Posted by jpro on October 7, 2010 at 3:05pm
Start:
2010-10-28 19:00 - 21:00 America/Chicago Organizers:
Event type:
User group meeting
Our October meeting is scheduled for the 28th, 7:00 PM, at the St Louis Artists' Guild. We will meet in the conference room. The Guild is located in Oak Knoll Park in Clayton. Enter the park from Big Bend Avenue, just north of Clayton Rd. Map: http://tinyurl.com/ycff7vq
At this point in time we do not have a scheduled topic, but suggestions are welcome. If anyone has a topic they would like to present, please chime in.
Wifi and a projector are available, so bring your laptops.
See you there.
Comments
Hello, Who are there meetings
Hello,
Who are there meetings meant for? I live in St. Louis and have been building Drupal websites for 2 years, however I am still in high school. For the past 6 months I have been learning how to make modules. What normally happens at these meetings?
Thanks!
Dan Silver
Come on down
Hi Dan,
You are welcome to come. Our meetings are typically small, only 6 or 8 people, and we tend to discuss whatever is of interest to the group at a particular point in time. We don't have a set agenda for the October meeting, although we did have presentations for the last 2 meetings (you can read about those meetings in earlier threads here to learn more)
So far we have had a mix of individuals with a lot of experience with Drupal, and others who are new to Drupal. We do have some developers with module building experience among the group. So far, we don't have anyone else quite as young as you, but you are welcome, there are no age restrictions.
Why don't you come to a meeting and see what you think?
I haven't come yet but I do
I haven't come yet but I do want to come! As an aspiring attendee, I say you should come!
I'll be there. I would be
I'll be there. I would be interested to hear about anyone's experience with Drupal 7 and/or Drupal Gardens.
great
I would be interested in some discussion of this, too.
I was wondering if anyone
I was wondering if anyone wants to present on a certain project they've been working on lately. I just finished my first drupal contrib module, Gallery Archive, and I could speak about that for a couple minutes, maybe getting into the guts of the module and trying to describe how someone just starting out could learn to code a module...?
Otherwise, I'm also working on a few other large projects (as seen on http://archstldev.com/page/projects), and could speak about any one of them (or even a couple features with one of them).
I love hearing from people what they're doing with Drupal, and how they're doing it.
Yes please
Jeff, that would be fantastic. There has been a lot of interest in module development, so I'm sure your Gallery Module would be a great topic, including some on the nuts and bolts processes involved. anything you want to show us on your big sites would be great, too.
I can get a projector if you would like to give us a little presentation. As i recall, you have one of the newer Macs? We have a mini DP adapter all ready to go.
Drupal jQuery and modules
One of the many* topics I would like to hear about: jQuery in Drupal, usage within modules and the like.
expanding perhaps:
http://drupal.org/node/305747
http://drupal.org/node/116539
Also, definitely want to hear about drupal modules, building from scratch in particular. Basics, and pointers/tips to lead to building more advanced modules. Plus, what is essential to a module, minimum hooks to add for instance.
Myself, I've integrated a series of class objects within a drupal module, to greatly simplify adding data format importers.
I understand Drupals procedural system, even though it is object oriented in concept, for "speed" and legacy design reasons, however, it seems to push away class object implementation. Drupal module coding seems a bit chisel and stone custom work and misses out on the power of objects inheritance. Something like Class MyModuleWidget extends DrupalModule would simplify perhaps module building. Barring that, we need almost some sort of cookie cutter template to start with. So, part of module topic, what are ways you use to speed up this part of development? And perhaps some sort of best practices in what is required/essential/nice to have in a module.
Another topic perhaps, module testing, unit testing, especially validating code independent of drupal, yet plugging the same unchanged module into a drupal site, knowing the code will work without guess work. And simple is better than overly complicated and involved.
David Heskett www.mobot.org www.biodiversitylibrary.org www.citebank.org
@davidheskettmobot - this
@davidheskettmobot - this page on archstl.org uses a module to do just that—add some jQuery to one of the node/add forms for usability. It's not very hard to do this, and, in fact, there are a few different ways (none of them better than another—just different).
