Today we are talking about Drupal Hooks, why they got changed in core, and what to do now with guest Karoly Négyesi better known as Chx. We’ll also cover Media Folders as our module of the week.

For show notes visit:
https://www.talkingDrupal.com/510

Topics

• Deep Dive into Drupal Hooks
• The Evolution of Drupal Hooks
• Challenges and Solutions in Hook Conversion
• Community Involvement and Contributions
• The Future of Drupal Hook System
• Introduction to Procedural Hooks
• Understanding Theme Hooks
• Complexities of Preprocess Hooks
• Converting Hooks to Object-Oriented
• Impact on Contributed Modules
• Challenges in Core Conversion
• Future of Drupal Hooks
• Lightning Round and Conclusion

Resources

• Hooks becoming OOP
• Convert everything everwhere all at once
  • Conversion script
  • Conversion patches
• Ordering hooks OOP
• Preprocess hooks
• Render API change
• 2009 issue for form api ungrokable
• 2007 change for calling themes hook
• Giant issue with all of the hook related links
• Longest hook in core: entity_query_tag__entity_test_mulrev__entity_query_entity_test_mulrev_alter_tag_test_alter

Guests

Károly Negyesi - ghost-of-drupal-past

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 to have your Drupal site's media assets presented in a UI that evokes the hierarchy of a filesystem? There's a module for that.
• Module name/project name:
  • Media Folders
• Brief history
  • How old: created in Apr 2025 by João Mauricio (jmauricio)
  • Versions available: 1.0.3 which supports Drupal 10.3 and 11
• Maintainership
  • Actively maintained
  • Security coverage
  • Test coverage
  • Number of open issues: 9 open issues, 2 of which are bugs, although one was just fixed
• Usage stats:
  • 61 sites
• Module features and usage
  • The module mimics a file structure by associating media entities with a taxonomy hierarchy
  • It then provides an intuitive, drag-and-drop UI to move items between locations, drag in new items, or even search within a particular “folder”, including a recursive search
  • When you drag in files, it uses “smart” logic to automatically assign files to Media bundles
  • It provides a form display widget, a view display widget, a CKEditor plugin, and it’s compatible with other filesystem modules, like S3 File System
  • This kind of interface is a requirement I’ve seen in RFPs by companies looking for a new CMS, so having this available as a drop-in solution

Today we are talking about DrupalCon, Wordpress, and what a wordpress guy can learn at a Drupal Event with guest Chris Reynolds. We’ll also cover Shortcode as our module of the week.

For show notes visit:
https://www.talkingDrupal.com/509

Topics

• The Pros and Cons of Short Codes
• Chris Reynolds' Journey to DrupalCon
• Comparing DrupalCon and WordCamp
• Funding and Organization of WordPress Events
• The Collaborative Spirit of the Drupal Community
• Wishlist for WordPress Features
• Composer Support in WordPress and Drupal
• Backward Compatibility in WordPress
• Challenges with Composer in Drupal
• Config Management in WordPress vs. Drupal
• Responsive Image Management
• User Experience in Drupal
• Community Collaboration Between WordPress and Drupal

Resources

• A Wordpresser Goes To DrupalCon Atlanta 2025
• wpcfm
• Longhorn PHP Conference Oct 23-25 in Austin, TX
  • Call for proposals through July 18
  • Join #texas-camp in Drupal Slack if you’re interested in organizing a mini Texas Camp to pair with Longhorn PHP
• WP community collective

Guests

Chris Reynolds - jazzsequence.com jazzsequence

Hosts

Nic Laflin - nLighteneddevelopment.com nicxvan
John Picozzi - epam.com johnpicozzi
JD Leonard - jdleonard

MOTW

Correspondent

Martin Anderson-Clutz - mandclu.com mandclu

• Brief description:
  • Have you ever wanted your Drupal site to support WordPress-style shortcodes, macros to be used within content? There’s a module for that.
• Module name/project name:
  • Shortcode
• Brief history
  • How old: created in Sep 2010 by Dénes Szabó (denes.szabo) of Tag1
  • Versions available: 2.0.3, which supports ^9.3 ^10 ^11
• Maintainership
  • Security coverage
  • Test coverage
  • Number of open issues: 30 open issues, 3 of which are bugs against the current branch
• Usage stats:
  • 13,260 sites (almost 70% are D7 however)
• Module features and usage
  • For anyone not familiar with WordPress short codes, the documentation describes them as macros, and most often they are used for inserting elements into content such as image galleries, videos, playlists, and more. Shortcodes can also wrap content, however, and it’s possible to nest shortcodes as well.
  • Drupal typically solves the problems addressed by shortcodes using custom HTML elements, as implemented in the media ecosystem, or with the Entity Embed module. I think that shortcodes may also be useful in places where Drupal might also rely on tokens, albeit with an additional module like Token Filter.
  • Gutenberg includes a Shortcode block that can be used as a flexible way to add a variety of elements into a post’s content.
  • I think Shortcodes are an interesting paradigm because they’re really a tool for power users. Instead of providing a UI to browse and choose elements for something like an image gallery, they allow a savvy editor to quickly write a tag that will construct a gallery using numerical ID values.
  • I don’t think this is a tool that most Drupal sites will need, but it could be a really good way for experienced WordPress teams to feel more at home when starting to work with Drupal.

Join Mike Miles and Aubrey Sambor as they discuss their experiences with public speaking at tech conferences, including the challenges and joys of presenting technical and big-picture talks. Dive into their personal summer plans, ranging from trips to Cape Cod and Asheville to beer festivals and camping adventures. The conversation also explores recent technology updates, such as Figma's site builder and Apple's new 'Liquid Glass' design, emphasizing the importance of accessibility. Tune in for a casual, insightful chat about professional growth, summer fun, and the ever-evolving tech landscape.

For show notes visit:
https://www.talkingDrupal.com/cafe005

Topics

Michael Miles

Mike is passionate about development and working with the latest open source technologies. He has been working in web engineering since 2003, utilizing a number of different technologies, languages and frameworks. He has been working with Drupal since 2008 and is a regular contributor to the community and project. From 2015 to 2024 he was the lead organizer of the Boston Drupal Meetup Group. Since 2017 has been one of the organizers of New England Drupal Camp.

In his day-to-day role as Director of Web Development at MIT Sloan, Mike leads the development, maintenance and growth of the digital properties for the school, as well as, the development team that supports them. He is a public speaker and regularly presents at technical conferences around the world. Since 2013 Mike has presented dozens of talks at many different conferences/camps across the globe.

Aubrey Sambor

Aubrey is a lead front end developer and accessibility advocate with over 19 years of experience in software development and leadership. She specializes in writing modern CSS, semantic HTML, and performant JavaScript and brings almost two decades of experience in web development across higher education, non-profits, and public sector projects.

Aubrey is an active member of the Drupal community, contributing to open source initiatives and speaking at regional and national conferences. She champions accessibility best practices and writes about front end development, music reviews, and knitting projects on her blog, aubreysambor.com.

When she's not coding, Aubrey enjoys running, spinning her own yarn, fountain pens, and exploring local coffee shops and breweries.

• Casual Conversation and Weather
• Fitness Routines and Treadmills
• Podcast Preferences
• Remote Work and Buffer Time
• Job Search and Conference Experience
• Travel Stories and Conference Talks
• Halloween and Conference Talks
• Evolving as a Speaker
• Technical vs. Idea-Driven Talks
• Managing Bugs and Building Trust
• Balancing Multiple Talks
• Figma Sites and Accessibility Concerns
• Apple's Liquid Glass Design
• Nostalgia for Old Tech
• Summer Plans and Conferences

Guests

Mike Miles - mike-miles.com mikemiles86
Aubrey Sambor - aubreysambor.com starshaped

In this episode of Talking Drupal, we dive into the world of Drupal user groups and meetups with guests Lee Walker, Bernardo Martinez, and Bo Shipley. Our guests share their experiences in organizing and participating in Drupal communities and the vital role these meetups play in fostering continuous learning and professional development. We also explore the newest features of Drupal Core 11.2 in the Module of the Week.

For show notes visit:
https://www.talkingDrupal.com/508

Topics

• Meet the Guests: Lee, Bo, and Bernardo
• Module of the Week: Drupal Core 11.2
• Diving into Drupal User Groups and Meetups
• Personal Journeys into Drupal User Groups
• The Role of Meetup.com in Drupal Communities
• Organizing and Attending Meetups vs. Conferences
• Challenges and Strategies for Growing Meetups
• Virtual and Hybrid Meetups: Impact on Attendance
• Success Tips for Organizing Meetups
• Keeping Meetups Simple and Engaging
• Preventing Organizer Burnout
• Challenges and Changes in Meetup Cadence
• Finding and Retaining Meetup Members
• Communication Tools for Meetup Groups
• The Importance of In-Person Meetups
• Advice for Starting or Restarting Meetups
• Conclusion and Contact Information

Resources

Drupal.org Events
The Drop Times Events
Meetup.com Drupal
Chattanooga Drupal Users Group
Chattanooga Drupal Camp

Guests

Lee Walker - www.codejourneymen.com mr_scumbag
Bo Shipley - simplyshipley
Bernardo Martinez - linkedin bernardm28

Hosts

Stephen Cross - stephencross
John Picozzi - epam.com johnpicozzi
JD Leonard - modernbizconsulting.com jdleonard

