Today we are talking about Progressive migration with Drupal, What it is, and how you can do it with your organization with guest Stephen Cross. We’ll also cover Views JSON Source as our module of the week.

For show notes visit:
www.talkingDrupal.com/466

Topics

• What is a progressive migration
• What other types of migration are there
• What problem does progressive migration solve at the ATF
• What versions of Drupal are involved
• Technical implementation
• Technical challenges
• Non-Technical challenges
• Processes needed for success
• When to use another migration process

Resources

• Drupal GovCon Presentation - Progressive Migration
• Talking Drupal #334 - Managing Drupal Teams in Government

Guests

Stephen Cross - stephencross.com stephencross

Hosts

Nic Laflin - nLighteneddevelopment.com nicxvan
John Picozzi - epam.com johnpicozzi
Nate Dentzau - dentzau.com nathandentzau

MOTW

Correspondent

Martin Anderson-Clutz - mandclu.com mandclu

• Brief description:
  • Have you ever wanted to use Drupal’s Views interface to allow visitors to browse and navigate data from another source? There’s a module for that
• Module name/project name:
  • Views JSON Source
• Brief history
  • How old: created in Apr 2020 by Pradeep Venugopal (venugopp), but recent releases are by Viktor Holovachek (astonvictor), a member of the Ukraine Drupal community
  • Versions available: 2.0.2 compatible with Drupal 8.8 and newer, all the way up to Drupal 11
• Maintainership
  • Actively maintained
  • Security coverage
  • Documentation: pretty lengthy README to help you get started
  • Number of open issues: 17 open issues, 4 of which are bugs against the current branch, although one had a fixed merged in the past week
• Usage stats:
  • 1,641 sites
• Module features and usage
  • After installing the module, you can create a view and specify it should show “JSON” instead of some kind of content entity
  • In the view settings you can then provide a URL for where to retrieve the JSON, and an optional Apath value to indicate a section of the data to show
  • It also supports contextual filters, so you can create a single view that will show different sections of data depending on the path used to access it
  • From there you can build out your view in the normal way: using fields to specify what data should be shown and how, filters to limit which rows will be shown, and sort criteria to specify the order in which it will be listed. And of course, the ability to expose controls for users to filter and sort the data in ways that meet their own needs make this an extremely powerful way to make data available to your site’s visitors
  • We spoke a couple of episodes ago about how powerful it can be to use Drupal as the “glass” or experience layer through which visitors can interact with other systems, and I think this is another great example of that

Today we are talking about The Greater Cleveland RTA, How they use Drupal, and how they built a Drupal team with guests Mike Cermak & Rithya Lath. We’ll also cover Geofield Directions as our module of the week.

For show notes visit:
www.talkingDrupal.com/465

Topics

• What does the Greater Cleveland RTA do
• Is the RTA a state agency
• What kind of Digital Service do you provide
• How does the GCRTA use Drupal
• Whay was Drupal selected
• Let's talk about the team
• How long has the team existed and how many people
• What type of skill makeup doest hte team have
• Local development and deployment
• Point and click learning, how do you keep up to speed now
• Day to day responsibilities
• Drupal con and Starshot

Resources

• Greater Cleveland RTA

Guests

Rithya Lath - ral1239
Mike Cermak - riderta.com MikeCermak

Hosts

Nic Laflin - nLighteneddevelopment.com nicxvan
John Picozzi - epam.com johnpicozzi

MOTW

Correspondent

Martin Anderson-Clutz - mandclu.com mandclu

• Brief description:
  • Have you ever wanted to make it easy for visitors to your Drupal site to get directions to a location via Google Maps? There’s a module for that.
• Module name/project name:
  • Geofield Directions
• Brief history
  • How old: created in Feb 2021 by Christopher Martin (ccjjmartin), though recent releases are by Allan Chappell (generalredneck)
  • Versions available: 1.0.1, compatible with Drupal ^8.8 ^9 || ^10 ^11
• Maintainership
  • Minimally maintained, Maintenance fixes only
  • Security coverage
  • Test coverage
  • Documentation? Not even a README
  • Number of open issues: 1 open issue, not a bug
• Usage stats:
  • 26 sites
• Module features and usage
  • The module provides a new field formatter, so you can install it and then update a view mode to use Geofield Directions. Now your content display will include a link to get directions
  • You can figure the text of the link, whether the link should open in a new tab, the magnification of the destination map, and more
  • The module also includes token support, so you can dynamically include things like the name of the location in the link text
  • I think the only downside I can see is that because this is implemented as a formatter, you have to choose the directions link OR a map, where I could foresee sites wanting to show both

Today we are talking about Producing content with Drupal, How Drupal can help content producers, and ways it could be better with guest Jerry Ta. We’ll also cover Stage File Proxy as our module of the week.

For show notes visit:
www.talkingDrupal.com/464

Topics

• Brief overview of Urban Institute using Drupal
• What are the day to day responsibilities of a content producer
• Layout Builder or Paragraphs
  • What is your opinion
• You've been in content production for almost 2 decades, what was your first website editing tool.
• How long have you been using Drupal
• What is your number one wish the Drupal community would solve
• Drupalcon
  • What value do you look for for a content producer
• What is the hardest part of using Drupal
• Starshot reaction
• Predictions for Drupal in 5 years for content producers

Resources

• Modules for replacing files on Drupal - , Media Entity File Replace, etc.
  • File Replace
  • Media Entity File Replace
  • File Field Replace
• Content Sync
• Tokens with CKEditor module
• Shortcode
• Common Spot
• Scheduled transitions
• Experience builder
  • https://drupal.slack.com/archives/C072JMEPUS1
  • https://www.drupal.org/project/experience_builder
• Starshot
  • https://drupal.slack.com/archives/C072BF486FN
  • https://www.drupal.org/project/starshot

Guests

Jerry Ta - joshmiller

Hosts

Nic Laflin - nLighteneddevelopment.com nicxvan
John Picozzi - epam.com johnpicozzi
Josh Miller - joshmiller

MOTW

Correspondent

Martin Anderson-Clutz - mandclu.com mandclu

• Brief description:
  • Have you ever wanted to work on code or configuration changes to your Drupal site in a non-production environment, without having to copy over all the images and other content files? There’s a module for that.
• Module name/project name:
  • Stage File Proxy
• Brief history
  • How old: created in Jan 2011 by netaustin, by recent releases are by Stephen Mustgrave, who listeners will probably recognize from the Needs Review initiative, among his many other Drupal contributions
  • Versions available: 7.x-1.10, 3.0.0-alpha2, and 3.1.0, the last of which works with Drupal 10.3 and 11
• Maintainership
  • Actively maintained
  • Security coverage
  • Test coverage
  • Documentation - not a lot, but it has been the subject of numerous blog posts over the years
  • Number of open issues: 15 open issues, 2 of which are bugs against the current branch
• Usage stats:
  • 16,710 sites
• Module features and usage
  • Once you have Stage File Proxy site up on your non-production site, when the environment gets a request for a content file it doesn’t have like an image, it will query the production site to create a local copy
  • It also has a mode where those requests are served 301 redirects to their location on the production server, so no files are ever copied
  • Once you have the module installed, you can set the origin website URL using the admin UI, using a drush variable-set command, or you can add a line to your settings.php file.
  • Also, if you have simple HTTP authentication set up on the site you want to pull from (for example using the Shield module), you can add URL-encoded versions of the username and password to the origin URL, and the module will still be able to copy down the files.
  • This module was previously covered in this podcast way back in episode #33, but I thought it was worth bring back because it is so useful for working on site locally or across non-production environments

Today we are talking about DIY Site Builders, what are the benefits over Drupal (If Any), and When using Drupal makes sense with guest Ivan Stegic. We’ll also cover Drupal 11 as our module of the week.

