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