Drupal 10 celebrated the one year anniversary of it's release this month, and despite both Drupal 8 and 9 having reached end of life, the Drupal Community's pace of upgrading to Drupal 10 lags far behind where it needs to be.  There's much to love about Drupal 10, and Promet recently assembled three of our top in-house experts on the topic for a free webinar designed to answer the big questions and help remove barriers to upgrading ASAP. Here's a link to the conversation along with a recap of the main points. 

Our latest episode of Tag1 Team Talks is an insightful guide through the Extract phase of the ETL (Extract, Transform, Load) process in Drupal migrations. Hosted by Janez Urevc, the episode features experts Mike Ryan and Benji Fisher, who offer a deep understanding of data extraction relevant to migrations from older versions of Drupal (6,7,8) or other CMS platforms altogether and more.

Read more janez Tue, 12/19/2023 - 04:47

When I joined the Drupal Association in July, I underestimated how moved I would be by the collective power of the community. A throwback to my organizing roots, I reveled in the eclectic excitement surrounding the innovation and collaboration of the application, evolution, and marketing of Drupal.

I remember discovering open source software myself, over 10 years ago. The worker’s center I worked for housed an instance of CiviCRM in Drupal and we used it to track our members — as we served a vulnerable population, it was paramount to keep the data safe and away from clandestine subpoenas and prying eyes.

Drupal responds to a fundamental need in the nonprofit sector – the ability to own, control, and share data. Joining the Drupal Association as the Director of Philanthropy allows me to work within the nonprofit sector to leverage the power of Drupal for greater impact, and I yearned for an opportunity to collaborate with others with the same perspective.

The Drupal Association was remiss to let the Nonprofit Summit lapse at DrupalCon Pittsburgh, but… I am thrilled to reintroduce the Nonprofit Summit at DrupalCon Portland!

The network of nonprofits in the Drupal Community is strong and vibrant and has been a joy to work with and learn from. Judging by the extraordinary talent represented by its organizers, Jess Snyder and Johanna Bates, the Nonprofit Summit will be a dynamic and inspiring one-day event bringing together passionate professionals from the nonprofit sector to delve into the transformative potential of Drupal.

Join us for a day of discovery, collaboration, and inspiration as we collectively unlock the full potential of Drupal for social good. Facilitated discussions, round table group sessions, and an opportunity to learn and inspire one another are just a few of the features we plan to bring to the summit this year.

The Nonprofit Summit will be on Thursday, 9 May, the 4th day of DrupalCon, after three days of expert speakers, networking, and contribution. Tickets go on sale 6 February. And we’re especially pleased to announce that the Drupal Association will subsidize the cost of tickets for those in the nonprofit sector, offering special pricing for the conference and summit! The conference rate for nonprofits is $395 and includes the summit.

Mark your calendars, spread the word, and get ready to be part of a community dedicated to making a lasting impact. The Nonprofit Drupal Summit is back and ready to shape the future of digital philanthropy. See you there!