For show notes visit:
www.talkingDrupal.com/463

Topics

• What is a DIY site builder
• Does TEN7 use DIY site builders
• How are DIY site builders better than Drupal
• Are they less expensive than Drupal
• HAve you ever suggested a site builder to a client
• What does a migration from a site builder look like
• Do you think starshot will make Drupal competitive with site builders

Resources

• Workspaces Extra
• Talking Drupal 451 - Just say Drupal
• Shopify
• Webflow
• Wix
• Squarespace
• Wordpress vip
• Cosmic.build
• Preshow:
  • Eurion constellation

Guests

Ivan Stegic - ten7.com ivanstegic

Hosts

Nic Laflin - nLighteneddevelopment.com nicxvan
John Picozzi - epam.com johnpicozzi
Josh Miller - joshmiller

MOTW

Correspondent

Martin Anderson-Clutz - mandclu.com mandclu

• Brief description:
  • Have you been wanting a version of Drupal that can use Workspaces, Recipes, and Single Directory Components, while running all the latest versions of its underlying technologies? Drupal 11 is all of that and more
• Module name/project name:
  • Drupal 11
• Brief history
  • How old: created on Aug 2 by catch of Tag1 and Third & Grove
• Module features and usage
  • Limited additions vs 10.3: by design to make the transition easier
    • Mostly in the recipes API, e.g. new config actions
  • Recap of new features vs. 10.0
    • Workspaces
    • Revisions and workflow are possible in the UI for Blocks and Taxonomy Terms
    • UI updates for creating and reusing fields, as well as bulk content operations
    • New Access Policy API and Single Directory Components
    • New Navigation and Announcements Feed modules
  • Contrib support out of the gate: about ⅔ of the top 200 modules already support Drupal 11
    • Adding modules that Rector estimates will only need info.yml or automated fixes brings us to over 80% of the top 200, or about 75% of all Drupal 10-compatible projects on Drupal.org
  • Updated dependencies: PHP 8.3, Symfony 7, CKEditor 5 42.0,2, Twig 3.9, Yarn 4, jQuery 4.0.0-beta, jQuery UI 1.14-beta.2 and more
  • Modules moved to contrib (smaller core):
    • Actions UI
    • Activity Tracker
    • Book
    • Forum
    • Statistics
    • Tour
  • Drupal 10 will receive maintenance support until mid-2026, so the community created this release of Drupal 11 early to give sites as much time as possible to make the transition, in this case almost 2 years!

Today we are talking about DrupalCon Singapore, What you can expect, and What’s next for Drupal in Asia with guest Mike Richardson & Surabhi Gokte. We’ll also cover Filefield Paths as our module of the week.

For show notes visit:
www.talkingDrupal.com/462

Topics

• When is Drupalcon Asia
• The last one was in 2016, what did it take to reprise
• How do you handle language barriers
• What are your roles in the organizing committee
• Steering committee and Drupal South
• What can attendees expect
• Any special programming
• What kind of diversity is expected from attendees
• Driving from Mumbai to Singapore is 110 hours
• Will Dries be there
• Can we expect future Drupalcon Asia's
• Planning and logistics regarding coffee
• Starshot

Resources

• DrupalCon Singapore
• Droptimes
• Drupal camp Pune
• Steering committee for Drupal South
• Linux Australia Council
• DrupalCon Singapore Sponsorship
  • Email events@drupalasia.org
• Park Royal Collection Marina Bay
• Singapore Wiki
• Singapore Visa

Guests

Mike Richardson - Singapore DrupalCon richo_au
Surabhi Gokte - surabhi-gokte

Hosts

Nic Laflin - nLighteneddevelopment.com nicxvan
John Picozzi - epam.com johnpicozzi
Josh Miller - joshmiller

MOTW

Correspondent

Martin Anderson-Clutz - mandclu.com mandclu

• Brief description:
  • Have you ever wanted to use a variety of tokens to customize the directory and file names of your uploaded files? There’s a module for that.
• Module name/project name:
  • File (Field) Paths
• Brief history
  • How old: created in July 2008 by Stuart Clark (Deciphered), though recent releases are by Oleh Vehera (voleger) of Golems GABB
  • Versions available: 7.x-1.2 and 8.x-1.0-beta7, the latter of which supports Drupal 9.3 or newer, and Drupal 10
• Maintainership
  • Seeking co-maintainers
  • Security Coverage
    • Opted in, but no coverage in practice for Drupal 9 or 10
  • Test coverage
  • Number of open issues: 131 open issues, 50 of which are bugs against the current branch
• Usage stats:
  • 34,609 sites almost 35,000 sites
• Module features and usage
  • This module allows you to customize file names and paths by leveraging a variety of entity-based tokens
  • It also integrates with the Pathauto module, giving you options to clean up the tokens for example by removing slashes, filtering out words or punctuation, and so on
  • It can also work with the Transliteration module to convert unicode characters into US-ASCII
  • Filefield Paths has options to rename and move existing files, and can retroactively rename files, effectively bulk updating and moving all your existing files
  • It can also work with the Redirect module to automatically create redirects from the old path and filename to the new location, when renaming
  • I’d also like to give a tip of the cap to Jim Birch of Kanopi for suggesting this module, when I was talking to a customer who was looking to achieve pretty much exactly what this module does

Today we are talking about The Benefits of Distributions, If they have drawbacks, and what the future of distributions looks like with guest Rajab Natshah and Mohammed Razem. We’ll also cover Google Analytics Reports as our module of the week.

For show notes visit:
www.talkingDrupal.com/461

Topics

• What is a distribution
• How does this differ from profiles
• What does Varbase provide
• What types of users is Varbase geared towards
• Paragraphs or Layout Builder
• Vardoc
• How do you overcome fear of lock-in
• What do you think the future of distributions look like considering recipes
• Any plans to move Varbase to recipes
• Starshot

Resources

• Varbase Distribution
• Vardoc
• Google analytics counter
• United nations refugee agency
• George washington university
• City of Detroit
• Bootstrap Layout Builder
• Bootstrap Styles
• Visual Distribution Operator
• Profile inheritance issue
• Starshot work tracks
• Linux from Scratch

Guests

Rajab Natshah - rajab-natshah
Mohammed Razem - mohammed-j-razem

Hosts

Nic Laflin - nLighteneddevelopment.com nicxvan
John Picozzi - epam.com johnpicozzi
Josh Miller - joshmiller

MOTW

Correspondent

Martin Anderson-Clutz - mandclu.com mandclu

• Brief description:
  • Have you ever wanted to display Google Analytics charts directly within your Drupal website? There’s a module for that.
• Module name/project name:
  • Google Analytics Reports
• Brief history
  • Created in Apr 2011 by raspberryman, but recent releases are by today’s guest Rajab Natshah
  • Versions available include 7.x-3.2, 8.x-3.2, and 4.0.0, that last two of which support Drupal 10 and 11
• Maintainership
  • Actively maintained, recent releases were less than a month ago
  • Security coverage
  • A documentation guide for older versions, and a README with detailed instructions to get it set up
  • Number of open issues: 76 open issues, 9 of which are bugs against the current branch
• Usage stats:
  • 4,272 sites
• Module features and usage
  • To set up this module, you first need to set up the API connection in the Google Developers Console, and download the client secret JSON
  • You’ll then upload that into the Google Analytics Report API submodule along with the property ID to enable the connection
  • Next, you need to install the Charts module, and either the Google Charts or Highcharts sub-module to see graphical reports
  • You will now have a new Google Analytics Summary in your site’s reports menu, and new "Google Analytics Reports Summary Block" and "Google Analytics Reports Page Block" blocks available
  • I haven’t had a chance to try the 4.0 version of this module yet, but I have used older versions with a variety of dashboard solutions, including Moderation Dashboard and Homebox
  • One of the many benefits of using a powerful, open source framework like Drupal to build your site is its ability to act as the “glass” for a variety of other systems, and this module is a perfect demonstration of that

Today we are talking about Preconfigured CMS Solutions, How they can help your business, and The best way to build them in Drupal with guests Baddy Sonja Breidert and Dr. Christoph Breidert.

For show notes visit:
www.talkingDrupal.com/460

Topics

• Spain
• What is a Preconfigured CMS / Drupal Solution
• Who is the audience
• What business objectives can preconfigured solutions solve
• What are the ingredients
• How do you manage theming
• How do you manage customized design
• What do you do if your client has a need that your preconfigured solution does not solve
• What about Starshot
• Did the two of you meet over Drupal
• How do you manage work life balance

Resources

• TRY drupal
• Design system
• Front end editing

Guests

Christoph Breidert - 1xINTERNET breidert

Hosts

Nic Laflin - nLighteneddevelopment.com nicxvan
John Picozzi - epam.com johnpicozzi
Baddý Sonja Breidert - 1xINTERNET baddysonja

MOTW

Correspondent

Martin Anderson-Clutz - mandclu.com mandclu

• Brief description:
  • Have you ever wanted to customize the way Google Maps appear on your Drupal site? There's a module for that.
• Module name/project name:
  • Styled Google Map
• Brief history
  • How old: created in Mar 2014 by iampuma, but recent releases are by Artem Dmitriiev (a.dmitriiev) of 1xINTERNET
  • Versions available: 7.x-2.0, 8.x-1.7, and 8.x-2.6 versions available, the last of which works with Drupal 8, 9, 10, and 11
• Maintainership
  • Actively maintained, latest release a week ago
  • Security coverage
  • Has a Documentation page and lots of information on the project page
  • Number of open issues: 8 open issues, 1 of which is a bug against the current branch, though it was actually fixed in the latest release
• Usage stats:
  • 1,764 sites
• Module features and usage
  • The module provides allows your Drupal to use custom styles, which you can copy and paste from SnazzyMaps.com, or create from scratch using a configuration widget on Github that is linked from the project page
  • You will be able to use custom markers by using the System Stream Wrapper module
  • You can also specify popups for the markers, using a field or a view mode
  • If you use the companion styled_google_views module, you can also show multiple locations, and define clustering options
  • Styled Google Map also has integration with Google's Directions service, so visitors can easily get turn-by-turn directions for how to reached their chosen location
  • The module also includes a demo submodule you can use to quickly set up a working example to illustrate all the different options available using Styled Google Map

Today we are talking about Config Actions, The Panels Favorite Drupal Modules, and Drupal Contribution. We’ll also cover Transform API as our module of the week.

