Spokane Drupal Group - November 9

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jhodgdon's picture
Start: 
2017-11-09 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, November 9, 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

I will be there

dmsid's picture

I will be there

Meeting notes

jhodgdon's picture

What we talked about today:

  • No meeting in December! See you in January.
  • Make sure to update any device (phone, laptop, tablet, ...) that has WiFi, plus your WiFi routers, for the "Krack" vulnerability. (Run the security updates on your device, and repeat for a while because not everything has been updated.)
  • Ubercart WA sales tax -- module: https://www.drupal.org/project/uc_tax_wa
    There was a change to the Washington state web service URL for looking up sales tax. The 7.x module was updated; 6.x wasn't. You can see the changes here: http://cgit.drupalcode.org/uc_tax_wa/commit/?id=2e2814d
    Issue: https://www.drupal.org/node/2908067
  • Ubercart vs. Drupal Commerce
    Modules:
    https://www.drupal.org/project/commerce
    https://www.drupal.org/project/ubercart

    Shawn says the Commerce project is pretty comprehensive. It is based on Rules. It is newer and was developed knowing what the limitations with Ubercart were.

    If you are going to use Commerce, Shawn recommends starting with the Commerce Kickstart distribution.

    As a note:
    - Ubercart has been ported to Backdrop (at least partially)
    - Commerce has a Drupal 8 full release (but not necessarily all the sub-modules)
    - Ubercart has a Drupal 8 alpha release

  • Drupal 6 vs. 7 vs. 8 vs. 9 vs. Backdrop
    Drupal 6 is already obsolete, insecure, etc.

    Drupal 7 will go away when Drupal 9 comes out. There are some prerequisites to that happening. One big one is that the Drupal 7 to 8 migration path has to be stable. So far, it isn't -- actually 6 to 8 isn't either. It's being worked on though.

    Another alternative is to migrate 7 to Backdrop -- see https://backdropcms.org -- which is a stable fork of Drupal fairly similar to Drupal 7.

    If you have a Drupal 6 site, you can probably move to 7 now. Moving to Backdrop would not be much more effort, so that would be a consideration. It won't go away, unlike Drupal 7.

  • Diane went to BADCamp in October. Attended free trainings: Backdrop, Accessibility, Theming for Drupal 8. Tons of sessions. Energizing. Wonderful. Highly recommended.
  • Accessibility: Making a web site accessible for all users (blind, color-blind, mobility limitations, etc.). One big note: Make sure all information is available on the mobile version of the site, because many users only use the phone.

    Some information:
    https://www.drupal.org/docs/7/accessibility/tools-and-best-practices

  • Pacific Northwest Drupal Summit: https://pnwdrupalsummit.org/2018
    in Portland, OR -- Feb 3-4
  • Kevin showed us how some of the custom modules that he uses with Ubercart for his commerce-based sites.
  • Writing posts ahead of time for a blog so they will be published later:
    https://www.drupal.org/project/scheduler

    To make a blog: make a content type called Blog Item, and make a view that lists them. You can also use a Tag taxonomy to tag them (or categories), so people can find related articles.

  • Pathologic module -- great when you are migrating URLs.
    https://www.drupal.org/project/pathologic
  • Looked at calendars and recurring dates, using the Date and Calendar modules
    https://www.drupal.org/project/date
    https://www.drupal.org/project/calendar

    Might consider just making a list in Views instead of a Calendar per se, as calendar is maybe not so great on phones. Or look at the mini-calendar (part of Calendar views).

    Add exposed filters based on taxonomy to your Calendar views.

Nice meeting you all

ryndog's picture

I wish I would have came to a get together sooner! It was nice meeting you all, thanks for the advice and hospitality.

I can't remember who the girl was that was working with 'calendars', but let me know if you have any issues or questions, I am very comfortable working with that module and views (ran some site for night clubs and bars that needed total customization). If you get in a bind let me know (ryndog@me.com).

See you all in January.

RynDog (Kevin)

Cool and thanks!

Momseekingbalance's picture

Will do. :)

-Diane Van Etten (diane@vanettenstudios.com)

D7 Ubercart WA sales tax -- module

ryndog's picture

In case you were wondering, I was able to edit my D6 Ubercart WA sales tax module with the same new URL location patched for D7, and its working! Thanks!

Excellent

jhodgdon's picture

I'm glad that worked out for you! Hope to see you at the next meeting...