Posted by jhodgdon on February 17, 2017 at 8:49pm
Start:
2017-03-16 10:00 - 12:00 America/Los_Angeles Event type:
User group meeting
We hope you can join us for the next meeting of the Spokane Drupal User Group!
- When
- Thursday, March 16, 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
March, April, and May meetings
There's a small chance that I will not be able to make it to this March meeting. And I will almost certainly not be able to make it to the April or May meeting.
However, we will still have these meetings -- Shawn and Jon have offered to host if I am not there, and in particular for March, Jon has confirmed he will be at the meeting on the 16th. So, please come!
Drupal programmer - http://poplarware.com
Drupal author - http://shop.oreilly.com/product/0636920034612.do
Drupal contributor - https://www.drupal.org/u/jhodgdon
Re: March, April, and May meetings
Good to know and thanks, Shawn and Jon!
Coming!
I will be there today. See you in a few hours!
Drupal programmer - http://poplarware.com
Drupal author - http://shop.oreilly.com/product/0636920034612.do
Drupal contributor - https://www.drupal.org/u/jhodgdon
Subjects
If anyone has any subjects they want to cover, please post them and we will prepare (YES! might not be able to wing it like our leader.) See you all then!
Meeting notes
What we talked about today:
- Doesn't recommend the book "Beginning Drupal 8" by Todd Tomlinson
- Thought "Using Drupal" (2nd edition) by Angela Byron and Addison Berry was pretty good, but to follow the examples, you had to download and use an old version of PHP (5.3), and old version of Drupal (7.x but old), which was problematic. But he did learn a lot!
- The 3rd edition of "Using Drupal" isn't out yet, and now isn't expected until the end of 2017 (covers Drupal 8).
https://www.drupal.org/docs/user_guide/en/index.html
Good for learning the basics of Drupal 8. Diane likes it too.
https://buildamodule.com/
which you can subscribe to on a monthly basis. Has videos for learning Drupal.
- https://drupalize.me - which also has a subscription model and a course.
- Lynda.com -- this is available for free with a Spokane County or Spokane City library card, and has a good series of videos
- https://www.ostraining.com/ -- you can subscribe -- Drupal as well as other open-source content management systems
- http://codekarate.com/ -- has videos covering one module each -- great for learning that one module that you need to learn -- free too!
- YouTube -- search for particular topics of interest
- Dries recently wrote a post about Drupal 9 -- the plan is for it to be an easy upgrade from Drupal 8 -- http://buytaert.net/making-drupal-upgrades-easy-forever
- Drupal 7 will be OK to use until Drupal 9 comes out (and no one really knows when that will be)
- Drupal 8 still is missing some key contributed modules. Can be used now for simpler sites. May not be ready for more complicated sites.
- There is also Backdrop -- https://backdropcms.org/ -- It's a "fork" of Drupal 7, which is being maintained, and new features added, and plans to maintain backwards compatibility. You should be able to convert an existing Drupal 7 site to Backdrop without a huge amount of problem.
- Usage statistics for Drupal versions: https://www.drupal.org/project/usage/drupal
- Several of us in the group use WordPress for some things: simple sites, blogs, etc.
- WordPress is great for setting up a site for a novice user (friends, relatives)
- WordPress updates itself too, which is good for security fixes
- But for higher-end or complicated sites, Drupal is the way to go
- Best workflow seems to be: Create events on the Drupal site, using a dedicated content type. Export data to an Excel spreadsheet. Import into ReadSquared.
- Feeds module in Drupal - is for importing data into Drupal
- Views can export data from Drupal. You need the Views Data Export add-on for Views: https://www.drupal.org/project/views_data_export
- Making the view:
-- Add a display of type "Data export"
-- Change the format to XLS (click "CSV" under Format to change this from the default of CSV)
-- Under Path settings, set up a URL for your data export. Maybe choose an obscure URL.
-- Set up fields. The labels of the fields in Views become your column headings
-- Set access permission so not everyone can see it
-- Set number of items to display to All so you get all your data
-- It is also possible to do a "batched" export, with a limited number of data records in each file (so the web site doesn't time out)
-- Save the view. Click "View Data export" to see the result.
Drupal programmer - http://poplarware.com
Drupal author - http://shop.oreilly.com/product/0636920034612.do
Drupal contributor - https://www.drupal.org/u/jhodgdon