describe how Drupal fits into your average workday.</i></p> <p>Not much - I work for a small company doing (broadly) biotech R&amp;D. I implemented a chemical inventory system with Drupal for use internally, but that's not something that requires frequent attention.</p> <p>So, most of the Drupal stuff I get done is during the evening or weekend, or occasionally on my lunch break.</p> <p><i>How do you organize your workspace?</i></p> <p>For Drupal, it's usually just the laptop and me sitting on the couch.</p> <p><i>Describe your development environment (hardware, OS, software). Any favorites regarding productivity?</i></p> <p>MacBook with Mac OS 10.4, Xcode installed to get cvs and other utilities. A logitech trackball with the computer on the lap desk.</p> <p>I've been using JEdit as an editor - it's GPL, has pretty good syntax highlighting, etc. And has a variety of helpful plugins.</p> <p>On the laptop, default apache 1.33, and I recently installed PHP 5.2.4 from <a href="http://www.entropy.ch" title="www.entropy.ch">www.entropy.ch</a> for local testing.</p> <p>MySQL 5.0 community server, with MySQL GUI tools. Colloquy as an IRC client.</p> <p>Sometime use an old PC with Ubuntu 8.04 as an alternate test platform (e.g. for PostgreSQL).</p> <p>I visit <a href="http://api.drupal.org" title="http://api.drupal.org">http://api.drupal.org</a> and <a href="http://php.net" title="http://php.net">http://php.net</a> frequently to check usage or examples.</p> <p><i>How do you keep up with Drupal news and developments? What practices do you use to keep from getting bogged down or distracted?</i></p> <p>I read the dev list, but have it moved out of my inbox automatically since I don't always have time to look right away. I think that list can be useful for those interested in core development (along, of course with all site admins being subscribed to security announcements). When I have lots of spare time, I look at <a href="http://drupal.org/planet">Planet Drupal</a> and <a href="http://groups.drupal.org" title="http://groups.drupal.org">http://groups.drupal.org</a> . When 6.x core development was really heavy, I subscribed to e-mail updates<br /> for all my issues, but now I just hit <a href="http://drupal.org/project/issues/user" title="http://drupal.org/project/issues/user">http://drupal.org/project/issues/user</a> regularly.</p> <p><i>Any tips and tricks regarding Drupal productivity?</i></p> <p>Don't assume that people are going to see your patch and recognize its importance. Especially for core patches. Even for critical patches you need to keep following up and re-rolling, as well as working to find qualified reviewers. Don't get aggravated when someone finds a typo in a code comment, or a commit means your patch doesn't apply.</p> <p>Essentially, if a patch is important to you, you need to maintain some ownership of it and advocate for its inclusion. And after the patch is in you should then be a good citizen and help update the documentation, especially when you help effect a core API change.</p> <p>Oh, and sometimes, just take a break from it and forget about it for a few days (or weeks even).</p> <p><i>Share your biggest "breakthrough" or "ah-ha" moment regarding working within the Drupal community.</i></p> <p>When I started hanging out more in the IRC channels (#drupal, etc) I was able to get a lot more done. Through this I've built working relationships with other contributors, and I've found it to be really key for helping find people to look at and review patches, post follow-ups, etc.</p> <p><i>Any advice for newbie developers on how to Get Drupal Done?</i></p> <p>I spent the first several months answering questions in the drupal.org forums. At that point I was still getting a handle on PHP and the Drupal API (note that I had coded C, etc before so I was not starting from scratch), and by answering even trivial questions, I was able to enhance my own confidence that I understood what was going on. In probably half those first posts, I was wrong in what I posted - so that also gave me a chance to learn when someone else posted a comment to say so.</p> <p><i>Special thanks to Peter for the interview.</i></p> <div class="og_rss_groups"><a href="/drupal-newsletter">Drupal Newsletter</a></div> Newsletter Wiki Drupal Newsletter Tue, 15 Jul 2008 18:41:37 +0000 mlsamuelson 13195 at http://groups.drupal.org http://groups.drupal.org/node/13194 <p><em>For the <a href="http://drupal.org/newsletter/2008/summer">Summer newsletter</a>:</em></p> <h2><a href="http://drupal.org/node/280461">Drupal Multimedia</a></h2> <p><a href="http://www.packtpub.com/create-multimedia-website-with-drupal/book/mid/300608sz1cqj"><img src="http://drupal.org/files/images/drupal-multimedia-med.jpg" align="right" /></a></p> <p>Aaron Winborn, of <a href="http://advomatic.com">Advomatic</a> and <a href="http://drupal.org/project/emfield">Embedded Media Field</a> fame, has completed writing <a href="http://www.packtpub.com/create-multimedia-website-with-drupal/book/mid/300608sz1cqj">Drupal Multimedia</a>, to be published by Packt Publishing this September (and you can pre-order now)! Packt will be donating a portion of the royalties to the Drupal Association, in keeping with their long-standing policy of supporting the Open Source community.</p> <p>Written for Drupal 6, this book is a comprehensive overview of integrating multimedia into your Drupal-powered web site. With hands-on examples and tutorials, the book is written for site developers, themers, and administrators. The book makes no assumptions about your skill level, although one should probably already have an understanding of Drupal and how to set up and configure a basic site. The book will guide you through its topics, gently moving the reader from basic concepts such as module set-up, to intermediate techniques such as creating views, to advanced methods such as writing jQuery and custom modules.</p> <p><a href="http://drupal.org/node/280461">Read more</a></p> <h2><a href="http://drupal.org/node/276923">Understanding Drupal DVD</a></h2> <p><a href="http://www.lullabot.com/news/20080630/understanding-drupal-dvd"><img src="http://www.lullabot.com/files/u1/DVD_understanding.jpg" align="right" /></a></p> <p><a href="http://www.lullabot.com/news/20080630/understanding-drupal-dvd">Understanding Drupal</a> is the first video in The Lullabot Learning Series. This video provides an overview of Drupal as a content management system, as a PHP web application framework, and as a developer community. Its documentary-style exploration covers all the terminology and fundamental concepts for both site administrators and developers. If you've ever been confused by Drupal or are still trying to wrap your head around the community and platform, this video is intended as a roadmap to accelerate your journey up the Drupal learning curve.</p> <p>Lullabots Addison Berry (add1sun), Angela Byron (webchick), Jeff Eaton (eaton), Nathan Haug (quicksketch), Jeff Robbins (jjeff), James Walker (walkah), and Matt Westgate (matt westgate) sit down to tell us about Drupal in this video directed and edited by Kent Bye (kentbye). A portion of the profits from this video will be donated directly to the Drupal Association.</p> <p><a href="http://www.lullabot.com/news/20080630/understanding-drupal-dvd">Read more</a></p> <h2><a href="http://drupal.org/node/260841">Learning Drupal 6 Module Development</a></h2> <p><a href="http://www.packtpub.com/drupal-6-module-development/book"><img src="http://images.packtpub.com/images/100x123/1847194443.png" align="left" /></a></p> <p>Developing new modules for Drupal 6? Porting older modules? Packt Publishing has just released a new book, <a href="http://www.packtpub.com/drupal-6-module-development/book">Learning Drupal 6 Module Development</a>, by Matt Butcher. This book is targeted toward PHP programmers interested in Drupal 6 module development.</p> <p>The book takes a hands-on approach. Each chapter walks through the development of a module, theme, or installation profile. As the reader progresses through the book, she or he will be able to create increasingly sophisticated Drupal modules.</p> <p>If you're new to Drupal development (but have PHP development experience), this book will get you developing modules right away. Are you a more seasoned Drupal developer just looking to get some modules updated? This book focuses on many of the new features, changes, and improvements made in Drupal 6. Check out the sample chapter <a href="http://www.packtpub.com/files/Learning-Drupal-6-Module-Development-Sample-Chapter-Chapter-2-Creating-Our-First-Module.pdf">Creating Our First Module (1.3M PDF)</a> to get a feel for how the book is written.</p> <p><a href="http://drupal.org/node/260841">Read more</a></p> <h2><a href="http://drupal.org/node/257057">Selling online with Drupal e-Commerce</a></h2> <p><a href="http://www.packtpub.com/drupal-ecommerce/book"><img src="http://images.packtpub.com/images/100x123/1847194060.png" align="left" /></a></p> <p><a href="http://www.packtpub.com/drupal-ecommerce/book">Selling Online with Drupal e-Commerce</a> is Packt's new book, written by Michael Peacock, aimed at users wishing to create an online store, and uses Drupal and its e-Commerce modules to achieve this. With more and more websites aiming to integrate all of their components to give a more slick and streamlined effect for users - by using Drupal e-Commerce, the site and the store are already integrated providing both a powerful website and a powerful online store.</p> <p><a href="http://drupal.org/node/257057">Read more</a></p> <div class="og_rss_groups"><a href="/drupal-newsletter">Drupal Newsletter</a></div> Newsletter Wiki Drupal Newsletter Tue, 15 Jul 2008 18:21:54 +0000 aaron 13194 at http://groups.drupal.org http://groups.drupal.org/node/13190 <p><em>For the <a href="http://drupal.org/newsletter/2008/summer">Summer newsletter</a>:</em></p> <p>As Drupal matures, so do the sites that it powers. The following are but a small sampling of sites that have been recently built or re-launched with Drupal. Each of these case studies, published since this spring, are well worth reading, to see how other developers do their magic, and to see a tiny bit of what Drupal is possible of doing.</p> <h2><a href="http://drupal.org/node/281247">Caribbean Resumes - Job Opportunities and Careers in the Caribbean</a></h2> <p><a href="http://drupal.org/node/281247"><img src="http://drupal.org/files/carribean.png" /></a></p> <blockquote><p>Caribbean Resumes just launched - It's is a little monster.com that is geared towards providing a job portal for all the recruitment, career advice and hiring needs for Caribbean residents. The following details how I built the site, including the history, overall design approach, what modules were used, and more. <a href="http://drupal.org/node/281247">Read more</a>.</p></blockquote> <h2><a href="http://drupal.org/node/279485">Art Institute of Chicago's first brush with Drupal</a></h2> <p><img src="http://drupal.org/files/artic-collections_1.jpg" /></p> <blockquote><p>The Art Institute of Chicago (AIC) is one of the world's premier art museums, best-known for its collections of Impressionist, Post-Impressionist, and American paintings. In addition to housing famous paintings such as Seurat's A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte, van Gogh's Bedroom in Arles and Grant Wood's American Gothic, the Museum also has world-class collections of photography, arms and armor, ceramic figures, portrait sculptures, miniatures, and galleries of ancient Egyptian, Greek, and Roman artifacts, including the mummy of Paankhenamun. <a href="http://drupal.org/node/279485">Read more</a>.