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Drupalistas! Behave! The new Drupal code of conduct

Submitted by Frizz on Wed, 2010-09-01 10:32

dcoc
drupal
drupal code of conduct

As our community grows, it is imperative that we preserve the things that got us here; namely, keeping Drupal a fun, welcoming, challenging, and fair place to play. The new Drupal Code of Conduct (DCOC) states our shared ideals with respect to conduct. Think of this as coding standards for people. It is an expression of our ideals, not a rulebook. It is a way to communicate our existing values to the entire community.

Our friends at Ubuntu have blazed a brilliant trail in this area. They use Drupal as their CMS, and in turn we have embraced their Code of Conduct. This code of conduct is essentially identical to that used by Ubuntu, except that the name of the project has been changed, and the conflict resolution process has been removed since we don’t have one.

The DCOC has been under discussion for several months on groups.drupal.org and discussed further at Drupalcon Conpenhagen. Folks who are interested in talking more about the DCOC should do so in the Drupal.org Policies group.

The short version:

Be considerate
Be respectful
When we disagree, we consult others.
When we are unsure, we ask for help.
Step down considerately.

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How and why to use the l() function to create links in Drupal programming

Submitted by Frizz on Sun, 2010-08-29 19:50

drops
l
link
tutorials
url

If you have been doing web development for any significant amount of time chances are you know how to build a link by hand using the ‘a href=“link/to/some/page”’ syntax. That method works fine and can even be used inside of Drupal modules, but it is generally frowned upon by the Drupal community. Using the l() function is the Drupal way of building links programmatically, and though it might take some getting used to, in the end you will find that it saves time.

l() is a function that is available anywhere within a Drupal installation. It accepts three arguments:

$text: The text that will be visible to users for your link
$path: The URL that the link will go to when clicked.
$options: An associative array which allows you to set additional parameters to further customize the link with CSS classes etc… It is here that you would need to establish that the link will be an image if you so desire (I’ll go into this later). The $options array is optional.

l($text, $path, $options = array())

In its simplest form you can create a link like so:

print l('This is the link text', 'node/2');

Of course you shouldn’t really write your links like this, because if you do you link will not be translatable. Instead you should write it like so:

print l(t('This is the link text'), 'node/2');

How to create an image based link using the l() function for Drupal
The $text section of the l() function accepts any text so this text could be html and therefore could be an image. However by default it filters out html unless you tell it otherwise. To tell the l() function to accept html for its text you need to build the $options array and pass it as an argument.

   $options = array(
              'attributes' => array(),
              'html' => TRUE,
            );  
l('<img src="/images/path-to-image.png" />', 'node/1', $options);

The ‘html’ =>TRUE, is the key here. Yes, I know, for building an image based link this is a little more than an ideal amount of code but this is the current state of affairs. I personally would rather have 4 arguments with $html = FALSE being the default for the third argument and $options for the 4th. This was changed in Drupal 5 where all of the options were individual arguments, and honestly the Drupal 6 version is better.

Benefits of building links with l() in Drupal programming
The main benefit is that the code is more compact and easier to read than manually created html. Also there is the theming benefit with the automated active classes assigned. Additionally the l() function runs check_plain and check_url in the background without you having to touch it, so it is better for security (Prevents xss attacks).

If you can find more information about the l() function by visiting its Drupal api page at http://api.drupal.org/api/function/l

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Open Atrium 1.0 beta 8

Submitted by Arshad on Wed, 2010-08-25 23:48

intranet
open atrium

Open Atrium seatbelts

Open Atrium, the "Intranet in a box" Drupal distro has a new release from Development Seed. This new beta release (beta 8) is codenamed "Seatbelts" and features serious changes from the previous releases.

Open Atrium Seatbelts focuses on compatibility, accessibility, and stability.

Read the release notes here.

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Upgrading your Drupal website? A patch does the job.

Submitted by Arshad on Tue, 2010-08-24 23:16

drupal
patch
upgrade
versions

Upgrading Drupal from one minor version
to the next can be time-consuming and error prone. A lot of folks use
Drush for this, but a good second choice for the commandlinophobic is to
use a patch file.

Bernhard Fürst creates patches from all previous minor versions of Drupal 5 and 6 to the current release and posts them here. I've used this method several times, and it's gone really smooth.

First, go to your sites /admin/reports/updates page and see what version of Drupal you're running. Here's what mine looks like:

So, I'm on 6.16 and need to upgrade to 6.17.

Next, go to the list of patch files and find the one that matches up with your version. Click on it to download:

Move the downloaded patch to your Drupal site's base directory.

Now, we need to move to the command line. Sorry, commandlinophobes.

First, cd to the directory where you just put the patch file.

Before we run the patch for real, we're going to do a quick dry run
to make sure that we don't get any errors. You'll need to use the actual
patch file name you downloaded:

patch -p1 --dry-run < drupal-6.16-to-6.17.patch

You'll see a list of everything that gets patched. If you see any errors having to do with HUNKs, then you should probably use another method to upgrade.

If everything looks good, then run the patch for reals:

patch -p1 < drupal-6.16-to-6.17.patch

Now, run /update.php.

Update: Check out an article Kalid posted in the comments that shows how to automate this process via the command line.
It's more command line-heavy, and if you're going to get that heavy
it's just a tiny step over to using Drush, but is still pretty cool.