Module of the Week

with Martin Anderson-Clutz - mandclu.com mandclu

Drupal Core 11.2

• Single Directory Components (SDCs) have been a focus of excitement for Drupal’s front end developers since they were added to Drupal 10.1 as an experimental module, and merged into 10.3 as a stable feature. With Drupal 11.2, SDCs now have a concept of variants, to allow for different ways of presenting a component’s information. Some component frameworks like Storybook have a somewhat different concept of variants, which is really a set of property value presets that are useful for testing. Variants with Drupal SDCs strike me as being analogous to view modes for content types, in that you can have separate template files for each variant, or you can have conditional logic within a single template based on the variant in use.
• Our own nicxvan, chx, and some others put some significant work into allowing preprocess hooks to be defined as OOP classes, which bring us a significant step closer to not needing .module files anymore. Hooks (and .module files) are Drupalisms, so removing the need for them is a big improvement for Developer Experience, and makes it easier for developers to get started with Drupal
• In Drupal 11.2 the module installer has been updated to only rebuild the container after several modules have been installed, which significantly speeds up installing multiple modules at once.
• Drupal 11.2 also brings us a Recipe Unpack composer extension, so when you composer require a recipe, the dependencies get automatically added to your site’s composer.json file, so you can apply and then remove the recipe and still have a fully functional site
• Package Manager is now a hidden module in Drupal core, which is critical for initiative like Automatic Updates and Project Browser, that the community has been working on for years
• Drupal core now also supports the next-generation AVIF format, with WEBP as a fallback with servers that don’t support generating them
• Of course there are also a variety of dependency updates as well, for CKEDitor, Symfony, composer and more, as well as too many minor improvements and bugfixes to cover in detail here

In this episode of Talking Drupal, we delve into the International Drupal Federation Initiative with our guest Tim Doyle, CEO of the Drupal Association. We explore the goals, structure, and potential impact of this initiative on the global Drupal community. Additionally, we cover the Modeler API as our module of the week, discussing its functionalities and future potential. Joining the discussion are hosts John Picozzi, Norah Medlin, Nic Laflin, and Martin Anderson-Clutz, who bring their insights and perspectives to the table.

For show notes visit:
https://www.talkingDrupal.com/507

Topics

• Meet the Guest: Tim Doyle
• Module of the Week: Modeler API
• Deep Dive into Modeler API
• Introducing the International Drupal Federation Initiative
• Governance and Global Impact
• Challenges and Future Prospects
• Annual Meeting and Governance Structure
• Challenges in Crafting Agreements
• Local Associations and Their Needs
• Engagement and Communication Strategies
• Regional Organizations and Governance
• US-Based Not-for-Profit Focus
• International Federation and Local Support
• Potential Risks and Governance Models
• Implementation Timeline and Costs
• Legal and Organizational Considerations
• Community Involvement and Feedback
• Conclusion and Contact Information

Resources

International Drupal Federation Initiative
Recent DA Video
Feature on The Drop Times
ASBL

Guests

Tim Doyle - Drupal.org Tim D.

Hosts

Nic Laflin - nLighteneddevelopment.com nicxvan
John Picozzi - epam.com johnpicozzi
Norah Medlin - tekNorah

Module of the Week

with Martin Anderson-Clutz - mandclu.com mandclu

Modeler API

The Modeler API provides an API for modules like ECA - Events, Conditions, Actions, Migrate Visualize, AI Agents, and maybe others. The purpose is to allow those modules to utilize modelers like BPMN.iO, (and maybe others in the future) to build diagrams constructed of their components (e.g. plugins) and write them back into module-specific config entities.

In this episode, Ivan Stegic and Randy Oest discuss the impact of AI on junior developers and other roles, debating whether AI will be a disruptive force in the job market. They delve into the complexities of using LinkedIn for job hunting and effective networking strategies. The conversation shifts to new features in Figma, the potential of AI-driven coding tools like Cursor, and the importance of investing in junior developers. They also explore higher education design systems, innovative business strategies, and reflect on the balance between tactical and digital controls in modern cars. The episode wraps up with a light-hearted chat about slang, parental roles, and mentorship.

For show notes visit:
https://www.talkingDrupal.com/cafe004

Topics

Ivan Stegic

Ivan is a prominent leader in the Drupal community and the founder of TEN7, a Minneapolis-based technology studio specializing in Drupal development, strategy, and digital transformation. With a background in physics and a passion for problem-solving, Ivan transitioned from science to tech, ultimately finding a perfect fit in the open-source world of Drupal.
Since founding TEN7 in 2007, Ivan has championed Drupal as a powerful, scalable platform for mission-driven organizations, nonprofits, and enterprises. Under his leadership, TEN7 has delivered impactful Drupal solutions for clients across education, healthcare, and government sectors. Ivan is also known for fostering a people-first company culture grounded in trust, transparency, and continuous improvement.
Beyond his work at TEN7, Ivan is an active contributor to the Drupal project, frequently speaking at DrupalCons and camps, hosting the ONE OF 8 BILLION podcast (formerly the TEN7 Podcast), and mentoring others in the community. His advocacy for open source and ethical tech underscores his commitment to using Drupal to make the internet—and the world—a better place.

Randy Oest

Randy is a design strategist, creative director, and accessibility advocate helping mission-driven organizations craft inclusive, user-centered digital experiences. With a background that spans visual design, front-end development, and content strategy, Randy specializes in building scalable design systems and digital platforms—particularly within the Drupal ecosystem.
As the former Creative Director at Four Kitchens, Randy led cross-functional teams in developing cohesive design strategies, architecting front-end systems, and aligning user experience with organizational goals. He’s known for bridging the gap between high-level vision and implementation, ensuring that every project is both beautiful and deeply usable.
Beyond his client work, Randy is a frequent speaker at DrupalCon, regional camps, and virtual events, where he shares insights on accessibility, usability, and design systems. A passionate advocate for open-source collaboration and digital equity, he is committed to making the web a more inclusive and empowering space for everyone.

• Debunking AI Myths: Junior Developers Are Here to Stay
• Casual Catch-Up: Podcast Conversations and AI Avatars
• LinkedIn: A Wasteland or a Goldmine?
• Creative Networking: From Fortune Tellers to Meaningful Connections
• Figma Innovations: Draw and Sites
• The Future of Coding: AI Tools and Junior Developers
• Flying Cars and Spam Texts
• Dealing with Spam Texts
• Exploring Higher Education Design Systems
• The Onion's Creative Agency
• The Importance of Tactile Controls in Cars
• Wrapping Up and Future Plans

Guests

Ivan Stegic - TEN7 ivanstegic
Randy Oest - amazingrando.com amazingrando

Today we are talking about Automated Testing Kit demo Recipe, Why Automated Testing is important, and How this recipe helps with guest André Angelantoni. We’ll also cover Taxonomy Views Integrator as our module of the week.

For show notes visit:
https://www.talkingDrupal.com/506

Topics

• What is Automated Testing Kit
• Features and benefits of Automated Testing Kit
• Cypress vs Playwright
• Where should these run
• Automated Testing Kit recipe
• Demo configuration
• Installing and setting up the Kit
• Using this on an existing site
• Managing tests and repositories
• Building and using recipes
• Debugging and troubleshooting tests
• Roadmap

Resources

• Automated Testing Kit Demo Recipe
• Automated Testing Kit
• Documentation
  • https://performantlabs.com/automated-testing-kit/automated-testing-kit
  • https://performantlabs.com/testor/introduction
• Thread on nightwatch replacement
• Testor
• Automated Testing Kit Intro Video
• Automated Testing Kit Philosophy
• Recipes list
• Testery
• Testiny
• Code generators
• Drupal forge

Guests

André Angelantoni - drupal.org/project/automated_testing_kit aangel

Hosts

Nic Laflin - nLighteneddevelopment.com nicxvan
John Picozzi - epam.com johnpicozzi
Norah Medlin - tekNorah

MOTW

Correspondent

Martin Anderson-Clutz - mandclu.com mandclu

• Brief description:
  • Have you ever wanted to customize the taxonomy display view for a specific vocabulary, or even a specific taxonomy term? There’s a module for that.
• Module name/project name:
  • Taxonomy Views Integrator
• Brief history
  • How old: created in Sep 2009 by Derek Webb (derekwebb1) though the most recent release was made by Kevin Quillen, who was a guest on the podcast in episodes 406 and 500
  • Versions available: 2.0.0 which works with Drupal 8, 9, 10, and 11
• Maintainership
  • Actively maintained
  • Security coverage
  • Test coverage
  • Documentation
  • Number of open issues: 13 open issues, 4 of which are bugs against the 2.0.x branch
• Usage stats:
  • 24,130 sites
• Module features and usage
  • After enabling this module, when you edit a vocabulary or a taxonomy term, users with the necessary permissions will see an option to specify a view to show tagged content, and you can also choose which display to use
  • You can create a new view from scratch, or clone the taxonomy/term/* view provided by core, or a view defined in code. Obvious it’s critical for the view to have a contextual filter for a taxonomy term
  • Using this module could allow you to customize the presentation on a view page, for example to make the exposed filters more relevant, or even to split out the content, for example if you wanted to list only news in the main display, and have events and blog posts listed separately in attachments
  • I found this module really helpful during some recent work on the Drupal Event Platform, so I thought I would share it with our listeners

Today we are talking about the Custom Field Module, what it does, and why you might want to use it with guest Andy Marquis. We’ll also cover Facet Bot Blocker as our module of the week.

