The Drupal Community Working Group (CWG) is excited to announce the release of an updated Code of Conduct for the Drupal community. It will take effect on July 1, 2023. 

This new version is designed to reflect the growth of the Drupal community since the original Code of Conduct was adopted in 2010 and to help foster a safer, more inclusive, and harassment-free environment for everyone. While it retains the same basic structure as the previous document, much of the text was rewritten to make it easier to read. It also includes new elements inspired by other widely-used open source codes of conduct.

Some of the highlights of the updated Code of Conduct include:

• Improved Readability: The new document has shorter sentences and paragraphs than the previous version, making it easier to read and comprehend. It is also written in a less formal tone.
• Increased Clarity: The updated version includes more detail about where the Code of Conduct applies and the consequences of violating it. It emphasizes the shared responsibility of maintaining a welcoming community.
• More Specificity: Examples of positive and unacceptable behaviors have been added to each section to help community members better understand the expectations and guidelines for their conduct within the Drupal community
• Inclusivity and Diversity: The updated Code of Conduct places a stronger emphasis on fostering an inclusive and diverse environment for people of all backgrounds and identities, and is more consistent with Drupal’s Values and Principles.
• More Actionable: Instructions for reporting Code of Conduct violations are now broken out in an alert box to make them easier for people to find.

The process of updating the Code of Conduct began in earnest in the summer of 2022, building upon community feedback gathered by the CWG since 2017. It was spearheaded by a subgroup of the CWG’s Community Health Team, who gathered feedback and shared drafts with a diverse group of stakeholders across our global community. A draft was then shared publicly with the community for additional feedback and revision. Finally, the document was reviewed and approved by the CWG’s Conflict Resolution Team and Review Panel. If you will be attending the Community Summit at DrupalCon Pittsburgh, members of the team will be sharing additional  details at the “How We Updated the Drupal Code of Conduct” session.

We would like to express our gratitude to everyone who contributed to the development of the updated Code of Conduct. Your input and dedication have been invaluable in creating a more inclusive and welcoming environment for all community members.

We encourage all community members to read and familiarize themselves with the updated Code of Conduct. Drupal.org users will also be alerted to the new language when it goes into effect July 1.

If you have any questions or concerns, please do not hesitate to file an issue in the CWG’s issue queue. If you would prefer to reach out privately, you can also send an email to drupal-cwg@drupal.org. Your feedback is always welcome as we continue to improve and adapt our Code of Conduct to the evolving needs of our community.

Thank you for being a part of the Drupal community, and for your commitment to making it a welcoming and inclusive place for everyone.
 

Jim Vomero

Senior Engineer

As a tech lead, Jim works with clients through the full project cycle, translating their business requirements into actionable development work and working with them to find technical solutions to their challenges.

January 1, 1970

Running the digital experience is a large-scale operation for most higher ed institutions. Whether your architecture was established five or 15 years ago, the departments, offices, and entities you need to manage may add up to hundreds or even thousands of websites. And each new addition is increasingly challenging to maintain.

Some sites use shared modules, while others do not. If you want to make an update to one website, you have to cross your fingers and hope it doesn’t break something on 500 others. Every day, another stakeholder presents a new request in support of an upcoming project.

Facing all these compounding issues, the IT department at Yale understood that a lift-and-shift of their existing sites was impossible. Upgrading their digital platform presented an opportunity to reset their architecture and processes to start fresh.

In a preview of our upcoming presentation at DrupalCon 2023, here’s what happened next — and what your institution can learn from it.

Why reinvention makes sense for higher ed institutions

Universities are facing significant challenges related to budgets, economic uncertainty, and reduced admissions applications. The pandemic introduced further uncertainty balanced with an increased need to sharpen digital presentations.

As one of the most prestigious institutions in the world, Yale needed to find a new, more sustainable way to manage its digital needs. The institution had stretched the limits of a very mature Drupal 7 site with more than a decade’s worth of modules, themes, and custom code.