</p></blockquote> <h2><a href="http://drupal.org/node/267393">The Vintage Aviator - Build Story</a></h2> <p><a href="http://drupal.org/node/267393"><img src="http://api.coders.co.nz/sites/api.coders/files/frontpage_1024.jpg" /></a></p> <blockquote><p>Last week, I released thevintageaviator.co.nz. It was probably one of the most challenging Drupal sites I've ever done, but also the best so far. It's a presentation of a local WW1 Warplane workshop, containing build stories, reference material, and thousands of great images of plane reproductions and archive materials. The build story is a long one, mostly because the requirements shifted along the way quite a bit. This story is targeted at current Drupal site developers who are interested in the tools and techniques used. Mostly to head off the "so how did you do that?" questions we get whenever we do a write-up :-) However among the interesting thing for developers and designers will be the complex layered look, the way this layout was optimized to scale to all screen sizes, and the surgery I did to Drupal to make this all happen. Initial feedback we've received so far has been overwhelmingly positive (save some justified grumbles about the page weight) and I'd like to share this case study. <a href="http://drupal.org/node/267393">Read more</a>.</p></blockquote> <h2><a href="http://drupal.org/node/263121">Sparkle*Shelf - Beauty &amp; Style Community</a></h2> <p><a href="http://drupal.org/node/263121"><img src="http://drupal.org/files/images/sparkle.thumbnail.png" /></a></p> <blockquote><p>We have just launched the Beta release of Sparkle*Shelf (<a href="http://sparkleshelf.com" title="http://sparkleshelf.com">http://sparkleshelf.com</a>), a site that provides beauty enthusiasts with the latest information and tutorials on fashion, hair and makeup. We currently host fifteen regular feature writers, who contribute a total of 3-5 articles a day. Sparkle*Shelf is also a place for members to connect with other like-minded members. There are basic social networking features as well as a number of beauty related applications/games, such as polls, quizzes and "smack-downs". <a href="http://drupal.org/node/263121">Read more</a>.</p></blockquote> <h2><a href="http://drupal.org/node/261340">Eureka! Science News just launched!</a></h2> <p><a href="http://drupal.org/node/261340"><img src="http://esciencenews.com/images/esciencenews.png" /></a></p> <blockquote><p>Eureka! Science News just launched – it is a site dedicated to provide the very latest science news, but with a special twist – it is entirely automated! There is no human editor behind it - it finds relationships between news stories from all major science sites and regroups, categorizes, ranks, tags, finds related press releases and publishes them directly on the site. The result is an efficient overview of everything happening in science, right when it happens. The following details how we built the site. <a href="http://drupal.org/node/261340">Read more</a>.</p></blockquote> <h2><a href="http://drupal.org/node/242993">Spirit Library - complex panels 2/views based drupal site</a></h2> <p><a href="http://drupal.org/node/242993"><img src="http://spiritlibrary.com/writeup/slhome.png" /></a></p> <blockquote><p>Spirit Library is library of spiritual messages and information. It contains thousands of articles/messages from spiritual speakers and authors which are filterable and sortable in different ways. The site extensively uses the excellent Panels 2 modules alongside Views. This is the third incarnation of the site, and the one that finally gets very close to where we wanted to be with it. The first version was launched 18 months ago as a Plone site, as that was the CMS i had most experience with, but after a while it became too restrictive and we started looking in Drupals direction. For the second version we migrated the site from Plone, and the change coincided with a large jump in traffic and at the same time gave the vps it was hosted on more room as it used less server resources (especially memory). <a href="http://drupal.org/node/242993">Read more</a>.</p></blockquote> <h2><a href="http://drupal.org/node/241344">SonyBMG Launches MyPlay on Drupal</a></h2> <p><a href="http://drupal.org/node/241344"><img src="http://drupal.org/files/images/myplay.com.png" /></a></p> <blockquote><p>Myplay.com is a redesign and re-branding of Sony's Musicbox site which showcases SonyBMG's artists, providing free access to their videos, music and photos. Users can create lists of their favorite artists as well as review their music and embed widgets of their favorite artist's content into other sites. Sony Musicbox was originally implemented by the Lullabots who provided the base framework for this redesign. Thanks to their diligence and teaching as well as excellent tools provided by Earl Miles (Panels 2, Views and Nodequeue), three people (Suzi Arnold, Jerad Bitner and David Burns) were able to accomplish this task in just over a month. This case study documents how the site is put together, and provides implementation details on how we've combined numerous important contributed modules to build a "next generation" Drupal site. <a href="http://drupal.org/node/241344">Read more</a>.</p></blockquote> <h2><a href="http://drupal.org/node/233090">Popular Science Magazine (PopSci.com) Case Study</a></h2> <p><a href="http://drupal.org/node/233090"><img src="http://drupal.org/files/PopSci-fp-40.png" /></a></p> <blockquote><p>Following up on the <a href="http://boston2008.drupalcon.org/session/popular-science-case-study">Popular Science Case Study</a> presented at DrupalCon Boston 2008 by <a href="http://drupal.org/user/27802">Kevin Bridges (cyberswat)</a>, <a href="http://drupal.org/user/18973">Laura Scott</a> and others at <a href="http://pingv.com/">pingVision</a>, along with Megan Miller and John Mahoney of PopSci.com, here is a <a href="http://drupal.org/node/233090">written case study on the development approaches for PopSci.com</a>. <a href="http://drupal.org/node/233090">Read more</a>.</p></blockquote> <div class="og_rss_groups"><a href="/drupal-newsletter">Drupal Newsletter</a></div> Newsletter Wiki Drupal Newsletter Tue, 15 Jul 2008 17:26:59 +0000 aaron 13190 at http://groups.drupal.org http://groups.drupal.org/node/13188 <p><em>For the <a href="http://drupal.org/newsletter/2008/summer">Summer newsletter</a>:</em></p> <p><a href="http://szeged2008.drupalcon.org/"><img src="http://szeged2008.drupalcon.org/sites/all/themes/szeged2008/logo.png" align="right" /></a></p> <p>A lot is happening this summer in the world of Drupal. Of course, <a href="http://szeged2008.drupalcon.org/">Drupalcon Szeged 2008</a>, in late August, is a highly anticipated event, with already 350 Drupal developers and users registered. However, there are many other conferences and events worth attending as well. Following are a few of them; see the <a href="http://groups.drupal.org/events">Events group</a> for a more complete calendar.</p> <p><a href="#july">July</a> &bull; <a href="#august">August</a> &bull; <a href="#september">September</a> &bull; <a href="#october">October</a></p> <h2><a name="july">July 2008</a></h2> <p><a href="http://groups.drupal.org/node/12408">OSCON Drupal booth at dot org pavillion</a><br />July 21-23<br />Portland, Oregon</p> <p>We're still looking for more volunteers to represent Drupal at OSCON 2008. Please sign up if you're interested! <a href="http://en.oreilly.com/oscon2008/public/content/home">OSCON 2008 is Open Source Conference</a> OSCON (July 21-25 in Portland) is the crossroads of all things open source, bringing together the best, brightest, and most interesting people to explore what's new, and to champion the cause of open principles and open source adoption across the computing industry.</p> <p><a href="http://groups.drupal.org/node/11810">Media/Files Code Sprint</a><br />July 21-25<br />Portland, Oregon</p> <p>At a location in Portland still to be determined, a working group will gather with a focus of Media and Files in Drupal, aiming to improve file management and access in Drupal, put better multimedia handling into core, and do more good things for Drupal. If you're planning to come to OSCON, or if you just want to be part of this great effort, drop on by!</p> <p><a href="http://drupalcampcolorado.org/">Drupal Camp Colorado</a><br />July 26-27<br />Denver, Colorado</p> <p>The next Drupal Camp Colorado is happening the weekend of July 26th and 27th in Denver. Come join us in the mountains for two full days of Drupal wisdom and knowledge. We are going to host a mix of sessions and BOF's geared towards both the new Drupalers out there as well as the experienced veterans. Sign up at <a href="http://drupalcampcolorado.org/" title="http://drupalcampcolorado.org/">http://drupalcampcolorado.org/</a>.</p> <h2><a name="august">August 2008</a></h2> <p><a href="http://drupalcamp08.drupalindia.in/"><img src="http://drupalcamp08.drupalindia.in/sites/all/themes/fourseasons/logo.png" align="left" />Drupal Camp India</a><br />August 8-10<br />DA-IICT, Gandhinagar, India</p> <p>We proudly annouce the venue for Drupal Camp India at DA-IICT, Gandhinagar. Although it took really long for us as far as finalization of the venue is concerned, we finally got DA-IICT venu approved for first ever DrupalCamp in India between 8 to 10 August, DA-IICT is a well-known institute situated at Gandhinagar, the capital city of Gujarat.</p> <p><a href="http://groups.drupal.org/node/12409">Drupal at LinuxWorld</a><br />August 5-7<br />San Francisco, California</p> <p>We have a booth at LinuxWorld, and are looking for volunteers to represent Drupal. The <a href="http://www.linuxworldexpo.com/live/12/">LinuxWorld Conference &amp; Expo</a> features over 100 top-tier, educational sessions covering seven tracks that go deep into Linux and open source industry trends.</p> <p><a href="http://szeged2008.drupalcon.org/">Drupalcon Szeged 2008</a><br />August 27-30<br />Szeged, Hungary</p> <p>Drupalcon is the twice-yearly gathering of Drupalers to learn about, discuss and advance Drupal, and to network with other community members. Experience this thriving community in person yourself in Szeged, Hungary!</p> <p><a href="http://groups.drupal.org/node/12747">DrupalCampNYC</a><br />August or September<br />New York City</p> <p>DrupalCampNYC is tentatively planned for August or September, although the dates and venue are not yet finalized.</p> <h2><a name="september">September 2008</a></h2> <p><a href="http://groups.drupal.org/node/11318">OpenExpo</a><br />September 24-25<br />Eulachhallen Winterthur, Switzerland</p> <p><a href="http://www.openexpo.ch/openexpo-2008-zuerich/call-for-participation/">Swiss Open Source Software Conference &amp; Exposition</a>: As a community meeting point and industrial exhibitioin OpenExpo has become THE date in Switzerland's Open Source agenda. The Swiss Drupal User Group is planning to have a presence at this conference. Please visit <a href="http://groups.drupal.org/node/11318" title="http://groups.drupal.org/node/11318">http://groups.drupal.org/node/11318</a> if you are interested in being part of this.</p> <h2><a name="october">October 2008</a></h2> <p><a href="http://groups.drupal.org/node/10329">Montréal DrupalCamp2008</a><br />October 2-5<br />Montréal, Quebec, Canada</p> <p>The event should be oriented around birds of a feather style sessions in a format that allows people to roam from one session to another or to continue working as long as they like on their favorite themes. It should provide real learning opportunities for both developers and users alike and should represent a networking bonanza for Drupal shops, independent developers and existing/potential users. We want to avoid the panelists-in-front-of-audiences format that has become the norm in the bigger events. Oh, and it should be cheap!</p> <div class="og_rss_groups"><a href="/drupal-newsletter">Drupal Newsletter</a></div> Newsletter Wiki Drupal Newsletter Tue, 15 Jul 2008 17:00:16 +0000 aaron 13188 at http://groups.drupal.org http://groups.drupal.org/node/13187 <h2>Summer 2008</h2> <p>As Drupal 6 matures, we are entering an exciting time for its users and developers. Content Construction Kit (CCK) and Views 2 both have release candidates, and most of your favorite modules have either already been upgraded, or are well on their way. This summer has seen a lot of activity, such as the nearly 20 projects of the Google Summer of Code, and there are great things planned, such as the highly anticipated Drupalcon Szeged. We have seen two Drupal books published by Packt, with a third on the way, and Lullabot released the first DVD of their new Lullabot Learning Series.