Spokane Day-time Learn/Co-Work Group June 18

I just realized I hadn't set up a meeting yet for June -- well, it's set up now -- see you all in 2 weeks or so!

What we talked about today:

• Pacific Northwest Drupal Summit is coming up on October 24-25 in Seattle - be there! http://2015.pnwdrupalsummit.org/
• Jon talked about his site's use of the Domain Access module, which allows them to have multiple sub-domains running off the same site. Each article can be specific to one domain or able to be displayed on other sites, and edit permission is limited to the admins for the site that originated the article. https://www.drupal.org/project/domain
• We talked briefly about Git, which is a revision control system for software (keeps track of the revisions to software). https://www.drupal.org/documentation/git
• Drupal 8 User Manual Proposal - Jennifer and other Drupal folks have made a proposal to create a Drupal 8 User Manual: https://groups.drupal.org/node/470648

  Anyone can help! We're having a global work day on Sunday the 28th:
  https://groups.drupal.org/node/471268

• Group to subscribe to, to keep up with Drupal 8 development progress:
  https://groups.drupal.org/core

  Drupal 6 will be end of life about 3 months after Drupal 8 comes out, and there will be a DIRECT migration path from 6 to 8. Drupal 7 will be active until 9 comes out. And Drupal 9 may not come out soon because we will be having 8.0.x and then in a few months, new features in 8.1.x, then in a few months, 8.2.x, etc. We would only move to Drupal 9 if we need to rearchitect things.

• One member of our group asks: If you wanted to start a business building web sites for small businesses or non-profits, how would you go about it?
  - Jon: Know your limitations and find resources (people) who can help you with the things you're not an expert at. For instance if you are not a designer and don't like CSS, you'd need to partner with a designer and CSS person to help with projects.
  - Think about what you want to achieve and who your clients are, what their needs are.
  - Think about the future. Do you want to keep supporting the clients going forward, adding features to their site and doing updates? If not, you might want to consider using WordPress, which is much easier for the client to use.
  - Hosting: If you set up the hosting and you own the account, if there is a hosting problem they will contact you. If they set up the hosting and they own the account, then if they have a hosting problem they will talk to the hosting company and it is not your responsibility.
  - Jon suggests: GoDaddy for really small sites. Blackmesh and InMotion for higher-end sites with really good customer support.
  - Jennifer would never do business with GoDaddy. She suggests HostGator for smaller sites and Pair.com for medium-duty sites.
  - Other members suggest Digital Ocean, Media Temple, and Bluehost.
  - Do not do Multisite. Install each client's site as a separate Drupal site at its own domain.
  - How should you charge for this type of work? Estimates - are they firm or not?
  - Charge a monthly retainer fee, and define what it covers. Maybe give them a few options for how much it will cost them.
  - Definitely have a contract!!!!
  - Be firm on your rates. Take it or leave it.
  - Be clear on what you are doing for what cost. In writing. And the consequences if they do not pay.
  - Be willing to give a client up if you don't want to work with them.
  - Must get a business license
  - Jennifer wrote an article that may be useful: http://poplarware.com/articles/start_consulting_biz

  - Random list of the skills/knowledge you will need:

  • Domain name registration
  • DNS records
  • Drupal site building
  • Hosting control panel stuff (setting up FTP accounts, etc.)
  • PHPMyAdmin for setting up databases
  • Setting up local server on your own machine
  • Git if you are managing a local / test / live setup (to transfer code up)
  • CSS
  • Web design and mobile design
  • PhotoShop
  • How to update Drupal versions and modules
  • Search Engine Optimization
  • Google Analytics and Webmaster Tools
  • Backup and restore
  • Monitoring to make sure the site is up
  • Service and customer interaction and communication
  • Bookkeeping (might consider Freshbooks for invoices, Harvest too?)
• Monitoring services (they will check your site and notify you if it is down): suggested one is Pingdom
• How to learn SASS - one member suggests doing it step by step. For instance you might make one of your colors into a variable throughout a CSS file, as a start (so that instead of using the #234455 code everywhere, you would have $blue everywhere, or you could call your colors $primary, $secondary, $tertiary or whatever.). Then maybe code your widths as variables. Then the next thing, etc... Before you know it, you'll be using SASS.
• SASS - what is it? It is a preprocessor for CSS that lets you have variables and include files etc. You run a command that outputs the actual CSS that your site uses.
• Question: Webform - can you have choices as to where the email goes?
  Yes! We did this:
  - Set up a web form.
  - Add a Select component, and set up options for the user to see.
  - Go to the Emails tab, and choose "Component" equal to the component you added, and add the email.
  - The next screen allows you to associate email addresses with each of the choices you set up for the user. Done!