It was difficult for the IT team to test with confidence, because they manage more than 1,100 sites that were all created in different ways. In addition, the more impressive a new site looked, the more other offices and departments wanted to emulate it.

The unintended consequences of an overtaxed website platform

With the university’s website system at critical mass, Yale’s teams lacked incentive to add new features to its legacy platform. Consequently, some larger departments found the platform inflexible, leading them to Wix and Squarespace for new projects. If the university didn’t find a workable platform solution, it ran the risk of increased site errors, design inconsistencies, and a diminished user experience.

Resetting Yale’s approach to digital required a sizable upfront capital investment. As the work comes to fruition, the organization is gaining a flexible, scalable platform that will benefit every department into the next decade — and beyond.

YaleSites: A transformational approach to higher ed websites

YaleSites is the product of years of examining the university’s needs. Through our previous work with the institution’s cybersecurity office and the Schwarzman Center, we developed a new platform that incorporated the following elements:

A unified brand identity and design system

YaleSites offers many departments the ability to create unique digital experiences that are aligned with the institution’s overall design. Instead of a conventional CMS, Yale’s team uses a customized drag-and-drop page builder drawn from a library of proven components powered by Emulsify.

Inclusive and accessible development for all customers and devices

Institutions like Yale need to offer an equitable digital experience for every audience. YaleSites upholds and prioritizes the university’s accessibility standards by making sure every content block follows best practices for usability and accessibility.

User-focused experience and design

YaleSites prioritizes the needs of the organization’s audience and its end users. Across the organization, content authors of every skill level can access a full library of templates, starter kits, and media libraries to produce what they need.

Standardized practices for development

The organization’s development process has been streamlined. Rather than asking “What do you need in a website?”, work begins with the question, “How can our tools help with your strategy?” Developers don’t have to reinvent the wheel for a new site. Instead, they have the support of a system that’s performant, on-brand, and secure.

Sustainable governance

We implemented YaleSites with an eye toward thoughtful and sustainable growth. Universities often set digital priorities based on the loudest or most powerful voices in the organization. Now, Yale uses processes that enable them to focus on the organization’s most pressing needs. Plus, a core group meets regularly to collect feedback, respond to requests, and adjust priorities as needed.

Shifting from a project-based to a product-based perspective

After launching YaleSites, the institution will enter the maintenance phase of protecting its system. The university’s new platform required a significant financial investment — now it must invest in the long-term work of governance.

The success of Yale’s platform hinges on a seismic internal shift. YaleSites isn’t a project that concludes with a specific end date. It’s a product that the organization must refine and support in perpetuity.

Since YaleSites is a product, its resources are finite. For example, if IT plans to add six new features in a quarter, any new request is a negotiation. Something may need to get bumped from the product roadmap. Rather than rushing a new feature into development for a short-term need, the organization follows a multiyear roadmap and measures the needs against all of the priorities in the queue.

Eliminate deadline pressure by focusing on constant improvement

Thinking long-term about your organization’s website removes the need to squeeze as many improvements as possible into a project’s deadline. Following the principles of Agile development frees your team from solving every use case before launch. Instead, you can launch a minimally functional feature like an events calendar, see how people use it, and refine how it works according to actionable feedback.

YaleSites allows the institution to implement site improvements with confidence. Rather than working on whatever makes sense in the moment, they see their work progress from ideation to development, testing, and release.

From the flexibility of its digital tools to a more managed, Agile-driven approach to website improvements, YaleSites marks a dramatic shift for the better. If this sounds like a shift that would benefit how your organization works, we should talk. We can help you view your site and its planning from a new perspective.

Megan Bygness Bradley and the Yale team contributed to this post.

The post A more modern, sustainable approach to higher ed websites with YaleSites appeared first on Four Kitchens.

