On today's show we are talking with John. This is our chance to learn more about our beloved Talking Drupal show host.

For show notes visit:
https://www.talkingDrupal.com/482

Topics

• Talking Drupal
• Non-Code Contribution
• Solution Architect
• Personal Background and Interests
• Drupal

Guests

John Picozzi - epam.com johnpicozzi

Host

Stephen Cross-@stephencross

Today we are talking about Drupal Marketing, how it applies to Drupal CMS, and what a Drupal and Drupal CMS Marketing Future look like with guest Suzanne Dergacheva. We’ll also cover Drupal 11.1 as our module of the week.

For show notes visit:
https://www.talkingDrupal.com/481

Topics

• Drupal marketing moves
• New brand
• Marketing people at the DA
• Goal of marketing
• How does this impact Drupal CMS
• Drupal CMS marketing
• How will you educate people about the differences between core and CMS
• Any challenges
• How do you like the new homepage
• Next steps to move the brand forward
• Case studies
• Why did you volunteer
• If someone wants to get involved how can they

Resources

• Brand Portal
• Drupal.org homepage
  • https://new.drupal.org/home
  • https://www.drupal.org/project/drupalorg/issues/3475832
• Case study guidelines
• Webinar with Suzanne and Rosie Gladden about Key Strategies for Expanding Drupal’s Reach
• Advent Calendar
• Freelock.com - 24 days of Drupal automations

Hosts

Nic Laflin - nLighteneddevelopment.com nicxvan
John Picozzi - epam.com johnpicozzi
Suzanne Dergacheva - evolvingweb.com pixelite

MOTW

Correspondent

Martin Anderson-Clutz - mandclu.com mandclu

• Brief description:
  • Have you been wanting a version of Drupal with improvements to the recipes system, the ability to write hooks as classes, and an icon management API? The new Drupal 11.1 release has all of that and more.
• Module name/project name:
  • Drupal 11.1
• Brief history
  • How old: created on Dec 16 by catch of Tag1 and Third & Grove
• Module features and usage
  • We’ve talked a number times on this show about the recipes system, particularly because it’s at the heart of Drupal CMS. In Drupal 11.1 recipes can define whether or not to use strict comparison for provided configuration, and there are a ton of new config actions. These allow your recipe to place blocks, take user input, enable layout builder for content types, clone configuration entities and more. It’s a huge leap forward, and I think you’ll quickly see a number of recipes that require Drupal 11.1 or newer.
  • Hooks have long been a powerful Drupalism that allow for deep customization of how your website functions. These hooks can now be written as classes, thanks to the new Hook attribute on methods. This will bring many of the object-oriented benefits of modern Drupal to the hooks system, and should also make it easier for developers new to Drupal to understand the code to create these customizations.
  • A new Icon Management API allows themes and modules to define icon packs, with unique identifiers for each included icon.
  • Drupal 11.1 also includes PHP 8.4 support. I haven’t been able to find any data on speed improvements compared to PHP 8.3, but there are interesting new features like property hooks, asymmetric visibility, new functions for finding array items, and more
  • There are plans to use Workspaces for content moderation, so the UI for Workspaces is now in a separate module. For new site builds if you want your editors to be able to use Workspaces, you’ll need to remember to enable this new UI module as well
  • New installs of Drupal 11.1 will also see improvements to the initial experience. These include defaulting to admin-created user accounts only, not adding the body field by default when creating new content types, and more.
  • Drupal 11.1 also includes a new views entity reference filter, opt-in render caching for forms, and improved browser and CDN caching for Javascript and CSS, among a host of other improvements.
  • A number of these improvements will also find their way into the upcoming 10.4 release, ensuring, for example, that recipes built to use the new config actions can be used with Long-Term Support (LTS) versions of Drupal, that will be supported until the stable release of Drupal 12 in mid- to late-2026

Today we are talking about The Ripple Makers program, How it benefits Drupal Association members, and Why it’s important to Drupal with guest Julia Kranzthor. We’ll also cover Migrate Boost as our module of the week.

For show notes visit:
https://www.talkingDrupal.com/480

Topics

• What is Ripple Makers
  • Taxes
• Why did the Drupal Association (DA) membership program need overhauling
• Are DA individual memberships different than Ripple Makers
• Do people have to sign up if they are already a DA member
• Coming up with the benefits
• Where did the name come from
• Does this have new benefits
• What has the impact been

Resources

• Ripple Makers
  • https://www.drupal.org/association/RippleMakers
  • https://www.classy.org/give/386338#!/donation/checkout
• Drupal Certified Partner (DCP)
• Drupal staff page
• Migrate Boost
  • 'workbench_moderation',
  • 'pathauto',
  • 'xmlsitemap',
  • 'search_api',
  • 'search_api_algolia',

