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Drupal Advent Calendar day 8 - SEO james Sun, 12/08/2024 - 09:00

Today we are looking at another aspect of Drupal Starshot that may not generate a lot of excitement, but will make it a lot easier for the average marketer or Drupal site builder to make their site perform well and be easy to find.

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) has often been treated as something of a dark art. Any number of self-proclaimed masters of this art will promise to take your site to new levels, their ability to deliver varies greatly.

Drupal CMS aims to provide ready-to-use tools to help improve search engine performance, and “SEO Tools” is one of the “goals” offered during the…

Tags

• SEO
• search engine optimization
• Drupal Starshot

Remind customers of abandoned carts Anonymous (not verified) Sat, 12/07/2024 - 07:00 Tags Analytics ECA Customer Service Drupal Planet

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Sometimes a simple reminder can spur a sale. If you have repeat customers that log into your commerce site, you may be able to remind them if they did not complete a checkout.

This is a chance to engage with leading developers, project managers, and decision-makers who are shaping Drupal's future. Beyond the exposure, sponsors gain valuable insights and opportunities to build lasting relationships within the community.

The excitement is palpable as DrupalCon Singapore 2024 kicks off tomorrow! In the final episode of our "Meet the Speakers" series, discover how Owen Lansbury of PreviousNext is redefining profitability through open-source business models, and learn from Aastha Shrivastava of QED42 as she spotlights Drupal’s role as a Digital Public Good. Get ready for three action-packed days of innovation, insights, and community from December 9-11, 2024. This is the moment the APAC Drupal community has been waiting for – don’t miss it!

Drupal Advent Calendar day 7 - Base Recipe james Sat, 12/07/2024 - 09:00

Today we are looking at one of the central elements of Starshot, but also one of the easiest to overlook.

Drupal CMS will come preinstalled with a set of base modules and themes, as the basis on which other recipes will be built. The base theme track is responsible for this. Not only does this provide essential functionality to make a new Drupal site much more usable, it also provides an important baseline for the other tracks to build upon.

Some of the functionality either already implemented, or planned past Drupal CMS 1.0, is listed below.

Pathauto is now installed by default. This is a small…

Tags

• Base Recipe
• Drupal Starshot

Drupal Commerce is an open source eCommerce platform that natively extends Drupal to sell any type of product to anyone in the world. This includes sales of products that are customized at the point of sale, like an engraved piece of jewelry or an event registration. It also includes sales to B2B customers and others who require a configure, price, quote (CPQ) workflow to review and authorize a purchase.

This post explains the feature set at a high level with an example configuration.

Drupal's data architecture

Supporting this feature set is Drupal's data architecture, which lets the Commerce modules define new data types for entities like products, orders, order items, and more. These are defined with sets of base fields, and they can be extended further with custom fields as needed. (Read more about this subject at Drupalize.Me.)

For example, one of our merchants sells scuba equipment. While product variations include price and SKU base fields by default, this merchant added custom fields for the specifications of different models. This structured product information is then rendered to PDPs, displayed in product comparison charts, and exposed as facets in search interfaces to help customers find the right product.

When you add custom fields to an entity, you don't just get to determine where and how they are displayed but also the form interface(s) used to input field data. You can control the number of values a field supports and the type of form element used to set those values (e.g., checkboxes, select list, free tagging textfield, etc.). For data types that support multiple form modes, like order items, you can also determine the context in which a particular field will be editable by a user.

Read more

Drupal 11 is Here! What you Need to Know about New Development Features jenna Fri, 12/06/2024 - 10:25 Drupal

Your organization may use Drupal as a CMS, application framework, site builder, or all of the above. Within the context of this article about new features in the latest version, I'd like you to think about Drupal as a system.

It provides some standard pieces—things like content types, users and roles, taxonomies—and standard ways of connecting them to one another. But out of the box, it's sort of a jumble of pieces, and requires putting those pieces together for it to be meaningful.

A lot of the features that you'll see in Drupal 11.0 are developer-focused, and mostly benefit people who are building or maintaining sites, and your end users won't necessarily notice anything different. But there are some new features that can impact content administrators.

