The Drop Times: My Drupal Learning Journey with TheDropTimes

As I sit down to pen my thoughts, I am overwhelmed with a sense of gratitude and excitement about the incredible journey I've embarked upon since joining TheDropTimes (TDT). Today, I want to share a little personal reflection on my discovery of Drupal and the captivating world that surrounds it.

To be completely transparent, my knowledge of Drupal was rather limited before I became a part of TheDropTimes team. Little did I know that this venture would broaden my understanding of the World Wide Web as it is weaved and expose me to the vibrant and dynamic Drupal community.

Writing articles and news stories about Drupal has been an enlightening experience. It's not just about the technical aspects of the platform; it's about the people, the stories, and the diverse perspectives that make Drupal so unique. What truly captivated me, however, is the incredible unity and equity maintained within the Drupal community.

The Drupal community isn't just a group of individuals with a shared interest; it's a tapestry woven with threads of different cultures, backgrounds, and experiences. Events like DrupalCon and DrupalCamp are not merely gatherings; they are celebrations of unity and a testament to the strength of diversity. It's heartwarming to witness Drupalers from various walks of life coming together to discuss Drupal with passion and enthusiasm.

The size and enthusiasm of the Drupal community are truly remarkable. It's fascinating to witness a global network of individuals working together, each contributing their unique skills and perspectives, all with a shared goal of making Drupal the best CMS it can be.

Now, let's shift our focus to the exciting content we've covered at TheDropTimes. Please take a peek and let us know what you think!

Don't miss the insightful interviews by our sub-editor Alka Elizabeth. First up, Luca Lusso shares his evolution as a Drupal Developer. Read the interview here. Next, dive into the discussion with Bohdan Artemchuk about overcoming unique challenges despite NDAs. Explore the interview here.

Drupal Mountain Camp 2024 is calling for sponsors for an unforgettable Alpine adventure. LocalGovDrupal Week Session: Southwark Council's Drupal Journey. Read more here. Plus, Altudo is rolling out an invitation for Acquia Engage Boston on November 14 and 15, with exciting prizes up for grabs! Check out the details here. We've also got the inside scoop on The Drupal Business Day on November 10 in Mannheim and the largest offline Drupal meetup, DrupalCafeLutsk #23, on November 16, 2023. For more information, click here. And, of course, a curated list of upcoming events this week. Check it out here.

Tune in to the latest "Talking Drupal" podcast, episode #423, delving into the operations and purpose of The Conflict Resolution Team in the Drupal community. Oliver Davies has conducted a captivating interview with Matt Glaman, the Principal Software Engineer at Acquia, and it's the debut episode of the 'Beyond Blocks Podcast.'

Explore a variety of blog posts covering the Top 10 PHP libraries spotlighted in the article for streamlining the web development process. Drupal: The Versatile CMS for Enhanced Web Development, the blog post by CSSChopper, and the seamless integration of Google Analytics, a blog post authored by Sunidhi Negi from TO THE NEW. Get an insight from the blog post of Golems about the transformative power of GraphQL in Drupal development, Discover the valuable insights and contributions of Drunomics' team at DrupalCon Lille 2023, click here to get an insight, and a groundbreaking session proposal by J. Rockowitz titled 'Love thy CMS.' Plus, unlock the secrets to reliable email delivery from your Drupal website. Firas Ghunaim's blog post explores how this robust CMS can help businesses thrive in a mobile-first landscape, where the stakes are high.

Maximize Drupal Commerce performance through MySQL Configuration Tuning with key insights from Roman Agabekov.

Ready to enhance your Drupal skills? Tag1 Consulting introduces the Layout Builder Plus module, and there's a comprehensive developer series by Drupalize.me. Dive into the world of Drupal with a free Udemy course led by Ivan Mejia Fabela, providing a comprehensive understanding of the powerful content management system in just 9 lessons. LocalGov Drupal Tutorial Series #1 provides a comprehensive local installation guide using Lando, and there's also a tutorial by Marios Ioannidis on setting up your website locally using DDEV.

Stay updated for more Drupal-related news and articles! That's all for now, but we'll be back with more soon.

Warm Regards,

Kazima Abbas
Sub-editor, The Drop Times

Sooper Drupal Themes: DXPR Builder 3.0.0: Previewing the Future of No-Code Editing for Professional Content Teams

We're excited to announce the upcoming launch of DXPR Builder 3.0.0, expected around the turn of the year, marking a significant step towards the future of no-code editing for professional content teams. This release is not just an upgrade; it's a transformation that balances the needs of Drupal content editors-users with the strategic goals of large organizations.

Seamless Drual 10 Integration: CKEditor 5

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For content marketers, DXPR Builder 3.0.0 brings a significant upgrade with the migration from CKEditor 4 to CKEditor 5. This enhancement ensures a more intuitive editing experience, allowing content teams to focus on creativity and efficiency.

Thanks to CKEditor 5's plugin architecture we can integrate the editor with Drupal, as well as with the Bootstrap 5 framework. For example, we're ensuring every table inserted with the text editor is a mobile-responsive Bootstrap table.

Mobile Editing: On-the-Go Flexibility

Previewing the future of mobile editing, DXPR Builder 3.0.0 transforms the way professional content teams work. This release will make it possible for the first time in Drupal to have a full-fledged mobile editing experience, offering unprecedented flexibility and on-the-go editing capabilities, enhancing the Drupal content management ecosystem.