Guests

Julia Kranzthor - JR_KThor

Hosts

Nic Laflin - nLighteneddevelopment.com nicxvan
John Picozzi - epam.com johnpicozzi
Suzanne Dergacheva - evolvingweb.com pixelite

MOTW

Correspondent

Martin Anderson-Clutz - mandclu.com mandclu

• Brief description:
  • Have you ever wanted to disable hooks to accelerate your Drupal migration? There’s a module for that.
• Module name/project name:
  • Migrate Boost
• Brief history
  • How old: created in Sep 2023 by our own Nic Laflin
  • Versions available: 1.0.1, compatible with Drupal 10 and 11
• Maintainership
  • Actively maintained
  • Security coverage
  • Documentation README / project page have instructions
  • Number of open issues: none!
• Usage stats:
  • 119 sites
• Module features and usage
  • Having hooks fire during a migration can significantly slow down the process, and what’s worse, it can also cause some significant problems, for example sending email notifications every time a node is created
  • You disable hooks by defining an array in your settings.php file, either an array of specific hooks you want to disable, or an array of modules for which you want to disable all hooks
  • This was a capability available for the Drupal 7 Migrate module, but hasn’t been available in the Migrate API in Drupal core since version 8, so this module can be invaluable if you’re working on a sizable migration
  • Hopefully there are a lot of folks working on migrations ahead of the January 5 EOL for Drupal 7, so I thought this module would be timely

Today we are talking about Drupal CMS Media Management, How media management has evolved, and Why managing our media is so important with our guest Tony Barker. We’ll also cover URL Embed as our module of the week.

For show notes visit:
https://www.talkingDrupal.com/479

Topics

• What do we mean by media management in Drupal CMS
• How is it different from media in Drupal today
• Why is media management important
• How are you applying these changes to Drupal
• What phase are you in
• Will this be ready for Drupal CMS release in January
• What types of advanced media will supported
• Do you see it growing to replace some DAMs
• Are there future goals
• How did you get involved
• How can people get involved

Resources

• Track 15 Proposal for Media Management
• Issue to publish research on other CMS and the questionnaire results
• Vision for media management https://www.drupal.org/project/drupal_cms/issues/3488393
• Contributed module file upload field for media https://www.drupal.org/project/media_widget and these related modules
  • https://www.drupal.org/project/media_link
  • https://www.drupal.org/project/media_remote_embed
• Slack: #starshot-media-management and #starshot
• Drupal Core strategy for 2025-2028

Guests

Tony Barker - annertech.com tonypaulbarker

Hosts

Nic Laflin - nLighteneddevelopment.com nicxvan
John Picozzi - epam.com johnpicozzi
Suzanne Dergacheva - evolvingweb.com pixelite

MOTW

Correspondent

Martin Anderson-Clutz - mandclu.com mandclu

• Brief description:
  • Have you ever wanted a simple way to insert oEmbed content on your Drupal site? There’s a module for that.
• Module name/project name:
  • URL Embed
• Brief history
  • How old: created in Sep 2014 by the venerable Dave Reid, though recent releases are by Mark Fullmer of the University of Texas at Austin
  • Versions available: 2.0.0-alpha3 and 3.0.0-beta1, the latter of which works with Drupal 10.1 or 11. That said, it does declare a dependency on the Embed project, which unfortunately doesn’t yet have a Drupal 11-ready release
• Maintainership
  • Actively maintained
  • Security coverage technically, but needs a stable release
  • Test coverage
  • Documentation guide
  • Number of open issues: 63 open issues, 4 of which are bugs against the current branch
• Usage stats:
  • 7,088 sites
• Module features and usage
  • A content creator using this module only needs to provide a URL to the content they want to embed, as the name suggests
  • The module provides both a CKEditor plugin and a formatter for link fields. Note that you will also need to enable a provided filter plugin for any text formats where you want users to use the CKEditor button
  • Probably the critical distinction between how this module works and other elements of the media system is that this bypasses the media library, and as such is better suited to “one off” uses of remote content like videos, social media posts, and more
  • It’s also worth mentioning that the module provides a hook to modify the parameters that will be passed to the oEmbed host, for example to set the number of posts to return from Twitter
  • I could definitely see this as a valuable addition to the Event Platform that we’ve talked about previously on the podcast, but the lack of a Drupal 11-ready release for the Embed module is an obvious concern. So, if any of our listeners want to take that on, it would be a valuable contribution to the community

Today we are talking about WEBAssembly, How it’s used, and cool things you can use it for with Drupal with guest Matt Glaman. We’ll also cover Darkmode JS as our module of the week.