For show notes visit:
www.talkingDrupal.com/459

Topics

• New Config Action: Place Block
• Favorite Contrib modules
• Slack channels
• Preparing for Drupal 11
• Drupal events

Resources

• Config Action Place Block
• Front End Editing Drupal Module
• Gin Admin Theme
• Migrate Boost
• Keysave
• Navigation
• Matt Glaman Smart Date Code Blog Post

Hosts

Nic Laflin - nLighteneddevelopment.com nicxvan
John Picozzi - epam.com johnpicozzi
Martin Anderson-Clutz - mandclu.com mandclu
Baddý Sonja Breidert - 1xINTERNET baddysonja

MOTW

Correspondent

Martin Anderson-Clutz - mandclu.com mandclu

• Brief description:
  • Have you ever wanted to expose your Drupal site’s data as JSON using view modes, formatters, blocks, and more? There’s a module for that.
• Module name/project name:
  • https://www.drupal.org/project/transform_api
  • Transform API
• Brief history
  • How old: created in Sep 2023 by LupusGr3y, aka Martin Giessing of Denmark
  • Versions available: 1.1.0-beta4 and 1.0.2 versions available, both of which work with Drupal 9 and 10
• Maintainership
  • Actively maintained, in fact the latest commit was earlier today
  • Security coverage
  • Documentation: in-depth README and a full user guide
  • Number of open issues: 14 open issues, 3 of which are bugs, but none against the current branch
• Usage stats:
  • 2 sites
• Module features and usage
  • After installing Transform API, you should be able to get the JSON for any entities on your site by adding “format=json” as a parameter to the URL
  • To get more fields exposed as JSON, you can configure a Transform mode, using a Field UI configuration very similar to view modes
  • You can also add transform blocks to globally include specific data in all transformed URLs, in the same way you would use normal blocks to show information on your entity pages. The output of transform blocks is segmented into regions,
  • Where Drupal’s standard engine produces render arrays that ultimately become HTML, Transform API replaces it with an engine that produces Transform Arrays that will ultimately become JSON
  • Where Drupal’s standard JSON:API supports more or less exposes all information as raw data for the front end to format, Transform API allows for more of the formatting to be managed on the back end, where it will use Drupal’s standard caching mechanisms, permission-based access, and more
  • Transform API also supports lazy transformers, which are callbacks that will be called after caching but before the JSON response is sent
  • You can also use alter hooks to manipulate the transformed data

Today we are talking about Next.js, what it is, and how to integrate it with Drupal with guest John Albin Wilkins. We’ll also cover Next.js Webform as our module of the week.

For show notes visit:
www.talkingDrupal.com/458

Topics

• What is Next.js
• What kind of server do you need
• How is it used on the web
• Does it only work on react based systems
• Why would someone want to integrate with Drupal
• When changes are made in the content how do you update the app
• On the module page there are a lot of references to Preview, is this something Next does well
• What is server side rendering
• How does Next work with menus and views
• Any preference on the api for json api vs graphql
• Performance
• Editorial experience
• Responsive images
• Will Drupal ever ship with a headless front end
• Winner of the TPOTM

Resources

• Next.js
• Next.js Wikipedia
• Next.js Webform Tutorial
• Example Next.js template to render an arbitrary webform
• Decoupled Menus Initiative
• FormDazzle
• Trival Patch of the Month
• https://www.drupal.org/project/drupal/issues/258089
• Flexinode

Guests

John Albin Wilkins - john.albin.net JohnAlbin

Hosts

Nic Laflin - nLighteneddevelopment.com nicxvan
John Picozzi - epam.com johnpicozzi
Baddý Sonja Breidert - 1xINTERNET baddysonja

MOTW

Correspondent

Martin Anderson-Clutz - mandclu.com mandclu

• Brief description:
  • Have you ever wanted to build a webform in Drupal and have the corresponding Next.js template automatically created for you? There’s a Next.js library for that.
• Module name/project name:
  • Next.js Webform
• Brief history
  • How old: created in Aug 2022 by Lauri Timmanee (lauriii), who listeners may know as the Drupal Core Product Manager, and one of the people leading the Starshot initiative
  • Versions available: 1.1.1
• Maintainership
  • Test coverage
  • Documentation - Lengthy README and a tutorial on the Acquia Dev Portal
  • Number of open issues: 17 open issues, 3 of which are bugs
• Usage stats:
  • 2,246 weekly downloads according to npmjs.com
• Module features and usage
  • Using this library does require some setup on the Drupal side, including installing the Webform and Webform REST modules. There’s also an extra patch to install if you want to use any autocomplete fields, and some configuration needed for both the REST resources that will be used to exchange data, and the permissions for the account that will be used to retrieve and submit data
  • Out of the box, the library supports over 40 webform components, but you can also provide custom elements if you need something additional. The library also supports conditional logic, so fields can show or hide in the Next.js front end based on conditions defined in your Drupal backend
  • The library also provides front-end validation for email confirmation, date list, and datetime fields, but back end validation is also processed for every submission
  • There is a crowded field of headless CMS competitors, but I thought this library is a good example of the extra power and flexibility you get by using a robust, open source CMS like Drupal as the back end in your headless architecture

Today we are talking about Drupal Architecture, Common Site Building questions, and How we solve things with Drupal with guest Alexander Varwijk. We’ll also cover Drupal 10.3 as our module of the week.

For show notes visit:
www.talkingDrupal.com/457

Topics

• Where do you start when thinking about a new site or feature.
• Where is the line for extending vs forking
• Do you have solutions that you default to when building a feature
• Do you find people come to Drupal with specific third party requirements
• What do you think about Headless
• When do you choose to contribute a new module to Drupal
• Will recipes change your architecture
• How do you learn about new ways of doing things
• Where did you get your username, are you the king of the Netherlands

Resources

• Drupal Core Issues to split "Site builder" functionality into more granular chunks
  • "Administer Users" permission should be separate from "Administer Account Settings"
  • Enabling "List User" without "Administer Users"
• Fibers for concurrency in core (and the Revolt Event Loop)
• Change records for Drupal 10.3
• Bigpipe to Revolt
• ChatGPT / CKEditor Issue
• Config update issue
• Issue for update hook divergence
• Tinode
  • A free, unlimited, and flexible open source messaging platform that’s been built mobile-first
• View transitions api
• Change in supported versions for the Open Social distribution

Guests

Alexander Varwijk - alexandervarwijk.com Kingdutch

Hosts

Nic Laflin - nLighteneddevelopment.com nicxvan
John Picozzi - epam.com johnpicozzi
Baddý Sonja Breidert - 1xINTERNET baddysonja

MOTW

Correspondent

Martin Anderson-Clutz - mandclu.com mandclu

• Brief description:
  • Have you been wanting to use Workspaces, Single Directory Components, Recipes, or the new admin menu in your Drupal site? The new Drupal 10.3 release is better for using all of these and more.
• Module name/project name:
  • Drupal 10.3
• Brief history
  • How old: It was tagged on Jun 20 by catch of Tag1 and Third & Grove
• Features and usage
  • In this new minor version, Workspaces is now declared stable, and Single Directory Components are now fully integrated into core, instead of being in an experimental module.
  • Drupal 10.3 also includes the new Access Policy API that was funded as part of the Pitchburgh process kicked off at DrupalCon Pittsburgh
  • The “super user” access policy that automatically grants user 1 every permission can now be turned off in services.yml
  • Also, Recipes and the new Navigation menu are available as experimental features
  • The Actions UI, Book, and Statistics modules are deprecated, and contrib projects are available
  • Install profiles can now be uninstalled, and new sites can be installed without any profile at all
  • 10.3 also includes a revision UI for taxonomy terms, and they can also be used with content moderation
  • All core-provided image styles now include WebP conversion
  • The state service now uses a cache collector for performance, which requires opt in within settings.php for existing sites
  • There are other performance improvements, including: POST requests are now render cacheable, duplicate queries during logins are avoided, and big pipe requests now avoid reading session from the database multiple times
  • With 10.3 developer can also make use of a new AJAX command to open a URL in a dialog, and a new DraggableListBuilderTrait, among a host of other changes
  • Of course, there are some additional deprecations, so the Project Update Bot has already been busy creating new MRs

Today we are talking about DDEV, The DDEV Community, and It’s Future Sustainability with guest Randy Fay and Andrew Berry. We’ll also cover DDEV Drupal Contrib as our module of the week.