In continuing our 20 years of Drupal series, Tag1 Consulting's, Managing Director Michael Meyers interviews leaders from the Drupal Community who have been instrumental in creating one of the largest open-source communities and one of the most popular Content Management Systems that powers over 3% of the Internet. In this installment, join us for our talk with prolific contributor Matthew Saunders. Currently at Pfizer, Matthew shares his journey into technology by way of the Arts, where he discovered his passion for technology after becoming a Webmaster for an experimental dance company back in 1995. With over 15 years of continuous involvement in the Drupal Community - former board member of the Drupal Association and long-time organizer of Drupalcamp Colorado, we hope you will enjoy this trip down memory lane. --- For a transcript of this video, see On 20 Years of Drupal with Matthew Saunders. --- Photo by Jason Hafso on Unsplash

Last week I wrote about dependency injection anti-patterns in Drupal. These anti-patterns occur when your service's constructor has logic that interacts with the injected dependent services beyond assigning them to properties. These anti-patterns include creating a new object from a factory or retrieving an object from a stack. However, Symfony's service container supports defining services built from factories. This can streamline your code and follow best practices when using dependency injection. Drupal uses this factory service design pattern for cache bins, loggers, and the HTTP client service.

The Drupal 10 update is moving to CKEditor 5. What’s different? It’s no longer an iframe! So how do we scope any custom styles we want to include?

First and foremost, if you haven’t read the Drupal docs about including custom styles, then please read that. It will give you the necessary context.

This article is specifically about a theme setup that already uses PostCSS (as opposed to Sass - this is much easier with Sass), has various component stylesheets, and includes some level of theme CSS to the CKEditor window to help improve the content editor experience.

Simply including the same styles used in CKEditor 4 to CKEditor 5 now bleed out into the admin theme, so we need to scope them to the .ck-content class.

Let's just say the theme's original ckeditor.css file looks something like this:

We use a couple of PostCSS plugins already, notably postcss-import and postcss-preset-env but in order to wrap everything here in a certain class, including everything we’re importing…

We need a new plugin

I tested a few class prefixing plugins, but the only one that suited my requirements was postcss-prefixwrap. With it installed, here’s our basic postcss.config.js:

We place it last; we add the class to use as the prefix .ck-content and specify our options;

• whitelist: our ckeditor.css, so this plugin only applies to that file.
• nested: because we use ampersand for nested selectors
• ignoredSelectors: include the :root where we have some global custom properties and any class that starts with .ck- because it’s already scoped.

The only change we need to make to our ckeditor.css file is to change our body styles to live on .ck-content instead. Otherwise, they’ll come out at .ck-content body and be ignored.

Now every selector in our generated ckeditor.css file (that we didn’t ignore) is prefixed with .ck-content; thus all the styles are scoped to CKEditor 5 and no longer bleed into the admin theme.

A note on CSS Custom Properties

If you (like me) prefer to preserve your custom properties, you may find the need to scope them as well, to avoid clashes with custom properties the admin theme might have.

For this, I added one more PostCSS plugin postcss-variables-prefixer;

This isn’t specific to the ckeditor.css file, but that’s ok with me; they can be unique everywhere.

Hopefully, this helps make the transition to CKEditor 5 a little smoother for your content editors when updating to Drupal 10.

Today we are talking about HTTP Headers with our hosts.

For show notes visit: www.talkingDrupal.com/401

• What are HTTP Headers
• Why are they important
• Exploring headers
• Types of headers
• What can you discover from headers
• Modifying headers
• Tools to validate

• Content Security Policy (CSP)
• Dries’ Header Evaluation Tool
• Mozilla Header Documentation
• Good overview of CSP
• Nic’s Header Blog Post

Nic Laflin - www.nLighteneddevelopment.com @nicxvan John Picozzi - www.epam.com @johnpicozzi Stephen Cross - stephencross.com @stephencross Martin Anderson-Clutz - @mandclu

Martin Anderson-Clutz - @mandclu Content-Security-Policy Adds a Content-Security-Policy header which allows your Drupal site to inform browsers of trusted sources for JavaScript, CSS, and other external resources.

Today, let us deeply explore life's journey and the various phases we all experience. Like a captivating story, life unfolds through diverse chapters that offer unique lessons, challenges, and opportunities for personal growth and transformation. Let's embark on this exploration together and discover the beauty in embracing the different phases of life.