The magic often starts with a Drupal decision. Quite a line, but that’s what we all at Specbee firmly believe. We're confident the good folks at the Drupal Association would agree with us. They've even crafted a collaborative series called "Beyond the Build," sharing stories of projects implemented with Drupal. We were recently interviewed for an episode of this series, along with our client, The Michael J Fox Foundation for Parkinson’s Research, where we discussed their website redesign, the strategic selection of Drupal as their enabling technology, and the role Specbee played in shaping their transformative process. Keep scrolling for the whole scoop. The Who’s Who Let’s start by introducing the hosts and guests of the interview “Beyond the Build Episode 3: Specbee and The Michael J. Fox Foundation for Parkinson’s Research”. Kelly Daleney: Director of Development, Drupal Association Nathan Roach: Director of Marketing, Axelerant Sean Keating: Vice President, Digital Strategies at The Michael J. Fox Foundation for Parkinson’s Research Jim Barnthouse: Vice President, Sales and Marketing, Specbee Click to watch the complete video Lights, Camera, Drupal When Sean and his team set out to revamp their website, they recognized the critical need for a stable, reliable platform. Given that the website stands as the most significant tool in building, accessing, and growing the Michael J Fox Foundation community, ensuring a well-defined information architecture and intuitive user experience was absolutely essential. Drupal, with its open-source charm and vast community, caught their attention. In conversation with Kelly and Nathan, Sean reveals more about why Drupal was the chosen one for them. Open Source Synergy The Foundation's emphasis on making research accessible aligns seamlessly with Drupal's open-source nature. Open Access Publications and open data repositories are integral to Parkinson's research, and they operate with unwavering commitment to availability, transparency, and openness. The success of this collaboration underscores the powerful synergy between open-source technology and open science principles. Community Connection In addition to its open-source nature, The Michael J. Fox Foundation was drawn to Drupal due to its large, vibrant, and supportive community, providing a robust foundation for their digital initiatives. A large community not only ensured ongoing support but also facilitated continuous innovation, keeping their digital presence at the forefront of technological advancements. In contrast to other closed-source, proprietary communities that provided little opportunity to enhance their capabilities or find the right developers, Drupal stood out as a great advantage. Accessibility Advantage In the site revamp, Drupal's accessibility features took center stage, aligning with the foundation's goal to reach a diverse audience of donors, patients, families, and industry researchers in the Parkinson’s community. User-Friendly Research By leveraging Drupal’s flexibility, the foundation is making significant strides in simplifying the discovery and archiving of Parkinson’s research papers. This directly benefits industry researchers, contributing to a more efficient and streamlined process. Choosing the Right Drupal Partner As Sean discusses why Drupal is their preferred CMS, he also talks about the decision to team up with Specbee and enhance their collaboration. The Michael J. Fox Foundation also collaborates with Drupal agency Lullabot to maintain their Drupal website. He states, "Specbee is currently our top choice for working on projects and adding features to the website. It's been a fantastic partnership." But what criteria did they consider when evaluating Drupal development companies like Specbee? Commitment to Drupal beyond development - Specbee's commitment to Drupal and significant core contributions to the community, as emphasized by Sean, played a pivotal role in their decision. In their Request for Proposal (RFP), they stressed the importance of finding a Drupal company that is wholly dedicated and committed to the platform. Strong local project management - Emphasizing the significance of local project management, Sean highlights its crucial role in interactions with overseas companies. To avoid communication issues, they sought a company with a local presence model for project management. Aligning Operational Style - Sean stressed the significance of seeking organizations that harmonize with the operational style of one's team. The Michael J. Fox Foundation operates with agility, favoring quick changes, small iterations, and innovation. Engaging with a company that mirrors the preference for adaptability over strict pre-defined structures ensures a collaborative partnership that resonates with the organization's operational rhythm. Consistent and accessible technology team - He emphasized the need for a development team that's consistently available and easy to communicate with—a criterion perfectly met by Specbee. Easy access to leadership team - Sean insisted on staying away from invisible companies. The ability to meet, know, and interact with the leadership team was a non-negotiable, and Specbee delivered on this front. Good references -  Listening to reference stories, especially how Specbee handles challenges, is underscored as crucial by Sean. According to Sean, these aspects earned Specbee "gold stars." The Takeaway For nonprofits and organizations looking to start a Drupal engagement and to leverage the Drupal community, Sean shares his valuable insights: Knowledge is Power: Familiarize yourself with the community, technology, and market before diving into conversations with potential partners. But first, start understanding your organization's short and long-term needs/goals. Culture Fit Matters: Look for organizations aligned with your team's work style. Whether agile or more structured, finding a cultural match is key.  Find a partner attuned to your team's way of working for a seamless and successful project experience. True Costs: Don't base decisions solely on cost. Understand the true costs involved in building, configuring, and supporting a solution over time. Recognize the nuanced distinctions in their structures for sourcing engineering staff. It's not merely a matter of comparing hourly rates; delve deeper into the factors shaping those rates. Whether an organization follows a specific cost structure or has a distinct approach to staff sourcing, comprehend the intricacies. Don't base decisions solely on the bottom line; consider the underlying factors that contribute to costs. Final Thoughts A big thank you to Sean for the generous words and for selecting Specbee as The Michael J Fox Foundation's Drupal partner.  We absolutely love working with you! Special thanks to Kelly, Nathan, and the entire Drupal Association team for putting together this fantastic video. Load videoBeyond the Build Episode 3: Specbee and The Michael J. Fox Foundation for Parkinson’s Research  

Drupal Advent Calendar day 19 - ECA Commerce james Tue, 12/19/2023 - 07:00

Welcome back to the Drupal Advent calendar for another door opening! Today Nic Laflin (nicxvan) is here to tell us about the ECA Commerce module.

Today's module integrates two important Drupal ecosystems Commerce and ECA!

In Drupal 7 if you were building a commerce site then the Rules module was essential to set up notifications and pricing changes. Rules had a rich ecosystem and you could react to almost any event, check some conditions, and perform some action in Drupal. Even though Rules is currently available for Drupal 9 and 10, the jump to 8 took some time and the ecosystem lost some of...

Tags

• ECA
• Commerce
• ECA Commerce

Our client, ServiceNSW, is a committed open-source contributor, working closely with us to improve their customer experience while sharing these advances with the Drupal community.

by adam.bramley / 19 December 2023

How is client-backed contribution made possible? 

