Talking Drupal
Talking Drupal is a weekly chat about web design and development by a group a guys with one thing in common, we love Drupal. With hosts Stephen Cross, John Picozzi and Nic Laflin.

 

  • Uses of Email

    • Transaction/Service E-Mails - one email to the single person for a particular purpose.  ie. Reset Password, Shipping Confirmation...

    • Bulk Email - send to the group of people.  ie. Newsletter, Forum subscriptions…

    • User communication - personal contact or something like basecamp

    • Impact the type of service and tools you will use

  • Getting Started With HTML EMails

    • Drupal out of the box will only send plain text emails

    • Need an SMTP server setup on your web server or use this:

      • SMTP Authentication Support Module

  • Structure of HTML email

  • HTML E-Mails From Drupal (Creating and Sending)

    • Simple News (Module)

      • Create E-mails content

    • Mime Mail

      • Enhances the abilities of Drupal to send HTML Emails

      • Allows for email attachments

    • Mandrill / Mail System

      • (service by Mailchimp)

      • Can replace the need for an SMTP server

      • Has statistics for e-mails sent

      • Can setup rules (within the Mandrill service) to change e-mail attributes before sending

  • HTML E-mails From Outside of Drupal (List Signup Only)

    • Mailchimp

      • Allow Drupal visitors to signup for emails

      • List Management for users

      • E-commerce and webform integration

      • Service is easy to use

      • Allows RSS Auto Send

      • Use site content to build newsletters

    • Constant Contact

      • Allow Drupal Visitors to signup for emails

      • Limited List Management

      • Some E-commerce and Webform integration

    • Campaign Monitor

      • Great reseller program

      • Easy template generation

    • Zurb Foundation

      • Responsive templates
        http://zurb.com/playground/responsive-email-templates

 

Module of the week

Table Field - https://www.drupal.org/project/tablefield

This module allows you to attach tabular data to a node in Drupal 6 or any entity in Drupal 7. The input form allows the user to specify the number of rows/columns and allows entry into each table cell using text fields. Tables can be defined globally or on a per-node/per-entity basis, so every node can have multiple tables of arbitrary size. Enter data by hand or by CSV upload. Table data can also be downloaded as CSV files by your users if you so choose. Tables are multi-value and revision capable.

Resources

Simple News - https://www.drupal.org/project/simplenews

Mime Mail - https://www.drupal.org/project/mimemail

SMTP Authentication Support Module - https://www.drupal.org/project/smtp

Mandrill - https://www.drupal.org/project/mandrill

Mail Tester - http://www.mail-tester.com

Mail System - https://www.drupal.org/project/mailsystem

Mailchimp - https://www.drupal.org/project/mailchimp

Constant Contact - https://www.drupal.org/project/constant_contact

Campiagn Monitor - https://www.drupal.org/project/campaignmonitor

Responsive Email Design from Campaign Monitor  - http://bit.ly/rt-rdemailcm

Web Fonts in Email from Campaign Monitor - http://bit.ly/rt-emailcm

Responsive Email from MailChimp - http://bit.ly/rt-rdemailmc

Typography in Email from MailChimp -http://bit.ly/rt-emailmc

Tutorial to Understand HTML Email (Hand crafted) - http://webdesign.tutsplus.com/articles/build-an-html-email-template-from-scratch--webdesign-12770

 

Direct download: TalkingDrupal057.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 10:47am EDT

  • Responsive Typography Book by Jason 
  • Stephen trip to Disney and the Technology advances
    • We discuss how the Magic Band (wearable tech) is currently being used at Disney
    • Location servers being used at Dollywood
    • Location services being used Dana Farber
  • Facebook experiment
    • Changing peoples moods based on content provided to the user.   A small debate the ethics of what Facebook was doing.
  • Being Involved in the Drupal Community
    • Does it help your business - hosts share how the community involvement has helped their business
  • Aegir
    • What is Aegir
    • What has Nic done recently in Aegir - sandboxing a designer 

 

Direct download: TalkingDrupal056.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 12:00pm EDT

Topics

  • Difference between site and system
  • Characteristics of a system
  • Why a site-building/theme approach?
  • Building as a system vs. good practice for re-use
  • Things we do to be more system like

Modules 

  • Field Group Module - https://www.drupal.org/project/field_group
  • WYSIWYG Module - https://www.drupal.org/project/wysiwyg
  • Administration Views - https://www.drupal.org/project/admin_views

Hosts

  • Stephen Cross - www.ParallaxInfoTech.com @stephencross
  • Jason Pamental - www.hwdesignco.com @jpamental
  • John Picozzi - www.oomphinc.com @johnpicozzi
  • Nic Laflin - www.nLightened.net @nicxvan
Direct download: TalkingDrupal055.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 12:00pm EDT