Perhaps I could give a 10-20 minute presentation on scratch-building a module or two... I could set up a test site on my laptop (which, yes, has mini-DP), and go through the process of creating and debugging a module.
I'd be happy to present, also
Once Jeff is finished, if there is still time, I'd be happy to talk about any of a handful of custom modules I've built, in case anyone's interested. Here are a couple of the more interesting ones:
http://drupal.org/project/filetree
http://drupal.org/project/skin
http://drupal.org/project/contact_save
http://drupal.org/project/field_inherit
Let's do it!
Okay, Jeff and Joel, I think we have a plan.
Joel, what do you need to present? that is, what is your laptop and what video connector do you require? We have a VGA cable, a mini DP adapter for the VGA cable, and a direct DVI connection on the projector... although we haven't had as much luck with the DVI route.
One caution, though... we planned 2 presentations a while back, and had trouble switching the projector from one laptop to another. Except for the second presenter having to be prepared twice, that actually worked out nicely because each topic ended up taking a whole meeting, giving us lots of time for questions and answers.
Same as Jeff
I've got the same computer as Jeff, so we should be good there. If not, I'll just use his. :)
Good!
I really look forward to this meeting.
Newbie questions
Hi All,
The meetings sound very informative, but I have yet to make one. I joined the group last month but couldn't make the September meeting, now I'll be out of town next week for this month's meeting. Is the November meeting going to interfere with Thanksgiving, because I can't be at that one either! Just wondering if any in the group has any recommendations regarding Drupal books and online tutorials. I checked out a book (the only copy) from the St. Louis City Library, but it was published in 2007 and deals with writing PHP code, mostly. Also, the video series at LearnByTheDrop.com was fairly good, but now I'm looking expand my knowledge quickly. My first site is almost complete, but I'm having problems installing an interactive calendar module called "Calendar Tooltips." If anyone has time, I'd be glad to correspond via email or get together in person. Thanks and hope to meet some of you soon.
Regards,
Tom Urbom
Tom Urbom
WebsitesForPeople.com
November-December meeting
We won't have a meeting on Thanksgiving. ;) (The fourth Thursday of December is quite close to Christmas, so we won't meet the fourth Thursday of December, either.)
We have discussed having a November-December meeting in the early part of December, perhaps Dec 2 or 9.
We will decide that at the meeting next week, so if you have a preference, let us know here.
As for tutorial sites and good general learning info, I really like Mustardseed Media and Lullabot.
Pakt Publishing has a number of books you can purchase and download as PDFs. I'm sure there are many others, but those are sources I like.
Pro Drupal Development by
Pro Drupal Development by John VanDyk is a must read.
Adam Michael Roach
http://getadamant.com
New to Drupal
I am new to Drupal and am excited about coming to the meetup! A friend and I have just started playing around with Drupal and we are wanting to learn more.
See you all Thursday
Reminder to Sign Up
You are encouraged to click the sign-up button on this page if you are planning on coming. It certainly isn't required, but it helps us get a better idea of how many people to expect.
Thanks, and see you Thursday!
Thursday...
I keep forgetting to sign up, but I'll be there.
Mark, I hope to have some insight about the site theme. I've been on some deadlines so I haven't had a chance to get to it much since last week.
Michael
Unfortunately I will not be
Unfortunately I will not be able to make it after all. Do you guys ever post highlights of was talked about after the meeting for those of us who could not be there?
I will at least post the
I will at least post the information I present at tonight's meeting.
Here's a post containing the
Here's a post containing the information I presented (How to Build a Drupal Module) tonight:
http://www.opensourcecatholic.com/blog/oscatholic/how-build-drupal-module-
(It should also appear on Drupal Planet soon...).
As a wrap-up, joelstein also presented a couple of his contrib modules, and even received some ux feedback on the module during the session, made the changes to his module, and committed them to CVS, all during the meetup!
Looking forward to meeting up again soon!