It helps when you work with a client that understands the value of contributing development time back to the Drupal community. ServiceNSW are members of Drupal and have co-presented with us at DrupalSouth, so they’re truly invested.

Solutions to client challenges, such as core patches or contributor modules, require upfront work. Doing this in a community setting is far more beneficial, allowing everyone to contribute and further improve it. That’s why SNSW recognises the future benefits of investing in the work done now. 

We also put a lot of focus on performance and security. This means SNSW receives the latest upgrades for both Drupal core and contributed modules, helping move issues along and ensuring they have the latest and greatest, including being one of our first clients to move to Drupal 10.1. In fact, during the lead-up to the release of Drupal 10.1, we committed over a dozen large core issues in collaboration with the SNSW development team.

The patches we worked on pre Drupal 10.1 upgrade

Over a period of three months, in the lead-up to Drupal 10.1, we targeted patches that were large and/or conflicted with other patches we were using. These were becoming increasingly hard to maintain. SNSW understood that these fixes would be a net gain to developer productivity and an improvement for the community.

1. Issue #3198868: Add delay to queue suspend
2. Issue #2867001: Don't treat suspending of a queue as erroneous
3. Issue #2745179: Uncaught exception in link formatter if a link field has malformed data (a 7-year-old bug!)
4. Issue #3059026: Catch and handle exceptions in PathFieldItemList
5. Issue #3311595: Html::transformRootRelativeUrlsToAbsolute() replaces "\r\n" with " \n"
6. Issue #2859042: Impossible to update an entity revision if the field value you are updating matches the default revision
7. Issue #2791693: Remove sample date from date field error message and title attribute (another 7 year old one!)
8. Issue #2831233: Field tokens for "historical data" fields (revisions) contain a hyphen, breaking twig templates and throwing an assertion error
9. Issue #3007424: Multiple usages of FieldPluginBase::getEntity do not check for NULL, leading to WSOD

Revisions everywhere!

One of our largest pieces of work was Implementing a generic revision UI

Originally opened in 2014, this issue paved the way for one of the most sought-after features from our client - having Revisions for all entity types and a consistent user experience for them.

This was originally committed to the SNSW codebase in July of 2018 using this patch when we added a Block Content Type for a Notice feature on the website.

~3.5 years, ~250 comments, and a huge effort from PreviousNext and SNSW developers, along with many other community members and it was committed to 10.1.x.

This spawned several other core issues for other entity types:

• Block Content - This was also committed to 10.1 alpha.
• Media - which is committed and will be available in 10.2.0!
• Taxonomy terms - which is currently RTBC and looking promising for 10.3!

Plus contributed projects to extend contributed module entity types with revisioning support, such as Micro-content Revision UI.

The patches committed to Drupal 10.1 that we were able to remove

With all this pre-work, we were well positioned when the 10.1 upgrade came around. As you may have noticed, we like to get the ball rolling early, and we had a Pull Request going for the 10.1 upgrade in late June (the day 10.1.0 was released, in fact). This allowed us to figure out which modules needed help, what patches needed re-rolling, and to catch any bugs early.

It wasn't until mid-August when that PR was finally merged, with multiple developers touching it every now and then, when there was some movement.

Here's a full list of Drupal core patches we were able to remove, thanks to the contributions from SNSW.

1. Issue #2350939: Implement a generic revision UI
2. Issue #2809291: Add "edit block $type" permissions
3. Issue #1984588: Add Block Content revision UI
4. Issue #3315042: Remaining tasks for "edit block $type" permissions
5. Issue #2859042: Impossible to update an entity revision if the field value you are updating matches the default revision
6. Issue #3311595: Html::transformRootRelativeUrlsToAbsolute() replaces "\r\n" with " \n"
7. Issue #3007424: Multiple usages of FieldPluginBase::getEntity do not check for NULL, leading to WSOD
8. Issue #2831233: Field tokens for "historical data" fields (revisions) contain a hyphen, breaking twig templates and throwing an assertion error
9. Issue #3059955: It is possible to overflow the number of items allowed in Media Library
10. Issue #3123666: Custom classes for pager links do not work with Claro theme
11. Issue #2867001: Dont treat suspending of a queue as erroneous
12. Issue #3198868: Add delay to queue suspend
13. Issue #2984504: Access to 'Reset to alphabetical' denied for users without administer permission
14. Issue #3309157: RevisionLogInterface is typehinted as always returning entity/ids, but cannot guarantee set/existing values
15. Issue #2634022: ViewsPluginInterface::create() inherits from nothing, breaking PHPStan-strict
16. Issue #3349507: DateTimePlus::createFromDateTime should accept DateTimeInterface

Service NSW, a true Drupal partner

Service NSW has (at the time of writing this post) contributed to 19 Drupal core issues that were committed over the past three months.

