RESCHEDULED Spokane Drupal Group January 19

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jhodgdon's picture
Start: 
2017-01-19 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 Drupal User Group!

When
Thursday, January 19, 2017, 10 AM to noon
We meet on the 2nd or 3rd Thursday of most months at this time/location. Log in and join the Spokane Drupal User Group (see sidebar on https://groups.drupal.org/spokane-wa ) to be notified of future meetings, events, and discussions (typically just a few email messages per month).
Where
Spokane County Library - Argonne branch, 4322 N. Argonne Road, Millwood. We are currently meeting in the small conference room at the library. From the hallway, go into the library proper, past the checkout/information desk, take a right and you'll see the room on the right.
To be reminded, sign up!
To receive an email reminder closer to the date of the meeting, log in and click the "Sign up" button; log in and click "Cancel signup" at a later time if your schedule changes and you can no longer come. There's no obligation to come if you sign up (but we hope you will!). There's also no obligation to sign up in order to come (it's up to you if you want a reminder or not). However, the meeting could be canceled if the organizer isn't sure anyone is coming.
What
We spend two hours in a question and answer format, with the participants around a table and a laptop on a projector. Come with questions about a project you're working on, something you've learned that you'd like to share with others, a desire to improve Drupal in some way (documentation, programming, design, marketing etc.), 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!

Comments

Rescheduled for the 19th

jhodgdon's picture

Hi folks! I need to reschedule the meeting for January to the 19th instead of the 12th. Sorry about that! I hope that doesn't throw people off too much.

Meanwhile, have a happy holiday season with friends and family, and I'll see you in 2017!

No problem here....I will be

CProfessionals's picture

No problem here....I will be there!

Meeting notes

jhodgdon's picture

What we talked about today:

  • Pacific Northwest Drupal Summit: Feb 25-26, Vancouver BC
    http://pnwdrupalsummit.org/2017
  • DrupalCon is in Baltimore in April: https://events.drupal.org/baltimore2017
  • Security of code on Drupal sites... Start at https://www.drupal.org/security where you can read the security advisories for Drupal Core and modules. Then on the sidebar, you can find out how to subscribe to these advisories, how to contact the Security team if you find a security problem, and how to write your own code in a secure manner.
  • Diane has been working on some logic-based webforms for the Community Library Network web site. Used these modules:
    https://www.drupal.org/project/webform - basic web form module. Current/latest versions have conditionals functionality built in!
    https://www.drupal.org/project/webformblock - allows putting webforms into blocks
    https://www.drupal.org/project/panels - basic panels module, including Mini Panels -- allows you to put various things into pages, like blocks for instance
    https://www.drupal.org/project/panels_accordion - makes accordion-style panels on a page

    Then when setting up the web form, you do the following:

    1. Set up the fields as usual.
    2. On the Conditionals tab in the webform editor, you set up things like "If field X has this value, then show field Y"
  • There is also a conditional fields module for regular content (nodes, etc.). https://www.drupal.org/project/conditional_fields and also computed fields: https://www.drupal.org/project/computed_field
  • Remembering how to do stuff: write it down (ideally)... Maybe as a blog post on your business web site blog? Then you can come across as a real expert, plus look back at them next year when you've forgotten them again. Or you can maintain a set of documents for just yourself.
  • Synchronizing information between two completely different systems, one of which is a Drupal site, and the other isn't (and you have no ownership or control of the other site). And make it structured and/or automated. Here's one approach:
    • First, you need to figure out where the information comes from and in what format. Is it being entered into the Drupal site or the other site? Or is it being emailed to an admin who can choose where/how to enter it?
    • Consider making a workflow where the person who generates the information enters it into Drupal, and then it gets reviewed before being published. Here's a simple way to do this:
      - Content of this type is unpublished by default.
      - Some users have permission to create (unpublished) content of this type.
      - Set up the Rules module to notify the admin when an item is added. https://www.drupal.org/project/rules
      - The admin reviews the content and edits/publishes it.
      A more complicated way to do this is to use the Workflow module, which can have more states than just Published/Unpublished. https://www.drupal.org/project/workflow
    • Use the Views module (with Export sub-module) to export some subset of the content to a CSV or Excel file. Modules: https://www.drupal.org/project/views and https://www.drupal.org/project/views_data_export . Probably want a permission on the view, so that only admins can see it. If the other site can use an Excel or CSV file to import the data, you're set!

    Another approach: use iframes and embed the information from one site into the other site. Or if their site has a "widget" (like Twitter does), you could get that widget code and put it into a block, then display it anywhere on your site. And you'd use the non-Drupal site to be the official repository of the data.

  • Mike noticed a problem using https://simplytest.me with images... so we looked on simplytest.me and found that to report a problem, we use a Drupal issue. Process to report it:
    1. Find the project that the issue needs to go in, like Views etc. You'll see issue links on the sidebar, click on one of those. (In this case, we just used the link on simplytest.me and that took us to the issue page for the simplytest.me project).
    2. Search the existing issues to make sure yours doesn't exist already. So in this case, we searched for the word "image". If you find something related, add a comment there instead of making a brand new issue... but only if it's really the same issue. If you find something kind of related, you might consider filing a new issue, but adding comments to both that link them together.
    3. Click "Create new issue" on the issues page.
    4. Fill in the form. Some notes:
      - Make a good title, and a full description of how to reproduce the problem in the Issue Summary field.
      - Use priority Normal unless it's really critical or totally minor
      - Leave the status at Active (the other status values are for people fixing the issue and reviewing the fixes)
      - Unless you personally plan to fix the issue, leave the Assigned field at Unassigned
      - Do not add random issue tags
    5. Save the issue. Here's the one we created today: https://www.drupal.org/node/2845050
  • Maps in Drupal...
    https://www.drupal.org/project/simple_gmap -- Jennifer's simple module that lets you format a text field containing an address, to show an embedded Google map

    https://www.drupal.org/project/gmap -- more complicated module that lets you make views that display locations from location fields on users or nodes or etc. Then you can make it so that if someone clicks the marker on the map, it shows you the content title with a link that takes you to the page, etc.

    And more... many many options

  • Shawn talked about coupon sites, and Be Careful What You Ask For. If you post an offer on your web site, a coupon site may find it. Then you may get a LOT of traffic! May crash your server... You can also post coupons on the coupon sites.