It’s day 12, marking the half way point in the Advent Calendar, and behind today’s door is a module that opens a whole world of possibility for Drupal site builders. We are joined by Michael Lenahan (michaellenahan) to tell us about the ECA module.

A gentle introduction to the ECA module

The reason I chose to write about this module for the Advent Calendar is that I was recommended to look into it by one of my colleagues at work.

It’s one of those modules that really changes the way you think about Drupal … in this case, especially how Drupal can be better for site-builders and those who are not…

Tags

• ECA
• Event Condition Action
• Automation

The Technical Working Group (TWG) is announcing two coding standards changes for final discussion. Feedback will be reviewed at the meeting scheduled for Tuesday 2 January 2024 2100 UTC.

Issues for discussion

• Use null coalescing operator (??) instead of ternary operator with isset statement
• Update CSS coding standards to include PostCSS and Drupal 10

The Coding Standards project page outlines the process for changing Drupal coding standards.

Join the team working on Coding Standards

Join #coding-standards in Drupal Slack to meet and work with others on improving the Drupal coding standards. We work on improving our standards as well as implementing them in the core software.

Today we are talking about Being a Digital Nomad, common nomadic hurdles, and realized work/life benefits with guests Chad Hester and Shelley Goetz. We’ll also cover Flag as our module of the week.

For show notes visit: www.talkingDrupal.com/428

• What does digital nomad mean?
• When did you first start to think about this
• What was your physical journey like
• What do you do for work
• What is the biggest win
• How did this affect family dynamics
• What was the biggest gotcha
• Tips and tricks
• Long term plan
• Why not Europe or South America
• Question from Stephen: As a Patriots fan what are your thoughts on the 2023 season, is Bill Belichick staying or going

• The Flag module
• US-CA Nomads on Instagram
• US-CA Nomads on Flicker
• Chad on LinkedIn
• Chad’s website
• Chad’s d.o profile
• Shelley on LinkedIn
• Shelley on Instagram
• An off-grid (on Vancouver Island) youtube channel that inspires Chad and Shelley
• Snowshoe Fondue on Mt. Washington

Shelley Goetz - shelleygoetz Chad Hester - chadkhester.com chadhester

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

Martin Anderson-Clutz - @mandclu Flag

• Brief description:
  • Have you ever wanted a simple way to let users bookmark, like, or even flag as inappropriate content on your Drupal site? There’s a module for that.
• Brief history
  • How old: originally created in 2008 by quicksketch, who listeners may remember as the original author of Webform
  • Versions available: 7.x-3.9 and 8.x-4.0-beta4
• Maintainership
  • Actively maintained, but no commits in the last year
• Has a handbook, but it’s in the old documentation system
• Number of open issues: 675, 132 of which are bugs against the 8.x branch
• Usage stats:
  • Over 38,000 sites
• Maintainer(s):
  • Recent releases by Berdir, who we recently mentioned as the maintainer of TMGMT in episode #426
• Module features and usage
  • The Flag module provides a flexible system that can reference any kind of entity, so content, users, comments and so on
  • When you create a flag type, you set the target entity type, and then you can optionally choose specific bundles that can be flagged
  • Flags can be per-user, like bookmarks, or global, meaning that they’re the same for everyone
  • Links to Flag or Unflag content or other entities can be displayed in a variety of ways: in a field, in entity links, as contextual links, and more
  • By default flag links are rendered as AJAX links that flag or unflag content without reloading the page, but you can configure them to display in various ways, including a links to a field entry form, because flag types are also fieldable
  • There is extensive views integration, so it’s easy to list flagged content, for example to show a user content they’ve flagged as their favorites. The ecosystem of modules around Flag includes one called Views Flag Refresh that can trigger a view to automatically update via AJAX as soon as any content in that view is flagged or unflagged
  • Not long ago I used Flag as part of a lightweight task management system within Drupal, and anyone wanting to try that out can install the Tasks module

The client must carefully outline the project processes in the functional specification document before handing the project over to the development team—chiefly to save their own money and time. This post is about what happens if they don’t.

