Drupal Module development - a walkthrough
With the blessing of the usual organizer of the Houston Drupal meetup, I'll be hosting this month's meetup here in Stafford. Come on down for light refreshments and a presentation on module development. We'll start at 6pm so that I have enough time to get through something and for us to have some time to discuss any other drupal related issues.
Barring requests to the otherwise, I'll go through the process of developing a header carousel module using the jquery cycle plugin. I'll write it in such a way as to show how to create content types, set permissions and provide both template and CSS.
The event will be located at
10701 Corporate Drive
Stafford, TX 77477
In the large conference room.
Office Number is 281.491.1748, but we'll likely be in the conf room at 6pm
It's a three story office building just off Corporate drive, which itself is just off 59.
See you all there,
-Jason Smith
Looking forward to it
I've got this locked into my calendar, and I'm looking forward to getting to know other Drupal users in the area. Can't wait to learn how to do module development. : )
Really glad you can finally
Really glad you can finally make it. :)
very nice
good to see there is a houston group!
Re-arranged my schedule to be
Re-arranged my schedule to be downtown Tuesday for an easier ride in.
I will do my best to be there
I will do my best to be there on time, but 6pm in SugarLand will be a bit of a challenge :)
I'll try to make it too
I too will try to make it. I agree with Katherined. As someone who works downtown and lives north of town, Sugarland is less than ideal. :)
Todays meetup
Hello everyone,
Just updating you on the plan. Life being what it is, my son will be joining us for tonight's meetup and will assist me in my preparation. He's 4 months old, so I plan on using him to deflect questions I can't answer.
I've written four simple modules and will walk through them in order of complexity. They are as follows
I was trying to think of the kinds of things that you might be interested in doing. With the combination of these four modules in your library, you've got a good starting place for most uses. I may also discuss some utility modules that I've written if there is interest.
robertDouglass has mentioned that he has an Apache Solr presentation constantly at the ready. So if anyone's interested in putting him to work, say so here.
Another update
We've been moved to the smaller conference room. Looks like there was a last minute scheduling conflict. Sorry about that folks. The rooms are right next to each other so it shouldn't pose a problem and I'll put up signs.
Another note. The doors to the building are open until 6pm, at that point you will have to call us to be let in or wait for someone to open the door for you. We'll be checking frequently.
My cellphone number is 832-754-2922
I probably won't make it
I probably won't make it tonight. If the weather looks like it could get iffy, I am going to stick close to home. I suspect the weather might make traffic going out on 59 that time of day into a bit of a nightmare.
Everyone else should go though. Looks like a good presentation.
Bwah! It's snowing in my point of departure!
I am desperate for some Drupaling and am abandoning my family for the evening on the first REAL snow day in College Station. Someone please let me know if this is a no-go.
-Bronius
Will make it
Otherwise regular Tuesday thing not happening, already in Sugarland anyway.
I'm still coming
I'm still planning on coming - so barring any last minute emergencies I'll be there. Can't wait to hear the presentation and meet the rest of you. : )
We're on!
I'll be there!
Tonight's party
I will have to miss tonight's festivities as well. Have fun and be safe.
My first time, I'll be there.
My first time, I'll be there.
My apologies. I was detained
My apologies. I was detained at work and was unable to make it out. I hope to meet you all next time.
late but there
I'm showing up... as long as traffic cooperates... maybe a little late.
Tonight's meetup
We've got 14 people here already and the presentation is getting rolling. Things are just getting rolling, so you still have time to drop in!
Wow, that's great! Sadly,
Wow, that's great! Sadly, it's a little too far for me in this weather and with this traffic.
Thanks to everyone who attended
I'm glad so many could make it despite the weather and traffic. I know that some of you were uncomfortable with Stafford, but how many would be willing to make another trip out here for another session. Perhaps one on theming?
I'd appreciate some feedback on both my presentation and the code that I shared. I'll find somewhere to post the source for the evenings ramblings tomorrow morning, until then let my monotone drone seep into your brain.
Really nice presentation
It's really helpful for people to see what you're doing with module development. Keep up the good work building a strong Houston community.