For show notes visit:
https://www.talkingDrupal.com/478

Topics

• What is WebAssembly
• Progressive Web Aoos
• Open source
• Does it have a community
• Browser support
• How does it work
• Common use cases
• How can you use this with Drupal
• This was an early concept for Drupal trial
• Challenges
• Wordpress playground
• Pieces that do not work for PHP
• Are there risks
• Are there resources for people that want to use WebAssembly
• Do you see it being used with Drupal

Resources

• WEBAssembly
• WEBAssembly history
• Browser support
• 2038
• WordPress Playground
  • https://playground.wordpress.net
  • https://github.com/adamziel
• Slides from Barcelona: The Web APIs powering the Starshot trial:
  • https://mglaman.dev/sites/default/files/2024-09/The Web APIs powering the Starshot trial experience.pdf
  • https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rJVM_uDGD5I&list=PLpeDXSh4nHjQOfQV-BUgoxHXlr4tHlhPO&index=64

Guests

Matt Glaman - mglaman.dev mglaman

Hosts

Nic Laflin - nLighteneddevelopment.com nicxvan
John Picozzi - epam.com johnpicozzi
Suzanne Dergacheva - evolvingweb.com pixelite

MOTW

Correspondent

Martin Anderson-Clutz - mandclu.com mandclu

• Brief description:
  • Have you ever wanted your Drupal site to provide a widget that allows visitors to go over to the dark side of your theme? There’s a module for that.
• Module name/project name:
  • Darkmode JS
• Brief history
  • How old: created in May 2022 by Arthur Baghdasaryan (arthur.baghdasar) of Last Call Media
  • Versions available: 1.0.7 which works with Drupal 9, 10, and 11
• Maintainership
  • Actively maintained
  • Security coverage
  • Number of open issues: 1 open issues which is a bug against the current branch, but is postponed, waiting for more info
• Usage stats:
  • 89 sites
• Module features and usage
  • The module is a wrapper for the DarkmodeJS library which gets 1,000 weekly downloads, according to NPM. That library does have its own demo / tutorial site, so if you want to understand the options it exposes, we will add a link in the show notes
  • The module provides options to control where on the page you want the widget to appear, what colors it should use, whether or not to store a user’s choices in cookies, and whether or not to automatically match a visitor’s OS theme setting of light/dark
  • Installing the module currently requires making some changes to your site’s composer.json file, then configuring how you want the widget to appear, and then placing the block in your site theme
  • The module also doesn’t currently include a schema file for its configuration, which can cause challenges particularly for sites that run automated tests

Today we are talking about being the CTO of the Drupal Association, How the job has changed, and How its impacted Drupal with guests Josh Mitchell & Tim Lehnen. We’ll also cover Automatic Anchors as our module of the week.

For show notes visit:
https://www.talkingDrupal.com/477

Topics

• How long ago were you CTO Josh
• Tim when did you take over
• DA infrastructure
• Drupal Credit System
• Josh's proudest moment
• Tim's proudest moment
• Growth
• Josh if you could do one thing differently
• Tim if you could make one change
• Future of the CTO job

Resources

• OOP Hook conversion
• Oregon State University Open Source Lab
• Whuffie: Cory doctorow Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom
• Rethink weighing of contrib projects and credits

Guests

Tim Lehnen - aspenthornpress.com hestenet

Hosts

Nic Laflin - nLighteneddevelopment.com nicxvan
John Picozzi - epam.com johnpicozzi
Joshua "Josh" Mitchell - joshuami.com joshuami

MOTW

Correspondent

Martin Anderson-Clutz - mandclu.com mandclu

• Brief description:
  • Have you ever wanted headings on your Drupal site to have unique id values, so links can be created to take users to specific parts of any page? There’s a module for that.
• Module name/project name:
  • Automatic Anchors
• Brief history
  • How old: created in Jun 2020 by Chris Komlenic (komlenic) of Penn State
  • Versions available: 2.1.1-beta1, which supports Drupal 8.8, 9, and 10
• Maintainership
  • Test coverage
  • Number of open issues: x open issues, y of which are bugs against the current branch
• Usage stats:
  • 137 sites
• Module features and usage
  • By default, the module automatically generates ids on <h2>, <h3>, <h4>, <h5>, and <h6> elements within the page content
  • Even if two headings have the same content, the module will make sure their ids are unique, as well as making sure they are i18n-friendly, use hyphens instead of spaces, and are short enough to be useful
  • The module won’t interfere with or change manually-added or already-existing HTML ids
  • There’s a permission to view helpful links on each heading that the ids obvious and easy to copy
  • Configuration options include the root element it should look within (defaults to the body tag), which elements should get ids, what content to use for the displayed links, and whether or not generate ids on admin pages

Today we are talking about some things are on our mind including, The DOJ Accessibility ruling,Drupal CMS Event Recipes and Tooling for core development with our Hosts. We’ll also cover @font-your-face as our module of the week.