Let's dive into something awesome today—the fantastic women rocking the tech world, especially in our Drupal community. There's no fluff, just facts about how they're taking Drupal to new heights.

Women are making waves in the tech world, and right here in Drupal, they're levelling up the game. Their outstanding achievements shape the tech landscape, proving that women are forces to be reckoned with in technology.

Women are taking the lead in Drupal organizations, such as the Drupal Diversity and Inclusion Group, which aims to foster a more diverse and inclusive community by promoting diversity in leadership, speaking opportunities, and events.

Drupal's got your back with the "Women in Drupal," formerly DrupalChix. This program hooks women with mentors, resources, and chances to connect. It's all about building a community where everyone's voice is heard.

Women in Drupal are not just part of the community but driving it to new heights. As we applaud their achievements, let's acknowledge that there's more ground to cover on the path to gender equality in tech.

Let's continue championing diversity, fostering inclusivity, and supporting one another. Now, look back at what we covered last week at The DropTimes.

Alka Elizabeth, a sub-editor, wrote about a Reddit discussion on Drupal Dilemmas, addressing issues and seeking improvements. I ran two interviews, the first with Andrew Berry, Director of Technology at Lullabot, sharing his insights from Evolve Drupal Toronto and contributions to the Drupal community. Read the complete interview here. The second one featured the API Client Initiative led by Brian Perry, core maintainer, aiming to provide a comprehensive solution for Drupal. Click here to read.

And for the Drupal community, here's some important news: Drupal core committers and the Drupal 10 readiness initiative seek your feedback. They're proposing a new working group focused on contributed modules where maintainers haven't updated to the next major Drupal version.

In noteworthy announcements, Tag1 Consulting celebrated a milestone with Nathaniel Catchpole's collaboration with Chrome for Developers, marking a crucial development for Drupal 10.2. Drupal core version 10.3.0 introduces a new access policy API for assigning permissions in various ways. Dave Long announced a significant change in Drupal core version 10.2.0, adding autocomplete attributes to login and password reset forms.

On the events front, Open Source Summit North America is accepting proposals for its April 16-18, 2024 event in Seattle. NERD Summit 2024 announced Dr. David Weinberger as the keynote speaker for March 8, 2024, and encourages session proposals before January 15, 2024. Rod Martin, Lead Trainer at OSTraining, will conduct an Absolute Beginner's Guide to Drupal training session on February 23, 2024, at Florida DrupalCamp.

Now, onto organization news—Bounteous is celebrating a big win at the MarCom Awards 2023, receiving the prestigious Gold Award. Kevin Montgomery of SearchStax published a guide highlighting the seamless collaboration between SearchStax Studio, Drupal CMS, and React. Tag1 Consulting's Michael Meyers and Janez Urevc conclude their podcast series, addressing migration cost complexities with Lucas Hedding. DevBranch, a team from Lutsk, Ukraine, reveals their extensive contributions to Drupal.org. Annertech introduces a 40% discount on vulnerability management for LocalGov Drupal.

Tutorials cover a range of Drupal topics: Saranya Ashokumar's D4Drupal video delves into automated testing in Drupal, Idroot provides a guide for installing Drupal on Fedora 39, Prerna Trimurty Infotech offers a step-by-step guide for upgrading Drupal websites and Drupalize.Me present tutorial videos covering essential concepts for module developers. Additionally, Ritvik Tak provides a comprehensive guide on setting up Drupal 8 multi-site environments using Lando.

We've also featured some insightful case studies. Droptica shares its experience developing the digital content platform EM360, showcasing the strategic use of Drupal for an innovative user-generated content hub in the IT sector. Druid presents a case study on renewing Veikkaus, the Finnish Gambling Website.

In book-related news, Smile has released a comprehensive white paper titled "Drupal in 2024," highlighting Drupal's global prominence as an Enterprise Content Management System (CMS). Joe Shindelar of Drupalize.me plans to release a curated "Hello, world" guide for developers in the Drupal community. AcroCommerce offers a practical integration guide, combining BigCommerce e-commerce capabilities with the versatility of Drupal CMS.