</p> <p>Read on for a quick overview of the Drupal News and upcoming events!</p> <h2>DrupalCon Szeged 2008</h2> <p><a href="http://szeged2008.drupalcon.org/"><img src="http://szeged2008.drupalcon.org/sites/all/themes/szeged2008/logo.png" align="left" /></a></p> <p>On July 24th the organizers of <a href="http://szeged2008.drupalcon.org/">Drupalcon Szeged</a> will close the accommodation service, so if you want to have us organize a hotel for you, you should <a href="http://szeged2008.drupalcon.org/register">register</a> for the conference the coming week! You will still be able to see the hotel listing online, but you will have to organize everything yourself. Drupalcon Szeged is again pulling a very international public. So far we have registered attendees from <a href="http://drupal.org/node/282548">35 countries</a>. Hungary has a narrow lead with 43 participants, but is closely followed by the US with 40 and Germany with 35 registered participants. There are 6 weeks left until the conference so there is still time to put a <a href="http://szeged2008.drupalcon.org/blog/helps-us-promote-drupalcon-szeged">banner on your blog</a> and get more people in your country to attend Drupalcon.</p> <p>If you are working with Drupal there are a lot of <a href="http://szeged2008.drupalcon.org/sponsors/packages">really good reasons</a> why you should become a sponsor. It's a unique opportunity to contribute back and get visibility in the community. <a href="http://acquia.com/">Acquia</a> was the first company to sign up for a Platinum package, <a href="http://www.sun.com/">Sun</a> for a Gold. Check out our packages to see how you can also get some serious value this August. Our track chairs also would like you to know that there is still some time left to <a href="http://szeged2008.drupalcon.org/program/propose">suggest sessions</a>.</p> <h2>Recent News</h2> <p><a href="http://drupal.org/drupal-6.3">Drupal 6.3 and 5.8 released, fixing security issues</a></p> <p>Drupal 6.3 and Drupal 5.8, maintenance releases fixing problems reported using the bug tracking system, as well as security vulnerabilities, are now available for download. Drupal 6.3 also includes some changes to the installer to prevent file ownership issues on shared hosts; upgrades jQuery to version 1.2.6; improves PostreSQL compatibility; fixes performance issues in search, menu and form API and contains a variety of other small improvements. It should also be noted that the Views for Drupal 6 release candidate requires Drupal 6.3 to run properly. <a href="http://drupal.org/drupal-6.3">Read more</a>.</p> <p><a href="http://drupal.org/node/280082">Summer of Code 2008 Mid-term Results</a></p> <p>Mid-terms for Google Summer of Code 2008 are upon us. We have 19 students and over 40 mentors working tirelessly to bring you fantastic code ranging from new design tools, to fantastic new APIs, to improvements to existing modules such as Views and NodeQueue. Read on to meet the students behind SoC, and actually test out preliminary alpha versions of their projects yourselves! Make sure to log feedback to the projects' issue queues. :)</p> <p>For more information about Summer of Code, see the <a href="http://groups.drupal.org/soc-2008">SoC 2008 group</a> on groups.drupal.org. <a href="http://drupal.org/node/280082">Read more</a>.</p> <h2>Upcoming Events</h2> <p>(See the full section for more on <a href="http://groups.drupal.org/node/13188">Upcoming Events</a>.)</p> <p><a href="http://groups.drupal.org/node/13188"><img src="http://drupalcamp08.drupalindia.in/sites/all/themes/fourseasons/logo.png" align="right" /></a></p> <p>A lot is happening this summer in the world of Drupal. Of course, <a href="http://szeged2008.drupalcon.org/">Drupalcon Szeged 2008</a>, in late August, is a highly anticipated event, with already 350 Drupal developers and users registered. However, there are many other conferences and events worth attending as well. Following are a few of them; see the <a href="http://groups.drupal.org/events">Events group</a> for a more complete calendar. <a href="http://groups.drupal.org/node/13188">Read more</a>.</p> <ul> <li><strong><a href="http://groups.drupal.org/node/13188#july">July 2008</a></strong> <ul> <li><a href="http://groups.drupal.org/node/12408">OSCON Drupal booth at dot org pavillion</a>: July 21-23, in Portland, Oregon <li><a href="http://groups.drupal.org/node/11810">Media/Files Code Sprint</a>: July 21-25, in Portland, Oregon <li><a href="http://drupalcampcolorado.org/">Drupal Camp Colorado</a>: July 26-27, in Denver, Colorado</ul> <li><strong><a href="http://groups.drupal.org/node/13188#august">August 2008</a></strong> <ul> <li><a href="http://drupalcamp08.drupalindia.in/">Drupal Camp India</a>, August 8-10, in DA-IICT, Gandhinagar, India <li><a href="http://groups.drupal.org/node/12409">Drupal at LinuxWorld</a>, August 5-7, in San Francisco, California <li><strong><a href="http://szeged2008.drupalcon.org/">Drupalcon Szeged 2008</a></strong>, August 27-30, in Szeged, Hungary <li><a href="http://groups.drupal.org/node/12747">DrupalCampNYC</a> is tentatively planned for August or September, although the dates and venue are not yet finalized.</ul> <li><strong><a href="http://groups.drupal.org/node/13188#september">September 2008</a></strong> <ul> <li><a href="http://drupalcampla.com">Drupal Camp LA 2008</a>, September 13-14.</li> <li><a href="http://groups.drupal.org/node/11318">OpenExpo</a>, September 24-25, in Eulachhallen Winterthur, Switzerland</ul> <li><strong><a href="http://groups.drupal.org/node/13188#october">October 2008</a></strong> <ul> <li><a href="http://groups.drupal.org/node/10329">Montréal DrupalCamp2008</a>, October 2-5, in Montréal, Quebec, Canada</ul> </ul> <h2>Getting Drupal Done Interview</h2> <p>Read the full <a href="http://groups.drupal.org/node/13195">Getting Drupal Done Interview</a>, by Michael Samuelson (<a href="http://drupal.org/user/47411">mlsamuelson</a>)</p> <p><a href="http://groups.drupal.org/node/13195"><img src="http://acquia.com/files/pictures/picture-1649.jpg" align="right" /></a></p> <p>Any seasoned Drupaller will tell you that in addition to Drupal being great software, it's also a great community.</p> <p>There are a number of folks in the Drupal community that "get it" and make consistent contributions. This interview is dedicated to uncovering a few of the tips, tricks and practices used by one of those individuals to Get Drupal Done. Read this summer's <a href="http://groups.drupal.org/node/13195">Interview with Peter Wolanin</a>, aka <a href="http://drupal.org/user/49851">pwolanin</a>.</p> <blockquote><p>Don't assume that people are going to see your patch and recognize its importance. Especially for core patches. Even for critical patches you need to keep following up and re-rolling, as well as working to find qualified reviewers. Don't get aggravated when someone finds a typo in a code comment, or a commit means your patch doesn't apply. Essentially, if a patch is important to you, you need to maintain some ownership of it and advocate for its inclusion. And after the patch is in you should then be a good citizen and help update the documentation, especially when you help effect a core API change. Oh, and sometimes, just take a break from it and forget about it for a few days (or weeks even).</p></blockquote> <p><a href="http://groups.drupal.org/node/13195">Read more</a>.</p> <h2>Case Studies</h2> <p>(See more on recent <a href="http://groups.drupal.org/node/13190">Case Studies</a>.)</p> <p><a href="http://groups.drupal.org/node/13190"><img src="http://drupal.org/files/PopSci-fp-40.png" align="right" /></a></p> <p>As Drupal matures, so do the sites that it powers. The following are but a small sampling of sites that have been recently built or re-launched with Drupal. Each of these case studies, published since this spring, are well worth reading, to see how other developers do their magic, and to see a tiny bit of what Drupal is possible of doing. <a href="http://groups.drupal.org/node/13190">Read more</a>.</p> <ul> <li><a href="http://drupal.org/node/281247">Caribbean Resumes - Job Opportunities and Careers in the Caribbean</a></p> <li><a href="http://drupal.org/node/279485">Art Institute of Chicago's first brush with Drupal</a> <li><a href="http://drupal.org/node/267393">The Vintage Aviator - Build Story</a> <li><a href="http://drupal.org/node/263121">Sparkle*Shelf - Beauty &amp; Style Community</a> <li><a href="http://drupal.org/node/261340">Eureka! Science News just launched!</a> <li><a href="http://drupal.org/node/242993">Spirit Library - complex panels 2/views based drupal site</a> <li><a href="http://drupal.org/node/241344">SonyBMG Launches MyPlay on Drupal</a> <li><a href="http://drupal.org/node/233090">Popular Science Magazine (PopSci.com) Case Study</a></ul> <h2>Resources</h2> <p>(Read more about this summer's <a href="http://groups.drupal.org/node/13194">Drupal Resources</a>.)</p> <p><a href="http://groups.drupal.org/node/13194"><img src="http://www.lullabot.com/files/u1/DVD_understanding.jpg" align="left" /></a></p> <ul> <li><a href="http://drupal.org/node/280461">Drupal Multimedia</a>, coming in September, a book by Aaron Winborn</p> <li><a href="http://drupal.org/node/276923">Understanding Drupal</a>, a DVD by Lullabot <li><a href="http://drupal.org/node/260841">Learning Drupal 6 Module Development</a>, a book by Matt Butcher <li><a href="http://drupal.org/node/257057">Selling online with Drupal e-Commerce</a></ul> <h2>Referenced Sections</h2> <p>You may read more about this issue of the Drupal Newsletter by visiting the referenced sections, conveniently listed below.</p> <ul> <li><a href="http://groups.drupal.org/node/13188">Upcoming Events</a> <li><a href="http://groups.drupal.org/node/13195">Interview</a> <li><a href="http://groups.drupal.org/node/13190">Case Studies</a> <li><a href="http://groups.drupal.org/node/13194">Resources</a></ul> <h2>Submissions</h2> <p>Submissions, queries, corrections, and comments should go to the <a href="http://groups.drupal.org/drupal-newsletter">Drupal Newsletter Group</a>, or <a href="http://drupal.org/user/33420/contact">contact aaron</a>. Everyone is free to join the <a href="http://groups.drupal.org/drupal-newsletter">Drupal Newsletter Team</a>!</p> <h2>Credits</h2> <p>The following editors were key to getting this issue of the Drupal Newsletter ready:</p> <p>Aaron Winborn (<a href="http://drupal.org/user/33420">aaron</a>)<br /> Michael Samuelson (<a href="http://drupal.org/user/47411">mlsamuelson</a>)<br /> Peter Wolanin (<a href="http://drupal.org/user/49851">pwolanin</a>)<br /> Alex Urevick-Ackelsberg (<a href="http://drupal.org/user/110386">Alex UA</a>)</p> <div class="og_rss_groups"><a href="/drupal-newsletter">Drupal Newsletter</a></div> Newsletter Wiki Drupal Newsletter Tue, 15 Jul 2008 16:58:39 +0000 aaron 13187 at http://groups.drupal.org http://groups.drupal.org/node/12952 <p>We're planning to mail the summer issue of the Drupal Newsletter on Tuesday. I'll be spending the day on Tuesday helping to polish what's in there and making sure things are fresh. We'll have a focus on Drupalcon Szeged.</p> <p>To make this issue more manageable for readers, I plan to divide it into teasers, linking to the original articles on d.o and other sites.</p> <p>So if you want anything in there for the last minute, now's the time!</p> <p>Thanks,<br /> Aaron Winborn</p> <p><a href="http://aaronwinborn.com/">AaronWinborn.com</a> (my blog)<br /> <a href="http://advomatic.com/">Advomatic</a> (my work)<br /> <a href="http://www.packtpub.com/create-multimedia-website-with-drupal/book">Drupal Multimedia</a> (my book)</p> <div class="og_rss_groups"><a href="/drupal-newsletter">Drupal Newsletter</a></div> http://groups.drupal.org/node/12952#comments drupal newsletter Drupal Newsletter Mon, 07 Jul 2008 01:44:19 +0000 aaron 12952 at http://groups.drupal.org http://groups.drupal.org/node/10776 <h3>Coding standard change for D7</h3> <p><a href="http://drupal.org/node/245115"><br /> The patch</a> which changes the spacing for the concatenation operator got committed to D7 on April 14, 2008. That means from Drupal 7 onwards, there is a space on <em>both</em> sides of the concat operator (the . that connects strings) instead of just on the non-literal facing side. For contributed modules, this change is optional for D6 compatible code, and recommended for D7.