For show notes visit:
https://www.talkingDrupal.com/505

Topics

• Meet the Guest: Andy Marquee
• Module of the Week: Facet Bot Blocker
• Exploring the Custom Field Module
• Benefits and Use Cases of Custom Field Module
• Custom Field Module vs. Other Solutions
• Advanced Features and Integrations
• Reflecting on Past Projects and Key Value
• Use Cases and Flexibility of Custom Fields
• Advanced Features and Integrations
• Challenges and Limitations
• Future Roadmap and Improvements

Resources

Custom Field Module

Guests

Andy Marquis - drupal.org/project/custom_field apmsooner

Hosts

Nic Laflin - nLighteneddevelopment.com nicxvan
John Picozzi - epam.com johnpicozzi
Norah Medlin - tekNorah

MOTW

Correspondent

Martin Anderson-Clutz - mandclu.com mandclu

• Brief description:
  • Have you been looking for an inexpensive way to mitigate an upsurge of bot traffic on your Drupal site’s faceted search pages? There’s a module for that
• Module name/project name:
  • Facet Bot Blocker
• Brief history
  • How old: created in Mar 2025, so about two months ago, by John Brandenburg (bburg) of Forum One
  • Versions available: 1.0.2 which support Drupal 10 and 11
• Maintainership
  • Actively maintained
  • Security coverage
  • Number of open issues: 4 open issues, one of which is a bug, but it did have a fix merged 4 days ago
• Usage stats:
  • 106 sites
• Module features and usage
  • A number of sites are seeing a huge upswing in bot traffic, and quite often a big part of that bot traffic is on one or more pages with faceted search
  • Crawlers try to request every permutation of every possible combination of facets. If your page has multiple facets, and in particular facets that accept multiple values, the number of permutations becomes huge
  • Facet Bot Blocker works by allowing you to set a maximum number of facet requests to allow, what error to return, and a custom HTML message to return to blocked user agents
  • If you have Memcache or Redis available, it’s recommended to use the appropriate module, and Facet Bot Blocker will automatically store its settings there for reduced database reads
  • The project page is also clear that if you are able to use a true Web Application Firewall (like Cloudflare or Akamai), that would be a better strategy. But if you don’t have one available, Facet Bot Blocker can help to mitigate the surges in bot traffic that are causing problems for many Drupal sites, particularly those hosted on platforms that charge based on usage

In this episode, Mike Anello and Mike Herchel dive into a casual conversation covering a wide array of topics. They start by discussing the concept of a podcast with almost no effort required and the mystery of Stephen's involvement. The conversation then quickly shifts to Florida Drupal Camp, mentioning its impressive 16 uninterrupted years, the increase in attendees, and how fun it is. They touch upon single directory components in Drupal, their importance, and intricacies like CSS styling, schemas, and Experience Builder. The discussion also includes insights into popular Drupal events like Florida Drupal Camp, Drupal Dev Days, and the upcoming DrupalCon. They infuse humor and personal anecdotes while engaging in thoughtful technical exchanges and playful banter.

For show notes visit:
https://www.talkingDrupal.com/cafe003

Topics

Michael Anello

Mike, widely recognized by his Drupal.org username "ultimike," is a prominent figure in the Drupal community with over 15 years of experience as a developer, educator, and community leader. As the co-founder and vice president of DrupalEasy, a Florida-based training and consulting firm, he has been instrumental inshaping the careers of countless Drupal professionals through comprehensive programs like Drupal Career Online and Professional Module Development .

Anello's contributions extend beyond education. He has been deeply involved in the Drupal ecosystem, serving as a core contributor to the Migrate module, co-maintaining several contributed modules, and actively participating in issue queues and documentation efforts . His leadership roles include membership in the Drupal Community Working Group and the Conflict Resolution Team, as well as organizing the Florida Drupal Users' Group and Florida DrupalCamp for over a decade.

As the host of the long-running DrupalEasy Podcast, Anello provides insights into Drupal development, community news, and interviews with key contributors, fostering a sense of connection and ongoing learning within the community (DrupalEasy). His dedication to mentoring and community building has made him a respected and influential voice in the Drupal world.

Mike Herchel

Mike is a seasoned front-end developer and a prominent contributor to the Drupal community, with over 15 years of experience in web development. He is best known as the lead developer of Olivero, Drupal's default front-end theme, which emphasizes accessibility, modern design, and user experience. (ImageX)
In addition to his work on Olivero, Mike serves as a core CSS maintainer for Drupal and is the creator of the Quicklink module, which enhances site performance by preloading links in the user's viewport. He also has amazing calves. They're the size of small children. Rumor has it that his vertical jump is over 4.5 inches! He has also contributed to the introduction of Single Directory Components (SDC) into Drupal core, aiming to streamline component-based theming. 

Beyond his technical contributions, Mike is an active community leader. He has served on the Drupal Association Board of Directors and is a primary organizer of Florida DrupalCamp. (Drupal) As a speaker, he has presented at various events, including EvolveDrupal, discussing topics like the future of Drupal theming and the Starshot initiative, which seeks to make Drupal more accessible to site builders. 

Professionally, Mike works as a Senior Front-End Developer at Agileana, where he continues to advocate for accessibility, performance, and the open web.  He shares his insights and experiences through his personal blog at herchel.com, contributing to the ongoing evolution of Drupal and its community.

Discussion Topics:

• The Best Podcast Idea Ever
• Florida Drupal Camp: A Legacy of Success
• Single Directory Components: Getting Started
• TD Cafe: The Podcast Name Debate
• Deep Dive into Single Directory Components
• Experience Builder and Component Integration
• Custom Themes and Single Directory Components
• Design Tool Integration
• CSS Variables and Component Architecture
• Template File vs Render Array
• CSS Preferences: Plain CSS vs Post CSS
• Top Drupal Events
• Concluding Remarks and Personal Plans

Guests

Mike Anello - DupalEasy ultimike

Mike Herchel - herchel.com mherchel

In this episode of Talking Drupal, we dive into the intricacies of the Drupal marketplace initiative with our guest, Tiffany Farriss, CEO and co-owner of Palantir.net and long-time board member of the Drupal Association. We explore the goals and challenges of creating a trusted Drupal marketplace, discuss how site templates can lower the barrier to entry for new users, and examine the importance of maintaining community trust and the sustainability of Drupal. This episode also includes a spotlight on the Views CSV Source module and an in-depth discussion on community feedback, the potential value and business models for site templates, and the steps needed to make a go/no-go decision on the marketplace by the upcoming Vienna event.

For show notes visit:
https://www.talkingDrupal.com/504

Topics

• Meet Our Guest: Tiffany Farriss
• Module of the Week: Views CSV Source
• Deep Dive into Views CSV Source
• Introduction to the Drupal Marketplace
• Goals and Challenges of the Marketplace Working Group
• Community Feedback and Sustainability
• Monetization and Fairness in the Marketplace
• Risk Mitigation and Future Plans
• Exploring the Impact of Releases and Usage
• Challenges and Successes of the Drupal Marketplace
• Defining the MVP for the Drupal Marketplace
• Addressing Community Concerns and Governance
• Engaging the Community and Next Steps
• Final Thoughts and Contact Information

Resources

Marketplace initiative

Guests

Tiffany Farriss - palantir.net farriss

Hosts

Nic Laflin - nLighteneddevelopment.com nicxvan
John Picozzi - epam.com johnpicozzi
Norah Medlin - tekNorah

MOTW

Correspondent

Martin Anderson-Clutz - mandclu.com mandclu

• Brief description:
  • Have you ever wanted to present data within your Drupal website that comes from a CSV flat file, without having to import that data to your Drupal database? There’s a module for that.
• Module name/project name:
  • Views CSV Source
• Brief history
  • How old: created in March 2024 by Daniel Cothran (andileco) of JSI, though I met Danieal at Midcamp earlier this week and he was emphatic that his colleague and co-maintainer Nia Kathoni (nikathone) deserves significant credit
  • Versions available: 1.0.11, which works with Drupal 8.8, 9, 10, and 11
• Maintainership
  • Actively maintained, latest release was last month
  • Security coverage
  • Test coverage
  • Documentation - a robust README
  • Number of open issues: 4 open issues, none of which are bugs
• Usage stats:
  • 56 sites
• Module features and usage
  • With Views CSV Source installed, you can create a view that uses a CSV as a source instead of the Drupal site’s data. You can point to a file within your site’s filesystem, or it can be a remotely hosted CSV. If the file requires authentication for access, it is also possible to include encoded credentials in a header.
  • Now you can use CSV Fields to specify the columns you want to pull into the view, and you can use the “group by” to specify datasets to represent, for example to plot as lines in a chart
  • You can also create filters, either a CSV Field that acts a standard text filter, or a CSV Field Options filter that creates a dropdown of all the unique values in a specified column
  • Your assembled data can be shown in tables or charts, and can also be manipulated using standard view configuration, or using contributed modules like Views Simple Math Field
  • The module also comes with sort and a contextual filter plugins
  • It was impressed by a demo of Views CSV Source in a lightning talk at Midcamp yesterday, so I thought it would be fun to talk about today

In this episode, John Picozzi and Jason Pamental explore the connections fostered by using Drupal across different geographies, the evolution of conferences, and how design systems are being utilized at Chewy. We also delve into the application of AI in e-commerce and coding, and discuss the practicalities of maintaining governance in large organizations. Join us for an engaging discussion filled with personal anecdotes, professional insights, and future prospects.

For show notes visit:
https://www.talkingDrupal.com/503

Topics

John Picozzi

John Picozzi is the Solutions Architect at EPAM Systems, where he helps organizations implement scalable and sustainable digital solutions—most often using Drupal. With over a decade of experience in web development, John has become a trusted voice in the Drupal community for his commitment to open source, user-centered design, and thoughtful architecture.
John is a contributor to Drupal and an active member of the community as the organizer of the Drupal Providence Meetup and New England Drupal Camp. He’s also well known as a co-host of the Talking Drupal podcast, a weekly show focused on all things Drupal, where he interviews community members and shares insights on development, strategy, and community engagement.
Outside of podcasting and coding, John frequently speaks at DrupalCamps and conferences across the U.S., offering sessions that span technical deep dives to community and career development topics. You can find more about his work and speaking engagements at picozzi.com, or follow him on Drupal.org

Jason Pamental

Jason Pamental is a designer, strategist, and technologist specializing in typography, variable fonts, and digital design systems. He is currently Principal Designer at Chewy, where he leads their design system efforts and helps guide their mobile app architecture and strategy.
With over 30 years of experience, Jason has worked with organizations such as Adobe, ESPN, Fidelity, and the State of Rhode Island to shape impactful digital experiences. He’s a globally recognized expert in web typography and the author of Responsive Typography. His work has helped define how variable fonts are used on the web today.
Jason is a frequent speaker at conferences like Beyond Tellerrand, An Event Apart, and SmashingConf, and he shares his knowledge through writing, teaching, and open source contributions. His articles, presentations, and resources can be found at rwt.io — short for Responsive Web Typography — and many of his talks, videos, and associated resources are available on https://noti.st/jpamental
An active supporter of the open web and the Drupal community, Jason is committed to bridging the gap between design and development. Outside of work, he enjoys riding bikes, making espresso, spending time with his family in Rhode Island, and following Leo and Henry around Turner Reservoir, posting photos on Instagram.