Switching to the security front, Achieve Internet issues an urgent compliance warning for Apigee Legacy Developer Portal users, stressing the critical importance of upgrading.

There are more stories to discover, but we must stop here due to space constraints. Keep enjoying your Drupal journey!

To get timely updates, follow us on LinkedIn, Twitter and Facebook.

Thank you,

Sincerely

Kazima Abbas
Sub-editor, TheDropTimes.

We're thrilled to introduce Lenny Moskalyk, one of the newest members on the Drupal Association Board. Lenny is a Senior Project Manager at Cocomore and is involved in organizing DrupalCamp Kyiv. She's actively engaged in the Ukrainian Drupal Community and serves as an Advisory Board Member of DrupalCon Europe, among other contributions to various Drupal events. Recently, Lenny received the Women in Drupal 2023 award in the ‘Scale’ category, given to those who boost growth in Drupal—her accomplishments that led to this award represent the value of growth within the Drupal Community. 

Lenny recently joined the Drupal Association Board, and she shares her insights on this exciting journey:

What are you most excited about when it comes to joining the Drupal Association Board?
The opportunity to help and contribute back to the community in an efficient meaningful way.

What do you hope to accomplish during your time on the board?
I aim to build connections with underrepresented communities and make sure their voices are heard.

What specific skill or perspective do you contribute to the board?
Being the first Ukrainian on the Board, I am representing one of the biggest and most active communities in Europe. I have experience in organizing Drupal events of various scales and being an experienced project manager, I have excellent communication skills.

How has Drupal impacted your life or career?
I started to work with Drupal around 10 years ago and from the day the ideas of open source and support within the community won my heart. It inspired me to try myself in new roles, such as co-organizing DrupalCamp Kyiv. Through Drupal, I have discovered many new things about different cultures and nowadays wherever around the world I would go—I know for sure where to find like minded people :)

Tell us something that the Drupal community might not know about you.
I am a passionate traveler who recently added sailing skills! Another thing that brings me joy is cooking for my loved ones and sharing meals with them :)

Share a favorite quote or piece of advice that has inspired you.
“Fortune favors the brave.”

We can't wait to experience the incredible contributions Lenny will make during her time on the Drupal Association Board. Thank you, Lenny, for dedicating yourself to serving the Drupal community through your board work! Connect with Lenny on LinkedIn.

The Drupal Association Board of Directors comprises 12 members, with nine nominated for staggered 3-year terms, two elected by the Drupal Association members, and one reserved for the Drupal Project Founder, Dries Buyteart. The Board meets twice in person and four times virtually annually, overseeing policy establishment, executive director management, budget approval, financial reports, and participation in fundraising efforts.

Traditional Drupal websites leveraged Drupal for both content rendering on the front end and content management on the back end as it wasn’t possible to separate the two. This implies that Drupal significantly affected their styling which wasn’t always appreciated. However, today companies have the complete freedom to separate their site’s Drupal-based backend from the frontend through headless Drupal. 

This new and innovative Drupal decoupled approach has bestowed websites with an added layer of functionality and immense customization capabilities. Developers can freely opt for the front end of their choice and ensure that the site possesses the desired styling. The front end communicates with the backend through an API. This blog digs into Drupal's headless architecture in detail and discusses why it is so effective. 

Welcome back to day 11 of the Drupal Advent Calendar. Behind today’s door Surabhi Gokte (surabhi-gokte) talks about her journey as volunteer coordinator.

Seven years ago, if someone said I would travel out of my country and be a super active community contributor, I’d have laughed it off. But things changed, and it wasn’t an overnight transformation. It required time, energy, money, patience, belief, and much more.

My journey began with volunteering at Drupal Camp Delhi in 2016, my first step into understanding the Drupal Community. Back then, I didn’t even know non-code contribution was a thing…

Tags

• DrupalCon
• Volunteering