Content Admin

There's a new admin menu available using the Navigation module, which was brought into Drupal core as an experimental module. It's been a long time coming, and I think it's wonderful. It works well with the default Claro admin theme, and makes working in Drupal admin UI feel more modern and friendly. If you've used the Gin admin theme, the new menu will feel familiar, because it shares many of the same ideas.

There are some cool things in CKEditor 5 like markdown shortcuts similar to those we’re used to in Slack and Google Docs. For example, if you start typing something like 1-period-space, those tools automatically start creating a numbered list for you. It also supports other shortcuts like asterisks for bold, underscores for italics, or number-signs for heading levels. I prefer keyboard shortcuts wherever possible, and this makes working within CKEditor significantly faster. 

Recipes

Recipes are a way of packaging up configurations and settings that deliver a certain kind of functionality. In Drupal 11 core, there are recipes for things like the basic page content type, document media type, and editorial workflow. These are site features that previously were created during site installation using the Standard profile, which then became a permanent part of your project.

Recipes are applied rather than installed, so they don't end up becoming a dependency of your site, and therefore, you don't get locked in. You can remove modules or update configuration without changing the original recipe. And if the recipe changes, it doesn't change your site unless you reapply it.

Unlike configuration management, recipes aren't all-or-nothing – meaning you can make a recipe for broad, general functionality or something super specific. Because recipes are so flexible and don't create dependencies to themselves, they can be easily combined and shared, or adapted to fit your own needs.

For site owners, recipes will be really useful because it will make adding new features considerably faster because you can apply one or more recipes, rather than having to build everything up yourself. Because recipes are easily shareable, you'll also be able to find recipes created by others. In fact there's already a “Recipes Cookbook” on drupal.org with various site starters and functionality-specific recipes.

At Aten, our Drupal developers will be able to use recipes to quickly recreate commonly-needed features that our projects require. For example: installing Aten's Mercury Editor module, standing up our default Single Directory Components, configuring our QA service and module, or setting up search functionality. And they'll allow us to share our work with others in a way that doesn't bind them to all the parts of our standard processes.

Single Directory Components

Speaking of Single Directory Components, that module is now stable in Drupal 11.

Here we're using the term component as a piece of a web page that's modular and needs to be reusable. These are generic building blocks of pages that will appear throughout your site such as an accordion, call to action, banners, and slideshows.

Single Directory Components (SDC) are a way of organizing the files needed to display a single component (the Twig template, CSS, and JavaScript) into a folder. If you follow the naming conventions, Drupal will automatically generate a library to combine all of these for you. When you add an SDC to a page, Drupal will load the CSS and JavaScript for the components automatically.

Because SDCs are essentially self-contained, it's fairly easy to reuse them across different projects and entity types—things like Paragraphs or custom block types.

SDCs make the implementation of component libraries or design systems much easier because you can change Drupal's output to match whatever structure is needed.  Aten makes heavy use of Single Directory Components for projects using Mercury Editor, our drag-and-drop content authoring experience that allows editors to preview content changes in real time. 

Workspaces

The Workspaces module is stable in Drupal 11. Workspaces allow you to create multiple copies of your live site and within these copies, you can work on changes like content edits or structural changes, and then deploy those changes to the live workspace.

It can allow you to do things like test out menu changes, completely reorganize a section of your site; or maybe you have seasonal content that all needs to go live at the same time. You could work on those within a new workspace (or in multiple workspaces). And then when those changes are ready to go live, they all happen at once.

Currently, we can do that with individual pages using content moderation and workflow, but it's always been hard to work on a big set of changes over time and preview them. 

I've experimented with Workspaces in the past and with this stable release. Although I think it's a fantastic idea, because it's a different way of handling content changes, it may be incompatible with your content model or modules you're using.

If you're already doing anything with content moderation, layouts, or translations, Workspaces is going to add a new layer of complexity. It may require a lot of training and continued support before content administrators are comfortable with a new workflow. 

Time to upgrade

Now that I’ve laid out all of the new features of Drupal 11, it’s time to determine when and how to best upgrade your Drupal site. Get in touch with us for upgrade help.
 