For show notes visit:
https://www.talkingDrupal.com/476

Topics

• DOJ Accessibility Ruling
• Drupal CMS
• Tooling for core development
• Open University

Resources

• Accessibility ruling
• PHPUnit testing
  • https://www.drupal.org/docs/develop/automated-testing/phpunit-in-drupal/running-phpunit-javascript-tests
  • https://github.com/ddev/ddev-selenium-standalone-chrome
• Drupal Events Recipes

Guests

Martin Anderson-Clutz - mandclu.com mandclu

Hosts

Nic Laflin - nLighteneddevelopment.com nicxvan
John Picozzi - epam.com johnpicozzi
Martin Anderson-Clutz - mandclu.com mandclu
Joshua "Josh" Mitchell - joshuami.com joshuami

MOTW

Correspondent

Martin Anderson-Clutz - mandclu.com mandclu

• Brief description:
  • Have you ever wanted to add and manage web fonts for your Drupal site, directly within the admin interface? There’s a module for that.
• Module name/project name:
  • @font-your-face
• Brief history
  • How old: created in May 2010 by Scott Reynen, but the most recent release was by Henrique Mendes (hmendes) of CI&T
  • Versions available: 7.x-2.8 and 4.0.0 versions available, the latter of which support Drupal 9.4 and 10.
• Maintainership
  • Actively maintained
  • Security coverage
  • Test coverage
  • Documentation, but looks like it might be ready for a refresh
  • Number of open issues: 48 open issues, 8 of which are bugs against the current branch
• Usage stats:
  • 32,213 sites
• Module features and usage
  • The module provides an interface to browse fonts from Google, Adobe, Typekit, and more
  • License restrictions for fonts are clearly indicated
  • When you find a font you want to use, you just click “enable”. You don’t need to write any CSS or define a library, and it’s easy to mix-and-match fonts from different providers. It can even make it easier to include your own local fonts
  • The module includes submodules for the different font providers, so you enable the submodules based on where you want to use fonts from
  • Then you can import the fonts for those providers, though you do need an API key to import fonts from Google
  • The module does also have an API, so you can write your own modules to integrate with other font providers, or access the information about available fonts

Today we are talking about Workspaces, What They are, and How They Work with guest Scott Weston. We’ll also cover Workspaces Extra as our module of the week.

For show notes visit:
https://www.talkingDrupal.com/475

Topics

• What are Workspaces in Drupal
• What's a common use cases for Workspaces
• Are Workspaces stable
• Do Workspaces help with content versioning
• What does the module ecosystem look like for Workspaces
• Inspiration
• Workspaces best practices
• Any interesting ways it is being used
• Is there a way to access workspace content in twig
• Navigation integration
• Workspaces and workflows
• What aspects of a Workspace are limited to live
• If someone wants to get involved or get started

Resources

• Drupal Workspaces
• Core issue: Media library form can only be submitted in the default workspace
• Integrate Navigation with Workspaces

Guests

Scott Weston - scott-weston

Hosts

Nic Laflin - nLighteneddevelopment.com nicxvan
John Picozzi - epam.com johnpicozzi
Joshua "Josh" Mitchell - joshuami.com joshuami

MOTW

Correspondent

Martin Anderson-Clutz - mandclu.com mandclu

• Brief description:
  • Do you want to extend the capabilities of the Workspaces system in Drupal core? There’s a module for that.
• Module name/project name:
  • Workspaces Extra
• Brief history
  • How old: created in Apr 2021 by Andrei Mateescu (amateescu) of tag1, who has also contributed to Workspaces in core, among other many things
  • Versions available: 2.0.0-alpha3 which works with Drupal 10.3 or 11
• Maintainership
  • Actively maintained, latest release is less than a week old
  • Security coverage: technically yes, but not really until it has a stable release
  • Test coverage
  • Number of open issues: 20 open issues, 3 of which are bugs against the current branch, though one has already been fixed
• Usage stats:
  • 89 sites
• Module features and usage
  • One of the big features in Drupal 10.3 was that Workspaces is now officially stable. That said, not everything works the way some site builders will want it to. That’s where a contrib solution like Workspace Extra can help to fill in the gaps
  • It provides new options like letting you roll back changes from a published workspace, move content between workspaces, discard changes in a workspace, squashing content revisions when a workspace is published, and more
  • Workspaces Extra, or WSE also includes a number of submodules to add even more capabilities. For example, they can allow your workspace to stage an allowlist of configuration changes, deploy workspace content using an import/export system, stage menu changes, and more. For workflow, there’s an option to generate a shareable workspace preview link for external users, and a scheduler to publish your workspace at a specific day and time
  • I will add that the first time I played with workspaces I ran into an issue where I couldn’t create media entities within a workspace. I don’t know for sure that this hasn’t been fixed in core, but the core issue about it is still listed as “Needs work”. That said, the last comment on that issue (link in the show notes) lists WSE as something that helps, so if you encounter the same issue with Workspaces, WSE is worth a try

Today we are talking about the revolt event Loop, what it is, and why it matters with guest Alexander Varwijk. We’ll also cover IEF Complex Widget Dialog as our module of the week.