</p> <p>Drupal 6:</p> <div class="codeblock"><code>$foo = &quot;Lorem Ipsum&quot;. dolor_invoke();</code></div> <p>Drupal 7:</p> <div class="codeblock"><code>$foo = &quot;Lorem Ipsum&quot; . dolor_invoke();</code></div> <p>This is in line with most other PHP coding styleguides and the conventions of most other C-style languages.</p> <p>It also means that many patches for D7 were broken, so if you have a patch in the queue, please check that it still applies before someone marks CNW.</p> <p>The arguments for the change included:</p> <blockquote><p> Why does the . operator have a different coding standard than any other binary operator? Why does:</p> <p> 'foo'. $bar</p> <p> make sense, but</p> <p> 3+ $bar</p> <p> not make sense? </p></blockquote> <h3>Creating Great Release Notes (the easy way)</h3> <p>You've been following the <a href="http://drupal.org/node/52287">commit message pattern to provide history and credit</a> and your commit messages from one point release to another are a great way to know which bugs have been fixed and which features added. But, how can you get that information formatted for your release notes? Thankfully, there is a script to do this for you!</p> <p>In the <a href="http://drupal.org/node/94151">Creating a Release Node For Your Project</a> handbook page, step 5 goes into a little detail on how to use the cvs-release-notes.php script to get a list all the changes with their messages all pretty with HTML formatting.</p> <p>For more information, see the <a href="http://lists.drupal.org/pipermail/development/2006-December/021186.html">email</a> where Derek Wright announced the new script.</p> <div class="og_rss_groups"><a href="/drupal-newsletter">Drupal Newsletter</a></div> Maintainer Newsletter Drupal Newsletter Wed, 16 Apr 2008 22:26:13 +0000 pwolanin 10776 at http://groups.drupal.org http://groups.drupal.org/node/10148 <p>ok, to wrap up this newsletter, we need to grab 3-4 of those posts, get permission, and stick teasers in the body. i'd also like to have links to any info about the video from the conference. i've only watched that peripherally; anyone know the status of that?</p> <p>thanks,<br /> aaron</p> <div class="og_rss_groups"><a href="/drupal-newsletter">Drupal Newsletter</a></div> http://groups.drupal.org/node/10148#comments Drupal Newsletter Wed, 26 Mar 2008 15:56:06 +0000 aaron 10148 at http://groups.drupal.org http://groups.drupal.org/node/9964 <p>Sorry I've been a bit absent since DrupalCon -- I'm right up against a big deadline at work for next week, and am behind on writing my book. I just crossed the 1/2 point for the book though, so plan to take an evening or two to get the newsletter in shape.</p> <p>The newsletter has (access to) a lot of material in it, so it just needs some tweaking to get it ready. I'd like to aim for publishing it Tuesday or Wednesday, so if you have anything that you want to get it at the last minute, this is your chance!</p> <p>Thanks for the great work from everyone!</p> <p>Aaron Winborn</p> <div class="og_rss_groups"><a href="/drupal-newsletter">Drupal Newsletter</a></div> http://groups.drupal.org/node/9964#comments Drupal Newsletter Thu, 20 Mar 2008 13:26:29 +0000 aaron 9964 at http://groups.drupal.org http://groups.drupal.org/node/9433 <p>Recap of the first topic of my last message, for emphasis:</p> <p>The obvious topic for the March newsletter is the DrupalCon, of course. There are over 800 people here, though and we need to recruit people to write up their favorite session/s. If you are at the conference, <b>please write up at least one session, and/or find three other people who can write up a session</b>. We only need a paragraph or two, but feel free to write up a whole big article if you're inspired.</p> <div class="og_rss_groups"><a href="/drupal-newsletter">Drupal Newsletter</a></div> http://groups.drupal.org/node/9433#comments drupalcon Drupalcon2008 Drupal Newsletter Thu, 06 Mar 2008 02:15:29 +0000 aaron 9433 at http://groups.drupal.org http://groups.drupal.org/node/9432 <p>Sneak preview of this discussion (if you decide not to click through to the rest of this discussion topic): <a href="http://drupal-newsletter.org/issue/2008/01" title="http://drupal-newsletter.org/issue/2008/01">http://drupal-newsletter.org/issue/2008/01</a></p> <p>This DrupalCon has been phenomenal! We had an impromptu BoF session yesterday for the Drupal Newsletter. The three big things that came out of that were a plan for March's newsletter, the newsletter length, and building a stand-alone site for the newsletter.</p> <p>The obvious topic for the March newsletter is the DrupalCon, of course. There are over 800 people here, though and we need to recruit people to write up their favorite session/s. <b>If you are at the conference, please write up at least one session, and/or find three other people who can write up a session.</b> We only need a paragraph or two, but feel free to write up a whole big article if you're inspired.</p> <p>To the second item, we plan to use a system of teasers for the next issue. We'll put each section and/or article in the groups, and just link a manually created teaser in the digest that gets e-mailed and posted on d.o. We'll refine that process as we continue creating future newsletters.</p> <p>Which is yet another strong case for a stand-alone newsletter site, bringing us to the third item of discussion. We created a working group, currently consisting of Alex UA, mlsamualson, and myself, to create a proof-of-concept stand-alone site. You can see it at <a href="http://drupal-newsletter.org/issue/2008/01" title="http://drupal-newsletter.org/issue/2008/01">http://drupal-newsletter.org/issue/2008/01</a> (which is just filler, as you'll see).</p> <p>Everyone in this group is invited to become part of this process. You can see notes and todo items at <a href="http://docs.google.com/Doc?id=dgdc84wd_11gtxkvnkd" title="http://docs.google.com/Doc?id=dgdc84wd_11gtxkvnkd">http://docs.google.com/Doc?id=dgdc84wd_11gtxkvnkd</a> as we post them. If you want to contribute to that, just e-mail me your e-mail info, through my contact page, and I'll add you as a contributor to that document.</p> <p>If you want to jump into helping create the site, create an account there and let me know, so I can give you Editor access. There are three roles: developer, admin, and editor. As this is on my server, only a couple of people are getting devel access, so don't even ask. Admin access I'll grant once people have stepped up for specific tasks, and we have had a chance to fill out the task list. Editor access will be given to anyone on this group, so we can test out workflow. Authenticated users can add articles, so we'll need to test that role out too.</p> <p>Basically, the workflow is this:</p> <ul> <li>Anyone who feels inspired adds an article, tagging it and/or adding it to a special section (Drupal Dojo, Drupal Groups, Getting it Done Interviews, In the Media, etc).</p> <li>The article will appear in the 'all articles' block and on that page. <li>Anyone can read submitted articles, comment on, and rate them. <li>When preparing the next newsletter digest, an admin will create a new issue for that month. <li>There is an editor-only view of articles that haven't been assigned to an issue yet, which is a sortable table with dates, teasers, rating, edit links, etc. <li>They'll click on the 'promote to newest issue' link on a deserving article, which will do what it says. Articles not promoted will stay on the archive page, but will probably eventually get buried, unless an author polishes it up or something else to give it more momentum for the next issue. <li>Additionally, one or more articles may be assigned as 'Feature Articles', so they'll be displayed prominently on the page. <li>The issue page will become the digest, and we'll just be able to click on a print-only page to get a version suitable to put on d.o and send by e-mail, which will automatically be sorted, with teasers, and links to the full versions of the articles.</ul> <p>Please, please, explore the site and give your feedback. <b>We need a theme!</b> Themers/designers, put on your thinking caps, look at the wireframes (the site is the wireframes), and come up with some comps. Things are moving fast, but I want us to bring in the larger group and get it moving even faster.</p> <p>Our next step after this will be to bring in the Drupal Association to the discussion, and the larger community. There's a session tomorrow about the redesign of drupal.org, and that seems like a good place for this to be discussed as well. I don't know if this would be better as newsletter.drupal.org, or integrated fully within the site. As I said, this stand-alone is only proof-of-concept, but I think we can turn it into the real thing as well.</p> <p>Thanks,<br /> Aaron Winborn</p> <p>(Cross-posted at <a href="http://aaronwinborn.com/node/10">aaronwinborn.com</a>.)</p> <div class="og_rss_groups"><a href="/drupal-newsletter">Drupal Newsletter</a></div> http://groups.drupal.org/node/9432#comments drupalcon Drupalcon2008 Drupal Newsletter Thu, 06 Mar 2008 02:08:54 +0000 aaron 9432 at http://groups.drupal.org http://groups.drupal.org/node/9089 <div class="og_rss_groups"><a href="/drupal-newsletter">Drupal Newsletter</a></div> http://groups.drupal.org/node/9089#comments DrupalCon Boston 2008 newsletter team Drupal Newsletter Thu, 21 Feb 2008 21:33:17 +0000 aaron 9089 at http://groups.drupal.org http://groups.drupal.org/node/9088 <p>That was quite an issue we put out there. I've gotten lots of positive feedback about it, and am excited to keep this ball rolling.</p> <p>Things I personally learned from this issue:</p> <ol> <li>Robin's IRC nick is 'self'. And he's available by e-mail...</p> <li>20 pages might be a bit long for an issue -- we can definitely move stuff to future issues, and talk more about <a href="http://newsletter.drupal.org" title="http://newsletter.drupal.org">http://newsletter.drupal.org</a> as a possibility for the future. <li>Make sure we put a link to the newsletter in the version that goes out by e-mail. <li>Triple check links before it goes out -- Drupal.org's mail system mangled the anchor links to the TOC. <li>I had to take out all those eye-candy links in the intro paragraph, so it looked better for the e-mail version. <li>Double check that d.o &amp; g.d.o look the same; they use different filters.</ol> <p>So I figure the big theme for March's newsletter will be DrupalCon. How many from the Newsletter team plan to go? Can we get some volunteers to write up 1 or 2 sessions they attend (or present)? That would be awesome!</p> <p>Maybe we can even meet up (or on IRC) while we're there. A special issue "live" from the conference (or just after) might be called for, depending on how quickly we can get that ready.</p> <p>Any other thoughts?</p> <p>Thanks for the hard work!</p> <p>Aaron Winborn</p> <p>p.s. Robin, can you sticky the March wiki when you get a chance? <a href="http://groups.drupal.org/node/8720" title="http://groups.drupal.org/node/8720">http://groups.drupal.org/node/8720</a></p> <div class="og_rss_groups"><a href="/drupal-newsletter">Drupal Newsletter</a></div> http://groups.drupal.org/node/9088#comments Drupal Newsletter Thu, 21 Feb 2008 21:27:29 +0000 aaron 9088 at http://groups.drupal.org http://groups.drupal.org/node/9026 <p>Help!</p> <p>The newsletter is ready. I would like us to publish it today. I'd hoped Amazon could help, but he's been busy this afternoon with DrupalCon business. Is there anyone with the proper privileges who's available right now, or later this evening, who might be able to help?</p> <p>Thanks,<br /> Aaron Winborn</p> <div class="og_rss_groups"><a href="/drupal-newsletter">Drupal Newsletter</a></div> http://groups.drupal.org/node/9026#comments Drupal Newsletter Tue, 19 Feb 2008 21:24:36 +0000 aaron 9026 at http://groups.drupal.org http://groups.drupal.org/node/8932 <p>I just wrote up a sneak peek of Views 2 for the February Drupal Newsletter, which is to be published next week. I'd love some feedback from people in the know before going forward with it. I think the work being done is incredible. The wiki is at <a href="http://groups.drupal.org/node/8258" title="http://groups.drupal.org/node/8258">http://groups.drupal.org/node/8258</a> (you have to subscribe to the Drupal Newsletter group to see it).