PS Come to Drupalcon =)
Hi Robert, So sorry I missed
Hi Robert,
So sorry I missed you tonight, but please be sure to introduce yourself at DrupalCon.
Location is always a problem
Location is always a problem in Houston. Sugar Land/Stafford will likely never be a good option for me any more than downtown is good for someone from Clear Lake.
I am not sure how to handle that, but maybe we could alternate venues and parts of town, or maybe try to stick to a central location.
I suggest starting a new thread to get a better idea of location issues.
Location, location, location
Well, we've had multiple meetups in the Houston downtown/midtown area with turnouts that ranged from 6 or so, down to 1.
Tonight we had our first meeting in Stafford (a few miles SW of Houston) and we had our biggest turnout to date - 16 in attendance! The attendees included locals from Houston, Sugar Land, Stafford, Richmond & Katy as well as travelers from Bryan-College Station, Clear Lake and even one from Germany! Jawohl!
Given the current data points, it seems that the new "central location" should be Southwest of downtown Houston!
interesting point. I posted
interesting point. I posted a new thread to continue the location conversation.
Actually, it took almost as
Actually, it took almost as long to drive to Stafford as it would have to drive from Clear Lake up to 249. So downtown would have been closer. Once a month, I'll go where the meeting is :) And we're glad to host it sometime should we need to in Clear Lake (I can accommodate ~60 people or so at once).
Yes, thank you Jason, and
Yes, thank you Jason, and Kevin, for hosting us, and giving a great look at the three iterations of the module. I look forward to seeing you guys again at future meet-ups, and being part of the growth of Drupal in the greater Houston area :)
Great to get out and stretch the mind a bit
Thanks to the hosts and organizers of this cozy gathering. So nice to see Robert Douglass in the flesh, even-- what a treat. All worth the drive. Jason- nice presentation, again. Maybe next time I can bring more to the table than heckling.
Ceiling chx
For those of you who enjoyed watching Jason initialize variables last night: http://www.flickr.com/photos/jeffeaton/416385443/
Was really looking for criticisms, but thanks guys
I pegged the presentation to take about two hours and went a little over, and I think there's a limit to how long people can maintain attention while learning something new. Next time I'll target 1 hour and give us 30 minutes before and after to discuss.
When is the next local or localish DrupalCon?
can attachments be enabled within this group or on these comments?
the demo files from last night are at http://emunications.com/demos.zip
You should be able to attach
You should be able to attach files to any group node (event, discussion, etc). You could create also a wiki page specifically for your presentation.
Went right past that big "edit" tab
Ah well, I'll update it later. BTW, in the grouple I talked down the features module. I took another look at it and things have improved quite a bit. It looks a lot more organized now. So consider the features module if you're doing something similar to the image carousel module discussed. BTW2, the image_carousel module as written isn't really ready for use on a production site. There are a few things to clean up and potential problems to catch. And yes, it needs a hook_uninstall.
Great Presentation...
The presentation last night was great. The first 3 modules did a great job of building one on the next so that the new info was presented in bite sized chunks. The carousel module also showed some great info, but felt like is was much more advanced that the previous 3, so I started glazing over a little at the end. Perhaps my brain was full.
I think your suggestion to limit the presentation to an hour and leave the other time open for general discussion or networking with the others is a great one, and would suggest that for all future meetings. This would give people an opportunity to discuss their specific issues with everyone else, let the group think out possible solutions, and then we'd all benefit from the discussion. For example, Bronius's need for Ubercart customizations would have been a great topic of discussion. Sure, we can do that through this site, but the conversation takes longer this way. Get a bunch of geeks in a room together and you can really crank out a bunch of good ideas. : )
I'd love to work on a Google SOC entry, or sponsor a sprint
Yeah, it's a lot to cram in at once. I should have broken it into two events. There are enough coders in the group that we could do a sprint for a great module and everyone would learn something from it. Any ideas for a generally usable module? Think the image carousel might be mature enough with some work for drupal dist? There are just sooooo many of them.
Wish I could have made it...
I was planning for this to be my first meeting, but I got hung up at work. I will definitely try to make the next one. I'm just getting into Drupal and am hoping I can learn some stuff from you guys.