For show notes visit:
www.talkingDrupal.com/456

Topics

• What is DDEV
• In March you posted the DDEV Project Plan for 2024, what is the contributor training initiative
• DDEV has grown rapidly over the past few years, what do you attribute that to
• You seem to be the face of DDEV, who else is involved
• How is DDEV funded
• What happens when you retire
• Does the DDEV Foundation have employees
• What is DDEV coded in
• What is your favorite feature of DDEV
• What is next
• How can people get involved

Resources

• DDEV Project 2024 Plans
• DDEV Contributor Live Training
• Scheduling and signup
• DDEV Discord
• Nerdsniping XKCD Comic
• Level one learning xz utils

Guests

Andrew Berry - deviantintegral

Hosts

Nic Laflin - nLighteneddevelopment.com nicxvan
John Picozzi - epam.com johnpicozzi
Randy Fay - rfay

MOTW

Correspondent

Martin Anderson-Clutz - mandclu.com mandclu

• Brief description:
  • Have you ever wanted a local DDEV environment optimized for working on a Drupal contrib project? There’s a DDEV add-on for that.
• Module name/project name:
  • DDEV Drupal Contrib
• Brief history
  • How old: created in Apr 2023 by Moshe Weitzman, a Drupal core maintainer, and according to his resume the first American to contribute to Drupal
  • Versions available: 1.0.0-rc8
• Maintainership
  • Actively maintained
  • Test coverage
  • Documentation - Lengthy README
  • Number of open issues: 2 open issues, 1 of which is a bug
• Module features and usage
  • The add-on adds two ddev commands to help during setup:
  • ddev poser creates a temporary composer.contrib.json, adding drupal/core-recommended as a dev dependency. It also runs composer install and yarn install so that all dependencies are available
  • The additional ddev symlink-project command adds symlinks from your project files to an expected path within the custom modules directory of the installed version of Drupal
  • Once it’s set up, you can easily run tests locally exactly the way they will be run in GitlabCI. It’s also even easier to apply any of the automatic fixes that are available, for example by running ddev phpcbf or ddev eslint with the –fix flag
  • You can also commit the generated .ddev directory inside your project, to make it easy for other contributors to use the same tools
  • I will note that after running ddev poser I got errors trying to use composer to add any other projects to the local environment, for example to use admin toolbar for manual testing
  • That said, this is another great example of how the set of Drupal developer tools is always improving, and also illustrates to the power of DDEV’s add-ons

Today we are talking about AI Tips for Drupal Devs, AI Best Practices, and Drupal Droid with guest Mike Miles. We’ll also cover AI interpolator as our module of the week.

For show notes visit:
www.talkingDrupal.com/455

Topics

• Top 5 tips
  • Idea Generation (Ideation)
  • Code Generation
  • Debugging
  • Content Generation
  • Technical Explanations
• How do you suggest people use AI for Ideation
• Is MIT Sloan using AI to help with Drupal Development
• Does that code get directly inserted into your sites
• What are some common pitfalls
• Is your team using AI for debugging
• Any best practices you have found helping when working with AI
• Is MIT Sloan using AI for content generation
• What is an example of how you use AI for technical explanations
• What is your view ont he future of AI in Drupal, do you think AI will replace Drupal developers

Resources

• Drupal Droid
• Talking Drupal - Drupal Droid
• Workflows of ai
• AI guidelines
  • https://ist.mit.edu/ai-guidance
  • https://mitsloanedtech.mit.edu/ai/
• Using AI as a Development Tool
• Drupal Starshot: Delivering on a promise to Ambitious Site Builders

Guests

Michael Miles - mike-miles.com mikemiles86

Hosts

Nic Laflin - nLighteneddevelopment.com nicxvan
John Picozzi - epam.com johnpicozzi
Randy Fay - rfay

MOTW

Correspondent

Martin Anderson-Clutz - mandclu.com mandclu

• Brief description:
  • Have you ever wanted to use AI to help populate entity fields that were left blank by Drupal content authors? There’s a module for that.
• Module name/project name:
  • AI Interpolator
• Brief history
  • How old: created in Sep 2023 by Marcus Johansson of FreelyGive
  • Versions available: 1.0.0-rc4
• Maintainership
  • Actively maintained, recent release in the past month
  • Security coverage - opted in, needs stable release
  • Test coverage
  • Documentation - User guide
  • Number of open issues: 18 open issues, none of which are a bugs
• Usage stats:
  • 94 sites
• Module features and usage
  • In scientific fields, interpolation is the process of using known data to extrapolate or estimate unknown data points. In a similar way this module helps your Drupal site provide values for fields that didn’t receive input, based on the information that was provided.
  • Fundamentally Interpolator AI provides a framework and an API, and then relies on companion modules for processing, either by leveraging third-party services like AI LLMs, or PHP-based scripting.
  • There are existing integrations with a variety of AI services, including OpenAI, Dreamstudio, Hugging Face, and more.
  • You can add retrievers to help extract and normalize the content you’re processing, for example photos from an external site, and other tools to help normalize and optimize content and media, and optimize any prompts you will be using with AI services.
  • You can also extend the workflow capabilities of AI Interpolator, for example using the popular and powerful ECA module that we’ve talked about before on this show.

Today we are talking about Drupal’s API Client, What it does, and why you might need it with guest Brian Perry. We’ll also cover Iconify Icons as our module of the week.

For show notes visit:
www.talkingDrupal.com/454

Topics

• Brian what is new with you!
• Elevator pitch for Drupal API Client
• What was Pitchburg like
• Is this a normalizer for JSON API
• Why is this JS framework agnostic
• What is typescript and how does Drupal API Client use it
• Looking at the quick start guide the second step is to create an instance, where do you do that
• Who is this module for
• Will Drupal API Client be added to core
• What is on the roadmap
• How does this relate to Chapter Three and Next.js
• What is the spin up time
• How will Starshot impact this

Resources

• API Client
• API Client Quick Start
• NPM Packages
• Ideas Queue Issue - Promote API client packages to Drupal NPM namespace
• Drupal at your Fingertips
• Open collective
• JSON API Schema

Guests

Brian Perry - brianperry.dev brianperry

Hosts

Nic Laflin - nLighteneddevelopment.com nicxvan
John Picozzi - epam.com johnpicozzi
Randy Fay - rfay

MOTW

Correspondent

Martin Anderson-Clutz - mandclu.com mandclu

• Brief description:
  • Have you ever wanted to empower your content creators to place icons from a massive, open source library into your Drupal site? There’s a module for that.
• Module name/project name:
  • Iconify Icons
• Brief history
  • How old: created on May 22 of this year, so less than two weeks ago, by David Galeano (gxleano) of Factorial
  • Versions available: 1.0.0 which supports Drupal 9.3 or newer, right up to Drupal 11
• Maintainership
  • Actively maintained
  • Security coverage
  • Test coverage
  • Documentation
  • Number of open issues: 2 open issues, neither of which are bugs
• Usage stats:
  • 1 site
• Module features and usage
  • Out of the box the module provides both a CKEditor button for placing icons, and a new field type. It even provides a new form element that can be used in custom forms, a render element you can use to programmatically put an icon into something like a custom block, and a Twig extension that can be used to place icons in templates.
  • According to the project page, the Iconify icon library includes more than 200,000 icons, though in my limited experimentation it seems like there are some duplicates between icon sets. Speaking of which, Iconify provides over 150 different icon sets, and in this module’s configuration you can specify which ones you want to be available on your site.
  • Placing an icon is as simple as using an autocomplete to search the names of the icons available, and a preview is shown for each of the matches found.
  • The field widget and the CKEditor button both give content creators options for what size and color to use for the icons. For myself I’d prefer to lock some of those options down (for example, make that part of the field’s display configuration instead), but I’m sure that could be added as part of a different widget.
  • I can think of a few Drupal sites I’ve built where this would have been really handy, so I’m interested to play around with this module some more, and see how it evolves.

