Monthly South St. Louis Drupal Meetup?

I'd be up for meeting other local Drupal users. I'm located in South County, just outside the city.

I would be interested to meet other users. I'm in Carondelet south city. Either of the places mentioned will work for me. Need it be a permanent location?

Tuesdays aren't good for me, but I should be able to attend any of the other proposed date/times. I have a weak preference for 7pm over 8.

Count me in as well - I've been trying to meet a couple more St. Louis area Drupalers, and this seems a good way. I might be able to scrape up one or two more. 12/6 or 12/3 work best for me.

i can do 12/3, where and what time are we meeting? got an exact address so we can put it into google maps?

It looks limited: http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&hl=en&geocode=&q=3359+South+Jefferson+Av...

Go to street view...

Reminder for those interested, St. Louis Drupaliers meetup tomorrow Thursday 7pm @ Foam.

December 3, 2009, 7 p.m., at the Foam Coffeeshop

3359 South Jefferson Avenue
http://www.myspace.com/foamstl

There were 3 of us and we had a nice chat about Drupal, Joomla, and wireless mesh networks. Maybe the weather (and car problems) kept people away; perhaps we can pull together a few more souls in a month or so.

Drupal Camp Chicago 12-12/13-09

Notes for sessions attended. Notes were typed for personal mnemonic reasons; feel free to read & share for your own enjoyment.

http://drupalcampchicago.org/

Look out for Drupal Camp Nashville in June 2010. http://nashvilledrupalers.com/

Basics of making mobile websites with Drupal (missed)

URL

http://drupal.org/project/mobile_tools

http://drupal.org/project/wurfl

http://drupal.org/project/osmobiclient

http://drupal.org/project/osmobi-mobile

Domain Access for Multiple Domains

URL

Subdomain module can be a simpler way to do multi-sites on per-user basis (?), e.g. username.domain.com.

HTTP/HTTPS setting on per-domain basis. Useful for putting Uebercart store on HTTPS domain.

Node Access: you can pick only one theme if you are using anything less than D7.

Themes can pull the $domain global and and then execute domain-specific logic. However preferred way is to simply run different themes for each domain.

When using domain access, but use Domain Primary Links block instead of standard Drupal PL blocks.

Strongly recommended NOT to using Domain Access to prefix the menu tables. Theoretically you can have Domain Access prefix all tables (except the domain access tables), to replicate everything across all domains.

Also strongly recommend using devel node access module.

Note that Domain Access provides the setting “enforce node access on administrators,” so that user #1 may see the same content as users.

Searching across all domains now works with apachesolr.

“Default Source Domain” setting, specify canonical domain. Domain Source module lets you specify canonical domain on a per-node basis. This has be helpful, since multiple copies of the same node under different domains looks like spam to Google.

“Special Page Request” setting: disable domain access for specific URLs.

Side note: node access modules has no role in creation.

Look at hook_nodes_grant_alter() (in D7) to override access grant logic.

Look at deploy module to deploy content and configuration (views, content types, system settings, etc.) from one site to another. In use on http://foreignaffairs.com .

http://drupal.org/project/deploy

How to build a site with the "Panels Everywhere" method (missed)

URL

Look up Panels Everywhere method in docs.

Audio from presentation: http://geoffhankerson.com/node/113

Drupal User Experience (UX)

URL

Speaker, username hellosteve, is nat'l chair for Canadian GDC website, Graphic Design Conference.

Importance of social networking sites is to make connections (personal, business, etc) b/w different person visible. Video @ commontrack.com.

Key points: simplicity and user-centric design.

Define user groups (different types of users) and user personas (what does the user want to do?), based on genuine user research preferably. Personal interviews would be awesome. Seek to draw trends observed in interviews with users, i.e. what do users often want to do?

Magazine recommendation: Practical Web Design (out of print?)

Book recommendation: Don't Make Me Think

Simplicity Example: http://instantchewbacca.com

Another example: write 404 pages so that they provide something useful, e.g. a search bar or a contact link. Don't imply the user is at fault, bad mojo.

Website example:

http://www.happycog.com/

http://www.gdc.net/

Good to keep navigation/quicklinks at the top for page consistently.

Basic steps to walk through...

1. Identify type of site

2. Determine dev team make-up

3. Discover and understand client and industry culture

4. Define project objectives

5. Understand current state (heuristic analysis)

6. Collect user research.

No one apparently uses moodboards for web design any more.

UX Blog & Testing: http://www.uxbooth.com/ http://silverbackapp.com/

Image handling in Drupal 7

URL

Recap, slides, and heavily documented example code from the presentation are available here. http://dreamformula.com/articles/image-handling-drupal-7-core

Coming soon to a Drupal near you (D7 intro)

URL

Don't use D7 yet!! It is not 'beta,' 'alpha,' or anything that implies the code won't crash and lose your data, and you will volunteer yourself for beta testing as a result.

Scheduled for release sometime early 2010 (after ~300 critical bugs are fixed).

Focus on D7 user experience project, especially admin console. More info http://d7ux.org

Toolbar (subset of admin_menu) and Shortcut modules in core.

New drag & drop-capable dashboard, similar to mysite module from D5.

Popup dialog in admin pages, similar to Joomla, so you don't need to do full page load.

Vertical tabs module in core, too.

D7 install now includes 2 install profiles: bare minimum and standard Drupal.

Users may cancel their own account, delete/reassign their own content.