Font Awesome 6: A Richer, Future-Proof Icon Set

Transitioning to Font Awesome 6, we're offering a richer set of icons, ensuring that your marketing materials stay fresh and relevant. This update, while keeping backward compatibility, reflects our commitment to providing tools that scale with your organizational needs.

Intuitive Content Management with Skeleton/Wireframe View

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The new skeleton/wireframe view mode is designed to streamline the management of complex elements, catering to the needs of dynamic content teams in large organizations. This feature simplifies the reordering process, enhancing the overall efficiency of content creation.

It allows for easy re-ordering of elements that can currently be a bit harder to drag and drop, like large sections. This update will make it possible for the first time to re-order slides within carousels.

Backward Compatibility: A Smooth Transition

Understanding the importance of continuity, we ensure a smooth transition with backward compatibility for CKEditor 4 content and Font Awesome icons. This approach minimizes disruption, allowing your team to adapt without sacrificing productivity.

Thanks to CKEditor 5's recent updates in backward compatibility we expect a painless migration process we no need for database updates on your content.

Why DXPR Builder 3.0.0 is Ideal for Your Organization

DXPR Builder 3.0.0 is designed to align with the strategic objectives of large organizations. It offers scalability, enhances productivity, and ensures that your content marketing team has the most advanced tools at their disposal. The upgrade to DXPR Builder 3.0.0 is more than an improvement in technology; it's an investment in your organization's future.

Want to explore DXPR's no-code and low-code Drupal experience? Try our online demo or install our Drupal StarterKit which saves you hundreds of hours with a pre-configured DXPR Drupal set-up.

Stay Tuned: As we approach the release date, we are eager to unveil more features that align with our vision of the future of mobile editing for professional content teams. We're committed to empowering your organization with innovative tools that redefine digital storytelling and content creation.

Talking Drupal: Talking Drupal #424 - Web Sustainability Guidelines

Today we are talking about the Web Sustainability Guidelines, How sustainability applies to the web, and how your website can be more sustainable with guests Mike Gifford and Andy Blum. We’ll also cover LB Plus as our module of the week.

For show notes visit: www.talkingDrupal.com/424

Topics
  • What are the Web sustainability guidelines
  • Do they only apply to environmental impact
  • When we think about sustainability we think of funding, does WSG speak to that
  • Why are the WSG important
  • What is the best way to implement WSG
  • How do the WSG’s apply to Drupal
  • Have the WSG’s been finalized
  • Are they open source
  • How can someone get involved
Resources Guests

Mike Gifford - mgifford.medium.com @mgifford

Hosts

Nic Laflin - nLighteneddevelopment.com nicxvan John Picozzi - epam.com johnpicozzi Melissa Bent - linkedin.com/in/melissabent merauluka

MOTW Correspondent

Martin Anderson-Clutz - @mandclu Layout Builder Plus

  • Brief description:
    • Have you ever wanted to make Layout Builder easier and more intuitive for content creators? There are a few modules that can help with that, but today we’re going to talk about one called Layout Builder Plus
  • Brief history
    • How old: Originally created in Apr 2022
    • Versions available: 2.0.1 release, compatible with Drupal 10 and 11
  • Maintainership
    • Actively maintained, latest release just a week ago
    • Number of open issues: 2, both bugs, but both marked as fixed
  • Usage stats:
    • 9 sites
  • Maintainer(s):
    • Tim Bozeman of Tag1
  • Module features and usage
    • Provides an overhaul of the Layout Builder UI, to make it easier for content creators:
    • Show a curated list of promoted blocks with icons, with lesser-used blocks available in a separate tab
    • Once a block is placed it shows automatically generated content, instead of asking the user to fill out a form before they can see what it will look like
    • Editing the content of a block happens in an overlay instead of the settings tray, so it can use more of the screen
    • Moves the Save Layout and other action buttons to the bottom of the page
    • Also adds some nice capabilities to Layout Builder, including:
    • Drag and drop entire sections
    • Change the layout of an existing section, even if it has blocks in it
    • Clone and update existing blocks
    • Finally, it includes a submodule to integrate with the Section Library module, which allows for a section within a layout to be saved so it can be reused again and again
    • I’ll also note that this is a module nominated by one of our listeners in the #talkingdrupal channel of the Drupal slack workspace, so if there’s a module you’d like to hear about in this segment, drop us a note in there

#! code: Drupal 10: Running Drupal Tests On GitHub Using Workflows

There are a number of different tools that allow you to validate and test a Drupal site. Inspecting your custom code allows you to adhere to coding standards and ensure that you stamp our common coding problems. Adding tests allows you to make certain that the functionality of your Drupal site works correctly.

If you have tests in your Drupal project then you ideally need to be running them at some point in your development workflow. Getting GitHub to run the tests when you push code or create a pull request means that you can have peace of mind that your test suite is being run at some point in workflow. You also want to allow your tests to be run locally with ease, without having to remember lots of command line arguments.

In this article I will show how to set up validation and tests against a Drupal site and how to get GitHub to run these steps when you create a pull request. This assumes you have a Drupal 10 project that is controlled via composer.

Let's start with creating a runner using Makefile.

Makefile

A Makefile is an automation tool that allows developers to create a dependency structure of tasks that is then run by using the "make" command. This file format was original developed to assist with compiling complex projects, but it can easily be used to perform any automation script you need.

For example, let's say that we want to allow a command to be run that has a number of different parameters. This might be a curl command or even an rsync command, where the order of the parameters are absolutely critical. To do this you would create a file called "Makefile" and add the following.

sync-files: rsync -avzh source/directory destination/directory

To run this you just need to type "make" followed by the name of the command.

Read more