Software

Language Undefined

The Quiz module is a sophisticated and flexible way to create quizzes in Drupal.

To get started with Quiz, you need to install and enable the 2 core Quiz modules from http://drupal.org/project/quiz:

During our weekly developers meeting I spoke about my approach to contributing to Drupal core, sharing some tips and tricks I've learnt along the way

This is a preview of a proposed session for DrupalSouth Melbourne 2015

In support of my mission to make local development easier and faster, I've released boxes for four of the most popular Linux distributions I use and see used for Drupal sites: CentOS 6/7 and Ubuntu 12.04/14.04.

After a very successful drush code-sprint at BADCamp 2014, drush make now supports YAML format!

Instead of the old INI format

api = 2 ; Set contrib directory. defaults[projects][subdir] = "contrib" core = "7.x" projects[drupal][type] = "core" projects[drupal][version] = "7.32" ; Remove scary ajax error when autocomplete terminates: https://www.drupal.org/node/1232416#comment-8748879 projects[drupal][patch][] = "https://www.drupal.org/files/issues/D7-fix_autocomplete_terminated_error-1232416-179-do-not-test.patch" ; Ensure plain text fields evaluate line breaks. projects[drupal][patch][] = "http://drupal.org/files/text-plain-1152216-24.patch" projects[addressfield][version] = "1.0-beta5" projects[addressfield_tokens][version] = "1.4" projects[admin_views][version] = "1.3" projects[field_collection][version] = "1.0-beta7" ; Field collections are ownerless https://drupal.org/node/1954124 projects[field_collection][patch][] = "https://drupal.org/files/issues/field_collection-ownerless_fields-1954124-23.patch" ; Fixes fatal error in migrate code: https://www.drupal.org/node/2315921#comment-9028779 projects[field_collection][patch][] = "https://www.drupal.org/files/issues/migrate-fatal-error-2315921-01.patch"

YAML can be used with the latest version of Drush 7:

api: 2 # Set contrib directory. defaults: projects: subdir: "contrib" core: "7.x" projects: drupal: type: "core" version: "7.33" patch: # Remove scary ajax error when autocomplete terminates: https://www.drupal.org/node/1232416#comment-8748879 - "https://www.drupal.org/files/issues/D7-fix_autocomplete_terminated_error-1232416-179-do-not-test.patch" # Ensure plain text fields evaluate line breaks. - "http://drupal.org/files/text-plain-1152216-24.patch" addressfield: "1.0-beta5" addressfield_tokens: "1.4" admin_views: "1.3" field_collection: version: "1.0-beta7" patch: # Field collections are ownerless https://drupal.org/node/1954124 - "https://drupal.org/files/issues/field_collection-ownerless_fields-1954124-23.patch" # Fixes fatal error in migrate code: https://www.drupal.org/node/2315921#comment-9028779 - "https://www.drupal.org/files/issues/migrate-fatal-error-2315921-01.patch"

Included .make files whether local, or discovered recursively within downloaded projects, can be in either YAML of INI format.

In order to use the newly-supported YAML format, simply name files with a .yml extension, such as my_project.make.yml.

The best part? This can be used now! Even though YAML files are mostly a new concept for Drupal 8, drush make will parse YAML make files for Drupal 7, and even Drupal 6. Want to learn more about DRUSH make files? Check out Joe Turgeon’s “Getting Started With Grunt Drupal Tasks“

This entry is part 2 of 2 in the series Drupal Performance Tips

In the spirit of the computer video game Doom and its skill levels, we’ll review a few ways you can improve         your Drupal speed performance     and optimize for better results and server response time. These tips that we’ll cover may be at times specific to Drupal 6 versions, although     you can always learn the best practices from these examples and apply them on your own code base.

Doom skill levels: (easiest first)

  1. I’m too young to die

  2. Hey, not too rough

  3. Hurt me plenty

  4. Ultra-violence

  5. Nightmare!

  This post is rated “I’m too young too die” difficulty level.

 

If you’re using a Drupal distribution which is great for kick-starting a project with many features built-in, you should still review added modules which are managed through the installation profile as they might prove un-necessary for your product as time goes and your product evolves and matures. Remember that even if you’re not using a distribution, you might have added some modules to meet a functionality, which you no longer use and you disabled through CSS, through the menus, through the theme, but you forgot all about removing the actual module. These un-used modules account for memory footprint as they are loaded through PHP and they can also account for Drupal hooks, which is even worse in terms of performance for you.

Remember to review your installed modules base on Drupal and remove any un-used functionality:

(adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || []).push({});

The post Drupal Performance Tip – removing unused modules appeared first on Liran Tal's Enginx.

Article

One of the best ways to learn useful tricks at the command line is to sit with someone and watch what they do. Due to the distributed nature of the Drupal community, we don't do nearly enough pair programming. Too often we work in isolation and then push our work on others when we finish. In this article I invite you to sit down beside me and watch over my shoulder as I explore Drupal 8 from the command line.

