Posted by jhodgdon on June 13, 2014 at 4:29pm
Start:
2014-08-07 10:00 - 12:00 America/Los_Angeles Organizers:
Event type:
User group meeting
We hope you can join us for the next meeting of the Spokane Day-Time Drupal Learning and Co-Working Group!
- When
- Thursday, August 7, 2014, 10 AM to noon
NOTE NEW DATE! - Meeting rescheduled from July!
- Sign up!
- Log in and click the "Sign up" button, if you think you will be coming. You will be reminded 2 days before. The meeting will be canceled if not enough people sign up by the end of the day the Monday before the meeting. You can always click "Cancel signup" at a later time if your schedule changes and you can no longer come.
- Where
- Spokane County Library - Argonne branch, 4322 N. Argonne Road, Millwood. We meet in the large meeting room - enter from the door out in the hallway before you go into the area with the books
- What
- Learning and "co-working" time - bring your laptop, or watch on the projector screen. Come with a project you're working on, a desire to improve Drupal in some way (documentation, programming, design, marketing etc.), a question about Drupal you would like to get an answer to, or a desire to help others with their projects and questions. Or just come and listen and observe.
- Who
- Everyone is welcome -- the only prerequisite is having some interest in Drupal. This group is usually 5-10 friendly people, with experience levels ranging from novice to expert, so you'll fit right in. Because of the size of the group, you will have time to share something you've learned, or get your questions answered, or both!
Note: If you'd like to have a meeting at another time that is more convenient for you, please feel free to organize it! See http://groups.drupal.org/node/161584 for a Wiki where people have listed when would be convenient for them to have meetings.
Sign up now! Log in and click the "Sign up" button if you plan to come, or probably will come, to ensure the meeting actually takes place. It will be canceled if not enough people sign up to make it a good meeting.
Comments
Rescheduled for August 7
Only 2 people besides me had signed up for the July 17 meeting this Thursday.
So, I just rescheduled this meeting for Thursday, August 7th, same time, same place.
Hopefully, a few more people can make it then -- if not, we'll try for September. I know summer is always a busy time for people, which is fine -- I hope everyone is out having fun in the sun!
Drupal programmer - http://poplarware.com
Drupal author - http://shop.oreilly.com/product/0636920034612.do
Drupal contributor - https://www.drupal.org/u/jhodgdon
Sorry for being the not
Sorry for being the not responding sooner. I would have been there, and now I will be there on the 7th. Hope to see you all soon!
My Bad
I should have committed sooner, was on my things to do before EOD. I could have been there this Thursday. I will be out of town for the next meeting in Auguest. In the future what is the deadline for commitment for meetings?
Deadline for signups
Both for this meeting and the last one, I checked signups on the Monday before the meeting. I guess last time instead of canceling/postponing, I instead posted a comment saying "Sign up or else!". This time I didn't do that, because I figured the "sign up" procedure had become enough of a tradition... guess not!
So, I'm going to edit the text of this meeting post (which I'll copy/paste to the next one, as usual) so that there is a definite deadline for signing up. I'll make that be by the end of the day the Monday before (instead of "some random time when I arbitrarily check"). That will let me call the library on Tuesday to cancel, if I need to do that.
As a reminder... You can always click "Sign up" and then cancel it later if you will not be able to come (if you're signed up, there's a handy "Cancel signup" link at the bottom of the post body).
Drupal programmer - http://poplarware.com
Drupal author - http://shop.oreilly.com/product/0636920034612.do
Drupal contributor - https://www.drupal.org/u/jhodgdon
Just a nudge to everyone!
Look at me on top of things! I just wanted to nudge everyone about this weeks meeting! I look forward to see you all there! So much to talk about!
I will be there...
Great! look forward to see you!
5 sign-ups ==> quorum
It looks like we should have about 5 people there, so we'll have the meeting. See you Thursday!
Drupal programmer - http://poplarware.com
Drupal author - http://shop.oreilly.com/product/0636920034612.do
Drupal contributor - https://www.drupal.org/u/jhodgdon
Meeting notes
Here are some notes on what we discussed today:
a) Security update for Drupal: https://www.drupal.org/SA-CORE-2014-004
b) How to update Drupal and a contrib module -- make sure to run your update.php script! Make sure to delete the old files before uploading the new files!
c) Talked about how Drupal figures out you need database updates in the update.php script (specially-named functions defined by the module developer)
d) Drupal success story from Shawn: Client (retirement home) wanted the abilty for site visitors to resize the text for visibility -- use the Text Resize module - https://www.drupal.org/project/text_resize
e) Tin told us about the basics of SASS, which is a way to preprocess CSS, have include files, etc.
e) Tin recommends some sites for web development:
- http://feedthebot.com -- tests your site, makes recommendations on accessibility, SEO, etc. Highly recommended for SEO suggestions!
- http://webpagetest.org - tests site performance, load time, etc.
- http://gtmetrix.com - another performance testing site
- http://tinypng.com -- compresses PNG images -- good for site performance
- https://imagoptim.com -- optimizes JPGE and other images
- http://codepen.io -- great site for learning and playing with SASS and CSS and HTML; can also test responsive designs there
- http://sass-lang.com - to get set up with SASS
f) We had a discussion about content strategy:
- Start by asking: What is the purpose of this site?
- Who is the audience?
- What do you want them to do/see/learn on the site?
- Keywords: What keywords would people search for? (make sure those are in your site content)
Content is the main factor in SEO -- Google indexes content (including alt tags on images, etc.)
g) Jose recommends the "Built With" browser plugin (or you can just use their web site) -- it tells you what technology is running on a given site: http://builtwith.com/
h) http://simplytest.me -- Shawn says: great for seeing whether a module or distribution will work for your purposes, without installing it yourself. Note: distributions -- you can download a partially-built site with less work.
Drupal programmer - http://poplarware.com
Drupal author - http://shop.oreilly.com/product/0636920034612.do
Drupal contributor - https://www.drupal.org/u/jhodgdon