webjoke.de

Learn how to upgrade Drupal with Composer, ensuring seamless updates, compatibility, and enhanced security.

Developed by Anand Toshniwal, a Python script now automates the creation of .component.yml files for Single Directory Components in Drupal. Simplifying workflows and improving accuracy, this tool supports projects like the Starshot Demo Design System, enhancing efficiency for developers.

With just 12 days remaining, DrupalCon Singapore 2024 is set to bring the global Drupal community together from 9 to 11 December at the PARKROYAL COLLECTION Marina Bay. This dynamic event will feature three days of inspiring sessions, hands-on training, and the inaugural Splash Awards in Asia, celebrating innovative Drupal projects. Hosted by the Drupal Asia Steering Committee and supported by the Drupal Association, the conference reflects the vibrant, collaborative nature of the Drupal ecosystem, offering attendees a unique opportunity to learn, network, and celebrate in one of Asia’s most dynamic cities.

That’s a lot of sites!

Yes, it is! 10+ years ago we migrated 200 sites to a new server - and in 2024 we set up Cloudflare protection for well over 1000 sites.

Aegir is a hosting system built in Drupal, for Drupal. It lets you create and manage Drupal sites and all their databases, filesystems and virtual hosts. With Aegir, it’s easy to manage hundreds or thousands of sites via a simple UI. Each site has a node to represent it, and this project stored a whole bunch of additional Cloudflare metadata against the Site Nodes.

Keeping a PaaS product online at all times comes with a high level of responsibility. After code quality assurance and testing, DDOS attacks of all sizes and types are a high risk threat. The cost of protecting our availability, unsurprisingly, was non-trivial and became a point requiring fresh research and investment. Reducing the general load and the potential attack load on our servers would serve to support our quality of service.

In the Spring of 2024 we set up a proof of concept using Cloudflare, which would allow us to make a significant ongoing cost saving whilst also playing with some really cool APIs.

The plan

In order to put all our sites behind Cloudflare, we needed to:

* Get Aegir talking to Cloudflare via their API, and build the automatic processes to support the setup process
* Create a clear interface for starting and tracking setup per site
* Create a clear dashboard for tracking progress overall
* Go! Change the nameserver records for every domain, to point to Cloudflare

Here are some of the key interesting parts of our story (which had negligible downtime, btw!)

Interacting with Cloudflare’s API

It was greatly pleasing to find that Cloudflare let you do almost everything over an API (given the right authentication!). Given the scale of their company, it shouldn’t be a huge surprise I suppose!

With 1000 sites approx. to deal with, there was a strong drive to automate as much of this process as possible. So there was much celebration when it became clear that we would be able to do almost every step automatically, including:

* create everything we needed for the site domain, with an appropriate plan under our chosen account
* upload DNS records, query them and update them
* perform real-time ownership verification and SSL validation

Simple admin setup - Obtain DNS records for hundreds of domains, store them against Site Nodes, press GO

A large portion of the domains (about 500) are under our control, so we were able to bulk export the DNS records, process and save them against their Aegir Site Nodes. Some simple processing removed the SOA and NS records so that we would be able to send the records straight to Cloudflare when setup started.
These ‘easy’ sites, for which we had the DNS records, would be processed in bulk with a lot of Go! button clicks, and then making the relevant nameserver changes with the domain provider.
(The domain provider did offer to do bulk updates for us, but there seemed to be a 24h delay before action was taken - so it was quicker to do these changes ourselves.)
 

Cropped screen grab of our progress pie chart

 

 

Creating a self-service setup mechanism via Drupal config + settings.php

Domains that we only had nameserver control for would have to be updated by the customer. But how would they know what nameservers to set up, and how would they trigger the setup process? Stats to the rescue!
As part of the Drupal 10 rebuild of the platform we added a Statistics module, which collects a selection of data points from each site and passes them to the corresponding node on Aegir for storage. They’re then aggregated and sent back to the sites so that customers can compare their performance to the cohort averages.
We created a form interface for the user to trigger setup when ready, and then smuggled the outputs over to Aegir in amongst the performance stats

I'm excited to share the first version of Drupal Starshot's product strategy, a document that aims to guide the development and marketing of Drupal Starshot. To read it, download the full Drupal Starshot strategy document as a PDF (8 MB).