The Spring of Youth: Embracing Boundless Possibilities

Youth—the phase of exuberance and discovery. During this period, we plant the seeds of our dreams and ambitions, exploring the world with curiosity and an unyielding spirit. Let's celebrate the energy and potential of youth and cherish the memories we create along the way.

The Summer of Exploration: Embracing Self-Discovery

As we transition into adulthood, we enter the summer of our lives. This phase invites us to embark on a journey of self-discovery, to dive deep into our identities, values, and aspirations. It's a time to explore various paths, make important life choices, and build the foundation for our future. Let's embrace this season of exploration and savor the joy of discovering who we indeed are.

The Autumn of Wisdom: Embracing Growth and Reflection

In the autumn of life, we find ourselves at a crossroads—a time of introspection and reflection. This phase offers an opportunity to reap the wisdom accumulated through experiences, reflect on our achievements, and redefine our priorities. Let's celebrate the wealth of knowledge we have acquired and embrace the beauty of personal growth that continues to unfold.

The Winter of Serenity: Embracing Transformation and Legacy

Winter, a season marked by serenity and introspection, represents the later stages of life. During this phase, we reflect on our accomplishments, pass down our wisdom to future generations, and leave a lasting legacy. Let's embrace the winter of life with grace, appreciating the profound impact we can make and the beauty of our journey.

As we navigate these phases, it's important to remember that life is not a linear path but a cycle of growth and transformation. Each stage brings challenges and rewards; by embracing them, we can fully appreciate the richness of our existence.

Now, Let's dive into the essential picks from the past week.

Last week, The Drop Times was privileged to conduct two insightful interviews. Our first interview was with Martin Anderson-Clutz, a distinguished speaker at EvolveDrupal in Montreal. In this interview, Martin shares his valuable insights on the challenges and prospects of Drupal. The second interview was with Marcin Maruszewski, an experienced Drupal professional. Marcin graciously shared his personal journey and extensive Drupal experience, offering valuable perspectives for newcomers and seasoned practitioners.

Kwall blog post delved into the intricacies of two of the most popular platforms in the web development realm: Drupal and WordPress. RS Websols published an informative blog titled "The Benefits of Using Drupal: Unleashing its Potential for Web Development."

A recently released research report focusing on the Content Management Systems (CMS) market for 2023-2030 provides valuable insights into the fundamental dynamics driving the sector. AltaGrade, a leading web development company, has published an informative blog post titled "Upgrading to Drupal 10: Why It's Important and How AltaGrade Can Help."

Drupar, a reliable source of Drupal tutorials, recently shared a step-by-step guide demonstrating how to create a new text format in Drupal without relying on CKEditor. DrupalCon, the premier conference for the Drupal community, has announced an enticing giveaway exclusively for attendees of DrupalCon Pittsburgh 2023. To know more information, visit here.

In a recently shared blog post, Drupal India highlights the compelling reasons for choosing Drupal CMS when developing fully functional and easily navigable travel agency websites. SystemSeed, a trusted source of Drupal expertise, has published a blog post offering tips and tricks for finding the ideal Drupal maintenance partner.

Stay tuned for more updates, interviews, and informative articles in the upcoming editions of The Drop Times. Feel free to contact us if you have any suggestions, contributions, or feedback. Thank you for being a part of our community!

That is all for the week.
Your's sincerely,

Kazima Abbas
Sub-Editor, TheDropTimes

Cyber threats are escalating, and individuals are actively prioritizing their online safety by verifying website authenticity and safeguarding private data. Even with considerable efforts, websites are not immune to malware, brute force attacks, SQL injections, and DDoS attacks, posing a constant risk of unauthorized access and the compromise of customer information.

Hackers don't just target large corporations, but according to a report by AdvisorSmith, 42% of small-medium businesses are affected by these cyber attacks. That's why following a proven Drupal security checklist is imperative to safeguard your business against hackers or other malicious actors. With the right strategy and careful planning, you can make your website robust and avoid these potential threats. Read the full article, consider these 17 security checklists, and thrive in your business.