Searching for Modules and Themes with certain characteristics - Imagine having all the Drupal modules tagged and we can just go to a module page, have all the related modules, tags listed!! This thread is a discussion on grouping modules and theams!!
Replace Drupal Planet and Drupal Talk with Drigg --- Didn't know about Drigg until I started following this thread! Drigg is Drupal and DIGG together!
For some one who loves Organic Groups, drupal.org projects as Organic Groups !
OG is definitely a great idea. All subscribers should get mails and notification on any updates in the issue queue, bug report or support report if subscribed too.
We should have a tab to describe the architecture of the module, the scope for future hooks or growth, this could be a wiki and we can have discussion forums around it. Group for every module saying Redesign plan for the module_name will definitely be of great use for developers to colloobrate and expand the modules. Forums must be used only to collaborate new ideas or working on a new feature, like this group? We should not under value the effectiveness of the issue queue and support request.
Click here to read more.
Another interesting thread, My vision for Drupal.org's project pages by johnforsythe@drupal.org
Join the discussion and be a part of the Drupal redesign!
Saturday, September 27, 2008
Problem with Captcha for Drupal 6
For all projects that we plan to launch in the next couple of months we are using Drupal 6. We had to have the registration forms live with Captcha enabled! Drupal 6 Captcha module was in development. We decided we would use it and start addressing the issues as and when we faced them. We were pretty confident as there was a working Drupal 5 version for us to compare with.
Even while we tested it, we had some problems with the Captcha not functioning on form validate. The Captcha was not refreshing because of the form cache in Drupal 6. We have temporarily resolved by clearing the cache on every form load. This should not be the ideal way to approach the problem. We must actually refresh only the Captcha element and the rest of the form must be cached. How do we define a dynamic element within a form which doesn't get cached and gets refreshed??
My colleague Nagaraj helped us resolve this issue and identify the problem.
Links:
http://drupal.org/project/captcha
http://drupal.org/node/312154
DO we really need Captcha, want to try: Safer forms!, a suggestion by Mr. Vasanth Govind.
Even while we tested it, we had some problems with the Captcha not functioning on form validate. The Captcha was not refreshing because of the form cache in Drupal 6. We have temporarily resolved by clearing the cache on every form load. This should not be the ideal way to approach the problem. We must actually refresh only the Captcha element and the rest of the form must be cached. How do we define a dynamic element within a form which doesn't get cached and gets refreshed??
My colleague Nagaraj helped us resolve this issue and identify the problem.
Links:
http://drupal.org/project/captcha
http://drupal.org/node/312154
DO we really need Captcha, want to try: Safer forms!, a suggestion by Mr. Vasanth Govind.
Tuesday, September 16, 2008
Chennai Drupal Lunch
Join us at the event http://groups.drupal.org/node/14940. Lets meet and discuss the latest happenings in Drupal.
Saturday, September 13, 2008
Drupal Redesign the Drupal way!
I am a BIG Fan of Drupal, not just the application, but the concept, the community, and how Drupal drives the community. Isn't all this brilliant? How can one have a Web 2.0 without experiencing it. I think this is clearly the advantage that Drupal has given me, far superior than the brilliant architecture and the wonderful piece of code. I feel extremely Proud in being a tiny part of this community. Being a part of a business organization gives me very little time, but in this little time I try and participate in the community in every possible way. I share my learnings, participate in the forums and IRC chat, create awareness and build a community of fellow drupalers in my home town, Chennai. The different avenues that Drupal uses to share with the community has helped me keep abreast and given me a feeling of belonging in the community.
Checkout and be a part of "Drupal.org redesign officially underway". Join the Group:Drupal.org redesign plan for the Drupal Association. Follow them on twitter at http://twitter.com/drupalredesign. Be a part of the exciting happening in Drupal redesign.