</p> <p>In particular, please let me know if I'm way off base with anything in the writeup, or if I've left out some crucial new feature that should be hyped up. Also let me know if this is premature -- I just figured it could help bring more attention to the work you're doing, and isn't meant to preempt any announcements that might already be in the work, just to supplement that.</p> <p>Also, please double check my 'kudos' -- there are so many people working on it, but I know I've left out some important folks. Or maybe I should just leave that out entirely. But I thought it would be good to give some recognition to the right people.</p> <p>Thanks,<br /> Aaron Winborn</p> <div class="og_rss_groups"><a href="/views-developers">Views Developers</a></div> http://groups.drupal.org/node/8932#comments drupal newsletter Views 2 Drupal Newsletter Views Developers Sat, 16 Feb 2008 04:07:27 +0000 aaron 8932 at http://groups.drupal.org http://groups.drupal.org/node/8888 <p>The newsletter for February is making great progress! We have another excellent interview by Michael, and Alex is finishing up the Feature article for the issue. With the release of Drupal 6, and considering the issue is about done, I think it makes sense to push up the publication date to Tuesday, or even Monday. So if you have been procrastinating, wait no more! Just jump right in and help edit <a href="http://groups.drupal.org/node/8258">February's Newsletter</a>. The <a href="http://groups.drupal.org/node/8720">March Newsletter</a> is wide open for submissions as well, if you have something more appropriate for that.</p> <p>Also, I think it's important we attribute our work in the newsletter (unless you wish to remain anonymous). I think that can instill a sense of ownership in the Newsletter, and might help get people excited about joining as well. Anyway, it's always nice to see your name in lights...</p> <p>Thanks,<br /> Aaron Winborn</p> <div class="og_rss_groups"><a href="/drupal-newsletter">Drupal Newsletter</a></div> http://groups.drupal.org/node/8888#comments Drupal Newsletter Thu, 14 Feb 2008 15:31:33 +0000 aaron 8888 at http://groups.drupal.org http://groups.drupal.org/node/8721 <p>A reminder that we have until February 15 for submissions, so we can spend a few days editing and tweaking. Also after that time will be a culling process, where things that are incomplete or not appropriate for this issue will be moved to the <a href="/node/8720">March newsletter</a> or deleted. Publication is planned for the 21st.</p> <p>Thanks for all the hard work!</p> <p>Aaron Winborn</p> <div class="og_rss_groups"><a href="/drupal-newsletter">Drupal Newsletter</a></div> http://groups.drupal.org/node/8721#comments Drupal Newsletter Thu, 07 Feb 2008 12:45:31 +0000 aaron 8721 at http://groups.drupal.org http://groups.drupal.org/node/8720 <h2>Drupal Newsletter March, 2008</h2> <p>SUBMISSION DEADLINE: March 11<br /> PLANNED PUBLICATION: March 18</p> <h2><a name="letter"></a>Letter from the Editor</h2> <h2><a name="toc"></a>Table of Contents</h2> <ul> <li><a href="#letter">Letter from the Editor</a></p> <li><a href="#feature-1">Feature Article</a> <li><a href="#videos">DrupalCon Videos available</a> <li><a href="#announcements">Announcements &amp; Upcoming Events</a> <li><a href="#blogs">Blog Posts of Note</a> <li><a href="#case">Case Study</a> <li><a href="#dojo">The Drupal Dojo</a> <li><a href="#feature-2">Feature Article 2</a> <li><a href="#past-events">Past Events</a> <li><a href="#groups">Groups</a> <li><a href="#media">Drupal in the Media</a> <li><a href="#modules">Noteworthy Modules</a> <li><a href="#getting-drupal-done">Getting Drupal Done Interview</a> <li><a href="#overheard">Overheard on IRC</a> <li><a href="#resources">Resources</a> <li><a href="#submissions">Submissions</a> <li><a href="#credits">Credits</a> </ul> <h2><a name="feature-1"></a>Feature Article: Drupalcon Boston 2008</h2> <p>[I'm thinking this is a good place for the session write-ups to go... - mlsamuelson]<br /> by Michael Samuelson, maybe you, maybe you, et al.</p> <p>here's dries' state of drupal: <a href="http://www.archive.org/details/DrupalconBoston2008-TheStateOfDrupal" title="http://www.archive.org/details/DrupalconBoston2008-TheStateOfDrupal">http://www.archive.org/details/DrupalconBoston2008-TheStateOfDrupal</a><br /> let's find a couple of good flickr pix too<br /> <a href="http://www.flickr.com/search/?q=drupalcon2008&amp;w=all&amp;s=int" title="http://www.flickr.com/search/?q=drupalcon2008&amp;w=all&amp;s=int">http://www.flickr.com/search/?q=drupalcon2008&amp;w=all&amp;s=int</a><br /> <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/hadsie/2309672430/" title="http://www.flickr.com/photos/hadsie/2309672430/">http://www.flickr.com/photos/hadsie/2309672430/</a> dmitri &amp; chx<br /> <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/asy/2316807916/" title="http://www.flickr.com/photos/asy/2316807916/">http://www.flickr.com/photos/asy/2316807916/</a><br /> <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/neoliminal/2314339137/" title="http://www.flickr.com/photos/neoliminal/2314339137/">http://www.flickr.com/photos/neoliminal/2314339137/</a></p> <h3><a href="http://boston2008.drupalcon.org/session/report-formal-usability-testing-university-minnesota-libraries">Report from formal Drupal usability testing at the University of Minnesota Libraries</a></h3> <p>In February of 2008, Drupal representatives and individuals from the University of Minnesota Libraries conducted formal usability testing on Drupal 6 in a state of the art usability lab with web-savy first-time Drupal users. The results were surprising. Participants asked to create a form with simple fields so users could list upcoming workshops struggled with terms such as "content type." They expressed distrust with the help system after a trip there meant they lost data from the form they'd been on, and they became confused when after finally submitting a node the welcome message disappeared from the front page of their site, taking it's helpful links and information with it.</p> <p>Perhaps most surprising of all was the eye-track video of a participant flitting up and down through a Drupal administrative page for what seemed like minutes, from one chunk of text to the next, missing the desired explanation or functionality, until finally, amid the audience's sympathetic laughter, the on-screen user clicked submit and the room erupted in cheers and relief. If the previous explanations by the presenters hadn't made it clear enough, this did. There is some work to do to make Drupal easy and intuitive for first-time users who don't know the lingo so that their first experiences are positive ones.</p> <p>For more information and to get involved, see <a href="http://groups.drupal.org/usability" title="http://groups.drupal.org/usability">http://groups.drupal.org/usability</a></p> <p>more write-ups to sort through:</p> <p><a href="http://groups.drupal.org/node/9363" title="http://groups.drupal.org/node/9363">http://groups.drupal.org/node/9363</a><br /> <a href="https://association.drupal.org/blogs/kieran/Drupalcon-Boston-video-update" title="https://association.drupal.org/blogs/kieran/Drupalcon-Boston-video-update">https://association.drupal.org/blogs/kieran/Drupalcon-Boston-video-updat...</a><br /> <a href="http://www.lullabot.com/blog/drupalcon-schedule-visualization" title="http://www.lullabot.com/blog/drupalcon-schedule-visualization">http://www.lullabot.com/blog/drupalcon-schedule-visualization</a><br /> <a href="http://walkah.net/blog/walkah/drupalcon-boston-2008-let039s-rock-this" title="http://walkah.net/blog/walkah/drupalcon-boston-2008-let039s-rock-this">http://walkah.net/blog/walkah/drupalcon-boston-2008-let039s-rock-this</a><br /> <a href="http://www.lullabot.com/blog/drupalcon-report-formal-usability-testing-university-minnesota-libraries" title="http://www.lullabot.com/blog/drupalcon-report-formal-usability-testing-university-minnesota-libraries">http://www.lullabot.com/blog/drupalcon-report-formal-usability-testing-u...</a><br /> <a href="http://www.lullabot.com/blog/drupalcon-state-dries-buytaert" title="http://www.lullabot.com/blog/drupalcon-state-dries-buytaert">http://www.lullabot.com/blog/drupalcon-state-dries-buytaert</a><br /> <a href="http://www.developmentseed.org/blog/2008/mar/03/nonprofit-intranet-and-news-happy-hours" title="http://www.developmentseed.org/blog/2008/mar/03/nonprofit-intranet-and-news-happy-hours">http://www.developmentseed.org/blog/2008/mar/03/nonprofit-intranet-and-n...</a><br /> <a href="http://2bits.com/news/presentation-drupal-fun-and-profit-making-a-career-out-open-source.html" title="http://2bits.com/news/presentation-drupal-fun-and-profit-making-a-career-out-open-source.html">http://2bits.com/news/presentation-drupal-fun-and-profit-making-a-career...</a><br /> <a href="http://www.dogstar.org/drupal/node/407" title="http://www.dogstar.org/drupal/node/407">http://www.dogstar.org/drupal/node/407</a><br /> <a href="http://www.lullabot.com/blog/drupalcon-earl-miles-talks-about-nodequeue-and-panels" title="http://www.lullabot.com/blog/drupalcon-earl-miles-talks-about-nodequeue-and-panels">http://www.lullabot.com/blog/drupalcon-earl-miles-talks-about-nodequeue-...</a><br /> <a href="http://www.dogstar.org/drupal/node/408" title="http://www.dogstar.org/drupal/node/408">http://www.dogstar.org/drupal/node/408</a><br /> <a href="http://krimson.be/en/one-image-module-rule-them-all-finally" title="http://krimson.be/en/one-image-module-rule-them-all-finally">http://krimson.be/en/one-image-module-rule-them-all-finally</a><br /> <a href="http://krimson.be/en/dries-keynote" title="http://krimson.be/en/dries-keynote">http://krimson.be/en/dries-keynote</a><br /> <a href="http://www.anelloconsulting.com/drupalcon_boston_day_1" title="http://www.anelloconsulting.com/drupalcon_boston_day_1">http://www.anelloconsulting.com/drupalcon_boston_day_1</a><br /> <a href="http://buytaert.net/great-day-for-acquia" title="http://buytaert.net/great-day-for-acquia">http://buytaert.net/great-day-for-acquia</a><br /> <a href="http://acquia.com/blog/great-day-drupal" title="http://acquia.com/blog/great-day-drupal">http://acquia.com/blog/great-day-drupal</a><br /> <a href="http://codesorcery.net/2008/03/03/come-say-hi-at-drupalcon-boston/" title="http://codesorcery.net/2008/03/03/come-say-hi-at-drupalcon-boston/">http://codesorcery.net/2008/03/03/come-say-hi-at-drupalcon-boston/</a><br /> <a href="http://www.angrydonuts.com/drupalcon-boston-2008-day-1-report" title="http://www.angrydonuts.com/drupalcon-boston-2008-day-1-report">http://www.angrydonuts.com/drupalcon-boston-2008-day-1-report</a><br /> <a href="http://alligatorsneeze.com/drupalcon-boston-first-day-first-impressions" title="http://alligatorsneeze.com/drupalcon-boston-first-day-first-impressions">http://alligatorsneeze.com/drupalcon-boston-first-day-first-impressions</a><br /> <a href="http://pingv.com/blog/laura/200803/popsci-case-study-presentation-today-drupalcon" title="http://pingv.com/blog/laura/200803/popsci-case-study-presentation-today-drupalcon">http://pingv.com/blog/laura/200803/popsci-case-study-presentation-today-...