Hosts

John Picozzi - epam.com johnpicozzi

Jason Pamental - rwt.io.

Welcome to the first episode of Talking Drupal Cafe.

Join Martin and Jake as they delve into an insightful conversation exploring the challenges and responsibilities associated with being a module maintainer. Discussing project types, the significance of sandbox modules, the impact of Drupal CMS, and the role of AI tools, they highlight issues around burnout, sustainability, and community support. Discover how the Drupal community can better support maintainers and the importance of continued contributions. This episode also touches on upcoming conferences and the significance of face-to-face interactions in the Drupal community.

Martin Anderson-Clutz

Martin is a highly respected figure in the Drupal community, known for his extensive contributions as a developer, speaker, and advocate for open-source innovation. Based in London, Ontario, Canada, Martin began his career as a graphic designer before transitioning into web development. His journey with Drupal started in late 2005 when he was seeking a robust multilingual CMS solution, leading him to embrace Drupal's capabilities. (mandclu.com)

Martin holds the distinction of being the world's first Triple Drupal Grand Master, certified across Drupal 7, 8, and 9 as a Developer, Front-End Specialist, and Back-End Specialist. (TheDropTimes) He also possesses certifications in various Acquia products and is UX certified by the Nielsen Norman Group. (mandclu.com)

Currently serving as a Senior Solutions Engineer at Acquia, Martin has been instrumental in advancing Drupal's ecosystem. He has developed and maintains several contributed modules, including Smart Date and Search Overrides, and has been actively involved in the Drupal Recipes initiative, particularly focusing on event management solutions. (mandclu.com) His current work on the Event Platform aims to streamline the creation and management of event-based websites within Drupal. (TheDropTimes)

Beyond development, Martin is a prominent speaker and educator, having presented at numerous Drupal events such as DrupalCon Barcelona and EvolveDrupal. He is also a co-host of the "Talking Drupal" podcast, where he leads the "Module of the Week" segment, sharing insights on various Drupal modules. (mandclu.com)
Martin's dedication to the Drupal community is evident through his continuous efforts to mentor, innovate, and promote best practices within the open-source landscape.(TheDropTimes)

Jacob Rockowitz

Jacob is a prominent figure in the Drupal community, best known for developing and maintaining the Webform module—one of the most widely used and feature-rich form-building tools in the Drupal ecosystem. His work has significantly enhanced Drupal's capabilities in form creation, data collection, and user interaction.

Rockowitz began his Drupal journey while working as a consultant for Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center (MSK), where he spent over 18 years. Facing the need for robust form functionality during MSK's early adoption of Drupal 8, he created YAML Form, which later evolved into the Webform module for Drupal 8 . This module has since become integral to many Drupal sites, offering extensive features for form management.(design4drupal.org)

Beyond Webform, Jacob has contributed to other projects like the Schema.org Blueprints module, aiming to improve structured content modeling in Drupal. He is also an advocate for open-source sustainability, often discussing the importance of community involvement and the challenges of maintaining large-scale open-source projects .(talkingdrupal.com, jrockowitz.com)

As an active member of the Drupal community, Rockowitz frequently speaks at events such as DrupalCon and New England Drupal Camp, sharing his insights on module development and community engagement . He maintains a personal blog at jrockowitz.com, where he writes about his experiences and thoughts on Drupal development.(Drupal)

For show notes visit:
https://www.talkingDrupal.com/502

Topics

• Introduction to Project Maintenance
• Types of Projects and Their Significance
• Sandbox Modules and Work Projects
• Passion Projects and Inherited Projects
• Challenges in Managing Multiple Modules
• The Role of Recipes in Project Management
• AI and Automation in Project Maintenance
• The Future of Project Maintenance and Contributions
• Evolving Drupal and Community Contributions
• Enterprise Features and the Trash Module
• Marketplace and Site Templates
• AI and the Future of Web Development
• Contribution Credits and Bounties
• Guiding Users and Module Selection
• Drupal Adjacent Solutions
• Sustainability of Contribution
• The Importance of Community Engagement

Hosts

Martin Anderson-Clutz - mandclu.com mandclu
Jacob Rockowitz - jrockowitz.com jrockowitz

Join us as we celebrate our 500th episode with Drupal founder Dries Buytaert! Reflecting on 13 years of our podcast and Drupal's 24-year journey, Dries shares his motivations, strategies, and insights into the future of Drupal. From community contributions and AI strategy to the impact of Drupal on organizations worldwide, this episode is packed with exciting updates and heartfelt reflections.

For show notes visit:
https://www.talkingDrupal.com/501

Topics

• Reflecting on Milestones
• The Urgency Behind Starshot
• Cobwebs

Guests

Dries Buytaert - dri.es dries

Hosts

Nic Laflin - nLighteneddevelopment.com nicxvan
Stephen Cross- @stephencross

Join us for an extraordinary celebration of Talking Drupal's 500th episode! In this milestone episode, we dive into a treasure trove of memories, insights, and updates from an array of special guests. From innovative Drupal contributions to the future of open-source technology, this episode is packed with valuable discussions. Don't miss appearances from notable guests like Dries Buytaert, Tim Doyle, Tim Lehnen, Mike Anello, and many more. Celebrate with us as we look forward to 500 more episodes!

For show notes visit:
https://www.talkingDrupal.com/500

Topics

Guests include, in order of appearance:

• Jason Pamental
• Dries Buytaert
• Tim Doyle
• Tim Lehnen
• Carlos Ospina
• Mayela Jackson
• Mike Anello
• Jonus Cuyvers
• Jacob Rockowitz
• Antonio Estevez
• Norah Medlin
• Kevin Quillen
• Chris Wells
• Steven Jones
• Jürgen Haas
• Thomas Scola
• Chad Hester
• Matt Glaman
• James Abrahams
• Avi Schwab
• Josh Mitchell
• James Shield

Resources

Road to deprecating .module files

Hosts

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

Today we are talking about The Contact Form Initiative, What it is, and how it helped Drupal with guest J. Hogue. We’ll also cover Local Tasks More as our module of the week.

For show notes visit:
https://www.talkingDrupal.com/499

Topics

• What is the Contact Form initiative
• What makes up the contact form recipe
• Why did you want to run this initiative
• What are the responsibilities of an initiative lead
• Were there any unexpected speed bumps
• Who was involved
• As a non-backend developer, any hesitation to lead this effort
• What was onboarding like
• What was the timeline
• Any tips for others thinking of leading an initiative

Guests

J. Hogue - oomphinc.com artinruins

Hosts

Nic Laflin - nLighteneddevelopment.com nicxvan
John Picozzi - epam.com johnpicozzi
Kathy Beck - kbeck303

MOTW

Correspondent

Jacob Rockowitz - jrockowitz.com jrockowitz

• Brief description:
  • Nodes can have too many local tasks. Only the first few, like View, Edit, Layout, Revisions, and Translate, are used daily. Would you like to hide or reorder less commonly used local tasks, which include Usage, Clone, Devel, and Convert. There is a module for that
• Local Tasks More (local_tasks_more)
• Brief history
  • How old: created on November 6th, 2024
  • Versions available: 1.0.0-beta2 r
• Maintainership
  • Actively maintained
  • No security coverage
  • Has test coverage
  • Does not require much documentation
  • No issues
• Usage stats:
  • 22 sites
• Maintainer(s):
  • jrockowitz (me)
  • Module features and usage
  • Enter the base routes that support the show more/less task link and alterations.
  • Enter the local task id and the altered title and weight. Set the local tasks to FALSE to remove it.
  • Enter the number of links to trigger show more/less tasks link/icon from primary and secondary tasks (aka tabs).

In this episode of Talking Drupal, we discuss the latest DOJ accessibility ruling and its implications for Drupal with special guest Josh Mitchell. Josh, a seasoned expert who has led teams in digital agencies, governments, and non-profits, sheds light on what the ruling means for state and local governments, the importance of accessibility, and steps to achieve compliance. We also explore the Sa11y module, a powerful tool for enhancing website accessibility, and compare it with the Editorially module. Additionally, we touch on the upcoming MID Camp 2025. Tune in for an insightful discussion on making web content more accessible for all.