For show notes visit:
https://www.talkingDrupal.com/474

Topics

• What is an event loop
• Why does Drupal need an event loop
• What will change in core to implement this
• What problem does this solve
• Does this make Cron cleaner and long running processes faster
• What impact will this have on contrib
• How would contrib use this loop
• What does this mean for database compatibility
• What inspired this change
• Test instability
• Why Revolt
• Will this help with Drupal AI

Resources

• Adopt the Revolt event loop for async task orchestration
• revoltphp/event-loop was added as a dependency to Drupal Core
• Add "EventLoop::run" to Drupal Core
• Migrate BigPipe and the Renderer code that's currently built with fibers
• Revolt Playground that shows converting some Fiber implementations from Drupal to the Event Loop
• DrupalCon Barcelona Talk about "Why Async Drupal a Big Deal Is"
• Async PHP libraries
  • https://reactphp.org/
  • https://amphp.org/

Guests

Alexander Varwijk - alexandervarwijk.com Kingdutch

Hosts

Nic Laflin - nLighteneddevelopment.com nicxvan
John Picozzi - epam.com johnpicozzi
Joshua "Josh" Mitchell - joshuami.com joshuami

MOTW

Correspondent

Martin Anderson-Clutz - mandclu.com mandclu

• Brief description:
  • Have you ever wanted to use Inline Entity Forms but have the dependent form open in a dialog? There’s a module for that.
• Module name/project name:
  • IEF Complex Widget Dialog
• Brief history
  • How old: created in Mar 2020 by dataweb, though recent releases are by Chris Lai (chrisck), a fellow Canadian
  • Versions available: 2.1.1 and 2.2.2, the latter or which is compatible Drupal 8.8 or newer, all the way up to Drupal 11
• Maintainership
  • Actively maintained, latest release in the past month
  • Number of open issues: 4 open issues, none of which are bugs against the current version
• Usage stats:
  • 273 sites
• Module features and usage
  • When you install the module, your Inline Entity Form widget configuration will have a new checkbox, to “Enable Popup for IEF”
  • Includes specialized handling for different kinds of entities, like nodes, users, taxonomy terms, and users
  • Will handle not just the creation forms, but editing entities, and also duplicating or deleting entities
  • Not something you would always need, but can be very useful if the form you want to use for entity or even parent forms that are complex
  • I should also add that IEF supports form modes, so often I’ll create an “embedded” form mode that exposes fewer elements, for example hiding the fields for URL alias, sticky, and so on. So I would start there, but if the content creation experience still feels complex, then IEF Complex Widget Dialog might be a nice way to help

Today we are talking about Color with CSS, Sass, and bringing it all into Drupal with guest Aubrey Sambor . We’ll also cover Navigation Extra Tools as our module of the week.

For show notes visit:
https://www.talkingDrupal.com/473

Topics

• A little career background
• Why Front end
• Do you prefer JS or CSS
• How do colors work today in CSS
• Is this different from the past
• What is gamut
• Can color functions help with contrast
• What color functions make you the most excited
• Is Sass still a thing
• Do you use preprocessors with color functions
• Post CSS in Drupal
• Any modules you can recommend to help with CSS colros
• Any benefit for single directory compontents or web components

Resources

• New England Drupal Camp
• Color in CSS: using new spaces, functions, and techniques to make your site shine
• Text wrap
• Gamut
• Do you still need Sass in 2023

Hosts

Nic Laflin - nLighteneddevelopment.com nicxvan
John Picozzi - epam.com johnpicozzi
Aubrey Sambor - star-shaped.org starshaped

MOTW

Correspondent

Martin Anderson-Clutz - mandclu.com mandclu

• Brief description:
  • Have you been using the new Navigation module in Drupal core, but wanted some of the useful links previously available in the Admin Toolbar Tools submodule? There’s a module for that
• Module name/project name:
  • Navigation Extra Tools
• Brief history
  • How old: created in Oct 2024, less than a week ago by friend of the podcast James Shields aka lostcarpark
  • Versions available: 1.0.0-beta3 which works with Drupal 10.3 and 11
• Maintainership
  • Actively maintained, already 3 releases
  • Security coverage - too new, but hopefully will have in time
  • Test coverage
  • Number of open issues: 8 “open” issues, 4 of which are bugs, but all but one of which are now marked as fixed with the latest release
  • Usage stats:
• 12 sites
• Module features and usage
  • With this module enabled, the new left side Navigation menu available in Drupal core will include links to clear caches (all or a specific cache), run cron, and run database updates
  • It’s a good example of a module that does something very specific and very useful, so I wanted to share it with our listeners as quickly as possible
  • I know these functions are ones I’ve been missing in my own Drupal 11 dev sites, so I’m looking forward to using this module right away

Today we are talking about Access Policy API, What it does, and How you can use it with guest Kristiaan Van den Eynde. We’ll also cover Visitors as our module of the week.