</a><br /> <a href="http://www.lullabot.com/blog/drupalcon-future-fields" title="http://www.lullabot.com/blog/drupalcon-future-fields">http://www.lullabot.com/blog/drupalcon-future-fields</a><br /> <a href="http://jacobroufa.com/node/20" title="http://jacobroufa.com/node/20">http://jacobroufa.com/node/20</a><br /> <a href="http://www.kevinbridges.org/node/136" title="http://www.kevinbridges.org/node/136">http://www.kevinbridges.org/node/136</a><br /> <a href="http://www.anelloconsulting.com/drupalcon_boston_day_2" title="http://www.anelloconsulting.com/drupalcon_boston_day_2">http://www.anelloconsulting.com/drupalcon_boston_day_2</a><br /> <a href="http://deekayen.net/drupalcon-boston-2008-day-2" title="http://deekayen.net/drupalcon-boston-2008-day-2">http://deekayen.net/drupalcon-boston-2008-day-2</a><br /> <a href="http://krimson.be/en/future-fields" title="http://krimson.be/en/future-fields">http://krimson.be/en/future-fields</a><br /> <a href="http://krimson.be/en/drupalcon-boston-2008-day-2-random-thoughts" title="http://krimson.be/en/drupalcon-boston-2008-day-2-random-thoughts">http://krimson.be/en/drupalcon-boston-2008-day-2-random-thoughts</a><br /> <a href="http://www.dogstar.org/drupal/node/409" title="http://www.dogstar.org/drupal/node/409">http://www.dogstar.org/drupal/node/409</a><br /> <a href="http://robshouse.net/2008/03/05/event/drupalcon-boston-solr-bof" title="http://robshouse.net/2008/03/05/event/drupalcon-boston-solr-bof">http://robshouse.net/2008/03/05/event/drupalcon-boston-solr-bof</a><br /> <a href="http://urlgreyhot.com/personal/weblog/slides_presentation_available_no_tears_methods_user_centered_design" title="http://urlgreyhot.com/personal/weblog/slides_presentation_available_no_tears_methods_user_centered_design">http://urlgreyhot.com/personal/weblog/slides_presentation_available_no_t...</a><br /> <a href="http://www.lullabot.com/blog/drupalcon-simpletest-and-future-test-driven-development" title="http://www.lullabot.com/blog/drupalcon-simpletest-and-future-test-driven-development">http://www.lullabot.com/blog/drupalcon-simpletest-and-future-test-driven...</a><br /> <a href="http://www.drupalconlive.com/" title="http://www.drupalconlive.com/">http://www.drupalconlive.com/</a><br /> <a href="http://krimson.be/en/gentlemen-start-you-test-engines" title="http://krimson.be/en/gentlemen-start-you-test-engines">http://krimson.be/en/gentlemen-start-you-test-engines</a><br /> <a href="http://www.anelloconsulting.com/drupalcon_boston_day_3" title="http://www.anelloconsulting.com/drupalcon_boston_day_3">http://www.anelloconsulting.com/drupalcon_boston_day_3</a><br /> <a href="http://www.dogstar.org/drupal/node/410" title="http://www.dogstar.org/drupal/node/410">http://www.dogstar.org/drupal/node/410</a><br /> <a href="http://www.cascadingstyle.net/blog/2008/03/05/druplash-and-druplex-presentation-drupalcon-boston-2008-went-great" title="http://www.cascadingstyle.net/blog/2008/03/05/druplash-and-druplex-presentation-drupalcon-boston-2008-went-great">http://www.cascadingstyle.net/blog/2008/03/05/druplash-and-druplex-prese...</a><br /> <a href="http://deekayen.net/drupalcon-boston-2008-day-3" title="http://deekayen.net/drupalcon-boston-2008-day-3">http://deekayen.net/drupalcon-boston-2008-day-3</a><br /> <a href="http://morten.dk/blog/sex-drupal-amp-rock-n-roll" title="http://morten.dk/blog/sex-drupal-amp-rock-n-roll">http://morten.dk/blog/sex-drupal-amp-rock-n-roll</a><br /> <a href="http://www.dogstar.org/drupal/node/411" title="http://www.dogstar.org/drupal/node/411">http://www.dogstar.org/drupal/node/411</a><br /> <a href="http://www.dogstar.org/drupal/node/412" title="http://www.dogstar.org/drupal/node/412">http://www.dogstar.org/drupal/node/412</a><br /> <a href="http://krimson.be/index.php?q=en/may-coder-module-be-you" title="http://krimson.be/index.php?q=en/may-coder-module-be-you">http://krimson.be/index.php?q=en/may-coder-module-be-you</a><br /> <a href="http://www.lullabot.com/blog/drupalcon-information-architecture-architecture" title="http://www.lullabot.com/blog/drupalcon-information-architecture-architecture">http://www.lullabot.com/blog/drupalcon-information-architecture-architec...</a><br /> <a href="http://www.anelloconsulting.com/drupalcon_boston_day_4" title="http://www.anelloconsulting.com/drupalcon_boston_day_4">http://www.anelloconsulting.com/drupalcon_boston_day_4</a><br /> <a href="http://zivtech.com/blog/drupalcon-boston-2008-wrap-up" title="http://zivtech.com/blog/drupalcon-boston-2008-wrap-up">http://zivtech.com/blog/drupalcon-boston-2008-wrap-up</a><br /> <a href="http://www.lullabot.com/blog/drupalcon-drupalorg-redesign-panel-discussion" title="http://www.lullabot.com/blog/drupalcon-drupalorg-redesign-panel-discussion">http://www.lullabot.com/blog/drupalcon-drupalorg-redesign-panel-discussi...</a><br /> <a href="http://www.lullabot.com/blog/drupalcon-zen-and-art-philosophy-development" title="http://www.lullabot.com/blog/drupalcon-zen-and-art-philosophy-development">http://www.lullabot.com/blog/drupalcon-zen-and-art-philosophy-developmen...</a><br /> <a href="http://ken.therickards.com/2008/03/07/drupal-and-the-knight-foundation-part-two/" title="http://ken.therickards.com/2008/03/07/drupal-and-the-knight-foundation-part-two/">http://ken.therickards.com/2008/03/07/drupal-and-the-knight-foundation-p...</a><br /> <a href="http://www.civicactions.com/blog/slides_from_information_architecture_to_drupal_architecture" title="http://www.civicactions.com/blog/slides_from_information_architecture_to_drupal_architecture">http://www.civicactions.com/blog/slides_from_information_architecture_to...</a><br /> <a href="http://krimson.be/index.php?q=en/drupalcon-code-sprint" title="http://krimson.be/index.php?q=en/drupalcon-code-sprint">http://krimson.be/index.php?q=en/drupalcon-code-sprint</a><br /> <a href="http://www.dogstar.org/drupal/node/414" title="http://www.dogstar.org/drupal/node/414">http://www.dogstar.org/drupal/node/414</a></p> <h2><a name="videos"></a>DrupalCon 2008 videos available</h2> <p>Thanks to hard work, and perseverance, the Drupalcon presentations are now available in video format at archive.org. Tag: drupalconboston2008</p> <p><a href="http://www.archive.org/search.php?query=drupalconboston2008" title="http://www.archive.org/search.php?query=drupalconboston2008">http://www.archive.org/search.php?query=drupalconboston2008</a></p> <h2><a name="announcements"></a>Announcements &amp; Upcoming Events</h2> <p><a href="http://groups.drupal.org/node/9468" title="http://groups.drupal.org/node/9468">http://groups.drupal.org/node/9468</a> for good listing</p> <ul> <li> </ul> <h2><a name="blogs"></a>Blog Posts of Note</h2> <p><a href="http://chapterthreellc.com/blog/zack_rosen/doubling_drupal" title="http://chapterthreellc.com/blog/zack_rosen/doubling_drupal">http://chapterthreellc.com/blog/zack_rosen/doubling_drupal</a></p> <h2><a name="case"></a>Case Study</h2> <p><em>Following up on the <a href="http://boston2008.drupalcon.org/session/popular-science-case-study">Popular Science Case Study</a> presented at DrupalCon Boston 2008 by <a href="http://drupal.org/user/27802">Kevin Bridges (cyberswat)</a>, <a href="http://drupal.org/user/18973">Laura Scott</a> and others at <a href="http://pingv.com/">pingVision</a>, along with Megan Miller and John Mahoney of PopSci.com, here is a written case study on the development approaches for PopSci.com.</em></p> <p>Full case study here: <a href="http://drupal.org/node/233090" title="http://drupal.org/node/233090">http://drupal.org/node/233090</a></p> <h2><a name="dojo"></a>The Drupal Dojo</h2> <h2><a name="feature-2"></a>Feature 2</h2> <p>by</p> <h2><a name="past-events"></a>Past Events</h2> <ul> <li><a href="http://groups.drupal.org/node/8648">Twin Cities Meetup with Dries and the "Usability Team"</a><br /> The <a href="http://groups.drupal.org/twin-cities">Twin Cities Drupal group</a> organized a meet and greet with Dries and the usability team. They had over thirty RSVPs. </ul> <h2><a name="groups"></a>Groups</h2> <p><a href="http://www.tejasa.com/node/162" title="http://www.tejasa.com/node/162">http://www.tejasa.com/node/162</a> for <a href="http://groups.drupal.org/node/9363" title="http://groups.drupal.org/node/9363">http://groups.drupal.org/node/9363</a></p> <h2><a name="media"></a>Drupal in the Media</h2> <h2><a name="modules"></a>Noteworthy Modules</h2> <ul> <li> List the common module mishaps, like these are compatible with this, and not with that. </ul> <h2><a name="getting-drupal-done"></a>Getting Drupal Done Interview</h2> <p>by Michael Samuelson (<a href="http://drupal.org/user/47411">mlsamuelson</a>)</p> <p>Any seasoned Drupaller will tell you that in addition to Drupal being great software, it's also a great community.</p> <p>There are a number of folks in the Drupal community that "get it" and make consistent contributions. The following interview is dedicated to uncovering a few of the tips, tricks and practices used by one of those individuals to Get Drupal Done.</p> <h3>Interview with Peter Wolanin, aka pwolanin</h3> <p><i>What sort of work do you do on Drupal?</i></p> <p>I maintain a bunch of modules, though I've lagged a bit in updating them since I was putting lots of time into Drupal 6.x development.</p> <p>I got into Drupal through using it for our local Democratic club, so a number of the modules I maintain are due to that connection.</p> <p><i>Describe how Drupal fits into your average workday.</i></p> <p>Not much - I work for a small company doing (broadly) biotech R&amp;D. I implemented a chemical inventory system with Drupal for use<br /> internally, but that's not something that requires frequent attention.</p> <p>So, most of the Drupal stuff I get done is during the evening or weekend, or occasionally on my lunch break.</p> <p><i>How do you organize your workspace?</i></p> <p>For Drupal, it's usually just the laptop and me sitting on the couch.</p> <p><i>Describe your development environment (hardware, OS, software). Any favorites regarding productivity?</i></p> <p>MacBook with Mac OS 10.4, Xcode installed to get cvs and other utilities. A logitech trackball with the computer on the lap desk.</p> <p>I've been using JEdit as an editor - it's GPL, has pretty good syntax highlighting, etc. And has a variety of helpful plugins.</p> <p>On the laptop, default apache 1.33, and I recently installed PHP 5.2.4 from <a href="http://www.entropy.ch" title="www.entropy.ch">www.entropy.ch</a> for local testing.</p> <p>MySQL 5.0 community server, with MySQL GUI tools. Colloquy as an IRC client.</p> <p>Sometime use an old PC with Ubuntu 7.10 as an alternate test platform (e.g. for PostgreSQL).</p> <p>I visit <a href="http://api.drupal.org" title="http://api.drupal.org">http://api.drupal.org</a> and <a href="http://php.net" title="http://php.net">http://php.net</a> frequently to check usage or examples.</p> <p><i>How do you keep up with Drupal news and developments? What practices do you use to keep from getting bogged down or distracted?</i></p> <p>I read the dev list in digest form. I think that list is critical for those interested in core development (along, of course with all site admins being subscribed to security announcements). When I have lots of spare time, I look at <a href="http://drupal.org/planet">Planet Drupal</a> and <a href="http://groups.drupal.org" title="http://groups.drupal.org">http://groups.drupal.org</a> . When 6.x core development was really heavy, I subscribed to e-mail updates<br /> for all my issues, but now I just hit <a href="http://drupal.org/project/issues/user" title="http://drupal.org/project/issues/user">http://drupal.org/project/issues/user</a> regularly. php</p> <p><i>Any tips and tricks regarding Drupal productivity?</i></p> <p>Don't assume that people are going to see your patch and recognize its importance. Especially for core patches. Even for critical patches you need to keep following up and re-rolling, as well as working to find qualified reviewers. Don't get aggravated when someone finds a typo in a code comment, or a commit means your patch doesn't apply.</p> <p>Essentially, if a patch is important to you, you need to maintain some ownership of it and advocate for its inclusion. And after the patch is in you should then be a good citizen and help update the documentation, especially when you help effect a core API change.</p> <p>Oh, and sometimes, just take a break from it and forget about it for a few days (or weeks even).</p> <p><i>Share your biggest "breakthrough" or "ah-ha" moment regarding working within the Drupal community.</i></p> <p>When I started hanging out more in the IRC channels (#drupal, etc) I was able to get a lot more done. Through this I've built working relationships with other contributors, and I've found it to be really key for helping find people to look at and review patches, post follow-ups, etc.</p> <p><i>Any advice for newbie developers on how to Get Drupal Done?