Brainstorming: What is useful to have documented?
Let's start with brainstorming a list of things that would be useful to have documented when you inherit a new site. Here are a few I can think of off the top of my head:
- List of enabled modules
- What roles exist
- Permission assignments (though making this look readable is going to be a fun task ;))
- What content types (and their fields) exist
- What vocabularies exist, and what content types are they assigned to
- What forums exist
- Workflow module permissions
- System variables (?)
- Other?
Feel free to respond here with your own ideas!
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Dojo Lesson #12 - jQuery Resurrected
UPDATE: Raw Screencast Is Up! | Torrent file here
This Easter Sunday josh_k returns to the teachers spot in the Drupal Dojo to "resurrect" the lost jQuery lesson.
We'll be retracing our steps, and also forging ahead into new territory. Our mission? To show how easy it is to take your Drupal site to the cutting edge of User Interface with jQuery, talk about the tools and resources that make this easy, and outline some best-practices for security.
Oh, and get it all on video this time. Join us if you like at our usual time: 11am PDT / 2PM PDT / 8pm CET.
The Drupal Dojo is a community group dedicated to spreading best-practices and helping developers who are new to the system get up to speed and become masters in their own right. We hold virtual lessons and produce practical developer documentation in both written and screencast form. If you're a newcomer looking for help in grokking the system or an old hand who's tired of being told to clone yourself, consider joining us in the Dojo!
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Station module documentation
So I've been granted documentation editor status on the main drupal site. Erm, mwahahaha... I think :)
That means I'm in a position to update the handbook that's here: http://drupal.org/handbook/modules/station
Is that ok with the maintainers of the module?
A few things I'd like to add or change:
- the list of component modules is out of date
- use of the word 'block' in the schedule is potentially confusing, as a 'block' means something quite specific in drupal. Would 'slots' be ok? or 'timeslots'?
Comprehensive Article on Content Construction Kit (CCK)
Since several people expressed interest at our first meeting expressed interest in the Content Construction Kit (CCK), which is an add-on for 4.7 and built-in to 5.x, I wanted to highlight this article just posted at Lullabot:
What is the Content Construction Kit? A View from the Database (March 7)
Feel free to use this space to ask questions about CCK, talk about features, provide examples, or talk about the article.
Read moreDojo Lesson #8 -- db_rewrite_sql and node access
(Coming March 4th, 2007) I'm very excited to announce that this Sunday's dojo lesson on Drupal 5.0's node access system will be taught by Andy Kirkham (aka ajk^ in IRC)! Check out the notes for details on what will be covered. The time is the usual Sunday at 11am PST / 2PM PST / 8pm CET.
Join us in #drupal-dojo, on Skype and in our VNC screencast for all the fun. As usual, this will be recorded and documented for those unable to make it to the live lesson.
Andy is currently a Drupal.org CVS administrator, site document maintainer, a member of the Drupal security team and is maintainer for a clutch of Drupal modules and plays an active role in the Drupal developer community. He's also a trained electrical engineer and a busy consultant both sides of the Atlantic. Three cheers!
For more information about the Drupal Dojo, see our g.d.o page or check out the recently-unveiled drupaldojo.com.
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morphir's CVS guide for Drupal part 1
If you are new to CVS and Drupal, and if you prefer to use command line/bash(as me) instead of GUI based CVS programs. Then this guide is for you! For windows users, download greggles great lesson on CVS.
This guide is really quick & dirty. But I like it this way. So I hope you will as well:)
There are basically 5 stages:
- Download drupal HEAD
- Edit file
- Test your patch on your local webserver
- Create a patch
- And apply the patch to drupal.org using your webserver
MPEG-4/mp4 becomes the standard codec.
From now we have decided that mpeg-4 aka mp4 is the new standard video format for distributing screencasts.
Note! .mp4 being the file extension it selves and mpeg-4 being the name of the format/container.
Learn more about it here @ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mp4
Mpeg-4 is widely used to distribute and promote video over networks like the iTunes wich we might use to promote drupal and the dojo screencasts. For specific tips on encoding screencasts, see mpare's documentation.
Read moreWhen recording lessons use open standards for codecs
When creating how-to oriented videos and recording lessons. Please distribute the video in a format that windows, linux and mac-users all can use without any hazzel. I think we all would benefit from trans coding the videos to .xvid which is an open format before we put it out. The .ogg-format are perfect for podcasts.
I personally recommend using VLC which are cross platform.
Thank you for your concern.
Read moreDojo Lesson #2 -- Coding Standards
The Drupal Dojo will convene again this Thursday at 8pm EST (GMT -5). We will gather in #drupal-dojo, get on a worldwide Skypecast and fire up an improved screen-sharing application to do our lesson. We will also take time to debrief the work so far, talk about what we'd like to do going forward, and answer misc questions about the group and about Drupal.
The Lesson Plan
- Sound Check: make sure everyone can get on Skype and is in IRC
- Debrief: talk about how we've been doing, also about moving the regular lesson time to Sunday and/or starting other times
- Drupal Coding Standards: what they are; why they matter
- Keeping Your Code Clean: where to put stuff; how not to kludge
- Keeping Your Code Safe: how and why to use Drupal functions for text, links, input fields and database queries
- Making Your Code Intelligible: the tao of commenting
- Dojo Challenge!: review a patch for Drupal 5.0
- Documentation: lets keep the great documentation coming!
Feel free to comment on this post with feedback. I'm especially interested in collecting links to documentation folks may want to read ahead of time, and/or we should look at improving as a result of this lesson.
See you in the Dojo!
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Documentation
We're getting some great feedback and collecting some amazing pieces to be used in documentation, and I'm looking to start aggregating this into a single place. I'm not positive I'm the one to do this so speak up if anyone has a better plan.
What I'd like to start doing, structured around the lessons. Is the folowing process.
Pre-lesson:
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