This strategy document is the result of a collaborative effort among the Drupal Starshot leadership team, the Drupal Starshot Advisory Council, and the Drupal Core Committers. We also tested it with marketers who provided feedback and validation.

Drupal Starshot and Drupal Core

Drupal Starshot is the temporary name for an initiative that extends the capabilities of Drupal Core. Drupal Starshot aims to broaden Drupal's appeal to marketers and a wider range of project budgets. Our ultimate goal is to increase Drupal's adoption, solidify Drupal's position as a leading CMS, and champion an Open Web.

For more context, please watch my DrupalCon Portland keynote.

It's important to note that Drupal Starshot and Drupal Core will have separate, yet complementary, product strategies. Drupal Starshot will focus on empowering marketers and expanding Drupal's presence in the mid-market, while Drupal Core will prioritize the needs of developers and more technical users. I'll write more about the Drupal Core product strategy in a future blog post once we have finalized it. Together, these two strategies will form a comprehensive vision for Drupal as a product.

Why a product strategy?

By defining our goals, target audience and necessary features, we can more effectively guide contributors and ensure that everyone is working towards a common vision. This product strategy will serve as a foundation for our development roadmap, our marketing efforts, enabling Drupal Certified Partners, and more.

Drupal Starshot product strategy TL;DR

For the detailed product strategy, please read the full Drupal Starshot strategy document (8 MB, PDF). Below is a summary.

Drupal Starshot aims to be the gold standard for marketers that want to build great digital experiences.

We'd like to expand Drupal's reach by focusing on two strategic shifts:

1. Prioritizing Drupal for content creators, marketers, web managers, and web designers so they can independently build websites. A key goal is to empower these marketing professionals to build and manage their websites independently without relying on developers or having to use the command line or an IDE.
2. Extending Drupal's presence in the mid-market segment, targeting projects with total budgets between $30,000 and $120,000 USD (€25,000 to €100,000).

Drupal Starshot will differentiate itself from competitors by providing:

1. A thoughtfully designed platform for marketers, balancing ease of use with flexibility. It includes smart defaults, best practices for common marketing tasks, marketing-focused editorial tools, and helpful learning resources.
2. A growth-oriented approach. Start simple with Drupal Starshot's user-friendly tools, and unlock advanced features as your site grows or you gain expertise. With sophisticated content modeling, efficient content reuse across channels, and robust integrations with other leading marketing technologies, ambitious marketers won't face the limitations of other CMSs and will have the flexibility to scale their site as needed.
3. AI-assisted site building tools to simplify complex tasks, making Drupal accessible to a wider range of users.
4. Drupal's existing competitive advantages such as extensibility, scalability, security, accessibility, multilingual support, and more.

What about ambitious site builders?

In the past, we used the term ambitious site builders to describe Drupal's target audience. Although this term doesn't appear in the product strategy document, it remains relevant.

While the strategy document is publicly available, it is primarily an internal guide. It outlines our plans but doesn't dictate our marketing language. Our product strategy's language purposly aligns with terms used by our target users, based on persona research and interviews.

To me, "ambitious site builders" includes all Drupal users, from those working with Drupal Core (more technically skilled) to those working with Drupal Starshot (less technical). Both groups are ambitious, with Drupal Starshot specifically targeting "ambitious marketers" or "ambitious no-code developers".

Give feedback

The product strategy is a living document, and we value input. We invite you to share your thoughts, suggestions, and questions in the product strategy feedback issue within the Drupal Starshot issue queue.

Get involved

There are many opportunities to get involved with Drupal Starshot, whether you're a marketer, developer, designer, writer, project manager, or simply passionate about the future of Drupal. To learn more about how you can contribute to Drupal Starshot, visit https://drupal.org/starshot.

Thank you

I'd like to thank the Drupal Starshot leadership team, the Drupal Starshot Advisory Council, and the Drupal Core Committers for their input on the strategy. I'm also grateful for the marketers who provided feedback on our strategy, helping us refine our approach.

We’re thrilled to introduce Stella Power, one of the newest members elected to the Drupal Association Board in October. Stella is the Managing Director of Annertech, a digital agency based in Dublin. She holds an MSc in Software Engineering from Dublin City University and a BA in Computational Physics from Trinity College Dublin. Since founding Annertech in 2008, she has grown the company into a team of approximately 40 members spanning the EU and beyond.