Private Files feature of filesystem has been restored (didn't work since D4).

Translation/localization is now handled here: http://localize.drupal.org

Native Img handling: filefiled + imagefield + imageapi + imagecache

→ imagefield now called image module and imagecache now called image styles module.

Cron.php now requires private authentication key in URL, to avoid DOS attacks.

Some Feedapi functionality now in D7 core Aggregator.

Install Profiles API now in D7 core.

Easier to integrate WYSIWYG editors like TinyMCE

CCK now in core, called “Field UI”

Nodes are no longer top-level content abstraction, now nodes/views/comments are called 'entities,' and you may attach fields to any entity.

Module updates are now possible from within Drupal UI. You still need to use drush or full shell if you do multi-site or use version control.

Standard template files have become more like Zen Theme templates.

Also $content[] array is now pre-rendered, similar to $form[] array used in hook_form_alter() methods. Easier to hide or operate on content items.

D7 core now support simpletests module. You write unit tests for new features. More info: http://qa.drupal.org

Files are now accessed via URL-like address called stream wrappers (native to PHP v5.2), e.g. public://, temp://, and off-site services like s3:// and flickr:// (soon).

The composite effect of adding lots of code does indeed make Drupal 7 core slower overall. Need to mitigate this with caching, where possible.

Content locking mechanism now in core.

Semi-automated module upgrade to D7: http://drupal.org/project/coder

Building an Open Source Business with Drupal

URL

Speaker is CEO of http://palantir.net which is now a 17-person firm

Focus on software as a service, not as a stand-alone product. Examples: Acquia's Drupal Gardens or Coova OM portal service.

Also high-level consulting, similar to Lullabot.

Problems about visual stereotypes about open source, e.g. jokes about Richard Stallman's personal life. But, lots of large companies do indeed contribute lots of development, e.g. Sony's recent funding of the panels model development.

Also problem with misunderstanding of GPL license, in particular the false idea it would magically invalidate any and all existing, proprietary IP. Important to be open to about desire to distribute anything.

Compare sale of Drupal services to legos: you sell the ability to build with lego bricks, not the bricks themselves.

Important to define roles of people working together on a small business startup. E.g. who does what?

Watch out for spec work, i.e. getting seduced into doing actual work during specification phase (before you actually get paid).

Reminder importance of reserving guard band (i.e. padding time estimates). There are always contingencies.

Recommend using http://www.mint.com/ for personal financial software

Question about worker co-op: group of freelancers who share resources to operate as a design house.

Talking points to argue for blogging/evangelizing about yr Drupal projects recently completed, when the project is done in partnership with a design house:

• Assign credit where it is due, as accurately as possible

• Stress the free publicity the design house is getting

• State intention to publicize/blog about project as earlier in design process as possible

12-13-09

BOF for “Everything in Code:” propagate site config changes via Features Module, et al

Features module may be used to propagates from a dev site to live site changes made to content types, CCK, fields, contexts, permissions, etc. Variable changes may be propagated via strongarm module. Likewise, core permissions functionality may be overridden using Permissions API module.

Feature module is in beta, but it would be advisable to be diligent about updates since there may be schema changes. There may no longer be a upgrade path if you wait 6months w/o upgrading.

Alsol you can extend exportables module to allow easier exportation of generic objects. Right now, this module supports taxonomy vocabularies out of the box.

http://drupal.org/project/features

Also look up the the function drupal_alter(), since very useful for altering most any drupal operation.

BOF for “XML Tricks”

URL

FeedAPI module is gradually being replaced by Feeds module.

Problems with FeedAPI Mapper not working reliably.

I mentioned my experience doing remote content syndication using XMLRPC requests, in particular the services module on sending end and a custom module on the receiving end.

A common problem I've encountered has been sharing content reliably b/w drupal sites, e.g. no stable solution for both sending & receiving content b/w Drupal sites using JSON, XML, etc. Keep an eye on Deploy module; it does exactly this.

Strong recommendation for using Views Datasource module (http://drupal.org/project/views_datasource) to push shareable content.

- Still no solid way to implement the receiving end, maybe try FeedAPI, Feeds, or Aggregator.

Ben will share his implementation of Services for pushing content, and a generic version of a proprietary module for pulling content over XMLRPC.

Demonstration for very easy sharing of filterable Youtube video playlist creation using Views Datasource, the appropriate CCK, and an exposed filter. A nice alternative to Flash Video module. Suggest to use AJAX filtering as well, so as not to trigger full page load upon filter change.

I pointed people to SWF Tools (with included SWFObject2 module) to incorporate JW Player and Flowplayer.

BOF for GMap/Location

Need to write custom field formatter for displaying a tip window above a marker on an embedded map. gmap_location module does not yet provide this.

Tip from Rebecca White: http://hg.bec.webfactional.com/formatter_demo

Other neat stuff:

http://www.mirocommunity.org/

http://cernio.com Vancouver-based tech co-op an cheap VPS service, $60 or $300/yr

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zend_Framework (possibly this can be used as an IDE for Drupal)

http://movesmart.org Geocoding of neighborhood information (Chicago only) to allow informed decisions on where to move

I would be interested in seeing other people's Drupal sites. People might enjoy showcasing their work, and I would love to learn about modules and techniques that others are successfully using. This could enable me to better address the needs of my current or future projects. Conversely, I would be happy to share my own Drupal experiences.

Was this a one-time meeting, or do you plan to meet again in 2010? I'd love to meet some of you.