Sorry it's taken so long to post the notes from our GRupal meetup last week (some of you know my ongoing battle with signing on to GDO/Drupal; every week, it's different). Anyway, here are some notes based on my understanding. Attendees, please fill in the gaps!
Denise likes VoIP Drupal http://civic.mit.edu/blog/csik/voip-drupal
Ross says to check out:
- Clay Shirky's keynote (Ross and Dan) http://chicago2011.drupal.org/keynote-clay-shirky
- Shows commits for one person but cannot really quantify contributions http://drupal.stackexchange.com/
Drupal is at the critical point where it can branch (Ross)
Eric Quigley was impressed by the commerce module http://drupal.org/project/commerce
300-500 attendees
Lots of fixes to major issues with UberCart (ground-up rewrite of UberCart). Lots of awe and applause. Way more versatile now, more in line with Drupal.
Jon Pichot attended a session on hosting and setting up best practice environment
- Pantheon cloud hosting service specifically for Drupal - in private beta https://getpantheon.com/ Out of box:
- Dev, staging and live versions of your site
--> Work in a GUI, can sync dev and staging
- Uses Git, building in Varnish (reverse proxy cache)
--> Can distribute so many developers can work in their own GUI environment, can upload and sync
Duane, who started using Drupal in November said DrupalCon convinced him to learn Drupal 7 instead of learning Drupal 6/7. Persuaded my commerce module and workbench module.
- Workbench takes care of backend side of administrating content; different roles for administrators http://drupal.org/project/workbench
- Workflow approval process (sounds like jazzed up version of roles)
- Ross recommends brochure sites be made in D7.
- Tim found D7 better in Drupal Gardens
Eric Quigley: Media http://drupal.org/project/media
Media management module - Manages media off server (YouTube, Vimeo) and on server. Handles in-line imaging. Nice batch uploader
Mobile sessions (Ross)
2013, more than half of all web traffic will be on mobile devices
- Dries said if you were building Drupal from scratch today, you'd be building from mobile first and desktop experience would be secondary. There hasn't been that much emphasis on it
--> JQuery mobile - Javascript framework for websites. Just makes websites look like mobile app, act likes it, too (sliding, tapping)
--> Services API (you can use Titanium or another suite) - Can access phones function and administer it through Drupal. Can add content, etc. through the phone to a Drupal site.
--> Cross-platform apps: Can be hosted on the phone or in the cloud. Point is don't need to know Java and Object C anymore; should learn Javascript and HTML5 because they're cross-platform
Three accessibility sessions
http://chicago2011.drupal.org/sessions/advanced-accessibility-drupal
- Focused on the requirements of people with disabilities but gearing it toward packaging it as a benefit for all users.
- More technically oriented
- Ross pointed out "main page" function that doesn't appear for users but appears for users utilizing reader
- Dries mentioned accessibility would be a focus in D8
Third demonstrated a screen reader (presenter is actually blind) on whitehouse.gov.
Mapping http://chicago2011.drupal.org/sessions/making-beautiful-maps
- Speakers didn't explain the different components that made up this module, didn't delineate which did what
TileMill, TileStream and Drupal http://chicago2011.drupal.org/conference/bof/tilemill-tilestream-and-drupal
- Maps being used to deliver content
http://chicago2011.drupal.org/sessions/failure-launch-drupal-performance...
Module: Boost (Jon) http://drupal.org/project/boost
- It'll make actual HTML files of your entire site in a certain directory and update them on a set schedule on ChronRuns so if an anonymous user
- Node style in views
Design module (Eric Quigley) - creates a page
Style Guide module - puts it in the back-end UI
Keynotes:
Jared Spool (usability guy) http://chicago2011.drupal.org/keynote-jared-spool
- Illustrations were really dated
- Seemed like a well-worn spiel
- Felt tepid
Drush http://chicago2011.drupal.org/sessions/advanced-drush (focus of next Drupal meetup)
CiviCon (right before DrupalCon, Jon Pichot attended) http://civicrm.org/civicrm/event/info?reset=1&id=103