A passionate advocate for women in tech, Stella has been featured in numerous publications. In 2021, she was honored with the Women in Digital Award at Ireland’s National Digital Awards and, in 2022, received a Women in Drupal Award in the Scale category.

Stella is also an open-source evangelist and a sought-after speaker at international conferences, where she shares her expertise on development best practices, service delivery, data migrations, and security. She continues to contribute actively to Drupal and serves on the Drupal Security Team, the DrupalCon Europe Advisory Board, and the Starshot Advisory Council, in addition to her role on the Drupal Association Board.

We’re excited to have Stella on the Board, and she recently shared her insights on this new chapter in her journey:

What are you most excited about when it comes to joining the Drupal Association Board?
I’m looking forward to playing a role in shaping the future of Drupal. For me, Drupal is more than just a fantastic CMS—it’s a community. Being on the board gives me an opportunity to give back in a different way, stepping back to focus on the big picture. It’s not about concentrating on one part of the community or one piece of the codebase. I’m truly excited about this new role.

What do you hope to accomplish during your time on the board?
A big part of the Drupal Association's focus is fostering the growth of the Drupal community and supporting the project’s vision to create a safe, secure, and open web for everyone. As my role at Annertech changed from development to management, so did my contributions to Drupal. Instead of just contributing code I started contributing more to the community, most often in event organizing or on various committees. I contribute because I want to give back. The Drupal community has given me so much, even a career. I want to ensure others can benefit from it like I have.

I am a big advocate of getting new people involved. I love listening to new voices, and getting fresh perspectives on challenges or issues facing the Drupal community, and I look forward to helping grow the diversity of our community and amplifying voices that haven’t been heard before. The newer members of our community have a completely different take on what they want from Drupal. I look forward to listening to what they want, and to their ideas of Drupal and for Drupal.

What specific skill or perspective do you contribute to the board?
I have a coding background, and with that comes a built-in problem-solving radar. Developers tend to approach challenges like puzzles, and I’ve developed strong skills in context-switching. If something isn’t working I can change tack and come at it from a different angle. It was the logical, problem-solving aspect that first drew me to tech, and I’d like to think that that's a valuable skill.

How has Drupal impacted your life or career?
"If I hadn’t found Drupal I probably would have ended up doing something completely different with my life. I used to be an avid ceramic artist and amateur photographer. It was mainly just for fun, as a hobby, but I wanted to grow it into something more. However, it was when I went to build a website to showcase my portfolio that I found Drupal, and then it was contributing to Drupal that became my hobby!

I loved being involved in the community and contributing, but it wasn’t until I attended my first DrupalCon—in Szeged—that I realized it could be more than just a hobby. I was introduced to people who were doing such incredible things with Drupal, who were helping clients achieve their goals by creating incredible websites, and that’s when I decided to found my own digital agency and Annertech was born.

Tell us something that the Drupal community might not know about you.
I studied physics at university and initially aspired to be an astrophysicist. I even worked as an intern at the Space Telescope Science Institute with the Hubble Telescope! I loved the problem-solving aspects of physics, but Drupal allowed me to combine my love for problem-solving with my creative side.

Share a favorite quote or piece of advice that has inspired you.
I love the principle of aggregate marginal gains. It’s the idea that if you improve by just 1% consistently, those small gains will add up to remarkable improvement. We live in such a hectic world, where it's easy to feel overwhelmed or that challenges are insurmountable. Small improvements are far less daunting, and when you make small improvements on a daily basis, the overall results can be incredible.

We’re excited to see the amazing contributions Stella will make during her time on the Drupal Association Board. Thank you, Stella, for dedicating your time and expertise to serving the Drupal community! Connect with Stella on LinkedIn. 

The Drupal Association Board of Directors comprises 13 members with nine are nominated for staggered three-year terms, two are elected by Drupal Association members, and one seat is reserved for the Drupal Project Founder, Dries Buytaert, while another is reserved for the immediate past chair. The Board meets twice in person and four times virtually each year. It oversees policy development, executive director management, budget approvals, financial reporting, and fundraising efforts.

The Drupal Metatag module has been extended with a new submodule called Custom Meta. Custom Meta opens the way for the flexible definition of tags which can be used to drive custom applications outside the typical SEO requirements of a site.

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Today is a big day for Drupal as we officially released Drupal 11!