For show notes visit:
https://www.talkingDrupal.com/472

Topics

• What is the Access Policy API
• Why does Drupal need the Access Policy API
• How did Drupal handle access before
• How does the Access Policy API interact with roles
• Does a module exist that shows a UI
• What is the difference between Policy Based Access Control (PBAC), Attribute Based Access Control (ABAC) and Role Based Access Control (RBAC)
• How does Access Policy API work with PBAC, ABAC and RBAC
• Can you apply an access policy via a recipe
• Is there a roadmap
• What was it like going through pitchburg
• How can people get involved

Resources

• Access Policy API
• Access Policy
• Talking Drupal #226 Group
• Flexible Permissions
• External roles
• Test Super access policy
• Access policy talk at Drupalcon barcelona
• D.o Issue about exception on security issue

Guests

Kristiaan Van den Eynde - kristiaanvandeneynde

Hosts

Nic Laflin - nLighteneddevelopment.com nicxvan
John Picozzi - epam.com johnpicozzi
Aubrey Sambor - star-shaped.org starshaped

MOTW

Correspondent

Martin Anderson-Clutz - mandclu.com mandclu

• Brief description:
  • Have you ever wanted a Drupal-native solution for tracking website visitors and their behavior? There’s a module for that
• Module name/project name:
  • Visitors
• Brief history
  • How old: created in Mar 2009 by gashev, though recent releases are by Steven Ayers (bluegeek9)
  • Versions available: 8.x-2.19, which works with Drupal 10 and 11
• Maintainership
  • Actively maintained
  • Security coverage
  • Test coverage
  • Documentation guide is available
  • Number of open issues: 20 open issues, none of which are bugs against the 8.x branch
• Usage stats:
  • Over 6,000 sites
• Module features and usage
  • A benefit of using a Drupal-native solution is that you retain full ownership over your visitor data. Not sharing that data with third parties can be important for data protection regulations, as well as data privacy concerns.
  • You also have a variety of reports you can access directly within the Drupal UI, including top pages, referrers, and more
  • There is a submodule for geoip lookups using Maxmind, if you also want reporting on what region, country, or city your visitors hail from
  • It provides drush commands to download a geoip database, and then update your data based on geoip lookups using that database
  • It should be mentioned that the downside of using Drupal as your analytics solution is the potential performance impact and also a likely uptick in usage for hosts that charge based on the number of dynamic requests served

Today we are talking about Freemium Drupal Modules, The WordPress hub-bub, and Drupal, Now with AI with our hosts. We’ll also cover FullCalendar as our module of the week.

For show notes visit:
https://www.talkingDrupal.com/471

Topics

• Freemium Drupal
• Wordpress controversy
• Drupal CMS and AI

Resources

• Dries Wordpress Blog Post
• Non-Code Contribution: Using your passion and skills to power open source.
• DrupalCon Barcelona Driesnote
• Drupal AI

Guests

Hosts

Nic Laflin - nLighteneddevelopment.com nicxvan
John Picozzi - epam.com johnpicozzi
Aubrey Sambor - star-shaped.org starshaped
Martin Anderson-Clutz - mandclu.com mandclu

MOTW

Correspondent

Martin Anderson-Clutz - mandclu.com mandclu

• Brief description:
  • Have you ever wanted an interactive calendar to display your Drupal events with drag-and-drop rescheduling, and without using jQuery? There’s a module for that.
• Module name/project name:
  • FullCalendar
• Brief history
  • How old: created in Sep 2010 by ablondeau, though I’ve been behind the most recent releases
  • Versions available: 7.x-2.0 and 3.0.0-beta2 versions available, the latter of which supports Drupal 10 and 11
• Maintainership
  • Actively maintained, latest release was this morning
  • Security coverage, though technically the 3.0.x branch will have it once it’s stable
  • Test coverage, minimal but on the roadmap
  • Documentation - does have a user guide, but created for the D7 version, so newer documentation is needed
  • Number of open issues: 337 open issues, none of which are bugs against the 3.0.x branch
• Usage stats:
  • 3,388 sites, though the vast majority of those are for the D7 version, since the 3.0.x branch is very new
• Module features and usage
  • No jQuery!
  • Lots of configurability plus some extras specifically for Drupal
    • Drag-and-drop to alter events
    • Option to require confirmation
    • Can display toast-style notifications when updates are save
    • Double-click on a day or time to create an event at that time
    • Can display events from different content types, even if they use different fields to store dates, and yes, even different kinds of fields, so a mixture of core and Smart Date fields will work
    • You can set default colors and output type (block or the newer, list-item display), and the ability to override color based on content type or a taxonomy reference
  • This module had been essentially dormant for over 4 years, but I decided to work with Jürgen Haas on reviving it after a similar and popular project called Fullcalendar View was not only marked as “Minimally maintained” and “Maintenance fixes only”, but the project page directed users to contact the maintainer to pay for a premium version, in order to use the current version of the Fullcalendar JS library, or to load events via AJAX, which as been an often-requested feature because Fullcalendar View has had common reports of performance problems on sites with lots of event data.
  • Worse, the maintainer has closed as “won’t fix” issues that had community-provided patches, because he only wanted to provide said improvements in the paid, premium version
  • In my work on the Events recipe for Drupal CMS, I knew that having a solid calendar would be important, and I didn’t feel good about relying on a module that seemed to be pushing users more and more towards a paid model. I’m grateful to Jurgen and everyone who worked on FullCalendar before us for creating such a robust and extensible code base