Seth Hill

Understanding the Difference Between Cache Keys and Cache Tags in Drupal

Have you ever wondered "What is the difference between cache keys and cache tags?" One of our Drupalize.Me members wrote in asking about it, and the answer provides insight into how Drupal's Cache API works.

joe Fri, 12/06/2024 - 11:16

MidCamp 2025 Planning Meetings Now on Wednesdays!

We’ve got an important scheduling update for all our MidCamp 2025 organizers! Starting in December 2024, our bi-weekly planning meetings will be moving from Mondays to Wednesdays.

Why the change?

We’re shifting to Wednesdays to better accommodate everyone’s schedules and keep our planning momentum strong. These meetings are crucial for getting everything in place for MidCamp 2025, and we want as many voices as possible in the conversation.

What to Expect:

• New Meeting Time: Every other Wednesday at 3:00 PM CT.
• First Meeting: Our first Wednesday meeting will be on December 11, 2024.

We appreciate everyone’s flexibility and can’t wait to keep the MidCamp 2025 planning energy high! If you have any questions or can’t make the new time, reach out in Slack or email us. We’re here to make sure you’re involved!

How to Join:

All planning details will continue to be shared in our MidCamp Slack, so keep an eye on the #midcamp-organizers channel for updates and links. Not yet in Slack? Join the MidCamp Slack here!

If you have some data in a Drupal site, say a list of contact form submissions, or a list of content, you might want to provide a way for visitors to download that list as a CSV or Excel file: there's a module for that.

Views Data Export - The story

This module has its roots firmly in the Drupal 6 glory days where basically every list in Drupal was a view. Had some blog posts: view; list of comments: view; images needing copyright review: view.

That made a simple extension module that could export that content to CSV or Excel really appealing, and the Views Bonus Pack module provided this functionality however, there were a number of issues. Top of our list of problems with it was that it tried to do the entire export in one big go, if you had a lot of data, then you were out of luck, you simply couldn't export it all. You'd have to do it page by page or something like that.

In our old office, we dreamed up a way to have Drupal's batch API iterate over the result pages and collect them all up into a single file for download.

Additionally, at the time we had a client who wanted to export data that was coming in pretty rapidly: they were getting submissions at the rate of several a second and needed to be able to accurately export all the submissions in one go, not getting any duplicates, etc.

We really wanted to be able to get this working nicely with the SQL backend for Views and found a way in MySQL to query and populate a table with the resultset in a single transaction. In this way, we would make an initial point-in-time copy of the data required to render the view, and then we could take our time to process through that data. As long as MySQL could query and write the data fast enough we could then use Drupal's Batch API to loop through the data at our leisure.

This approach worked nicely but needed to fork the Views Bonus module and so the Views Data Export module was born. In the years that followed: the module gained popularity, a Drupal 7 port, and something like 75,000 active sites using it.

Decline and Drupal 8

ComputerMinds had never put in place any sort of proper amount of time to do maintenance for Views Data Export and so after many years and unattended bug reports, Drupal 8 rolled around and we didn't invest time in doing a Drupal 8 port either.

However, Drupal has a great community and someone else stepped up and offered to port and maintain Views Data Export.

However, the bugs and feature requests continued to pile up, and the port was more of a re-imagining than a direct port of the code. This was completely understandable since the underlying systems of Drupal and Views had massively changed in those years. And basically, we weren't involved in explaining what the Drupal 7 version was doing and why.

The module entered a period of very minimal maintenance and essentially only got further updates for critical bug fixes and new Drupal core versions.

Let me be clear that this is no slight against anyone who has done brilliant work on the Drupal 8, 9 or 10 versions of Views Data Export, but proper amounts of time and resources were never put into the module...until now.

Re-maintainership

Recently we've changed some internal priorities around so that we can spend more time giving back to the Drupal community, and this coincided with someone asking me to be a co-maintainer for Views Data Export so that they could add Drupal 11 support.

I thought about it a lot and waited for the other maintainers to weigh in, but ultimately decided that I wanted to get back involved in the maintainership of Views Data Export and thus declined the generous offer of help. I did then work to get a Drupal 11 version out.

Going forward

I aim to maintain Views Data Export.

I'm working on exactly how this works, but it starts by regularly spending time working on the project.