In recent years, we've seen an uptick in innovation in Drupal. Drupal 11 continues this trend with many new and exciting features. You can see an overview of these improvements in the video below:

Drupal 11 has been out for less than six hours, and updating my personal site was my first order of business this morning. I couldn't wait! Dri.es is now running on Drupal 11.

I'm particularly excited about two key features in this release, which I believe are transformative and will likely reshape Drupal in the years ahead:

1. Recipes (experimental): This feature allows you to add new features to your website by applying a set of predefined configurations.
2. Single-Directory Components: SDCs simplify front-end development by providing a component-based workflow where all necessary code for each component lives in a single, self-contained directory.

These two new features represent a major shift in how developers and site builders will work with Drupal, setting the stage for even greater improvements in future releases. For example, we'll rely heavily on them in Drupal Starshot.

Drupal 11 is the result of contributions from 1,858 individuals across 590 organizations. These numbers show how strong and healthy Drupal is. Community involvement remains one of Drupal's greatest strengths. Thank you to everyone who contributed to Drupal 11!

Session Submission Now Open for MidCamp 2025!

As the season of gratitude approaches, we’re excited to celebrate you—our future speakers! If you've got an idea for a session, now's the time to get involved in MidCamp 2025, happening May 20-22 in Chicago.

Call for Speakers

Since 2014, MidCamp has hosted over 300 amazing sessions, and we’re ready to add your talk to that legacy. We’re seeking presentations for all skill levels—from Drupal beginners to advanced users, as well as end users and business professionals. Check out our session tracks for full details on the types of talks we’re looking for.

Not quite ready? No worries! Join us for one of our Speaker Workshops:

• December 2024 (TBD): Crafting an Outstanding Proposal
• March 2025 (TBD): Polishing Your Presentation (Open to both MidCamp and DrupalCon Atlanta 2025 presenters!)

Key Dates

• Session Proposals Open: November 25, 2024

Submit your session now!

• Proposal Deadline: January 12, 2025
• Speakers Notified: Week of February 17, 2025
• MidCamp Sessions: May 20-21, 2025

P.S.

We hear Florida is also calling for submissions—but let’s be real, we know where your heart lies.

I was doing website maintenance and checked for outdated dependencies with composer outdated. I usually filter with -D for checking direct dependencies and -p for packages with patch releases. These are typically easy pickings. I saw I was on 2.1.3 of the Honeypot module and 2.1.4 was available. So I ran composer update drupal/honeypot. I noticed the module was updated to 2.2.0, because my Composer constraint is drupal/honeypot: ^2.0, allowing minor updates. I figured that was fine enough. Turns out it wasn't.

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We know you love FAQs! We'll answer your questions you have about the all-new Drupal CMS (yep, 13 of them). From features to migration, find out everything you need to know about this groundbreaking new CMS.

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 , , , , and 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

The open-source ecosystem thrives on collaboration, innovation, and inclusivity. Within this space, Drupal has consistently emerged as a beacon of robust, community-driven development. A significant contribution to this success comes from Drupal companies stepping up to sponsor Free and Open Source Software (FOSS) events, ensuring the platform's visibility and fostering its growth.

Some of them are doing more than just sponsoring events—they are cultivating spaces where Drupal can shine amidst the broader open-source community. By anchoring Drupal’s presence at these gatherings, they highlight the platform’s strengths, such as its flexibility, scalability, and vibrant community. Their efforts underscore the idea that Drupal is not just a content management system but a cornerstone of the open-source movement.

Recently, Nico Grienauer wrote an article in the Drop Times about acolono’s presence at ‘Kiss the Globe,’ an interdisciplinary event held in Vienna, Austria. Acolono was one of the event's sponsors, but it did not end there. The company offered discounted tickets to Drupal developers, enabling more contributors to attend. This approach democratizes access to knowledge-sharing opportunities, allowing developers to engage with the broader open-source world while representing Drupal. 

Such measures ensure Drupal's representation and help create a collaborative bridge between diverse technologies and communities. This cross-pollination of ideas enhances the value of open-source events and reflects the cooperative ethos that defines Drupal.

In a world where competition often overshadows collaboration, these efforts remind us of the power of community. Such initiatives deserve appreciation as they propel Drupal forward and uphold the principles of open source—accessibility, inclusivity, and innovation. 