Today we are talking about Creating Recipes, What Recipes already exist, and helpful tips and tricks with guest Jim Birch. We’ll also cover Features as our module of the week.

For show notes visit:
https://www.talkingDrupal.com/470

Topics

• What are recipes
• How do you recommend someone get started writing recipes
• Where can people find recipes
• Can you include sub recipes
• How should you test recipes
• Any tools that make writing recipes easier
• What recipes are needed that do not exist
• How can people move recipes forward

Resources

• Recipe Author Guide
• Drupal Core Recipes
• Preconditions for recipes
• Drupal Recipes Cookbook
• Recipes Packagist
• Recipe type
• Phase 2 roadmap
• Umami profile recipes
• Minimal profile recipes

Guests

Jim Birch - linkedin.com/in/jimbirch thejimbirch

Hosts

Nic Laflin - nLighteneddevelopment.com nicxvan
John Picozzi - epam.com johnpicozzi
Aubrey Sambor - star-shaped.org starshaped

MOTW

Correspondent

Martin Anderson-Clutz - mandclu.com mandclu

• Brief description:
  • Have you ever wanted an admin UI to manage sets of configuration, to version and share across Drupal sites? There’s a module for that.
• Module name/project name:
  • Features
• Brief history
  • How old: created in Mar 2009 by yhahn, though recent releases are by Dave Reid
  • Versions available: 7.x-2.15 and 8.x-3.14, the latter of which works with Drupal 9.4 and 10
• Maintainership
  • Minimally maintained
  • Security coverage
  • Test coverage
  • Documentation: Has a documentation guide and probably hundreds if not thousands of of tutorials available
  • Number of open issues: 610 open issues, 54 of which are bugs against the 8.x branch
• Usage stats:
  • Almost 117,000 sites, though the majority are using the D7 version
• Module features and usage
  • Many listeners will remember Features as the de facto solution for configuration management in Drupal 7 and earlier
  • As the name implies, it was really intended to share common capabilities across different Drupal sites
  • Unlike recipes, Features can have version numbers, because there is a path to sync configuration updates across sites using a Feature, though this is where a lot of teams found Features could be complex to use
  • We did previously cover Features as MOTW all the way back in episode #147, but I thought it was relevant to today’s discussion because of the way it provides a UI for organizing and exporting specific sets of configuration
  • There is an open issue for Features to directly export recipes, because it already does a lot of the time-consuming work of collecting together necessary config files, including dependencies
  • Even its current state, it could be a time saver for anyone wanting to start creating their own recipes

Today we are talking about Drupal’s Popularity & Dev Experience, what could be better, and things that are great with guest Nathan Dentzau. We’ll also cover Spam Master as our module of the week.

For show notes visit:
https://www.talkingDrupal.com/469

Topics

• Drupal's popularity
• What can Drupal to enhance popularity and enhance dev experience
• What is missing in Drupal
• What could use improvement in Drupal
• What about recent tooling improvements
• Drupal CMS (Starshot)

Resources

• New drupal
• Drupal at your fingertips
• Laravel
• Next.js
• Document using DDEV as the recommended Drupal local development environment
• Just say drupal