Today we are talking about Violinist.io, Managing Composer Dependencies, and automation with guest Eirik Morland. We’ll also cover Composer Patches as our module of the week.

For show notes visit:
www.talkingDrupal.com/443
Topics

• What is Violinist.io
• How does it work
• How much technical knowledge do you need
• Is this a security risk
• How much does it cost
• Patron question: Peter: Difference between violinist and dependabot
• What are the major differences in plans
• Who is the ideal user
• Can you self host
• Can this help with Drupal 11 readiness
• Complementary tools
• Notable users
• Why did you start this
• What is it like using Drupal for a SAAS
• Is it open source
• Pros and cons of open source for a SAAS
• How can the community support
• What is on the roadmap

Resources

• Violinist.io
• Violinist on D.o

Guests

    Eirik Morland - violinist.io eiriksm

Hosts

Nic Laflin - nLighteneddevelopment.com nicxvan
Martin Anderson-Clutz - mandclu.com mandclu
Anna Mykhailova - kalamuna.com amykhailova

MOTW
Correspondent

Martin Anderson-Clutz - mandclu

• Brief description:
• Have you ever wanted a simple way to manage patches to Drupal core and your contrib projects? There’s a composer plugin for that
• Module name/project name:
• https://github.com/cweagans/composer-patches
• Composer Patches
• Brief history
• How old:created in Apr 2015 by Cameron Weagans
• Versions available: 1.7.3 and 2.0.0-beta2
• Maintainership
• Actively maintained, beta2 release was a little over a month ago
• Test coverage
• Has a documentation site, as well as a COMMANDS markdown file in the repo to help you get started
• Number of open issues: 10, 2 of which are bugs
• Usage stats:
• It’s been installed over 42 million times and it’s approaching 43 thousand installs per day, according to a recent blog post
• Module features and usage
• Using the plugin is simple, you require cweagans/composer-patches the same way you would a Drupal contrib project. The important difference is that composer will ask you if you trust composer-patches to make changes to your codebase. Once you grant that, the plugin is ready to start applying patches
• You can specify what patches you want applied by adding a patches section to the extra section of your project’s composer.json file, or by adding a patches.json file
• Each patch can be specified using a URL or a path relative to the JSON file
• In theory it’s possible to have composer patches pulled directly from the diff in a merge request, but this is a significant security risk and should always be avoided
• The first beta release for the 2.0 branch actually dropped support for dependency patch resolution, noting that it had become the source of most support requests. In the end the community made it clear that they would resist upgrading without this capability, so the most recent beta2 release adds it back in.
•     Finally, on his website cweagans.net Cameron mentions that he’s currently looking for full-time employment. So if your organization relies heavily on composer in general or composer-patches specifically, consider reaching out to him

Today we are talking about Mercury Editor, What it does, and how it could change your editorial life with guest Justin Toupin. We’ll also cover Webform Protected Downloads as our module of the week.

For show notes visit:
www.talkingDrupal.com/442

Topics

• What is Mercury Editor
• What is powering Mercury Editor
• Do you see any risk building on top of Paragraphs
• Does Mercury Editor cost anything
• Can companies hire Aten to add features
• What are some key features
• What makes Mercury Editor unique
• How stable is the content
• What happens if Paragraphs stops being supported
• How can the community help

Resources

• Mercury Editor
• Layout Paragraphs Episode
• Layout Paragraphs
• Paragraphs Library
  • Sub-module of Paragraphs
• Style options
• Layout Paragraphs restrictions

Guests

Justin Toupin - atendesigngroup.com justin2pin

Hosts

Nic Laflin - nLighteneddevelopment.com nicxvan
John Picozzi - epam.com johnpicozzi
Anna Mykhailova - kalamuna.com amykhailova

MOTW

Correspondent

Martin Anderson-Clutz - mandclu

• Brief description:
  • Have you ever wanted to have downloadable content on your website, only available to visitors who have filled out a webform? There’s a module for that.
• Module name/project name:
  • Webform Protected Downloads
• Brief history
  • How old: created in Sep 2010 by berliner, but the most recent releases are by james.williams of Computer Minds
  • Versions available: 7.x-1.1 and 8.x-1.0-alpha2 versions available, the latter of which works with Drupal 9 and 10
• Maintainership
  • Actively maintained, the latest release was a week ago
  • Security coverage
  • Introductory blog linked on the project page
  • Number of open issues: 18 open issues, none of which are bugs against the current branch
• Usage stats:
  • 804 sites
• Module features and usage
  • Having thought leadership content like white papers or reports gated behind a lead capture form is a common pattern for websites, and this module is designed to make that easy to set up
  • You use the module by adding a handler to your webform, similar to triggering an email send
  • In the configuration for your webform protected download handler you have options for how much verification you want for the download link, whether or not the link should expire after a period of time, and so on, in addition to uploading one or more files that can be downloaded by people who submit the webform
  • The module provides tokens for the download URLs, so you can easily include them in a submission confirmation message or email

Welcome back to “Skills Upgrade” a Talking Drupal mini-series following the journey of a D7 developer learning D10. This is episode 2.

Topics

• Review Chad's goals for the previous week
  • DDEV Installation
  • Docker for Mac vs other options
  • IDE Setup
• Review Chad's questions
• Tasks for the upcoming week
  • DDEV improve performance
  • Install Drupal 10
  • Install drupal/core dependencies
  • Configure and test phpcs
  • Test phpstan
  • Set up settings.local.php
  • Install devel module

Resources

DDEV Performance
DDEV Quickstart
Drupal Core Dependencies
How to Implement Drupal Code Standards
Running PHPStan On Drupal Custom Modules

Why you should care about using settings.local.php
Rancher Desktop

Chad's Drupal 10 Learning Curriclum & Journal
Chad's Drupal 10 Learning Notes

Hosts

AmyJune Hineline - @volkswagenchick

Guests

Chad Hester - chadkhester.com @chadkhest
Mike Anello - DrupalEasy.com @ultimike

Today we are talking about CI for Drupal modules, How it helps us build Drupal, and the ongoing work and improvements being made with guest Fran Garcia-Linares. We’ll also cover Require on Publish as our module of the week.

For show notes visit:
www.talkingDrupal.com/441

Topics

• What does CI mean
• How do Drupal modules use CI
• When we talk about Drupal CI are we talking about the website itself or the CI that supports contributors
• What tools does Drupal use for CI
• How do maintainers interact with CI
• What changes have happened in the last year
• Speed improvements
• Drupal CI vs Gitlab CI
• Process to convert
• When is Drupal CI being shut down
• What improvements are coming
• If someone has an issue where do they get help

Resources

• Gitlab templates module
• Gitlab CI Drupal
• Support ElasticSearch 8 [#3279558] | Drupal.org
• Slack channel for ci questions #gitlab
• DrupalCI and all patch testing will be turned off on July 1, 2024 | Drupal.org
• Testing a Drupal module | Basic module building tutorial: Lorem ipsum generator
• Gitlab CI getting started
  • GitLab CI | Using GitLab to Contribute to Drupal
  • WIP:
    • Create a space to document how to customize each of the GitLab CI jobs [#3423238] | Drupal.org will generate https://project.pages.drupalcode.org/gitlab_templates/
    • We are pushing for a basic version to be fully live this week
• [Meta] Switching to Gitlab CI [#3424725] | Drupal.org

Guests

Fran Garcia-Linares - fjgarlin

Hosts

Nic Laflin - nLighteneddevelopment.com nicxvan
Stephen Cross - stephencross.com stephencross
Anna Mykhailova - kalamuna.com amykhailova

MOTW

Correspondent

Martin Anderson-Clutz - mandclu

• Brief description:
  • Have you ever wanted to have content fields that could be optional until a piece of content is published, or ready to be published? There’s a module for that.
• Module name/project name:
  • Require on Publish
• Brief history
  • How old: created in Apr 2018 by Mike Priscella (mpriscella), though recent releases are by Mark Dorison (markdorison) of Chromatic
  • Versions available: 8.x-1.10
• Maintainership
  • Actively maintained, latest release just over a month ago
  • Security coverage
  • Test coverage
  • Number of open issues: 18, 8 of which are bugs
• Usage stats:
  • 3,001 sites
• Module features and usage
  • With this module enabled, form to configure fields for you content types will have a new checkbox labeled “Required on Publish”
  • Check this new box instead of the normal “Required field” checkbox to have the field only required if the content is being published or already published
  • Useful for publishing workflows where you want content creators to be able to quickly get started on content, but ensure that fields will be filled in before publishing
  • Useful for fields that will optimize the content for SEO, social sharing, search, and so on

This is the first episode of Skills Upgrade, a Talking Drupal mini-series following the journey of a Drupal 7 developer learning Drupal 10.