We look forward to continuing this incredible partnership and contributing in the coming months!

Drupal Advent Calendar day 16 - Cookie Consent james Sat, 12/16/2023 - 07:00

It's day 16, and time to open another door of the Drupal Advent Calendar. Today we are joined by João Limas (jolimas) to talk about cookies.

What are cookies, and why do we need them?

Cookies are small pieces of data stored on a user's device by a web browser while the user is browsing a website. The web server sends these pieces of data to the browser and then sends them back unchanged by the browser each time it accesses that server.

Cookies serve various purposes and play a crucial role in enhancing the user experience on the web. They are used to remember your preferences, such as your...

Tags

• Cookies
• Cookie Control
• Cookie Consent

Today we are talking about the Drupal Association Board, Its Strategic Initiatives, and The Future of Drupal with guest Baddý Sonja Breidert. We’ll also cover Advent Calendar as our module of the week.

For show notes visit: www.talkingDrupal.com/429

Topics

• Former member of Board of Drupal Association
• What does the board do
• How does the board operate
• Are there term limits
• How does someone get on the board
• Strategic Initiatives
  • Innovation
  • Marketing
  • Fundraising
• Now that you are no longer on the board what’s next
• CEO of 1xInternet
• How did you get started with Drupal

Resources

• Try Drupal

Guests

Baddý Sonja Breidert - 1xinternet.de/en baddysonja

Hosts

Nic Laflin - nLighteneddevelopment.com nicxvan John Picozzi - epam.com johnpicozzi Ron Northcutt - community.appsmith.com rlnorthcutt

MOTW Correspondent

Martin Anderson-Clutz - @mandclu Advent Calendar

• Brief description:
  • Have you ever wanted to reveal content a day-at-a-time, in an interactive advent calendar? There’s a module for that.
• Brief history
  • How old: created less than month ago in Nov 2023 by listener James Shields, whose drupal.org username is lostcarpark
  • Versions available: 1.0.0-beta3 release, which works with Drupal 10.1 and newer
• Maintainership
  • Actively maintained, latest release made earlier today
  • Test coverage
  • Number of open issues: 5, 3 of which are bugs, but all but one are now marked as fixed
• Usage stats:
  • 6 sites
• Module features and usage
  • James actually created a Drupal advent calendar a year ago, on his website lostcarpark.com. The idea was to showcase a new module every day, similar to advent calendars that provide a chocolate or a toy each day, hidden behind a cardboard door
  • James’ initial version displayed the content in a traditional calendar format, using the Calendar View module. What he really wanted, however, was a way to present the content using clickable doors to reveal new entries
  • The new Advent Calendar module provides a new view display, so you can configure what content type or other filters to apply, and use fields to specify what information to show
  • The module uses a Single Directory Component for display, hence the 10.1 requirement
  • There is also an “Advent Calendar Quickstart” submodule that sets up everything for you, including a content type, view, and 24 nodes to populate it for you
  • Each site visitor gets to “open” the door to new content as it is published each day. For authenticated users, which doors have been opened is stored as user data, and for anonymous users it’s kept in local storage via Javascript
  • In addition to this being an interesting module in its own right, the advent calendar James has created this year is also a community effort. He’s managed to enlist a wide variety of contributors to write about modules or aspects of the Drupal community that they’re passionate about, so it’s a great way to up your Drupal game. You can open a new door yourself every day at https://lostcarpark.com/advent-calendar-2023

Drupal Advent Calendar day 18 - The Mentoring Initiative james Mon, 12/18/2023 - 07:00

Once again, welcome to Day 18 of the Drupal Advent Calendar. Today we are joined by AmyJune Hineline (volkswagenchick), who is here to tell us about the Mentoring Initiative.

I am AmyJune Hineline, volkswagenchick on Drupal.org. I have been mentoring in the open source space since 2017 and was folded into the Drupal Mentor Coordination team in 2020. I have the privilege of being a non-code developer and have always advocated that non-code contributions are as important to the project as code.

I started in Drupal mentoring by presenting a version of the First Time Contributor Workshop at the...

Drupal Advent Calendar day 17 - Help Topics james Sun, 12/17/2023 - 07:00

Welcome back to day 17 of the Drupal Advent Calendar, where Amber Matz (amber-himes-matz) joins us to talk about the new Help Topics module that is part of Drupal Core in the new 10.2 version just released!

What’s up with Help Topics?

I’ve been working on the Help Topics module since Drupal 8 days, when we got it in as a core experimental module. It’s been a long and winding road, and throughout this journey, I’ve been mentored as a module maintainer and experienced both the fun and not-so-fun parts of contributing to Drupal. We’ve worked over many years to get Help Topics to “stable” and we are...

Tags

• Help Topics