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 defend your Drupal website from webform spam using a constantly updating list of known bad actors? There’s a module for that.
• Module name/project name:
  • Spam Master
• Brief history
  • How old: created in Mar 2018 by Pedro Alves (pedro-alves)
  • Versions available: 8.x-1.99 and 8.x-2.50, the latter of which support Drupal versions 8 through 11
• Maintainership
  • Actively maintained
  • Security coverage
  • Documentation on SpamMaster.org
  • Number of open issues: no open issues
• Usage stats:
  • 449 sites
• Module features and usage
  • Spam Master is a website protection technology that was originally created back in 2012, and is used across sites based on a variety of technologies, including Wordpress, Drupal, Joomla, and more
  • It uses a variety of techniques to identify and block malicious actors, including “real-time block lists”, honeypot traps, comment analysis, and more
  • By maintaining a list of known bad actors, tracked by IP address and email addresses used, you can also benefit from a “network effect” by being able to identify them based on malicious behavior on any of the thousands of sites using Spam Master
  • The module claims compatibility with a variety of forms, including registration, comments, commerce, and more
  • It includes a variety of reports you can use to understand the amount of spam your site is receiving, and the module can automatically send you an email if it believes your site has reached “Level 3” of spam targeting
  • Spam Master does use licenses on SpamMaster.org, but free licenses are available

Today we are talking about Artificial Intelligence (AI), How to integrate it with Drupal, and What the future might look like with guest Jamie Abrahams. We’ll also cover AI SEO Analyzer as our module of the week.

For show notes visit:
www.talkingDrupal.com/468

Topics

• What is AI
• What is Drupal AI
• How is it different from other AI modules
• How do people use AI in Drupal
• How does Drupal AI make AI easier to integrate in Drupal
• What is RAG
• How has Drupal AI evolved from AI Interpolator
• What does the future of AI look like

Resources

• AI Agents

Guests

Jamie Abrahams - freelygive.io yautja_cetanu

Hosts

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

MOTW

Correspondent

Martin Anderson-Clutz - mandclu.com mandclu

• Brief description:
  • Have you ever wanted an AI-based tool to give your Drupal site’s editors feedback on the SEO readiness of their content? There’s a module for that.
• Module name/project name:
  • AI SEO Analyzer
• Brief history
  • How old: created in Aug 2024 by Juhani Väätäjä (j-vee)
  • Versions available: 1.0.0-beta1, which supports Drupal 10.3 and 11
• Maintainership
  • Actively maintained
  • Number of open issues: none
• Usage stats:
  • 2 sites
• Module features and usage
  • Once you enable this module along with the AI module, you can select the default provider, and optionally modify the default prompt that will be used to generate the report
  • With that done, editors (or anyone with the new “view seo reports” permission) will see an “Analyze SEO” tab on nodes throughout the site.
  • Generated reports are stored in the database, for ongoing reference
  • The reports are also revision-specific, so you could run reports on both a published node and a draft revision
  • There’s a separate “create seo reports” permission needed to generate reports. Within the form an editor can modify the default prompt, for example to get suggestions on optimizing for a specific topic, or to add or remove areas from the generated report.
  • By default the report will include areas like topic authority and depth, detailed content analysis, and even technical considerations like mobile responsiveness and accessibility. It’s able to do the latter by generating the full HTML markup of the node, and passing that to the AI provider for analysis
  • It feels like it was just yesterday that the AI module had its first release, so I think it’s great to see that there are community-created additions like this one already evolving as part of Drupal’s AI ecosystem

Today we are talking about The Config Actions System, What it does, and how it helps with Drupal Recipes with guests Alex Pott and Adam Globus-Hoenich. We’ll also cover the Events recipe as our module of the week.

For show notes visit:
www.talkingDrupal.com/467

Topics

• Explain Config Actions
• Is this related to the Actions UI
• How are config actions used in Drupal
• How will the average user interact with Config Actions
• What does non-desctructive mean
• Where did the Config Action system come from
• Future of the Config Action system
• How can people help out
• How does the Config Action system help with Drupal CMS

Resources

• Event platform
• Config action list

Guests

Alex Pott - alexpott
Adam Globus-Hoenich - phenaproxima

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 set up and configure a robust events system in your Drupal website, in just a few seconds? There’s a recipe for that.
• Module name/project name:
  • Events
• Brief history
  • How old: originally created in Mar 2013 as a distribution, but reborn as a recipe in July 2024
  • Versions available: 1.0.0-alpha3, compatible with Drupal 10.3 and 11
• Maintainership
  • Actively maintained
  • Security coverage? - no stable release
  • Documentation in the works
  • Number of open issues: 1 open issue, which is a bug
• Usage stats: not tracked for recipes
• Maintainer(s): mandclu
• Module features and usage
  • Listeners probably won’t be surprised to hear that Smart Date is at the heart of what you’ll get when you apply the Events recipe
  • You will have an Event content type, and a view to list upcoming and past events
  • The recipe will also set up add-to-calendar links on your event page, making it easy for your site visitors to be reminded of when your event will take place
  • There are companion recipes to add a calendar view, to be able to associate locations (with maps), and to add event registration
  • A modified version of the Events recipe has already been integrated into Drupal CMS, so it will be even easier to apply for a site based on that
  • Internally it makes use of the createIfNotExists and setComponents config actions, which is why I thought it would be relevant to today’s discussion

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