Topics

• Chad and Mike's first meeting
• Chad's Background
• Chad's goals
• Tasks for the week

Resources

Chad's Drupal 10 Learning Curriclum & Journal
Chad's Drupal 10 Learning Notes

Hosts

AmyJune Hineline - @volkswagenchick

Guests

Chad Hester - chadkhester.com @chadkhest
Mike Anello - DrupalEasy.com @ultimike

Today we are talking about the cost around Drupal, common misconceptions, and how you get what you pay for with guest Jeff Robbins. We’ll also cover Module Instructions as our module of the week.

For show notes visit:
www.talkingDrupal.com/440

Topics

• What is new!
• How did you get started with Drupal
• Selling Drupal and the cost
• How much is the technology vs the complexity of projects that lend themselves to Drupal
• Value of Drupal
• What can the Drupal community do to make it more widely attractive
• Versionless Drupal marketing

Resources

• Drupal.org README.md Documentation
• Drupal versioning discussion
• Talking Drupal #390 - Employee Owned Companies
• Talking Drupal #429 - The Drupal Association Board
• Talking Drupal #439 - Drupal 7 Long-Term Support
• Visibox
• Jeff Robbins
• MySQL
• PHP

Guests

Jeff Robbins - jjeff.com jjeff

Hosts

Nic Laflin - nLighteneddevelopment.com nicxvan
John Picozzi - epam.com johnpicozzi
Ivan Stegic - ten7.com ivanstegic

MOTW

Correspondent

Martin Anderson-Clutz - mandclu

• Brief description:
  • Have you ever wanted to have easy access to the README, CHANGELOG, and INSTALL files for the contrib modules on your Drupal site? There’s a module for that.
• Module name/project name:
  • Module Instructions
• Brief history
  • How old: created in Apr 2012 by Ales Rebec of Slovenia
  • Versions available: 7.x-1.0 and 2.0.3 versions available, the latter of which works with Drupal 9 and 10
• Maintainership
  • Actively maintained?
  • Security coverage
  • Test coverage
  • Number of open issues: 4 open issues, none of which are bugs against the 2.0.x branch
• Usage stats:
  • 1,238 sites
• Maintainer(s):
  • Current maintainer of the 2.0.x branch is Viktor Holovachek a.k.a Aston Victor of the Ukraine Drupal Community
• Module features and usage
  • The usage of the module is pretty straightforward. Once the module is installed, anyone who has access to the Modules page on a Drupal site will see links on that page to any README, CHANGELOG, or INSTALL files that are available for the contrib modules in the codebase
  • It also provides a cron job and drush command to generate the links, stored in the site state, so the application isn’t doing all the work of parsing through all your contrib modules looking for the files every time someone wants to load the Modules page
  • It does override the template for the module page to add those links, so be aware that if you’re doing something very custom and have overridden that template in something like a custom admin theme, you may need to manually add some extra markup to see the links
  • The module does also define new permissions, to manage the settings for these links, or to view them
  • The settings really consist of specifying which of the links you want to appear, if the relevant files are available. By default it will show all three, but you could, for example, only have it show README links

Today we are talking about Drupal 7 Long Term Support, common security tips, and support services you can use with guests Greg Knaddison, Aaron Frost, and Dave Welch . We’ll also cover Storybook as our module of the week.

For show notes visit:
www.talkingDrupal.com/439

Topics

• Drupal 7 EoL
• Drupal will not stop working
• Security team perspective
• Security concerns
• Extened Community Support
• Long Term support
• HeroDevs
• Never ending support (NES)
  • PHP
  • Hosting
  • Security
  • Contrib
• Product advisor
• Colorado Digital Service

Resources

• herodevs.com
• Colorado Digital Service

Guests

Greg Knaddison - morrisanimalfoundation.org greggles
Aaron Frost - herodevs.com aaronfrost
Dave Welch - herodevs.com dwelch2344

Hosts

Nic Laflin - nLighteneddevelopment.com nicxvan
John Picozzi - epam.com johnpicozzi
Ivan Stegic - ten7.com ivanstegic

MOTW

Correspondent

Mark Casias - markie

• Module name/project name:
  • Storybook
• Brief description:
  • The storybook module makes it easier to create a connection between Drupal and Storybook. It adds some Twig functionality so you can write Stories in Twig as opposed to YML or JSON or React
• Brief history
  • How old: Less than a year
  • Versions available: Alpha4 came out earlier this month
• Maintainership
  • Actively maintained: Yes
  • Number of open issues: 6
  • Test coverage: no
• Usage stats:
  • N/A: for development only
  • Maintainer(s):
  • Mateu Aguiló Bosch (e0ipso) from Lullabot.
  • Module features and usage
  • Twig based stories
  • Pulls in Sites theme and base css.
  • So needs some updates to the development.services.yml
  • Also means it is hard to publish a storybook.
  • No need for SDC (but works well with it)
  • Great instructions on the module page
  • Way easier than previous integrations including cl_server.
  • Not as opinionated as previous storybook integrations.

Today we are talking about CKEditor 4 End of Life, Moving to CKEditor 5, and what you can expect from CKEditor 5 now and in the future with guest Wim Leers. We’ll also cover CKEditor 5 Premium Features as our module of the week.

For show notes visit:
www.talkingDrupal.com/438

Topics

• CKEditor 4 end of life June 2023
• Issues people might see if they are still on CKE4
• Why a third party library and not roll our own
• Are there other alternatives
• Why did Drupal decide on CKEditor
• Drupal 10 moved to CKE5 How should people update
• Upgrade gotchas
• What's new in CKE5
• What is on the roadmap regarding Drupal and CKE5
• Is there going to be a CKE6
• Native Web Components
• Does CKE in core affect Gutenberg

Resources

• CKEditor 4 End Of Life
  • Contrib
  • Core, prioritized upstream blockers
  • Core, all issues blocked on upstream (currently 29), if we look just at bugs there's 17 (1 of which is critical, 6 major)
• Drastically improve the linking experience in CKEditor 5
• Drupal Image ability to opt in to SVG image uploads
• Native <ol type> and <ul type> UX
  • https://www.drupal.org/project/drupal/issues/3274635
• Extended html filter
• Views / ckeditor custom elements

Guests

Wim Leers - wimleers.com Wim Leers

Hosts

Nic Laflin - nLighteneddevelopment.com nicxvan
John Picozzi - epam.com johnpicozzi
Ivan Stegic - ten7.com ivanstegic

MOTW

Correspondent

Martin Anderson-Clutz - mandclu

• Brief description:
  • Have you ever wanted to offer your content creators advanced capabilities like real-time collaboration? There’s a module for that.
• Module name/project name:
  • CKEditor 5 Premium Features
• Brief history
  • How old: created in Sep 2022 by Wiktor Walc, although recent releases are by Wojciech (vOYchekh) Kukowski, both of CKSource, the company behind CKEditor (Wiktor was on episode 372 https://talkingdrupal.com/372)
  • Current version available: 1.2.5 which works with Drupal 9 and 10
• Maintainership
  • Actively maintained, latest release in the past month
  • User Guide available, link is in the README
  • Number of open issues: 16, 8 of which are bugs
• Usage stats:
  • 159 sites
• Module features and usage
  • To me, the most compelling features enabled by this module are the ones that turn your Drupal WYSIWYG into a robust collaboration tool, similar to what users may be used to in tools like Google Docs or Office 365
  • Real-time inline comments and changes from multiple users
  • Track changes to suggest ways the content could be improved
  • A history of changes made in the WYSIWYG, independent of the saved Drupal revisions
  • Tag users with @ mentions to have them notified
  • There’s also a Productivity Pack to enhance your WYSIWYG, and again some of these will be familiar to users that also use popular online collaboration tools
  • A document outline that uses heading within your content to make navigation for moving quickly within the document
  • Can generate a linked Table of Contents, which will automatically update as headings are added or changed
  • Slash commands to execute actions
  • Enhanced Paste from Office, to preserve complex incoming content structures, but with clean HTML as the result
  • And more!
  • Another premium feature is the ability to export to Word or PDF, and it can also restore full screen editing, a feature that didn’t make the transition from CKEditor 4 to 5, as part of the open source offering
  • Finally, it also includes an AI Assistant that provides yet another interesting way to empower your content authors to leverage AI tools for their writing, including the ability to change the style, length, or tone of selected content using pre-made prompts, or generate content with custom queries. It also works with a number of different models out of the box, so you’re not restricted to ChatGPT
  • The module is open source but using these premium features does require a subscription. The pricing will depend on the number of active users and which features you need, so if you’d like more information you can use the contact form at ckeditor.com
  • Also worth mentioning here that the team at Palantir has released a YouTube video of an open source collaborative editor that they’re calling Edit Together. It’s based on the ProseMirror rich-text editor framework, and the blog where they announced it mentioned a mid-2024 release, but that was back in Jul 2023 and I haven’t been able to find any updates since then

Today we are talking about sending email with Drupal, The Easy Email Module, and Drupal Mail Best Practices with guest Wayne Eaker. We’ll also cover Content Access by Path as our module of the week.