For show notes visit:
https://www.talkingDrupal.com/498

Topics

• Can you give us an overview of the DOJ Accessibility Ruling
• Does this apply to federal websites
• When does this go into effect
• How does this affect current sites
• Hwo is Drupal positioned against this
• Does this rule apply to all content such as PDFs
• Any tips to organizations
• JS widgets

Resources

• Announcement of the rule
• Full text of the rule - PDF
• Fact sheet for meeting the requirements of the rule
  • https://www.ada.gov/resources/2024-03-08-web-rule/
  • https://www.drupal.org/docs/getting-started/accessibility/how-to-do-an-accessibility-review
• AXE Core
• Core issue to automate accessibility tests with Nightwatch.js
• Keyboard traps
• COTS - Commercial off the shelf software
• VPATS - Voluntary product accessibility template
• Accessibility Conformance Report (ACR)
• Monsido - Acquia optimize - PDF
• Josh’s blog post

Guests

Joshua "Josh" Mitchell - joshuami.com joshuami

Hosts

Nic Laflin - nLighteneddevelopment.com nicxvan
John Picozzi - epam.com johnpicozzi
Kathy Beck - kbeck303

MOTW

Correspondent

Martin Anderson-Clutz - mandclu.com mandclu

• Brief description:
  • Have you ever wanted your Drupal site to have a built-in accessibility tool that could identify things like potential color contrast issues? There’s a module for that
• Module name/project name:
  • Sa11y
• Brief history
  • It’s worth mentioning that the name is a numeronym, so spelled s-a-1-1-y, which plays off of a common way the word “accessibility” is abbreviated
• How old: created in Jan 2018 by Bryan Sharpe (b_sharpe) but the namespace was taken over in Jun 2024 by Mark Conroy (markconroy) of LocalGov Drupal, so the current 3.0.1 release, which supports Drupal 10 and 11, is a completely different module than the original 8.x-1.x branch.
• Maintainership
  • Actively maintained, in fact this module came out of the ongoing work being done on the LocalGov distribution and profile
  • Security coverage
  • Test coverage: no, but the module is effectively just a wrapper for the Sa11y library, which is CMS agnostic and used in the Wordpress and Joomla communities as well
  • The Sa11y library has its own website, which includes documentation
  • Number of open issues: 1 open issues, which isn’t a bug
• Usage stats:
  • 62 sites
• Module features and usage
  • We did cover the Editoria11y accessibility checker as MOTW all the way back in episode #350, almost 3 years ago, and Sa11y was mentioned at that time. Both modules have had major releases since then, so I thought this week’s episode would be a chance to do an updated comparison
  • Sa11y does include some checks that Editoria11y does not, such as color contrast checking and a readability score
  • The Editoria11y module, on the other hand, includes site-wide reporting that would be helpful for site admins, as well as a wealth of configuration options including one or more DOM elements to use as the container to check within, a list of elements to exclude, and so on. Recent versions of Editoria11y also include an option for live feedback as you edit, which should work with CKEditor 5, Paragraphs 5 or newer, and Gutenberg
  • At the end of the day, however, both projects are intended to provide your content editors with immediate feedback on the accessibility compliance of what they create. So, it’s worth looking at the feedback each tool provides and deciding which one is more useful for your team in particular

Today we are talking about Drupal Forge, how it works, and why it’s changing Drupal with guest Darren Oh. We’ll also cover ECA VBO as our module of the week.

For show notes visit:
https://www.talkingDrupal.com/497

Topics

• Elevator pitch for Drupal forge
• What is Drupal Forge built on
• What is the pricing model
• Does Drupal Forge only allow you to install Drupal CMS
• Drupal Forge and templates, was there an influence on Site Templates
• Why offer templates for Drupal Forge Camps
• Is Drupal Forge open source
• What is on the Roadmap
• How can people get involved

Resources

• Drupal Forge on Drupal.org
• Drupal Forge
• DevPanel

Guests

Darren Oh - drupalforge.org Darren Oh

Hosts

Nic Laflin - nLighteneddevelopment.com nicxvan
John Picozzi - epam.com johnpicozzi
Kathy Beck - kbeck303

MOTW

Correspondent

Martin Anderson-Clutz - mandclu.com mandclu

• Brief description:
  • Have you ever wanted a powerful and flexible way to create views bulk operations without writing code? There’s a module for that.
• Module name/project name:
  • ECA VBO
• Brief history
  • How old: created in May 2022 by mxh, a prolific maintainer in his own right, and an active member of the group that has made the ECA ecosystem so far-reaching
  • Versions available: 1.1.1 and 2.1.1, the latter of which supports ^10.3 || ^11
• Maintainership
  • Actively maintained
  • Security coverage
  • Documentation: sort of. The README has step-by-step instructions, and the project page has links to both an example model and a tutorial video
• Number of open issues: 7 open issues, 1 of which are bugs against the current branch
• Usage stats:
  • 320 sites
• Module features and usage
  • With the module installed, your site will have a number of Events available within ECA, specifically for defining models that can perform bulk actions on the selected items in a view. In my own experience the most useful event is VBO: Execute Views bulk operation (one by one)
  • From there, you can define the logic of what needs to happen to the selected items. I’ve used it for fairly simple operations like changing content to a specific moderation state, but you could define complex logic that is conditional on field values, site configuration, or even global factors like the time of day
  • With one or more models defined, you can now add a field to your view for ECA bulk operations and then select which eligible models you want available in that specific view
  • It’s worth adding that the ECA model can also include logic to define who should have access to perform a particular operation, which could be as simple as checking the role of the current user, but can be as complex as you need
  • I came across ECA VBO during some recent work on the Drupal Event Platform, which is already available to try out on Drupal Forge, but there should be a more formal announcement on that front soon

Today we are talking about Drupal Basics, Why we got away from them, and what we do to bring them back with guest Mike Anello. We’ll also cover Entity Reference Override as our module of the week.

For show notes visit:
https://www.talkingDrupal.com/496

Topics

• Where did this idea come from
• Why do you feel more basic content is necessary
• How did Drupal get away from the basics
• How can we get more basic talks into Drupal events
• How do we balance basic content with new topics like recipes or Drupal CMS
• How do we entice speakers to take these talks
• Could this adversely affect attendance
• Question from Stephen: How do we address virtual events and that they are preferred by a younger crowd
• Will Florida Drupal Camp have a track

Guests

Mike Anello - drupaleasy.com ultimike

Hosts

Nic Laflin - nLighteneddevelopment.com nicxvan
John Picozzi - epam.com johnpicozzi
Kathy Beck - kbeck303

MOTW

Correspondent

Martin Anderson-Clutz - mandclu.com mandclu

• Brief description:
  • Have you ever wanted to replace a text field on entities you reference in your Drupal site? There’s a module for that.
• Module name/project name:
  • Entity Reference Override
• Brief history
  • How old: created in Sep 2016 by Jeff Eaton, though recent releases are by Benjamin Melançon (mlncn) of Agaric
  • Versions available: 2.0.0-beta3 which works with Drupal 10.1 or 11
• Maintainership
  • Actively maintained
  • Security coverage, yes but needs a stable release
  • Test coverage
  • Documentation - user guide
  • Number of open issues: 13 open issues, 2 of which are bugs against the 2.0.x branch
• Usage stats:
  • 2,004 sites
• Module features and usage
  • The module defines a new field type, with associated widgets and formatters.
  • Your site editors will see a normal entity reference field (autocomplete or select) with an additional text field. Text provided in that additional field can be used to override a specific field in the referenced entity’s display, or add a class to its rendered markup.
  • This could be handy in use cases like showing people with project-specific roles, or showing related articles with the summary tweaked to be more relevant to the main content being viewed.
  • It’s not a super-common need, but if you need this capability, it can save having to set up a more complicated content architecture with some kind of intermediary entity
  • I thought this module would be interesting because today’s guest, Mike Anello, is listed as one of the maintainers. Mike, what can you tell us about your history with the module and how you’ve used it?

Today we are talking about Our Favorite things and The Future of Drupal with guest Jared Ponchot & Dave Hansen-Lange.

For show notes visit:
https://www.talkingDrupal.com/495

Topics

• What has piqued your interest
• AI creating components
• Any other new features or demos
• What haven't you seen that you hope to
• How do you feel about the future of Drupal

Resources

• Driesnote

Guests

Dave Hansen-Lange - linkedin.com dalin
Jared Ponchot - lullabot.com jponch

Hosts

Nic Laflin - nLighteneddevelopment.com nicxvan
John Picozzi - epam.com johnpicozzi
Martin Anderson-Clutz - mandclu.com mandclu
Andrew Berry - lullabot.com deviantintegral

Today we are talking about AI in EDU, how it can provide efficiencies, and how you might start using it today with guests Brian Piper & Mike Miles . We’ll also cover External Entities as our module of the week.

For show notes visit:
https://www.talkingDrupal.com/494

Topics

• How are you using AI with your team at Rochester
• How are you using AI with your team at MIT
• What are the AI policies at your institutions
• On the ingestion side how do you manage consumption
• Tips and tricks to incorporate AI into your work
• Can you talk more about using AI to distribute content outside the web
• Do you have tips for managers
• How have you seen EDUs using AI other than as assistive technology
• What are your favorite tools
• Have you done adversarial testing
• How does AI in Drupal impact EDU
• Where do you see AI in EDU in the future

Resources

• Crawler rate limit
• Externalizing costs
• AI for U
• MidCamp 2024 session about YaleSites
• Tools
  • Element 451
  • Builder io
  • Deque Axe Devtools
  • Descript
  • Opus clips
  • Kapwing
  • HeyGen
  • Synthesia
  • Text to video
    • Sora
    • Veo

Guests

Brian Piper - brianwpiper.com
Mike Miles - Mike-miles.com mikemiles86

Hosts

Nic Laflin - nLighteneddevelopment.com nicxvan
John Picozzi - epam.com johnpicozzi
Andrew Berry - lullabot.com deviantintegral

MOTW

Correspondent

Martin Anderson-Clutz - mandclu.com mandclu

• Brief description:
  • Have you ever wanted to connect your Drupal website to an external data source, to include their datasets into the presentation of your Drupal-managed content? There’s a module for that
• Module name/project name:
  • External Entities
• Brief history
  • How old: created in May 2015 by attiks, though the most recent release is by Colan Schwartz (colan), a fellow Canadian
  • Versions available: 8.x-2.0-beta1 and 3.0.0-beta4, the latter of which supports Drupal 10 and 11
• Maintainership
  • Actively maintained, latest release was less than a month ago
  • Security coverage (though technically needs a stable release
  • Test coverage
  • Documentation: user guide
  • Number of open issues: 77 open issues, 3 of which are bugs against the 3.x branch, though one is marked fixed now
• Usage stats:
  • 679 sites
• Module features and usage
  • The External Entities module lets you map fields from external data sources to fields on a “virtual” entity in Drupal. This allows for external data to be used with Drupal’s powerful features like Views, Entity Queries, or Search API as well as use your local Drupal site’s theme to theme data from an external source
  • The module does provide a time-based caching layer for external entities, but you can also implement a more custom cache expiration logic through custom code
  • External entities can also have annotations, essentially Drupal-managed information that will be associated with the external entity, and accessed as a normal field through all Drupal field operations. This could allow you to have Drupal-based comments on information from a different website, for example
  • There is a sizeable ecosystem of companion modules, to help you connect to different kinds of external storage, as to help you aggregate data from multiple sources
  • In my Drupal career I’ve worked on a number of higher ed websites, and the ability to display externally-managed data is a pretty common requirement, either from an HRIS system to show staff and faculty data, or a courseware solution like Banner. I thought this would be an interesting tangent to today’s topic

Today we are talking about The Drupal Developer Survey, Last year's results, and How it helps Drupal with guest Mike Richardson. We’ll also cover HTMX as our module of the week.