Here's some additional information about upgrading if you run into issues:

* The drupal.org handbook page on upgrading with patches
* The drupal.org handbook page on upgrading in general
* The list of patch files
* Also reference the UPDATE.txt file in your Drupal site's main directory for more information

Source : Chrisshattuck

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Top 9 Modules to Streamline Your Drupal Site's User Experience

Submitted by Arshad on Sat, 2010-08-21 13:46

modules
top modules
UX

Streamlining Drupal site's user experience

Chris from LevelTen recently posted a great article
on Drupal modules for improved usability. However, these focused on the administrative side of the website, not end users. So here is our own list of modules for the front end of your site!

You do not want your Drupal site’s users to get lost in a myriad of long forms, fieldsets, page redirects, and confusing tagging. You want to do everything you can to make navigating your site and completing frequent routine tasks as painless as possible for the end user. This will keep them calm and give them warm fuzzies to know that they can use your Drupal site with ease without having to pop a Valium just to endure the overwhelming experience of encountering em>your site.

When you have relaxed, confident and in-control users - you have happy customers which can translate into more traffic, more sales, more word-of-mouth about your website! Now that sounds good doesn’t it? Here are nine sure-fire modules to ensure users aren’t selecting the “nightmare” button when interacting with your Drupal site.

Login toboggan allows users to login immediately either using their username or their email address, and it provides anonymous users a login form on Access Denied pages. Optionally, this module lets you direct users to a specific page when using the immediate login feature, or once an email address
is validated.

One page profile, when used with the core profile module, allows users to edit their entire profile on one page as opposed to going to separate pages for each category.

Ajax comments allows users to post reply comments on the actual thread page itself, without needing a page refresh.

Username originality AJAX check lets visitors check username originality quickly during the registration process; thereby, making registration more convenient as you don’t need to submit your form to find out whether a username is already taken or not.

Multi-column check boxes radios is a form element to display checkboxes and radios in columns so that long
forms are not as overwhelming. Visitors to your site are more likely to fill out a form or survey if they don’t feel it will take a huge chunk of time out of their lives. It’s all perception!

Better exposed filters module replaces the Views’ default single- or multi-select boxes with radio buttons or checkboxes, respectively, creating a better user experience by adding description fields and select all/none links to exposed view filters. People understand checkboxes and radio buttons, but have a harder time grokking click and cntrl+click to select multiple items and
to deselect items.

Active tags is a front-end widget that simplifies the user process of assigning tags or taxonomy terms in order to keep the classification system simple and small, instead of the confusion of comma-separated-tags.

Form defaults allows the user to edit and improve the text or display order on forms such as titles and descriptions in form fields that were created by the developer. These defaults can be altered all without knowing or changing any PHP code. Score!

Vertical tabs module tidies up all the fieldsets so that when a user goes in to edit a node, content type, or block all the fields are stacked and neatly organized resulting in improved efficiency, less visual clutter and a stronger
overall user experience with the administrative side of things.

Cargoh.com- Drupal Ubercart powered Marketplace

Submitted by Arshad on Thu, 2010-08-19 20:38

In 2009 Appnovation Technologies was asked to design and develop a Drupal based community and e-commerce website called Cargoh.
The driving idea behind the site is to create a “social marketplace” for independent artists from all over the world to be able to showcase and sell their products and services. It features community tools such as forums, an internal messaging system and events section.

Source : Drupal

Drupal 6.18, 6.19 and 5.23 released

Submitted by Arshad on Thu, 2010-08-19 20:20

Download Drupal 6.18

Download Drupal 6.19

Download Drupal 5.23

Drupal 6.18 and 5.23, maintenance releases which fix security vulnerabilities are now available for download.

Drupal 6.19 also fixes other small issues reported through the bug tracking system.

Upgrading your existing Drupal 5 and 6 sites is strongly recommended. There are no new features in these releases. For more information about the Drupal 6.x release series, consult the Drupal 6.0 release announcement, more information on the 5.x releases can be found in the Drupal 5.0 release announcement. Drupal 5 will no longer be maintained when Drupal 7 is released. Upgrading to Drupal 6 is recommended.

Read the full release announcement.

Drupal For Firebug 0.0.7

Submitted by mira on Mon, 2010-07-05 16:45

debugging
drupal
firebug

Drupal for Firebug extends the Firebug module to provide Drupal specific debugging and status messages. It allows users to see the processing of the node, form, and user objects and works with the Devel module to display SQL queries and execute PHP from the Firebug window. It incorporates jQuery 1.26 for added UI improvements.

ref: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/8370/

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jQuery User Group Mauritius

Submitted by Arshad on Sun, 2010-06-20 20:04

jquery mauritius Hey Guys,

There's another good news for our user group. We'll now officially represent Mauritius for jQuery. We've created our Group. Click on the link to join us. Mauritian developers here we come.

http://meetups.jquery.com/group/mauritius

In our next session, we're going to discuss how and where we are going to take this. but keep checking this space. there's more to come.

Thanks

Drupal Cheat Sheet Desktop Wallpaper

Submitted by Arshad on Wed, 2010-06-16 10:22

cheat sheet
drupal
smashing magazine

Drupal Cheat Sheet

This pack is a set of wallpapers for Drupal developers showcasing available Drupal variables and their descriptions in a compact overview.

Page.tpl.php defines the main skeleton for the page,
Node.tpl.php controls the display of a node, and a node summary,
Comment.tpl.php defines the HTML for the comments block,
Block.tpl.php contains theme implementation to display a block (left and/or right side of page),
Box.tpl.php prints a simple HTML box around a page element.

From Smashing Magazine. Click here for the full article and downloads.