For show notes visit:
www.talkingDrupal.com/437

Topics

• Current state of email
• What happened to swiftmailer
• Do you still need the mailsystem module
• Why Symfony Mailer
• New dependency in core
• Difference between Symfony Mailer module and the Symfony Mailer Lite module
• How does the Easy email module make it easier
• What are the features of Easy Email
• Why not use PHP mail
• JMAP
• Do you have a roadmap
• How do we communicate the different module options
• Are you looking for help

Resources

• Easy Email Module
• Symfony Mailer Lite Module
• Symfony Mailer Module
• Mail System Module
• hook_mail replacement issue
• Swiftmailer / Symfony mailer issue
• JMAP
• FastMail
• Free Easy Email Webinar

Guests

Wayne Eaker - drupaltutor.com zengenuity

Hosts

Nic Laflin - nLighteneddevelopment.com nicxvan
John Picozzi - epam.com johnpicozzi
Ivan Stegic - ten7.com ivanstegic

MOTW

Correspondent

Martin Anderson-Clutz - mandclu

• Brief description:
  • Have you ever wanted to grant users access to edit content based on the path alias of the content? There’s a module for that.
• Module name/project name:
  • Content Access by Path
• Brief history
  • How old: created in the past month by Mark Conroy of Annertech, who is also a core subsystem maintainer for the Umami profile
  • Versions available: a stable 1.0.0, created in the past week, that works with Drupal 10
• Maintainership
  • Actively maintained
  • Doesn’t have a user guide yet, but the module’s README does include some FAQs, and the project page includes a link to a YouTube video that demonstrates how to install and use the module
  • Number of open issues: 2, one of which is a bug
• Usage stats:
  • 2 sites
• Module features and usage
  • When installed, the module adds a new taxonomy vocabulary to your site. You can add terms to this vocabulary to define sections by path
  • Users on the site will have a new field, where you can reference one or more of the section terms, granting the user access to edit any content with a path that matches the section
  • The module also includes a submodule called Content Access by Path Admin Content. When installed, users who go to the admin/content listing will only see content listed that they can edit, based on either the sections they’ve been assigned, or their ownership of the content.
  • Granting edit permissions to a “section” of the website is a common ask for site owners, so I’m excited that this module makes it easy to set that up. There are solutions in the contrib ecosystem based on taxonomy for access control, and back in episode #414 we talked about Access Policy as a very flexible way to grant edit permissions, but in my mind those all require more set-up, and may require an extra step during content creation to make sure the right access is available. Content Access by Path, along with something like the near-ubiquitous Pathauto, can make it pretty painless to set up and use section-specific edit permissions

Today we are talking about AI within Drupal, How AI can help, and Modules to use with guest Martin Anderson-Clutz. We’ll also cover Augmentor AI as our module of the week.

For show notes visit:
www.talkingDrupal.com/436

Topics

• Terminology
• IMF analysis
• Prompt engineering
• AI in Drupal
• Best way to try modules
• Best use of AI
• Other ways of integrating

Resources

• Augmentor AI
• Open AI
• Prompt Engineering: Get the Most From Your Drupal Site's AI Integration
• Terminology
  • NLP - work with text provided in a conversational format, understand the intended meaning, and provide a relevant response
  • AI - A subset of CS that aims to develop systems that can mimic human response, or automating sophisticated behavior
  • ML - subset of AI that aims to act without explicit guidance, by extrapolating from known data
  • Deep learning - a subset of ML which uses artificial neural networks with representational learning to develop and leverage their own means of classification and other feature detection
  • LLM - an AI algorithm that uses Deep Learning techniques to accomplish NLP tasks such as responding to unstructured user prompts. LLMs are trained on massive data sets, often gathered from the internet, but sometimes using more specialized data
  • Typically the AI interfaces our listeners are already using are based on an LLM, but the nature and recency of the data they’ve been trained on can vary widely. Recently Mike Miles created Drupal Droid, a GPT model specifically trained for Drupal developers, and you can find a demo of that in our YouTube channel
• Mike Miles Drupal Droid
• AI module list
• OpenAI Image
• Search API Pinecone
• TMGMT Translator OpenAI

Guests

Martin Anderson-Clutz - mandclu

Hosts

Nic Laflin - nLighteneddevelopment.com nicxvan
John Picozzi - epam.com johnpicozzi

MOTW

Correspondent

Martin Anderson-Clutz - mandclu
Augmentor AI

• Brief description:
  • Have you ever wanted a highly configurable way to integrate multiple AI services with your Drupal site? There’s a module for that.
• Brief history
  • How old: created in Oct 2022 by murrayw of Morpht, though recent releases are by elonel
  • Versions available: 1.1.2 which works with Drupal 9.5 and 10
• Maintainership
  • Actively maintained, most recent release was earlier this month
  • Documentation available
  • Number of open issues: 11, 3 of which are bugs
• Usage stats:
  • 82 sites
• Module features and usage
  • To use Augmentor AI, you need to define one or more “augmentor” configuration entities. An augmenter entity implements an augmentor type, which determines what AI service it can use, what configuration options it will have available, and so on.
  • The augmentor will define one or more “messages” that provide structure to the prompt that will be passed to the AI model in order to generate a response. It can also be configured in a variety of ways, such as how much randomness to use, a maximum response length, and more.
  • You can expose your augmentor(s) to content creators by adding a CKEditor button, or by adding fields to your site’s entity forms. For each field use can choose the widget to use, and how it should interact with any existing data in the field you want to target.
  • For example, you could have it generate a summary from your body field and have it automatically populate the summary field. Or, you can have it suggest tags, but the specialized widget renders each suggestion as a clickable element that will add the tag to a core tag field.
  • There are currently modules available to integrate Augmentor AI with ChatGPT, Google Cloud Vision, AWS AI, and more.

Today we are talking about web design and development, from a group of people with one thing in common… We love Drupal. This is episode #435 UI Suite initiative.

For show notes visit:
www.talkingDrupal.com/435

Topics

• Elevator Pitch
• What do you mean by implementing design systems
• Is this to thel themers or site builders
• What is the expected outcome
• The project page says initiative, but this is not on the community initiatives page, is this an intitiative
• How does this implement public design systems
• Does this work with Single Directory Components
• Youtube Channel
• Getting involved
• Roadmap
• Use cases
• Do you see this going into core

Resources

• UI Suite Initiative
• UI Suite YouTube
• UI Suite Slack

Guests

Pierre Dureau - LinkedIn pdureau

Hosts

Nic Laflin - nLighteneddevelopment.com nicxvan
John Picozzi - epam.com johnpicozzi

MOTW

Correspondent

Chris Wells - chrisfromredfin

• Brief description:
  • Have you ever wanted simple but accessible dropdown navigation on your Drupal website? There’s a module for that.
• Module name/project name:
  • Disclosure Menu
• Brief history
  • How old: created in Nov 2022 by Jay Huskins of Redfin Solutions
  • Versions available: 2.1.5 which works with Drupal 9 and 10
• Maintainership
  • Actively maintained, most recent commit is less than a month ago
  • No Test coverage at this point
  • Documentation - via README.md
  • Number of open issues: 2, neither of which are bugs
• Usage stats:
  • 29 sites
• Maintainer(s):
  • Jay Huskins, with support from Redfin
• Module features and usage
  • Provides a new menu block that includes markup for disclosure buttons, that make it easier for users on assistive devices to navigate drop-down menus
  • Activating the button will toggle the visibility of nested menu items
  • Also includes ARIA labels to provide clarity around what the buttons do
  • Worth mentioning that Drupal’s Olivero theme also includes disclosure buttons in its mWe’ll also cover Disclosure Menu as our module of the week.
  • Guest Introenus, but there isn’t a straightforward way to pull the menus implemented there into your custom theme
  • Also had a write-up in the Drupal advent calendar we talked about last month, so listeners can also check that out if they want more information

Today we are talking about te show itself. We’ll also cover Autosave Form as our module of the week.