For show notes visit:
https://www.talkingDrupal.com/493

Topics

• What is the Drupal Developer Survey
• How often does it come out
• How did it come to be
• What type of information does it collect
• Do you look at other surveys
• What were some of the most interesting stats last year
• Core contributors
• How do you expect last year to compare to this year
• Do you think the outlook will be more positive with Drupal CMS
• Drop off in Drupal 7
• Home users
• DDEV usage
• AI questions
• Security questions

Resources

• Drupal Developer Survey 2024 Results
• 2025 Drupal Developer Survey
• HTMX Sucks

Guests

Mike Richardson - Ironstar Dev Survey richo_au

Hosts

Nic Laflin - nLighteneddevelopment.com nicxvan
John Picozzi - epam.com johnpicozzi
Andrew Berry - lullabot.com deviantintegral

MOTW

Correspondent

Martin Anderson-Clutz - mandclu.com mandclu

• Brief description:
  • Have you ever wanted to replace Drupal’s AJAX capabilities with a lightweight library that has no additional dependencies? There’s a module for that.
• Module name/project name:
  • HTMX
• Brief history
  • How old: created in May 2023 by wouters_f though recent releases are by fathershawn of Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center
  • Versions available: 1.3.5 and 1.4.0, both of which support Drupal 10.3 and 11
• Maintainership
  • Actively maintained, latest release less than a month ago
  • Security coverage
  • Test coverage
  • Documentation included in the repo as well as online
  • Number of open issues: 3 open issues, 1 of which is a bug
• Usage stats:
  • 92 sites
• Module features and usage
  • To use HTMX, you need to attach the library to the render array of one or more elements where you want to use it, and then add data attributes to your render array that indicate how you want HTMX to react to user behaviour
  • HTMX can help make your Drupal sites more interactive by dynamically loading or reloading parts of a page, giving it a more “application-like” user experience
  • There is a planning issue to discuss gradually replace Drupal’s current AJAX system with HTMX, and a related Proof Of Concept showing how that could work with an existing Drupal admin form
  • A number of elements in the current AJAX system also rely on jQuery, so adopting HTMX would also help to phase out jQuery in core. HTMX is also significantly more lightweight than JS frameworks like React
  • HTMX is really a developer-oriented project, which is why I thought it would be appropriate for this week’s episode

Today we are talking about Pantheon Content Publisher, How it brings Google Docs to Drupal, and why you might want to use it with guests Chris Reynolds & John Money. We’ll also cover QR Code Fields as our module of the week.

For show notes visit:
https://www.talkingDrupal.com/492

Topics

• What is Pantheon Content Publisher
• Why was Pantheon Content Publisher created
• How does it work with Google docs
  • How do you handle revisions
  • How do you target environments
  • Can you do structured content
  • How do reference existing content
  • How does this use GraphQL
• What are some of the use cases you are seeing
• Who should not use Pantheon Content Publisher
• Can I develop the SDCs locally with Pantheon Content Publisher
• What is the ingestion layer like
• AI layer
• Talking Drupal workflow
• Do you have a process for bulk publishing
• How does startup look
• Is it PCC or PCP
• Can Pantheon Content Publisher customers push their own non google content
• Is Pantheon Content Publisher open source
• Is there a cost
• Can you translate content

Resources

• Pantheon Content Publisher docs
• Pantheon Content Publisher module
• Pantheon Content Publisher Roadmap

Guests

Chris Reynolds - jazzsequence.com jazzsequence
John Money - john.money

Hosts

Nic Laflin - nLighteneddevelopment.com nicxvan
John Picozzi - epam.com johnpicozzi
Andrew Berry - lullabot.com deviantintegral

MOTW

Correspondent

Martin Anderson-Clutz - mandclu.com mandclu

• Brief description:
  • Have you ever wanted your Drupal site to generate various kinds of QR codes? There’s a module for that.
• Module name/project name:
  • QR Code Fields
• Brief history
  • How old: created in Nov 2023 by Sujan Shrestha of Nepal
  • Versions available: 1.1.1 and 2.1.3, the latter of which works with Drupal 10 and 11
• Maintainership
  • Actively maintained
  • Number of open issues: 4 open issues, none of which are bugs
• Usage stats:
  • 134 sites
• Module features and usage
  • This module defines not just one but 9 new fields for generating QR codes, including for URLs, vCards, MeCards, Events, and more
  • Each field QR accepts inputs based on the associated information that should be exposed. So a URL QR Code field only accepts an input for the URL destination, while an Event QR Code has inputs for a summary, description, location, start, and end.
  • The module also provides a custom block plugin for each type of QR code, to make it easier to display your QR codes wherever you need for your specific use case
  • The QR Code Fields module also defines a service for generating QR code images, which could also be useful for more custom implementations.

Today we are talking about OpenY, a distribution for YMCAs, why it was created, and how it’s used today with guests Avi Schwab and Brent Wilker. We’ll also cover AI Media Image as our module of the week.

For show notes visit:
https://www.talkingDrupal.com/491

Topics

• What is OpenY
• Why is it important to the YMCA
• How many Y's use it
• Is each Y independent technologically
• Why doesn't the Y create a platform as a service
• How do you get the message out about OpenY
• What does a Y pay for and how do they pay
• What is the governance layer like
• Any thoughts on recipes
• How does theming work
• New features to come
• How does ImageX support OpenY

Resources

• MOTW
  • FLDC session: From Chatbots to Content Magic: The AI-Driven Future of Drupal
• YMCA Website Services (OpenY) Glossary
• YMCA Sandboxes
  • https://sandboxes.y.org/
  • https://sandbox-carnation-std.y.org/
• Get in touch with ImageX about Open Y
• Avi’s sourdough recipe base and flour
  • https://tartinebakery.com/stories/country-bread
  • https://www.janiesmill.com/

Guests

Brent Wilker - ImageX.co brent.wilker

Hosts

Nic Laflin - nLighteneddevelopment.com nicxvan
John Picozzi - epam.com johnpicozzi
Avi Schwab - froboy.org froboy

MOTW

Correspondent

Martin Anderson-Clutz - mandclu.com mandclu

• • Brief description:
    • Have you ever wanted to use AI to generate images, and save them directly into the Drupal media library once you have the result you want? There’s a module for that.
  • Module name/project name:
    • AI Media Image
  • Brief history
    • How old: created in Feb 2025 by coffeymachine
    • Versions available: 1.0.0-alpha2
  • Maintainership
    • Actively maintained
    • Security coverage: technically, but needs a stable release
    • Number of open issues: 2 open issues, neither of which are bugs
  • Usage stats:
    • 9 sites
  • Module features and usage
    • We have talked before on the podcast about a couple of ways you could use AI to generate images directly within a Drupal website. One used all the latest OpenAI APIs and the other had media library integration, though it only worked through its own admin form. Both were built to specifically DALL•E, OpenAI’s image generation service.
    • This new module is a big leap forward because it’s based on Drupal’s powerful and rapidly innovating AI module, so it can work with multiple AI image generation services.
    • What’s more, AI Media Image plugs into the Drupal core media system, so you can use the tool to generate images directly within the media library, including when you open it up in a modal to populate an entity reference field. This makes it significantly more intuitive to use this capability as part of a normal content creation flow.
    • There are a couple of things that may not be intuitive when you first start using AI Media Image. For example, by default it uses the prompt you used to create the image as the alt text that will be saved to the media library. That seems unexpected to me, but if the prompt exceeds the max alt text length of 255 characters then it will throw an error and then you can overwrite the value of the prompt field to contain proper alt text before saving the image to the media library. This is one of the open issues mentioned earlier and resolving it would really improving the experience of using this module
    • I got to play around with this module while preparing a demo for a session about AI I delivered with Mike Anello at Florida Drupalcamp on the weekend, so we’ll try to include a link in the notes so you can also watch for that recording and see this module in action

Today we are talking about Drupal Contribution, how you can approach it within your company, and why a Contrib First approach is important with guest Steve Wirt. We’ll also cover Config Importer & Tools as our module of the week.

