Drupal Meetup Wrapup and DrupalCamp Planning Notes

The monthly meetup of the (central) Florida Drupal User's Group took place on Saturday, January 17 at the MindComet office in Altamonte Springs. Eight people attended the meetup and we covered 3 topics: Andrew Riley presented a case study of the Disney's Children's Hospital web site, Ryan Price talked about the menu system in Drupal 6, and then we all continued the planning of DrupalCamp Florida - to be held February 7.

More details after the break...

Case Study: DisneyChildrensHospital.com by MindComet - Andrew Riley

Andrew talked about the building of DisneyChildrensHospital.com - a really pretty "brochure" type site built with Drupal 5. He discussed the various 3rd party modules (lots of Views and blocks) that were used as well as the extensive theming and challenges that went into building the site. You can catch a repeat performance at DrupalCamp Florida on February 7th.

Andrew also talked about AboutSeafood.com, another site built by MindComet. This site makes use of Flash with XML integration as well as a cool, 3-pane recipie browser. Andrew will go into more depth about the building of this site at DrupalCamp Florida.

Getting into the Menu System - Ryan Price

Ryan talked about the menu system in Drupal and how much of Drupal's functionality is, at its base, controlled by the hook_menu() function in the various Drupal modules. He went in-depth in the node-module to illustrate this and to talk about how various menu arguments are handled and passed to the correct *_to_arg() and *_load() functions. He also went knee-deep into hook_menu(), concentrating on the flow of various arguments that menu paths use.

Ryan also talked about the building of the OutdoorLife.com and FieldAndStream.com sites. He discussed the heavy use of taxonomy and pathauto on the site as well as the user of CCK and Views.

DrupalCamp Planning

1. Location - MindComet

- Damien will request to borrow 2 projectors from Bonnier
- Everyone will be asked to bring a powerstrip and extension cord (clearly labeled with your name)
- Chairs - will rent from Kirby (sponsor needed) - Ryan will take care of chair transportation
- Set up crew (Friday) - 6PM - meet at MindComet - Mike, Andrew and IT guy, John, Erik, Ryan
- Set up crew (Saturday morning) - 7AM - Coffee retrieval, drink setup, snack setup, garbage, signs, projectors, power cords, room arranging, registration - Mike (I will bring early coffee and snacks), Andrew, Ryan, Damien, Erik, John
- Clean up crew - Mike, Andrew, Ryan, Erik, John, Damien
- Trash Cans - need 3 - Damien, Mike (2), Ivan (bags)
- Paper towels/409 - Ryan
- Push broom - Mike
- Coolers - Mike (2), Damien (if anyone else can bring a large cooler, we'd appreciate it!)

1. Outreach - Ryan

- twitter feed
- FloridaCreatives
- g.d.o. (Florida and Miami)
- digital media alliance
- doterati
- orlando php
- central florida geeks mailing list
- barcamp orlando (tampa, miami) mailing list
- personal blogs
- Valencia
- FullSail (Darren)
- UCF (Andrew)
- Damien will post at Bonnier
- Rene will post at Orlando CoLab

1. Tracks/Schedule - see Google Doc spreadsheet

2. Food/drinks/t-shirts/swag - Mike

- MindComet
- we have Starbucks Coffee (donated, need someone to pick up at 8:00AM Saturday)
- Andrew will hand-deliver letter to Robert Brooks at Walmart on Tuesday, 1/20
- Einstein Bros. Bagels - Mike still working on
- Acquia - donated $250 + box of swag
- Lullabot - 3 free DVDs
- CivicActions - donated $250 + swag?
- Jason's Deli - asking for discounted lunch boxes - Andrew will hand deliever letter and talk to Cliff
- Books - Joe
- Izea - Andrew
- Signs - Mike - 10 lawn signs - looking for sponsor
- Logo - efsmart.com - get logo to Andrew
- Projectors - Bonnier? - Damien
- Schedule PDF - Erik

1. Web site - none - using eventbrite and g.d.o/florida

2. Associated Events

- Friday night meetup - Mongolian place - near Winn-Dixie - Andrew will get details
- Saturday night meetup - Andrew has place, will provide details