Now...the project pages and issue tracker on Drupal.org are in a bit of a dire state:

• The project page documentation is almost entirely the original text I wrote for Views Data Export for Drupal 6, so some of the information there is completely out of data.
• The issue queues have been left relatively unattended for a decent while, so we have (at the time of writing):
  • 204 open bugs
  • 276 other open issues.
  • Several issues that are marked as RTBC that haven't been given any attention by the maintainers.
  • Plenty of duplicate issues.
  • Drupal.org issue queues are hard to read and work with, and slow :(
• The documentation is for Drupal 6/7 and is pretty bare-bones.

The code...well I've not read every line of code in the latest version of Views Data Export, I'm going to be doing that today to break up some of the issue queue management I'm going to be doing.

Drupal 7 version

According to the stats on Drupal.org there are still around 41,000 active Drupal 7 installs, and while those will be community EOLd in a month, I don't want to prematurely cut them off, so while I plan to close almost all of the Drupal 7 issues that I find, I won't mark the module unsupported as such. But that will happen in January 2025 anyway, when Drupal.org does that automatically.

Progress check

I intend to write an article like this one every 2 weeks detailing what has been done and what the plans for the future are. Mostly to keep me honest and focused! It's easy when starting on a bit of a big project like this to get lost and despondent about the size of the problem, so by trying to write about it, I'm hoping that I'll be able to look back and see progress even if won't always feel like any progress has been made!

Hey nonprofit Drupal users, do you want a free ticket to DrupalCon Atlanta? Submit to be a breakout discussion leader at the Nonprofit Summit!

What are you talking about?

The DA is interested in supporting community-driven content that is specifically relevant to nonprofit organization staff and related agencies at DrupalCon North America in Atlanta, Georgia, at the Nonprofit Summit on March 24, 2025.

We are looking for volunteers who would be interested in giving back to the community by contributing some subject matter expertise via a day of informal breakout sessions or other group activities. We are open to ideas!

Who are we looking for?

Do you have some Drupal expertise or a recent experience with a Drupal project that you would like to share with others? Is there something about Drupal that you think is really cool that you would love to share with the nonprofit Drupal community?

What’s required?

You will not be required to make slides! You don’t need to have lots of (or any) speaking experience! All you need is a willingness to facilitate a discussion group or engaging activity around a particular topic, and some expertise or enthusiasm for that topic that you wish to share.

How to Submit an Idea or Topic

Please fill out this form by January 31st. https://forms.gle/HBv1Za55MXr2sriPA

Discussion leaders will be selected by the Nonprofit Summit Planning Committee and will be notified by the middle of February.

Questions?

Email nonprofitsummit@association.drupal.org.

Automatically track documentation requirements Anonymous (not verified) Fri, 12/06/2024 - 07:00 Tags Nonprofits ECA Drupal Planet Automation

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One of our clients is a yacht club that has their own moorage, which they lease out to members. With several hundred slips, their insurance requires them to maintain proof of insurance, up-to-date vessel registrations, and regular electrical inspections for all boats moored at their facility.

In Washington all vessel registrations renew in June, but insurance and inspections can expire any time of year. The office needs to keep copies of these documents on file.

Get ready to meet the inspiring minds shaping DrupalCon Singapore 2024! In the second part of our "Meet the Speakers" series, we spotlight the visionaries behind sessions that promise to redefine your understanding of Drupal. From Thijs Feryn revealing cutting-edge Varnish caching techniques to Abhisek Mazumdar demystifying Drupal distributions and recipes under the Starshot initiative, and Takahiro Komatsu sharing the art of creating Drupal books with local communities, this installment offers a glimpse into the sessions that will spark innovation and collaboration. Dive in to discover what these speakers have in store and why their sessions are not to be missed!

In Episode 4 of The DropTimes "Splash Awards Finalists" series, we explore how Red Airship’s partnership with Aqua Expeditions transformed their digital presence. Discover how a Drupal-powered redesign elevated the luxury travel brand’s website, aligning it with their world-class onboard experiences and driving significant business growth.

EMPOWERING DIVERSITY: INCLUSION FUNDS FOR UNDERREPRESENTED VOICES admin Fri, 12/06/2024 - 11:55

We are excited to introduce an initiative that not only reflects Drupal Mountain Camp's commitment to diversity, but also actively encourages the participation of underrepresented voices to promote inclusivity and diversity in the Drupal community. Open source communities were founded on the principle that diversity and varied perspectives strengthen the entire ecosystem. We are committed to providing opportunities for individuals from underrepresented groups to attend this year's event, share their experiences, and contribute to the thriving Drupal community.