For show notes visit:
https://www.talkingDrupal.com/490

Topics

• What is contrib first
• How does this help the Drupal community
• Why is it a good idea for companies
• How do you explain this to non dev folks like CEOs or Presidents
• What do you say if a client does not buy in
• How do you monitor and build confidence in other developers
• How can someone get started
• Any tools or tips for someone trying to bootstrap this

Resources

• MOTW
  • https://www.drupal.org/project/confi
  • https://www.drupal.org/project/upgrade_tool
• Civic Actions Practice Tools - Contrib First
• Civic Actions Engineering Practice Area - Drupal Contrib First Module Development
• Codit menu tools
• Alt text validation - currently being built as Contrib First
• Bill requiring US agencies to share custom source code with each other becomes law
• Link shortners
  • http://dgo.re/ or https://dgo.to/ link shorteners for d.o
• Drupal Contrib Development
• Contribution to a module

Guests

Steve Wirt - civicactions.com swirt

Hosts

Nic Laflin - nLighteneddevelopment.com nicxvan
John Picozzi - epam.com johnpicozzi
Avi Schwab - froboy.org froboy

MOTW

Correspondent

Avi Schwab - froboy.org froboy

• Brief description:
  • Have you ever wanted to streamline the management of config changes during your Drupal project deployment - importing individual configuration changes from contrib or custom modules and synchronizing settings across different environments? There’s a module for that.
• Module name/project name:
  • Config Importer and Tools
• Brief history
  • How old: created in April 2016 by Andrii Podanenko(podarok)
  • Versions available: 3.2.0 version which works with Drupal 9 and 10, D11 fixes are in the queue.
• Maintainership
  • Actively maintained - although it’s a developer module that’s been mostly stable, so there have not been many recent changes.
  • Security coverage
  • Test coverage - unit tests
  • Documentation - video documenting the process on the module page and instructions in the project overview
  • Number of open issues: 8 open issues, 3 of which are bugs against the current branch
• Usage stats:
  • 300 sites
• Maintainer(s):
  • 7 maintainers across a few different agencies in Ukraine
• Module features and usage
  • This module has no UI, and all of its work is done using it’s config_import services, either importer or param_updater
  • The importer service imports full config files
  • The param_updater service pulls in single parameters from a config file.
  • Both can be used in .install files of contrib modules or on your own site to pull in configuration during database updates, which can be helpful for adding a new feature, modifying existing features, or pushing changes to many sites.
  • There is also a “spiritual successor” to the Confi module called “Upgrade Tool” which has similar functionality with some extra functionality too. https://www.drupal.org/project/upgrade_tool

Today we are talking about The IXP Fellowship Initiative, Workplace Developer Training, and making Drupal better for the little guy with guests Carlos Ospina & Mike Anello. We’ll also cover Cloudflare Turnstile as our module of the week.

For show notes visit:
https://www.talkingDrupal.com/489

Topics

• What is the IXP initiative
• Why does the community think this is important
• What is the current status
• What changed in the last 10 years
• How do we encourage businesses to do this
• How can people get involved

Resources

• Turnstile
  • Intro blog post from Cloudflare
  • Irvine reCAPTCHA Study
  • Deep dive on Google Scholar
  • Alternatives
    • https://www.drupal.org/project/hcaptcha - privacy-focused alternative, still image-based
    • https://www.drupal.org/project/altcha - open, self-hosted option. Seems more basic.
  • Posts referencing Irvine study
    • https://boingboing.net/2025/02/07/recaptcha-819-million-hours-of-wasted-human-time-and-billions-of-dollars-google-profit.html
    • https://www.theregister.com/2024/07/24/googles_recaptchav2_labor/
    • https://www.pcgamer.com/gaming-industry/a-2023-study-concluded-captchas-are-a-tracking-cookie-farm-for-profit-masquerading-as-a-security-service-that-made-us-spend-819-billion-hours-clicking-on-traffic-lights-to-generate-nearly-usd1-trillion-for-google/
• Widgets
• IXP Fellowship
• Drupal Couple
• Talking Drupal 488 - Drupal Open University
• Get Involved in IXP
  • #ixp-fellowship on the Drupal Slack Workspace

Guests

Carlos Ospina - adrupalcouple.us camoa
Mike Anello - drupaleasy.com ultimike

Hosts

Nic Laflin - nLighteneddevelopment.com nicxvan
John Picozzi - epam.com johnpicozzi
Avi Schwab - froboy.org froboy

MOTW

Correspondent

Martin Anderson-Clutz - mandclu.com mandclu

• Brief description:
  • Have you ever wanted to use Cloudflare’s Turnstile web service to secure Drupal web forms, as an alternative to more intrusive CAPTCHA widgets that force users to select squares that contain traffic lights, cars, or bicycles? There’s a module for that.
• Module name/project name:
  • Cloudflare Turnstile
• Brief history
  • How old: created in Sep 2022 by Adam Weiss (greatmatter)
  • Versions available: 1.1.13 which works with Drupal 9.4, 10, and 11
• Maintainership
  • Actively maintained
  • Security coverage
  • Number of open issues: 6 open issues, 3 of which are bugs, with 2 of them postponed
• Usage stats:
  • 3,981 sites
• Module features and usage
  • Anyone who maintains a Drupal site is well acquainted with the need to mitigate form spam submissions. Best practices around which tool to use are an ever-changing conversation.
  • Recently Google announced that reCAPTCHA implementations will need to be associated with a Google Cloud account, and will need to enable payment for anything that exceeds the free allowance of 10,000 assessments per month
  • reCAPTCHA v2 widgets are notorious for the challenges they can present to actual users, particularly image challenges. In addition, a 2023 UC Irvine study concluded that “the true purpose of reCAPTCHAv2 is as a tracking cookie farm for profit masquerading as a security service”, so it’s definitely worth considering other solutions
  • Cloudflare developed turnstile as a CAPTCHA alternative, designed to provide security while minimizing the friction for actual users. More importantly, Turnstile never harvests data for ad retargeting.
  • A free Turnstile account can create up to 10 widgets, with unlimited usage.
  • The turnstile module plugs into the existing Drupal CAPTCHA ecosystem, so it can be an easy swap out for anywhere you’re currently using CAPTCHA widgets.

Today we are talking about The open university initiative, Drupal in academia, and Fostering Drupal Education with guest Jean-Paul Vosmeer. We’ll also cover Artisan as our module of the week.

For show notes visit:
https://www.talkingDrupal.com/488

Topics

• What is the Drupal Open University Initiative
• How did this initiative start
• Why is it important to get Drupal into Universities and Classrooms
• What stage is the initiative at
• Is Drupal currently in any universities
• Is it better to approach schools or professors directly
• How is the curriculum being developed
• What are the main differences between this initiative and resources like Drupalize.me, Drupal at your fingertips, or Drupal TB
• What is next on the roadmap
• Where does Drupal CMS fit in
• Where does the initiative need help
• How can someone get involved

Resources

• Drupal Open University Initiative
• Metadrop blog about Artisan
• Drupal viking
• Do it with Drupal
• Drupal at your fingertips
• Drupal Open University
• OSPO
  • https://todogroup.org/
  • https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_Source_Program_Office
• Content Model & Site Documentation

Guests

Jean-Paul Vosmeer - reactonline.nl jpvos

Hosts

Nic Laflin - nLighteneddevelopment.com nicxvan
John Picozzi - epam.com johnpicozzi
Avi Schwab - froboy.org froboy

MOTW

Correspondent

Martin Anderson-Clutz - mandclu.com mandclu

• Brief description:
  • Have you ever wanted to use the Drupal UI to configure numerous aspects of your Drupal site’s look and feel? There’s a theme for that.
• Module name/project name:
  • Artisan
• Brief history
  • How old: created in Sep 2024 by alejandro cabarcos though recent releases are by crzdev, both of metadrop
  • Versions available: 1.3.8, which support Drupal 10 and 11
• Maintainership
  • Actively maintained, release in the last week
  • Security coverage
  • Documentation: no, but a lengthy README that includes developer notes
  • Number of open issues: 7 open issues, 5 of which are bugs, but 3 are postponed
• Usage stats:
  • 170 sites
• Module features and usage
  • After installing the theme, there is a drush command to generate a subtheme, or you can manually duplicate an included starterkit. You also need to run a couple of npm commands to pull in all the front end libraries, and build the CSS files
  • Once you set the subtheme as your site default, you can customize a variety of ways the site looks, including the fonts and weights to use for heading and default text, the colour and padding of various elements, border weights, border radius, and more.
  • The customizations are grouped into tabs. The base tab includes a colour palette, base font, and link styling. Additional tabs include page layout, header, responsive, and footer, also breadcrumb, headings, display headings, buttons, forms, and components
  • Artisan also provides a toggle to expose extra customization options for dark mode, so if you want your site to give users the option to switch back and forth between normal and dark, this is extremely powerful, but does make for some very long configuration pages
  • You can create and save presets, for easy creation of reusable palettes
  • There is also a companion Artisan Styleguide module that provides a page that previews the theme style applied to an extensive list of elements
  • Last year I was considering making a more configurable subtheme of Olivero for the Event Platform initiative, so I was excited to read about Artisan in a metadrop blog post we’ll include in the show notes

Today we are talking about Single Directory Components, How best to work with them, and their future with Drupal with guest Brian Perry. We’ll also cover Embedded Content as our module of the week.