Checkout and be a part of "Drupal.org redesign officially underway". Join the Group:Drupal.org redesign plan for the Drupal Association. Follow them on twitter at http://twitter.com/drupalredesign. Be a part of the exciting happening in Drupal redesign.
Tuesday, September 9, 2008
Mashups and APIs:
The Lullabot Podcast no 63 - A Very informative Podcast!
Summarizing the Podcast - the main topics covered:
1.RSS feeds and Atom Feeds ->
Is a request for a file on another server.
RSS feeds can be generated using Views and can be aggregated on a Drupal site using the Core aggregator module.
2.SOAP - Simple Object Access Protocol (services API)
and XML RPC
These are messaging protocols that can talk between webservices!
The Services module provides for these features.
3. REST - noun based, object (which object, what you want to do?)
REST APIs more efficient as with REST there is no XML conversion involved. On calling a specific URL all the parameters are passed by Get request. For exchanging a large amount of info this is not good.
Ficker, Amazon provide such APIs for us to use their services. Though they open out their APIs they still do not loose their clientèle. In fact contrarily, it helps them widen their reach.
4. JASON APIs – Packets for exchanging information, array full of data. JavaScript used to access the information. No XML, easier to send back the format that can be directly used.
Google mail exchanges information in this manner.
5. AAHA ( get HTML) JavaScript running to get HTML
AJAX ( get XML) only for complex stuff!! Client side parsing of the XML and converting it to HTML
6. RDF is single resource description format. A way of storing chunks of information, like RSS or custom XML packages. Standardize information exchange using micro formats.
Protocols used - XMLRPC, Jason, …
Format of the info - RDF or RSS
RDF is a very generalized format.
7. Drupal and Mashups: How do we use these concepts in a Drupal site?
What we can do is to take data from different websites and present it on our websites, then it is called a Mashups!
8. Gmap.module is used for displaying spatial data on Google Maps.
View Demo at: http://www.chicagoancestors.org/
For more discussions on ‘The State of Geo spatial in Drupal’ join: Groups.drupal.org/node/12485
9.Amazon module, Amazon associate toolsare some modules that help us use the Amazon APIs
10. For an entire list of Mashups and integrations visit the modules repository for 3rd Party Integration. There are over 300 modules for doing these integrations.
11. A tip for module developers while creating these integrations is to provide as much access to the APIs, even if it does not have helper functions to use the same.
The Lullabots also presented a neat example of a Mashup during the Podcast:
I truly enjoyed this Podcast. It was a very current and detailed podcast. Not only did it cover the technical details of Mashups and APIs but also brought in relevant examples and application into it. It brought a perspective as to where Drupal fits in the scenario as well.
Summarizing the Podcast - the main topics covered:
1.RSS feeds and Atom Feeds ->
Is a request for a file on another server.
RSS feeds can be generated using Views and can be aggregated on a Drupal site using the Core aggregator module.
2.SOAP - Simple Object Access Protocol (services API)
and XML RPC
Ways to call a function in another server -> add a new blog post or any specific functionality in another site, programmatically interacting with other sites You connect to the server and ask for a command (method based) calling a function and you can expect a response (what you want to do?)
These are messaging protocols that can talk between webservices!
The Services module provides for these features.
A standardized solution of integrating external applications with Drupal. Service callbacks may be used with multiple interfaces like XMLRPC, SOAP, REST, AMF. This allows a Drupal site to provide web services via multiple interfaces while using the same callback code.
3. REST - noun based, object (which object, what you want to do?)
REST APIs more efficient as with REST there is no XML conversion involved. On calling a specific URL all the parameters are passed by Get request. For exchanging a large amount of info this is not good.
Ficker, Amazon provide such APIs for us to use their services. Though they open out their APIs they still do not loose their clientèle. In fact contrarily, it helps them widen their reach.
4. JASON APIs – Packets for exchanging information, array full of data. JavaScript used to access the information. No XML, easier to send back the format that can be directly used.
Google mail exchanges information in this manner.