 

What are Diversity Inclusion Funds?

Diversity and Inclusion funds offer complimentary tickets and financial support to facilitate individuals to participate in the Drupal Mountain Camp.

 

How to Apply: Eligibility Criteria:

To qualify, applicants should be a member of one of the following communities and are experiencing financial/economic hardship:

• Ability
• Age
• Ethnicity
• Gender
• Gender identity
• Race
• Religion
• Sexual orientation
• Socio-economic status/class
• Learning differences
• Family composition

  Application Process:

Prospective applicants can request diversity tickets by filling out an application form found on the Drupal Mountain Camp website. The application requires basic information and a concise statement explaining the potential benefits of receiving the funds. The organizing committee will assess applications, considering eligibility criteria and the availability of funds. The application deadline for the Diversity and Inclusion Fund is January 31st.

  How to Sponsor Diversity Tickets:

Sponsoring diversity tickets is an opportunity for organizations and individuals to actively contribute to a more inclusive Drupal community. By sponsoring a diversity ticket and inclusion funds, you become a part of the bridge, enabling someone to participate who might otherwise face barriers.

  Sponsorship as an Organization:

Drupal Mountain Camp offers sponsorship opportunities for Diversity & Inclusion sponsors to contribute to free diversity tickets and funds aimed at encouraging diverse participation at the event. Sponsors will receive recognition during the event, showcasing their commitment to diversity and inclusion. Any remaining funds will be allocated towards the seamless organization of the event. Please check out the Sponsorship page for more details and contact information.

  Sponsorship as an Individual:

Drupal Mountain Camp extends the opportunity for individual sponsorship of Diversity tickets. You can buy one or more "Sponsor a Diversity Ticket" on the eventfrog.ch website. Your contribution will directly support the provision of complimentary tickets to foster diversity within the community.

Join us on this exciting journey, building bridges that strengthen the Drupal community, we invite you to join us in making Drupal Mountain Camp 2025 an unforgettable celebration of unity in diversity. Together, let's create an environment where everyone feels not only welcome but integral to the shared narrative of our community.

 

Drupal Starshot Editor Fri, 12/06/2024 - 12:38

Ready for a Drupal revolution? At a recent keynote, Dries Buytaert, the mastermind behind Drupal, introduced Drupal Starshot, a groundbreaking initiative set to make building websites with Drupal incredibly simple.

"Drupal has always been known for its low-code capabilities. However, many competitors now offer similar features, and in some areas, they even surpass what Drupal provides. While Drupal is celebrated for its robustness, it can be challenging for newcomers, especially those with limited technical expertise. So in my keynote, I was excited to introduce Drupal Starshot, our "Moonshot" to make Drupal more accessible and easier to use." — said Dries.

Creating a website for a manufacturing company requires thoughtful planning and customization of functionality to meet the needs of different user groups. Drupal, as a flexible CMS, offers tools to quickly and efficiently build web pages tailored to market requirements. In this article, we’ll discuss step-by-step how to create a modern and functional website for a manufacturing company using Drupal and its Droopler distribution.

Drupal Advent Calendar day 6 - Live Preview james Fri, 12/06/2024 - 09:00

With the launch of Drupal CMS will be a new trial experience, making it easier than ever for non-technical evaluators to try Drupal, without needing to set up a local environment or any special tools.

I spoke with Matt Glaman, who was leading the Live Preview track in the initial development stage.

Matt has done a lot of amazing work to allow a webserver running Drupal to run directly in the web browser on your computer. How does this work? Matt took PHP, along with a webserver and database engine, and compiled them into WebAssembly, which is a language that runs in the browser, a bit like…

Tags

• Live preview
• Drupal Starshot

The Metatag 2.1.0 release introduces the powerful Metatag Custom Tags submodule, derived from the popular Custom Meta module. This new feature simplifies custom metadata management and enhances SEO.

It’s a great blessing to work alongside outstanding women and an enormous joy to see their efforts and contributions recognized.