For show notes visit:
https://www.talkingDrupal.com/487

Topics

• What are Single Directory Components (SDC)
• Why the switch to SDCs
• What is there in common between decoupled and SDCs
• Can you give us an overview of your workflow
• Common pitfalls
• How should someone get started working with SDCs
• Does it work with Paragraphs and Blocks?
• Does it need to be all at once
• How do you think SDCs will evolve
• Do you see this leading to more Decoupled front ends
• What contrib modules make working with SDCs easier

Resources

• My Single Directory Components Workflow
• Pico CSS
• Open Props
• Twig Tweak
• No Markup
• SDC Styleguide
• Radix Theme
• SDC Block
• UI Patterns 2.x
• Astro
• TAC

Guests

Brian Perry - brianperry.dev brianperry

Hosts

Nic Laflin - nLighteneddevelopment.com nicxvan
John Picozzi - epam.com johnpicozzi
Scott Weston - scott-weston

MOTW

Correspondent

Jacob Rockowitz - jrockowitz.com jrockowitz

• Embedded Content
• Brief description:
  • The Embedded Content module allows site builders to select, create, and update content embedded within HTML inside CKEditor.
  • For developers, the EmbeddedContent plugin is like a Block plugin without context.
  • There is a demo on YouTube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GxOn-P3Q5Gg
  • There is support embedding of single directory component in progress. Conceptually, this is already possible, the same way one would render a single directory component in Block plugin.
• Brief history
  • The concept and code started as the CKEditor5 Embedded Content module, created in August 2022.
  • In October 2023, CKEditor5 Embedded Content was renamed to Embedded Content.
• Versions available:
  • 2.0.3 - January 22nd, 2025
  • Works with Drupal: ^9 ^10 ^11
• Maintainership
  • Actively maintained? yes
  • Security coverage? Yes
  • Test coverage? Yes
  • Documentation? Video and an example module
• Number of open issues:
  • All issues: 6 open, 17 total
  • Bug report: 6 open, 15 total
• Usage stats:
  • 509 sites report using this module
  • 1,263 sites report using this module (using old version)
• Maintainer(s):
  • Teun van Veggel (nuez)
  • https://www.drupal.org/u/nuez
• Module features and usage
  • Insert themed content in Ckeditor5 using Drupal plugins without having to write rich HTML and CSS
  • Render these results directly in the CKEditor
  • Create 'inline' embedded content that sits inline with the text, like footnotes.
  • Provides
  • Embedded Content plugin
  • CKeditor 5 plugin.
  • Ecosystem
  • Embedded Content: Examples for examples of how to build your own plugins.
  • Embedded Content: Entity for embedding content entities
  • Embedded Content: SDC for single directory components (under development)
  • Potential Challenges
  • Example of the embedded content tag.
  • <embedded-content data-plugin-config="{"text":"Some quote","spoken_by_character":"Some one","align":"center"}" data-plugin-id="schemadotorg_quotation" data-button-id="default"> </embedded-content>
  • Translations via TMS (data is serialized via an attribute)

Today we are talking about GraphQL, Drupal Decoupled, and What to do with them with guest Jesus Manuel Olivas. We’ll also cover CORS UI as our module of the week.

For show notes visit:
https://www.talkingDrupal.com/486

Topics

• What is GraphQL
• How do you use GraphQL with Drupal
• Would you use GraphQL without a headless theme
• Do you need additional server requirements
• What are some of your favorite GraphQL modules
• What caused the change from v3 to v4
• What is meant by Drupal Decoupled
• What are the best use cases
• How do you handle caching and performance
• How do you handle roles and permissions
• Do you think AI has made decoupled more interesting

Resources

• GraphQL
• GraphQL Compose
• GraphQL Compose Preview
• GraphQL Compose Webform
• GraphQL Compose Fragments
• Swagger UI
• Custom Field
• Drupal Decoupled

Guests

Jesus Manuel Olivas - drupal-decoupled.octahedroid.com jmolivas

Hosts

Nic Laflin - nLighteneddevelopment.com nicxvan
John Picozzi - epam.com johnpicozzi
Scott Weston - scott-weston

MOTW

Correspondent

Martin Anderson-Clutz - mandclu.com mandclu

• Brief description:
  • Have you ever wanted to control your site’s Cross-Origin Resource Sharing (aka CORS) configuration, directly within the Drupal admin UI? There’s a module for that.
• Module name/project name:
  • CORS UI
• Brief history
  • How old: created in Sep 2016 by Sam Becker (sam152), a prolific module maintainer in his own right, though the most recent release is by Matt Glaman, who has been on this show and will need no introduction for many of our listeners
  • Versions available: 8.x-1.2 which supports Drupal 9, 10, and 11
• Maintainership
  • Actively maintained
  • Security coverage
  • Number of open issues: 2 open issues, 1 of which is a bug, and also has a patch available
• Usage stats:
  • 274 sites according to drupal.org
• Module features and usage
  • By default cross-origin requests to Drupal applications will be denied. Since Drupal 8.2 you can add a section to your site’s services.yml file to enable responses, and specify what headers, methods, and origins should be supported
  • This module provides a form within Drupal to control these values. This could be helpful if, for example, these values need to change on a frequent basis, or for less technical users who are experimenting with a headless architecture.
  • I should note that the bug mentioned earlier throws a fatal error in PHP 8, but is a simple fix. So if you want to try out this module, make sure you apply the patch.

Today we are talking about AI Autonomy, How it could help Drupal Development, and AI in the future with guest Jay Callicott. We’ll also cover AI Agents as our module of the week.

For show notes visit:
https://www.talkingDrupal.com/485

Topics

• What got you interested in this topic
• What is meant by AI Autonomy
• You suggested in your blog post in the Drop Times that developers will manage AI can you elaborate
• AI coming for our jobs
• Drupal X
• Do decoupled sites have an advantage
• Is the future going to be all prompts
• Skill decay
• What would you say to a CEO thinking about replacing developers with AI

Resources

• Drupal is Great! Its Perception Might Not Be.
• The AI-Driven Developer: From Assistance to Autonomy in Drupal Development
• DrupalX
• Ethics of AI

Guests

Jay Callicott - drupalninja99

Hosts

Nic Laflin - nLighteneddevelopment.com nicxvan
John Picozzi - epam.com johnpicozzi
Scott Weston - scott-weston

MOTW

Correspondent

Martin Anderson-Clutz - mandclu.com mandclu

• Brief description:
  • Have you ever wanted to leverage AI-powered tools to get information about or change the configuration of your website? There’s a module for that
• Module name/project name:
  • AI Agents
• Brief history
  • How old: created in Aug 2024 by Marcus Johansson (marcus_johansson) of FreelyGive
  • Versions available: 1.0.1 which supports Drupal 10.3 and 11
• Maintainership
  • Actively maintained: that release was in the past week, and was part of the significant effort to get stable releases of the AI modules that are included in Drupal CMS
  • Security coverage
  • Documentation included within the module’s codebase
  • Number of open issues: 30 open issues, 7 of which are bugs against the current branch
• Usage stats:
  • 119 sites but I suspect that number will increase rapidly once people start using Drupal CMS
• Module features and usage
  • In AI terminology, an agent is a system able to interact with its environment, collect data, and use the data to perform self-determined tasks
  • The AI Agents module is a framework to provide agents that can perform a variety of functions in your Drupal website
  • It depends on the AI module that we had Jamie Abrahams on the podcast to talk about back in episode #468
  • The module includes plugins that provide three agents, namely:
  • A Field Type Agent that can create or edit fields using the Field API, or answer questions about the fields your site has defined
  • A Content Type agent that can create, edit, or answer questions about node types
  • Taxonomy Agent that can do the same for your site’s vocabularies
  • Anyone who saw the Driesnote AI demos from DrupalCon Barcelona or Singapore will have seen agents in action, in that example through interaction in a chatbot
  • Technically, the plugins are UI agnostic, however. So theoretically you could trigger an agent in other ways. But today, AI Agents power the AI chatbot that you can use in the AI recipe that is included in the recently released Drupal CMS 1.0
  • The AI Agents module also includes some submodules. An experimental form integration submodule adds UI elements to the interfaces for managing fields, content types, and vocabularies, an explorer submodule provides debugging tools, and an experimental Extra submodule provides agents for working with webforms and views. I have also seen a demo of some work underway to provide an ECA agent, so you may soon be able to get your Drupal site to build out ECA models based on the business logic you describe to it

Topics

• What is Drupal CMS
• Are we ready for the release
• Drupal 7
• What can people expect
• Will there be a launch button
• If someone uses the one click install how will they know what to do next
• What new features are there
• If someone tries the trial how do they get that site on a host
• When will Experience builder be out
• Are any vendors going to provide Drupal CMS as a service
• What is on the roadmap
• How can people get involved

Resources

• Starshot initiative

Guests

Matthew Grasmick - grasmash

Hosts

Nic Laflin - nLighteneddevelopment.com nicxvan
John Picozzi - epam.com johnpicozzi
Scott Weston - scott-weston

MOTW

Correspondent

Martin Anderson-Clutz - mandclu.com mandclu

• Brief description:
  • Have you ever wanted to have one or more fallbacks within your Drupal tokens? There’s a module for that.
• Module name/project name:
  • Token OR
• Brief history
  • How old: created in May 2018 by Daniel Beeke (danielbeeke) of the Netherlands
  • Versions available: 2.3.0
• Maintainership
  • Actively maintained, current release appx 2 mo old
  • Security coverage
  • Test coverage
  • Number of open issues: 8 open issues, 3 of which are bugs against the current branch
• Usage stats:
  • 2,369 sites
• Module features and usage
  • After installing this module, your tokens can contain pipe-separated values, including a quote-enclosed literal string, and the token will return the first token or string that is not empty.
  • This allows your tokens to have fallback values. For example you could have a token grab an event’s start date, or show “TBD” if the field is empty.
  • The project page doesn’t explicitly say that a single token can have more than two token reference or string values, but it seems implied. If true, that would mean you could define a token that would grab from one field, look in a different field if the first one is empty, and return a string if neither field has a value.
  • Because Token OR uses pipe characters to delineate between values, the module currently doesn’t support pipe characters within string values. This is one of the open issues, but there is a patch available.
  • Previous guest host Josh Mitchell mentioned that he had never heard of this module until he noticed it is in the codebase for Drupal CMS, so I thought it would be ideal to talk about on this show, as an example of some lesser-known best practices that you’ll get out of the box when you start building sites on Drupal CMS.

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

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

Topics

• Talking Drupal
• NLightened Development
• Contribution
• Personal Background
• Interests
• Drupal

Guests

Nic Laflin - nLighteneddevelopment.com nicxvan

Hosts

Stephen Cross-@stephencross

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