</i></p> <p>I spent the first several months answering questions in the drupal.org forums. At that point I was still getting a handle on PHP and the Drupal API (note that I had coded C, etc before so not starting from scratch), and by answering even trivial questions, I was able to enhance my own confidence that I understood what was going on. In probably half those first posts, I was wrong in what I posted - so that also gave me a chance to learn when someone else posted a comment to say so.</p> <p><i>Special thanks to Peter for the interview.</i></p> <h2><a name="overheard"></a>Overheard on IRC</h2> <h2><a name="resources"></a>Resources</h2> <p>Sites, books, and other resources that might be of use and interest to developers, themers, administrators, etc.<br /> +Drupal Theming book(s)<br /> + ??? Links to buy here there on Amazon,etc.</p> <h2><a name="submissions"></a>Submissions</h2> <p>Submissions, queries, corrections, and comments should go to the <a href="http://groups.drupal.org/drupal-newsletter">Drupal Newsletter Group</a>, or <a href="http://drupal.org/user/33420/contact">contact aaron</a>. Everyone is free to join the <a href="http://groups.drupal.org/drupal-newsletter">Drupal Newsletter Team</a>!</p> <h2><a name="credits"></a>Credits</h2> <p>Add your name to this section so that we can credit everybody who has contributed to this edition of the newsletter:</p> <p>Aaron Winborn (<a href="http://drupal.org/user/33420">aaron</a>)<br /> Michael Samuelson (<a href="http://drupal.org/user/47411">mlsamuelson</a>)<br /> Peter Wolanin (<a href="http://drupal.org/user/49851">pwolanin</a>)<br /> Alex Urevick-Ackelsberg (<a href="http://drupal.org/user/110386">Alex UA</a>)</p> <div class="og_rss_groups"><a href="/drupal-newsletter">Drupal Newsletter</a></div> Newsletter Wiki Drupal Newsletter Thu, 07 Feb 2008 12:41:23 +0000 aaron 8720 at http://groups.drupal.org http://groups.drupal.org/node/8501 <p>Hi all!</p> <p>We are looking for speakers for the upcoming DrupalCon in Boston. Since you are subscribed to the Newsletters group, you might be especially interested in the "Business and Marketing" track (see <a href="http://boston2008.drupalcon.org/business-and-marketing-track-descriptions" title="http://boston2008.drupalcon.org/business-and-marketing-track-descriptions">http://boston2008.drupalcon.org/business-and-marketing-track-description...</a> ).</p> <p>This track covers the following topics:</p> <ul> <li>The Drupal ecosystem</li> <li>Businesses learning to use Drupal</li> <li>Case studies</li> <li>Showcases: NPO, Education, News, Media, Government, Healthcare</li> </ul> <p>You can find a list of existing proposals at <a href="http://boston2008.drupalcon.org/sessions" title="http://boston2008.drupalcon.org/sessions">http://boston2008.drupalcon.org/sessions</a>, and submit your own proposal on <a href="http://boston2008.drupalcon.org/node/add/session" title="http://boston2008.drupalcon.org/node/add/session">http://boston2008.drupalcon.org/node/add/session</a>. Of course, it is at any time possible to submit custom session proposals which we did not yet cover on the list of suggestions. We'd love to have anyone here submit!</p> <p>We are looking forward to create an great business and marketing track with lots of benefits for all participants.</p> <p>Thanks,</p> <p>The Business and Marketing track co-chairs<br /> Jeff Whatcott, Jim Edgett, Liza Kindred<br /> <a href="http://drupalcon.org" title="http://drupalcon.org">http://drupalcon.org</a></p> <div class="og_rss_groups"><a href="/drupal-newsletter">Drupal Newsletter</a></div> http://groups.drupal.org/node/8501#comments Drupal Newsletter Mon, 28 Jan 2008 19:09:15 +0000 LizaK 8501 at http://groups.drupal.org http://groups.drupal.org/node/8442 <p>"I'll take a swing at the druplicon this week, do you have any thoughts on doing a masthead?" Said brightloudnoise.<br /> "I had an idea about using drupals mast with a newspaper, keeping the same colours, but twotoning the difference of the newspaper in front." Said hal.</p> <p>Okay, so if you want to join in, all entries will be put to the committee before the April edition of the newsletter.</p> <p>Most probably, we can get the top five onto the frontpage of the April Drupal Newsletter!</p> <p>All people who enter will get a mention, and the winner gets their choice at the head of the newsletter every month, plus if we can manage any prizes.</p> <p>Good luck, and remember, any person of any age, no discriminations allowed are allowed to enter.</p> <p>aaron says, "Post your entries in this wiki, and we can use a poll once we've collected enough entries!" (notes there are no comments enabled on this post, wonders if we can turn them on...)</p> <div class="og_rss_groups"><a href="/drupal-newsletter">Drupal Newsletter</a></div> http://groups.drupal.org/node/8442#comments Newsletter Wiki Drupal Newsletter Fri, 25 Jan 2008 15:59:22 +0000 hal 8442 at http://groups.drupal.org http://groups.drupal.org/node/8413 <p>Great work! We published <a href="http://drupal.org/newsletter/2008/january" title="http://drupal.org/newsletter/2008/january">http://drupal.org/newsletter/2008/january</a> and we're ready for the next month. Thanks to all the folks who helped make that ready.</p> <p>For the next issue, let's get a better structure in place. First, we should make the wiki page for that issue sticky: Robin, or someone with the right access, can you do that? The wiki is <a href="http://groups.drupal.org/node/8258" title="http://groups.drupal.org/node/8258">http://groups.drupal.org/node/8258</a> for the February Newsletter.</p> <p>We need to create a theme/title for that issue as well. Although I think we should wait a couple of weeks and see what articles get filled in to make that decision. But for the last issue, it was in the final three minutes that the decision was made, and that felt a little rushed.</p> <p>So "deadlines": to maintain a sense of a schedule, we should aim to publish the next newsletter about the same time, say the last week of February. I'm aiming for February 21, which gives us about four weeks.</p> <p>Let's get our ideas for articles during the next week. Then we can spend February filling them out. Let's watch Planet Drupal for good articles and news, troll the IRC and Drupal forums, and bug other developers to write a paragraph or two.</p> <p>Thanks again!</p> <p>Aaron Winborn<br /> <a href="http://advomatic.com">Advomatic</a></p> <div class="og_rss_groups"><a href="/drupal-newsletter">Drupal Newsletter</a></div> http://groups.drupal.org/node/8413#comments Drupal Newsletter Thu, 24 Jan 2008 01:09:28 +0000 aaron 8413 at http://groups.drupal.org http://groups.drupal.org/node/8402 <p>The January newsletter will be going out hopefully this afternoon. Last call for submissions &amp; edits! <a href="http://groups.drupal.org/node/4988" title="http://groups.drupal.org/node/4988">http://groups.drupal.org/node/4988</a></p> <div class="og_rss_groups"><a href="/drupal-newsletter">Drupal Newsletter</a></div> http://groups.drupal.org/node/8402#comments Drupal Newsletter Wed, 23 Jan 2008 19:17:07 +0000 aaron 8402 at http://groups.drupal.org http://groups.drupal.org/node/8273 <p>Ok, been reviewing the most recent newsletter, and writing some notes. I've been mostly going through all the modules, to see what modules we might want to highlight. I think we should only feature a few modules, with a paragraph or two about each, ensuring we're featuring mature, maintained, and moderately useful modules.</p> <p>Looking at that list, I knocked off most of the modules, because they weren't ready for production, or had some critical show-stopping issues (although looks like developers are working on them in a couple of cases). I figure we can push those to a later queue. Maybe even make a new wiki for ongoing featured modules, so we can have an ongoing idea of future newsletter issues.</p> <p>The ones I'm proposing we feature for this issue, based solely on what's on that list, after weeding out modules (read the original wiki for more complete notes):</p> <p>Membership types and registration modification<br /> Project page looks ok. Anyone have any experience with it? Says it's difficult to set up (because of CCK/dependencies). Any tutorials for that? The readme looks complete enough if not. - Aaron</p> <p>Druplet<br /> Looks like a decent module. Anyone have experience with it? Should we feature it? Says it's in development, but it works. Only for developers, so may be of limited interest, but looks useful in certain cases.</p> <p>curvyCorners<br /> Nice eye-candy module. Anyone have experience with it?</p> <p>RSS Remote Enclosure<br /> Looks good. Don't see any problems with this module. Am not yet familiar with it, though I plan to check it out.</p> <p>WebFM Images<br /> I'm not familiar with this, though it looks intriguing. I'd rather see a write up on WebFM first though, or in conjunction, as there are probably other users not familiar with the modules.</p> <p>Workflow-ng<br /> I vaguely remember trying this earlier, and was impressed. I'd be concerned about switching over from workflow, although maybe fago has already thought of and planned for that. Probably good for a write up.</p> <p>Ohloh<br /> Fun. Keep track of your score...</p> <p>Block Assign<br /> Looks interesting. There's also moshe's <a href="http://drupal.org/project/bpv" title="http://drupal.org/project/bpv">http://drupal.org/project/bpv</a> project, though it looks like there's an issue to combine the two? <a href="http://drupal.org/node/205337" title="http://drupal.org/node/205337">http://drupal.org/node/205337</a></p> <p>Image Gallery Access<br /> Clean issue queue. Looks ok to me. Not familiar with it.</p> <p>JSON Server - Services Backend<br /> Looks good, though would be over the heads of most readers. Would need a write up that's a little better than what's on the project page, explaining why someone would even want this module.</p> <p>Top Node<br /> Looks like a good module. Does it play nice with node queue too?</p> <p>Embedded Media Field<br /> I intend to write a larger piece for this, maybe for the february newsletter.</p> <p>Views Slideshow<br /> Handy little module to turn any node content into views, not just images. Uses jquery. I'll write up a quick description.</p> <p>Please comment.</p> <p>Thanks,<br /> Aaron</p> <div class="og_rss_groups"><a href="/drupal-newsletter">Drupal Newsletter</a></div> http://groups.drupal.org/node/8273#comments Drupal Newsletter Fri, 18 Jan 2008 16:30:23 +0000 aaron 8273 at http://groups.drupal.org http://groups.drupal.org/node/8231 <p>Some quick ideas I have for newsletter, after discussion with Alex Urevick-Ackelsberg and Franz Hartl:</p> <ul> <li>cull the groups for posts for the newsletter</p> <li>cull planet drupal for the same reason <li>write articles about the effects of drupal in the community and in society <li>interviews <li>tutorials</ul> <p>more to come. post your ideas too!</p> <div class="og_rss_groups"><a href="/drupal-newsletter">Drupal Newsletter</a></div> http://groups.drupal.org/node/8231#comments Newsletter Drupal Newsletter Thu, 17 Jan 2008 01:55:31 +0000 aaron 8231 at http://groups.drupal.org http://groups.drupal.org/node/8229 <div class="og_rss_groups"><a href="/drupal-newsletter">Drupal Newsletter</a></div> http://groups.drupal.org/node/8229#comments drupal newsletter proposal Drupal Newsletter Thu, 17 Jan 2008 01:41:19 +0000 aaron 8229 at http://groups.drupal.org http://groups.drupal.org/node/8228 <p><b>Drupal Newsletter Team</b></p> <p>The Drupal Newsletter Team shall be responsible for publishing the periodic Drupal Newsletter at <a href="http://drupal.org/newsletter" title="http://drupal.org/newsletter">http://drupal.org/newsletter</a>. They shall meet using this group, at <a href="http://groups.drupal.org/drupal-newsletter" title="http://groups.drupal.org/drupal-newsletter">http://groups.drupal.org/drupal-newsletter</a>. Its members shall be all volunteers who subscribe to this group. Whenever the team calls for a vote, any subscribed member may vote. Unless otherwise stated, any vote shall be conducted with a poll (linked to a motion in another post if required for length), with a duration of two weeks, succeeding where a majority of those voting for a pass/fail motion vote to pass the motion. The results of a vote shall be recorded, and the Team shall ensure that it abides by these results.