January 16, 2009

Admin Role: Another Drupal Module That Just Makes Sense!

If you’ve been using Drupal for any amount of time you’ve probably ran into the problem of needing to go to the access page each time you enable a module to ensure the admin users have permission to make full use of it.  This is a module that I was planning to write, but then I discovered JacobSingh had already made it; Admin Role is another Drupal module that everyone needs, because it solves this basic but anonying–and sometimes time-consuming–problem.  

Admin Role creates an “Administrator” user role, that it then manages to ensure that this role always has all permissions.    Admin Role is a light and very clean module available for both Drupal 5.x and Drupal 6.x sites.  You can pick up the latest versions by visiting its project page at drupal.org.

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November 11, 2008

Drupal Core Diaries: The 6-pass patch review | webchick.net

Lullabodies

I came accross this today on Angie’s blog, and had to share!

I would love to see a series of blog posts from Drupal developers on patch review strategies they employ, so we can share some tips and tricks and ramp up our collective review IQs. I’ll start it off with mine. I call it “The 6-Pass Patch Review” (wittier names welcome! ;) )

Read the rest of Drupal Core Diaries: The 6-pass patch review @ webchick.net!

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Why do I use WordPress for my personal blog?

Wordpress MU & Drupal M/K søges

It’s something I’m asked every now and then. “If I’m just making a blog site, should I just use WordPress, or should I still use Drupal?” To be fair, it all comes down in the end to a matter of personal taste. But, there are still some factual points on either side of the Drupal Blog vs. WordPress Blog argument.

Firstly, some reasons to use Drupal for your blog:

  • You can easily add more advanced features and modules.
  • It’s (debatably) easier to theme
On the WordPress side:
  • It’s just trying to be blogging software, so the interface is more natural for a blog.
  • Near 0-config, you don’t need to enable, disable, configure and tweak modules to make it a blog; it is out of the box.
  • Instantly update plugins.  You can click and link and have a module update to the latest version.  With Wordpress Automatic Upgrade plugin, you can have wordpress backed up and upgraded automatically as well.
  • Smaller learning curve.  It’s just easier to have someone with little or no web app experience to use Wordpress than Drupal.

For me, the pros of Wordpress outweigh any cons; in the end it comes down to being easier to upgrade when a new release comes out.  But, if Drupal had one-click upgrade as well, I’d be using that instead in a shot.

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November 10, 2008

Drupal Redesign; Finding a freelance Drupal job

the parade of autumn begins today

Image by Brian Hathcock via Flickr

The Drupal redesign is continuing, and an interesting concept for the “Drupal Planet” has been released.  Called Drupal Digest, this new site created by Wim Mostrey uses a digg-style of article presentation.  

Wim also made a great article recently called “Five resources to score a Drupal freelance job”.  It’s a great read, and was apparently inspired by my prior blog post “Looking for Work“.

 

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October 14, 2008

DrupalCamp, Acquia, Video….October?!?

Trial Island Gulls

Image by ecstaticist via Flickr

So, yeah, I’m a bit behind in posts :)  Thankfully, there is a treasure trove of Drupal news just waiting to be explored!

First off, YUI is starting to make some in-roads in Drupal, the latest of which being Nick Lewis’ post on the YUI Editor module.  YUI also has an amazing base library of tiny CSS tools, such as the Grids CSS file, that offers extreamly simple cross-browser layout creation.  Additionally, YUI CSS is released under the modified BSD license, which is GPL compatiable.

Creating video-enabled sites with Drupal is a topic that seems to pop up over and over in the Planet.  Another great post with a more high-level look at handling rich media up on Learn by the Drop.

Rancity Studios has a post up about their provisioning system, Ægir.  While looked over the documentation it appears to be this system only worked for the older Drupal 5, and not for Drupal 6.  I wans’t able to find much more clairity on that, but it’s completely possible there is a Drupal 6 version no available on cvs.drupal.org repositories.

Drupal Camp Toronto 2008 LogoDrupal Camps Everywhere may now have an official logo to litter, er…I mean post all over town :) .  

There are also some tips for Drupal Camp organizers up on the Association website.  Opening a jobs table can apparently offset the expenses, nice.

Great strides are being made in Drupal patch testing.  I can’t wait to see QA playing an even greater role in Drupal’s future.  Just how different will Drupal 7 be from Drupal 6, given all the testing happening now?

Lastly, Acquia is out of beta.  The news is a bit old at this point, but definately worth mentioning anyways!  WebDevNews has a review as well.