5. AAHA ( get HTML) JavaScript running to get HTML
AJAX ( get XML) only for complex stuff!! Client side parsing of the XML and converting it to HTML
6. RDF is single resource description format. A way of storing chunks of information, like RSS or custom XML packages. Standardize information exchange using micro formats.
Protocols used - XMLRPC, Jason, …
Format of the info - RDF or RSS
RDF is a very generalized format.
7. Drupal and Mashups: How do we use these concepts in a Drupal site?
What we can do is to take data from different websites and present it on our websites, then it is called a Mashups!
8. Gmap.module is used for displaying spatial data on Google Maps.
View Demo at: http://www.chicagoancestors.org/
For more discussions on ‘The State of Geo spatial in Drupal’ join: Groups.drupal.org/node/12485
9.Amazon module, Amazon associate toolsare some modules that help us use the Amazon APIs
10. For an entire list of Mashups and integrations visit the modules repository for 3rd Party Integration. There are over 300 modules for doing these integrations.
11. A tip for module developers while creating these integrations is to provide as much access to the APIs, even if it does not have helper functions to use the same.
The Lullabots also presented a neat example of a Mashup during the Podcast:
A web page of your twitter updates that are linked to Google maps based on where you are posting the twitter update and also to your flicker under the same location as classification!
I truly enjoyed this Podcast. It was a very current and detailed podcast. Not only did it cover the technical details of Mashups and APIs but also brought in relevant examples and application into it. It brought a perspective as to where Drupal fits in the scenario as well.
Wednesday, September 3, 2008
Szeged 2008 Drupalcon Part I
For those who where not at the Drupalcon, I have tried to list out some of the great sessions and useful resources related to search and Drupal database. For full details visit: http://szeged2008.drupalcon.org/program/sessions
I Solr and Drupal
A presentation by Alexandru Badiu , http://www.voidberg.org
Solr is an enterprise search server based on Lucene. The presentation covers Why use Solr, the different concepts in Solr, searching in Solr, facets, geographical searching and request handlers.
solr-presentation.pdf
A presentation by Robert Douglass
robert-douglass-search_.pdf
How to get involved visit the search group at http://groups.drupal.org/node/4102
II Mysql Backup and security
A presentation by Lenz Grimmer, Sun Microsystems
mysqlBackupSecurity-DrupalCon-2008-08-28.pdf
III High Availability solutions for Mysql
A presentation by Lenz Grimmer, Sun Microsystems
Improved user experience is the need of the day! Watch Lenz address it at the DrupalCon
DrupalCon-MySQL-HA-2008-08-29.pdf
IV Drupal Databases: The Next Generation
This session takes us in to PDO (PHP Data Objects), Multiple database types at once, Improved database portability, Easier driver implementation, Database-specific optimizations, Transactions.
DBTNG_Presentation.pdf
I Solr and Drupal
A presentation by Alexandru Badiu , http://www.voidberg.org
Solr is an enterprise search server based on Lucene. The presentation covers Why use Solr, the different concepts in Solr, searching in Solr, facets, geographical searching and request handlers.
solr-presentation.pdf
A presentation by Robert Douglass
robert-douglass-search_.pdf
How to get involved visit the search group at http://groups.drupal.org/node/4102
II Mysql Backup and security
A presentation by Lenz Grimmer, Sun Microsystems
mysqlBackupSecurity-DrupalCon-2008-08-28.pdf
III High Availability solutions for Mysql
A presentation by Lenz Grimmer, Sun Microsystems
Improved user experience is the need of the day! Watch Lenz address it at the DrupalCon
DrupalCon-MySQL-HA-2008-08-29.pdf
IV Drupal Databases: The Next Generation
This session takes us in to PDO (PHP Data Objects), Multiple database types at once, Improved database portability, Easier driver implementation, Database-specific optimizations, Transactions.
DBTNG_Presentation.pdf
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