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