Now, let’s look at the important stories from the past week.

In an interview with Alka Elizabeth, Martin Anderson-Clutz reflects on his experiences presenting at NEDCamp. He delves into his work under the Starshot initiative, which aims to enhance Drupal’s capabilities for event management. He highlights the evolution of Drupal recipes, explores the complexities of event-based tools, and shares developments slated for upcoming releases. He also discusses how collaboration within the Drupal community has shaped tools and practices, offering insights into the future of event management and site-building with Drupal.

For acolono, Open Source is not just a technical solution but a philosophy. It represents collaboration, innovation, and shared responsibility—values that align closely with the ethos of Kiss the Globe. By leveraging Drupal, acolono develops digital tools that are both innovative and environmentally conscious, reinforcing the agency’s belief that technology can be a driver of sustainability. Nico Grienauer shares about acolono's partnership with Kiss the Globe event and their giant push for Drupal.

Bernardo Martinez writes about how DrupalCamp Atlanta regained momentum in 2024 after one of its lead organizers stepped down last year. Earlier in the week, we had published his reflection on this year's Open-Source/DrupalCamp Chattanooga. Here's a report of the event from Bernardo Martinez.

This week, from November 25 to December 1, 2024, features several Drupal events, including the MidCamp 2025 Planning Meeting, the Event Platform Initiative Discussion, and the Dutch Splash Awards. Have a look at the Drop Times’ article on events this week.

Pamela Barone has provided updates on the progress of Drupal CMS version 1 and outlined plans for new work tracks to advance the platform further. With version 1 nearing completion, successful tracks like Project Browser and Workspaces as Content Moderation continue to drive improvements.

DrupalSouth has officially announced its committee for 2024, bringing together a group of dedicated professionals to lead the organization’s activities and initiatives. The newly appointed committee includes individuals with diverse experience, ready to advance the Drupal community in the region.

DrupalCon Singapore 2024 is set to roll within a month. The grand event that brings together Drupal enthusiasts from Asia and beyond is going to be a goldmine of networking opportunities. Have a look at the Social Events at the event.

DrupalNYC invites Drupal enthusiasts to participate in its upcoming "Contribution Day," scheduled for Friday, December 13, 2024, from 9:00 AM to 4:00 PM. The event encourages both new and seasoned contributors to collaborate on advancing the Drupal ecosystem.

DrupalCamp Poland 2025, the country's largest Drupal-focused conference, will occur on June 7 in Warsaw. Organizers have announced that the call for session proposals is now open, inviting speakers to submit their topics for consideration. 

A new podcast series was launched exclusively to deal with topics connected to LibreOffice. The series titled LibreOffice Podcast is being published on PeerTube. The first episode, published on 20 November, discussed the topic "Marketing Free Software".

James Abrahams, Director at FreelyGive. Ltd, recently shared an update on the integration of AI agents into Drupal, sparking a wide-ranging discussion among experts on LinkedIn. His insights focused on the critical role of evaluations in AI systems, as well as the challenges of creating intuitive tools for non-developers within the Drupal ecosystem.

With that let's wind up this week's newsletter.

Thomas Alias K
Sub-editor, The Drop Times

Twig & PHP Templating in Drupal 11 Editor Mon, 11/25/2024 - 10:11

Welcome here! This is your complete guide to Twig and PHP templating in Drupal 11. As you understand,  Twig and PHP are important for the frontend and backend development in Drupal. If you know how they work, you can create beautiful, effective, and easy-to-maintain websites. 
Today, Golems Drupal company explores Twig's smooth template engine and PHP's strong backend logic. Our blog will be helpful for every kind of person, whether you are a skilled Drupal developer, someone who owns a website or business owner, or simply starting your path in this field. We will dive into the details of Twig and PHP in Drupal to help you better understand how they work together so that your digital experiences can be crafted more effectively.

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Martin Anderson-Clutz, Senior Solutions Engineer at Acquia and Drupal Starshot Event Track Lead, reflects on his experiences at NEDCamp 2024, the evolution of Drupal recipes, and the exciting advancements in event management tools under the Starshot initiative. Dive into this interview to explore his vision for Drupal’s future, the challenges of managing complex event scenarios, and the innovations shaping tomorrow’s site-building solutions.

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This week, lots of work on the LocalGov News module.