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September 23, 2008

Drupal wordmark

Ought-o.  This can’t be good.  
Drupal logotype with splash
Drupal is getting a wordmark, and it looks very web 2.0.  It’s still going through it’s finial stages of development, but, I have some quick concerns about it.

  1. “This will not be a design by committee process – the Designer will have the final word”, that’s worrisome.
  2. Drupal is many things, but, it still doesn’t have the power to change the laws of physics (that’s coming in Drupal 8 ;) ).  The “droplets” shouldn’t be coming out of the u for no reason.  I mean, no one wants a logo that looks like it’s sweating.
  3. Why is the d a different color?  Please tell me you don’t plan on using that seporate from the rest of the word mark?
  4. the space between the d and l feels awkward, as does the shape of the letter p and a, it looks like they are they, watching you :)
  5. Learn from others mistakes.
I can’t wait to see the next draft!
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September 17, 2008

Gets your thoughts for the drupal.org redesign in!

Pro Drupal Development + Information Architect...Image by symbi via Flickr

There are lots of ways to be involved:

  1. Working on an Experience Strategy for Drupal.org
  2. Creating a framework to understand the Drupal.org audience
  3. Having a Mass Wireframing Frenzy (Come wireframe with me!) 
  4. Doing a big online card sort to help solve the information architecture challenge! 
  5. Wondering if D.O should be one site or several? 
I, of course, have some thoughts on all this :)
First of all, I don’t agree with the conclusions in #1.  I don’t think drupal.org, at least right now, has being a social site as it’s #1 goal.  Not to mention that groups was supposed to take over the social aspect.  Now groups vs. forums is a big mess and a nasty headache.  I personally don’t like groups, but if they want to use it, go the whole way!

Wireframe for a new intergrated bugtracker

Wireframe for a new intergrated bugtracker

#5 hits on this a bit.  I would personally love to see the whole Drupal.org experience be seamless.  I really don’t like have bits of the community here and there, and I’d love to see it all be 1 site.
#3, well, I have my own wireframes to contribute! :)  I see this redesign as a great chance to get some of my developer wish-lists into drupal.org.  See one of them at right.
In my opinion, now the best time to make Drupal.org more developer friendly, not just end-user friendly!
Don’t forget to let your voice be heard.
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September 11, 2008

All not well in the world of Drupal themes?

A graphical depiction of a very simple css doc...Image via Wikipedia

It seems Template Monster is now offering Drupal themes as part of it’s collection (it also previously offered Joomla themes).  Top Notch Themes was hot on their case, and showed some horrific tables-based markup and hard coded block CSS selectors in one of the Template Monster themes.

drupal4hu also brought up Template Monster themes, twice.  Looks like Template Monster is going to need to step it up a notch if they want to applease the Drupal community.  CSS based markup would be a nice start :)
And also, non-themeing related, if you want a humorous journey of browser identification themes, ending with Google Chrome, you’ll need to check this out!

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September 1, 2008

DrupalCon 2008: Szeged – The Final Wrapup

Szeged inspired a boat-load of blog posts, tons of bugs, lots of documentation, hours of video, a wack of patches, and lots of other great stuff that no one thought to tell me about ;)   I’ve been spending some time going through what’s happened at Szeged (being on the side lines myself) and digging through all the good stuff to find the real gold nuggets from the latest Drupalcon.

Drupalcon Banner

Drupalcon Banner

Photos

One great thing about Drupalcons is you have dozens of people with camera phones and camera snapping photos of every IRC nick and Drupal developer that get within range of.  This provides a great opportunity to put some faces to the names.

Video

Many sessions were videotaped, and are up at the sessions page on the Szeged Drupalcon website.  They make for some great watching!  The “State of Drupal” session by Dries is always what I find most interesting personally.  I’ll be watching with interest :)   It should be noted most of the sessions also have the slides available too, listed on the same page.

Fan Mail

Some people have also have given this Drupalcon some great feedback as well.  Such as Mikkel Høgh in his blog:

It’s hard to find words for how great I think it has been. Meeting so many talented and friendly people has been inspiring. There is something special about the Druapl community. Unlike other computer events or conferences I have been at, everyone has been friendly and open to me

Development

There is also some great new development that has been sparked on by Drupalcon Szeged.  Such as anew MediaRSS module being contemplated.

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August 31, 2008

Daily Changelog replaced

I’ve decided to make a widget on the right of my blog that always lists the last 10 things fixed/added in Drupal.  You can also grab the RSS feed directly.  It’s great motivation!

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