</p> <div class="og_rss_groups"><a href="/drupal-newsletter">Drupal Newsletter</a></div> http://groups.drupal.org/node/8228#comments drupal newsletter proposal Drupal Newsletter Thu, 17 Jan 2008 01:40:11 +0000 aaron 8228 at http://groups.drupal.org http://groups.drupal.org/node/8193 <p>Here are some proposals, for comment and discussion. I've also added them to the agenda, and will open polls for voting.</p> <ul> <li>Drupal Newsletter Team<br /> The Drupal Newsletter Team shall be resposible for publishing the periodic Drupal Newsletter at <a href="http://drupal.org/newsletter" title="http://drupal.org/newsletter">http://drupal.org/newsletter</a>. They shall meet using this group, at <a href="http://groups.drupal.org/drupal-newsletter" title="http://groups.drupal.org/drupal-newsletter">http://groups.drupal.org/drupal-newsletter</a>. Its members shall be all volunteers who subscribe to this group. Whenever the team calls for a vote, any subscribed member may vote, although each individual may only have one vote, regardless of the number of accounts they possess. Unless otherwise stated, any vote shall be conducted with a poll linked to a motion in the current agenda wiki, with a duration of a week. The results of a vote shall be recorded in the agenda, and the Team shall ensure that it abides by these results.</p> <li>Newsletter Meeting<br /> The Drupal Newsletter Team shall hold periodic Newsletter Meetings, where all decisions concerning the Drupal Newsletter are made. As needed, a new wiki page will be created to contain the official agenda of this meeting. Any team member may add to this agenda by editing the wiki page. If at least a week has passed since the previous agenda was written, any team member may create a new agenda, if they believe this is warranted. The newest agenda should be made sticky for easy access by members. </ul> <div class="og_rss_groups"><a href="/drupal-newsletter">Drupal Newsletter</a></div> http://groups.drupal.org/node/8193#comments Drupal Newsletter Tue, 15 Jan 2008 22:26:58 +0000 aaron 8193 at http://groups.drupal.org http://groups.drupal.org/node/8192 <p><b>Announcements</b><br /> <i>This section is for, well, announcements. No action is generally needed for these items.</i></p> <p><b>Business</b><br /> <i>Items here generally need discussion, sometimes voting, and other action. My idea is that we can flesh things out here, then at the end of each week, post this entire page again as a story for the benefit of folks reading by e-mail. However, that's based on my understanding of this wiki content type and subscriptions. Feel free to correct me or propose something different.</i></p> <ol> <li><b>Status of prior newsletter</b><br /> The <a href="/node/4988">past newsletter</a>, though well-written, is dated and in limbo. What needs to happen with this? Do we send it out as is, with a disclaimer about the date? Do we dump it? Do we rewrite it to make it more current? I'd like to see some kind of action, but am mixed about the best route.</p> <li><b>Roles</b><br /> Who is responsible for the <a href="http://drupal.org/user/151286">Newsletter team</a> user at d.o? Robin Monks, who has the power to publish the newsletter? Is it just you, or is "Newsletter team" another user here, or a shared user, perhaps?</p> <p>As far as my earlier idea of Chief Editor, I actually would prefer we not have that, at least yet. Unless maybe Robin would like that role, considering his prior achievements with getting the newsletter out. Otherwise, I'd like to see if we can get a democratic system in place, until we collectively feel the need for this role.</p> <li><b>Newsletter Meeting</b><br /> I'm proposing (with this wiki page, to get things rolling) that we have a 'Newsletter Meeting', that meets over the course of each week, using this group as its forum. The members are anyone who subscribes to the group. Each person will have a single vote on any proposal made at the meeting. I'll flesh out a proposal and create a poll for it. </ol> <p><b>Motions</b><br /> <i>Any time we have a proposal that needs voting, a poll could get made and linked here. A tally could be recorded at the following meeting.</i></p> <ul> <li><b>Drupal Newsletter Team</b><br /> The Drupal Newsletter Team shall be resposible for publishing the periodic Drupal Newsletter at <a href="http://drupal.org/newsletter" title="http://drupal.org/newsletter">http://drupal.org/newsletter</a>. They shall meet using this group, at <a href="http://groups.drupal.org/drupal-newsletter" title="http://groups.drupal.org/drupal-newsletter">http://groups.drupal.org/drupal-newsletter</a>. Its members shall be all volunteers who subscribe to this group. Whenever the team calls for a vote, any subscribed member may vote, although each individual may only have one vote, regardless of the number of accounts they possess. Unless otherwise stated, any vote shall be conducted with a poll linked to a motion in the current agenda wiki, with a duration of a week. The results of a vote shall be recorded in the agenda, and the Team shall ensure that it abides by these results.</p> <li><b>Newsletter Meeting</b><br /> The Drupal Newsletter Team shall hold periodic Newsletter Meetings, where all decisions concerning the Drupal Newsletter are made. As needed, a new wiki page will be created to contain the official agenda of this meeting. Any team member may add to this agenda by editing the wiki page. If at least a week has passed since the previous agenda was written, any team member may create a new agenda, if they believe this is warranted. The newest agenda should be made sticky for easy access by members. </ul> <div class="og_rss_groups"><a href="/drupal-newsletter">Drupal Newsletter</a></div> Drupal Newsletter Tue, 15 Jan 2008 22:05:59 +0000 aaron 8192 at http://groups.drupal.org http://groups.drupal.org/node/8191 <p>2007 was an excellent year for development and growth in Drupal. With so much going on, it's no surprise that we only got one issue of the newsletter out. I think it's imperative that we help solidify this feeling of accomplishment, to go along with the upcoming release of Drupal 6. There are a lot of people who would like to contribute, but may not be comfortable or accomplished at contributing code, so the newsletter might be a great way to find this involvement.</p> <p>I'd like to propose some ideas to get something moving quickly. Some of these may already have answers, and I hope no one feels like I'm stepping on anyone's toes. I'm just excited about getting this thing going.</p> <p><strong>Roles</strong></p> <p>We need some well-defined roles. Such as, someone needs to be responsible for publishing the newsletter, as in taking what's in the wiki (or whatever future repository a WOP is kept, and putting it at <a href="http://drupal.org/newsletter" title="http://drupal.org/newsletter">http://drupal.org/newsletter</a>). Is that Robin? Is he still interested in doing this? Is there someone else with the proper access to do that at d.o?</p> <p>Another role, which may or may not be the same, would be 'Chief Editor'. This person would have the final say over what goes in or stays out. This could be a shared role as well, obviously. Or even some kind of democratic system with a larger group. Ideally, it would be this entire group, if we could pull that off.</p> <p>Next would be 'Editors', which would probably be everyone in this group. Not much needs to be said, except they do the grunt work of finding authors, writing articles themselves (traditionally as 'Contributing Editor'), and editing the content to keep it up to par. I hope that everyone on this list will volunteer to be an editor.</p> <p>'Writers' goes without saying. A lot of overlap, although writers from outside this group would be recruited for specific pieces.</p> <p><strong>Organization</strong></p> <p>I think we could create a decent organization with the 81 current subscribers (plus new people as things grow). This could be spontaneous like it currently is, or we could shape it to be an official committee of the Drupal Association. In any case, I think it could easily be a lean, efficient, and democratic promoter of Drupal and open source.</p> <p>I recommend we continue using the wiki to create articles. I also propose we use the Polls to vote on tasks and structure as they come up. To facilitate this process, I'll volunteer to set up a weekly agenda of items for discussion and action. I think we need regular communication to get things rolling again.</p> <p>The agenda would be a wiki posted and sticky'd each week, with a list of items that need action, discussion, and perhaps votes (although Polls could be used for this as well). The newsletter would also be a wiki. Well, actually, let me get that started to show you what I have in mind.</p> <p>Thanks,<br /> Aaron Winborn</p> <div class="og_rss_groups"><a href="/drupal-newsletter">Drupal Newsletter</a></div> http://groups.drupal.org/node/8191#comments 2008 schedule drupal newsletter newsletter team Drupal Newsletter Tue, 15 Jan 2008 21:38:37 +0000 aaron 8191 at http://groups.drupal.org http://groups.drupal.org/node/7565 <p>This is where we'll organize the editorial schedule for this year's newsletters.</p> <p>I took the outline that Robin did earlier and used it as a placeholder for a few issues.</p> <h2>Issue 1</h2> <p>Theme: ????</p> <ul> <li>User Space<br /> ** Drupal Events<br /> ** Tips &amp; Tricks<br /> ** Articles</li> <li>Interview</li> <li>Developer Zone (if you can think of something better, please do!)<br /> -- Development Drops<br /> -- Articles</li> </ul> <h2>Issue 2</h2> <p>Theme: ????</p> <ul> <li>User Space<br /> ** Drupal Events<br /> ** Tips &amp; Tricks<br /> ** Articles</li> <li>Interview</li> <li>Developer Zone (if you can think of something better, please do!)<br /> -- Development Drops<br /> -- Articles</li> </ul> <h2>Isssue 3</h2> <p>Theme: ????</p> <ul> <li>User Space<br /> ** Drupal Events<br /> ** Tips &amp; Tricks<br /> ** Articles</li> <li>Interview</li> <li>Developer Zone (if you can think of something better, please do!)<br /> -- Development Drops<br /> -- Articles</li> </ul> <h2>Issue 4</h2> <p>Theme: ????</p> <ul> <li>User Space<br /> ** Drupal Events<br /> ** Tips &amp; Tricks<br /> ** Articles</li> <li>Interview</li> <li>Developer Zone (if you can think of something better, please do!)<br /> -- Development Drops<br /> -- Articles</li> </ul> <h2>Issue 5</h2> <p>Theme: ????</p> <ul> <li>User Space<br /> ** Drupal Events<br /> ** Tips &amp; Tricks<br /> ** Articles</li> <li>Interview</li> <li>Developer Zone (if you can think of something better, please do!)<br /> -- Development Drops<br /> -- Articles</li> </ul> <h2>Issue 6</h2> <p>Theme: ????</p> <ul> <li>User Space<br /> ** Drupal Events<br /> ** Tips &amp; Tricks<br /> ** Articles</li> <li>Interview</li> <li>Developer Zone (if you can think of something better, please do!)<br /> -- Development Drops<br /> -- Articles</li> </ul> <div class="og_rss_groups"><a href="/drupal-newsletter">Drupal Newsletter</a></div> Drupal Newsletter Fri, 07 Dec 2007 14:03:45 +0000 trevortwining@drupal.org 7565 at http://groups.drupal.org http://groups.drupal.org/node/7550 <p>Greetings,</p> <p>the #1 best idea from this post: <a href="http://groups.drupal.org/node/6943" title="http://groups.drupal.org/node/6943">http://groups.drupal.org/node/6943</a> is the monthly newsletter. Learn more why.</p> <p>There is already a newsletter page, but we could do it way better: <a href="http://drupal.org/newsletter" title="http://drupal.org/newsletter">http://drupal.org/newsletter</a> (Note I don't talk about mailing lists, there are very good mailing lists here: <a href="http://drupal.org/mailing-lists" title="http://drupal.org/mailing-lists">http://drupal.org/mailing-lists</a>. I am talking about building an opt-in EMAIL LIST. This means that only Drupal can send emails to all the list members, but no other member can send an email to others. Also only Drupal sees all the members, and the members are unable to see each other.)</p> <p>Questions:<br /> 1) How can we build the email li