For show notes visit:
www.talkingDrupal.com/434

Topics

• Update on the show
  • Guest hosts
  • MOTW Correspondent
  • Newsletter
• Sponsorship
• Open Collective
• Content
• New content in 2024
• Expanding team

Resources

• Open Collective

Hosts

Nic Laflin - nLighteneddevelopment.com nicxvan
John Picozzi - epam.com johnpicozzi
Stephen Cross - stephencross.com stephencross

MOTW

Correspondent

Martin Anderson-Clutz - mandclu

• Brief description:
  • Have you ever wanted an autosave feature on your Drupal site’s forms, so content creators won’t lose their work if they accidentally close the window or lose power? There’s a module for that.
• Module name/project name:
  • Autosave Form
• Brief history
  • How old: created in Nov 2016 by Hristo Chonov of 1x Internet, who is also one of the organizers of Drupal Dev Days 2024 in Burgas
  • Versions available: 8.x-1.4 which works with Drupal 9 and 10
• Maintainership
  • Actively maintained, most recent comment less than 3 months ago
  • Test coverage
  • 38 open issues, 20 of which are bugs
• Usage stats:
  • 6,414 sites
• Module features and usage
  • Works by automatically saving the content of the current form every 60 seconds, though the time period is configurable
  • When a user opens a form, if an autosaved state exists for that form a dialog will be shown asking if they want to resume editing or discard any autosaved states
  • Once a form is submitted, any saved states will be automatically deleted
  • Notionally it should work with both content entity forms and config forms, but the majority of development and testing has been with entity forms in mind
  • The project page also mentions an issue with nested entity reference inline forms, and has links to relevant Drupal core issues
  • Worth noting that this module uses AJAX to save the states to the Drupal database, separate from entity revisions
  • If you want a solution that save form states into the browser’s localStorage instead, you can check out the Save Form State module, using the jQuery Sisyphus plugin

Today we are talking about The Drupal 10 Masterclass book, How it’s different from other Drupal books, and why you need it on your bookshelf with author Adam Bergstein. We’ll also cover Dashboards as our module of the week.

For show notes visit:
www.talkingDrupal.com/433

Topics

• What is Drupal 10 Masterclass about
• Who is this book for
• Why did you write the book
• Can you explain the subtitle a bit
• How does this differ from other recent Drupal books
• Can you tell us about the authoring experience
• What can our listeners do to make this book a success
• Do you think you’ll write another book
• Simplytest.me update

Resources

• Drupal 10 Masterclass: Build responsive Drupal applications to deliver custom and extensible digital experiences to users
• Drupal 10 Development Cookbook by Matt Glaman and Kevin Quillen
• Modernizing Drupal 10 theme development by Luca Lusso
• Modern Drupal by Selwyn Polit
• Rachel Lawson
• Mike Herchel

Guests

Adam Bergstein - @n3rdstein

Hosts

Nic Laflin - nLighteneddevelopment.com nicxvan
John Picozzi - epam.com johnpicozzi

MOTW

Correspondent

Martin Anderson-Clutz - mandclu

• Brief description:
  • Have you ever wanted to add a dashboard to your Drupal site, to provide at-a-glance information to editors? There’s a module for that.
• Module name/project name:
  • Dashboards with Layout Builder
• Brief history
  • How old: created in Nov 2019 by Erik Seifert of 1x Internet
  • Versions available: 2.0.8 and 2.1.6 versions available, the latter of which works with Drupal 9 and 10
• Maintainership
  • Actively maintained
• Test coverage
  • 13 open issues, 5 of which are bugs on th 2.1.x branch
• Usage stats:
  • 1,878 sites
• Module features and usage
  • Allows for the creation of dashboards as exportable config entities, using Layout Builder to define the layout and placement of blocks
  • It’s possible to create unique dashboards per user
  • Out of the box you get a number of dashboards components to embed views, show recent errors, display content from RSS feeds, and more
  • Dashboard components are defined using a new plugin base, so you can also create custom components to meet the unique needs of your site
  • The dashboards are also optimized for use with Gin, which isn’t a surprise because 1x Internet is also a sponsor of the Gin admin theme. If your site is also using Gin then this module will provide a central dashboard that seamless integrate with the backend UI
  • If you’re looking to implement dashboards on your site, you can also look at Moderation Dashboard and Homebox as other options. The latter of those is even more widely used, but mostly by D7 sites. That said, drupal.org is one of those sites, so if your team is active on drupal.org then the interface will be very familiar
  • There is also a Dashboard Initiative that has been started by some core maintainers, so using one of these modules can set you up to weigh in on what the ideal state for the initiative might look like

Today we are talking about Portals, Community Websites, and Drupal with guest Ron Northcutt. We’ll also cover Private Message as our module of the week.

For show notes visit:
www.talkingDrupal.com/432

Topics

• Why are you passionate about community sites
• Different types of portals you’ve worked on
• Common features
• Why is Drupal a great fit
• Why would you choose Drupal over a Saas or PaaS
• What is unique about each community
• How important is UX
• What common content models do you see
• Most important tip

Resources

• Lego sorting
  • https://news.lugnet.com/storage/?n=709
  • https://brickarchitect.com/guide/bricks/
• PHPBB
• discourse
• Open Social
• Monday

Guests

Ron Northcutt - community.appsmith.com rlnorthcutt

Hosts

Nic Laflin - nLighteneddevelopment.com nicxvan
John Picozzi - epam.com johnpicozzi
Martin Anderson-Clutz - mandclu

MOTW

Correspondent

Martin Anderson-Clutz - mandclu

• Module name/project name:
  • Private Message
• Brief description:
  • Have you ever wanted to include a full-fledged, ajaxified system for private messages between users on your Drupal site? There’s a module for that
• Brief history
  • How old: created in Apr 2017 by Jaypan, a fellow Canadian, but the most recent release is by Lucas Hedding, who hails from Nicaragua, and is a prolific contrib maintainer in his own right
  • Versions available: 8.x-2.0-beta18 and 3.0.0 versions available, the latter of which works with D9 and 10
• Maintainership
  • Actively maintained, latest release in Oct 2023
  • Number of open issues: 130, 4 of which are bugs on the 3.0.x branch
  • Test coverage
• Documentation: does have a handbook, though the pages seem to date back to 2017, so hopefully the installation and setup hasn’t changed too much since then
• Usage stats:
  • Almost 2,000 sites
  • Maintainer(s):
• Module features and usage
  • With the Private Message module installed, users on your site can have permissions-based access to send private messages to each other
  • Messages and threads are fieldable entities, and in general the module is made to be highly configurable, so you can tailor it to meet your site’s specific needs
  • That includes the frequency for asynchronous operations like loading new messages, which can be done without a full page refresh. There’s also a companion module to use Node.js for the asynchronous operations, to reduce load on both the browser and the server
  • That also allows for browser push notifications, or you can use the integration with the Message module to send notifications via email, SMS, and more, including aggregating the notifications into digests
  • Companies often have a dedicated messaging solution like Slack or Teams that they use internally, but this can be a good solution for an extranet or vendor portal, where the users may represent a variety of organizations
  • It’s also worth mentioning that both Private Message and Message are included in the Open Social distribution, so that could be a way to try out a preconfigured setup

Talking Drupal #431 - Live at NEDCamp

On today’s show we share interviews we conducted with sponsors, speakers and attendees at New England Drupal Camp in November. Seventeen in all.

For show notes visit:
www.talkingDrupal.com/431

Topics

Interviews with:

Michael Miles
Nick Silverman
Matt O’Bryant
Ethan Aho
Mike Anello
Patrick Anderson
Brian Perry
Aubrey Sambor
Brigitte Ayerves Valderas
Chris Wells
Richard Hood
Chris Amato
Ivan Stegic
Philip Frilling
Rod Martin
Jacob Rockowitz
Whitney Hess

Hosts

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