Navigating Drupal in the Bash Shell

The instructions in this article will work for OSX, and Linux systems, such as Ubuntu, but not Windows.
When reading command line instructions, there are two important characters we need to know about: $ and #. When applied to the beginning of a line, these refer to the prompt. We don't type these characters when issuing our command. $ signifies the command should be run as a regular user; # signifies the command is run as the administrative user (“root”).

As a themer, the first thing I want to explore is, of course, the themes. Let's begin by navigating to our Drupal folder. I start by opening up a terminal application. At the command line, I type cd, and then, using Finder, locate my Drupal folder. I then drag this folder onto the terminal application. It will automatically paste the path to the Drupal folder into my bash prompt. I press return, and bingo – we have navigated to the Drupal folder!

Let's take a peek inside the core folder of themes: we’ll navigate to the folder core/themes and then list (or ls) all files.

$ cd core/themes $ ls

There should be four things listed. See them all?

I've had a couple of questions related to Association finances lately in various communications channels. I know that most of you are not finance professionals for a living, so rather than answering in several different silos, I thought I might write up this post about how the Association financials are structured and how you can read them. You know, for when you need a break from your other Drupal work! So if you're into this sort of thing (and I am not judging here, because I am WAY INTO this sort of thing), read on!

What are financial statements?

A financial statement is a formal record of the financial activities of the Drupal Association. The financial statements present information in a structured way that should make it easy to understand what is happening with the organization's finances. In other words, financial statements should tell a story about what is happening with the Association's money. Generally, financial statements include three standard reports:

• Income Statement (or Profit & Loss): This report shows the revenue that is recognized as received and spent during a given period. It is tempting to compare the income statement to your checkbook register, but it's not quite that simple. The catch is that the income statement shows RECOGNIZED income and expense. One of the US accounting rules, for example, is that we can not recognize revenue for a DrupalCon ticket until the month in which the event happens. So, if you buy your DrupalCon Barcelona ticket in June, and the event is in September, your ticket revenue will not show up until our September income statement. Until then, that revenue sits on our Balance Sheet. So, the income statement alone does not give you a full picture of the organiztion's financial position. It simply represents the movement of recognized revenue in a specific time period. The income statement also represents some non-cash changes, such as depreciation.
• Balance Sheet: The balance sheet shows us the assets and liabilities for the organization for that given time period. Reading the balance sheet, you can get a better understanding of how much money is in the bank, and where we owe, or might possibly owe, money. These things are not reflected in the income statement. Going back to our DrupalCon Barcelona example, prior to the Con, any revenue from sponsorship, ticket sales, or training sales would be held on the balance sheet in two ways. First, it will simply be reflected as cash in our bank account. Secondly, it is reflected as a liability, broken out specifically as sponsorship or ticket revenue. It's a liability because if we cancel the Con, we have to give you your money back! When preparing the September financials, we move the ticket revenue from the balance sheet liabilities session to the Income Statement, where it is treated as recognized revenue. 
• Cash Summary: The cash summary (or cash flow) is the report that simply shows the movement of money into and out of our accounts. It does not account for depreciation or other non-cash accounting.

Those three reports are the standard set that organizations issue when reporting their financials.  The Association, however, issues additional reports to add clarity and transparency around the programs that you care most about.

About the Drupal Association Financial Statements

The Drupal Association financials are created on a monthly basis, and then are reviewed by the Finance Comittee of the board. On a quarterly basis, the Finance Committee presents the financials to the Board in executive session, which, if there are no serious questions, approves the financials. At that point, we publish the three months of financials to the community. They are promoted in a blog post about the meeting, and are also always available on the board materials page on the Association site. 

As I mentioned above, the Association financial statements go above and beyond the standard reports. In addition to the main three, our monthly financials also include the following: 

• "PL All Classes:" This is an income statement report, showing recognized revenue and expenses for the month, but it is broken out by program area. This gives you the opportunity to see, for that month, the recognized revenue and expense for the upcoming Cons, or Drupal.org, or our Drupal Product Marketing efforts, for example. This report is for the month only, so keep that in mind. If you are looking at the May financial statements, the numbers in this report are for May only.
• "Revenue:" This report was designed to show how our various revenue lines are performing. One of our board mandates is to diversify revenue so that DrupalCons are not our primary source of income. Taking this pressure off the Cons to perform financially will allow us to make different kinds of choices for the Cons, and it provides us more stability as an organization. This report helps us monitor progress for those revenue lines.
• "PL DC ConName:" We create one of these report for each of the Cons we are working on. They are income statements for those Cons, year to date (YTD). YTD means that the report reflects all income and expense for that year, not just the current month. In these reports, you can see detailed information about expenses, with revenue generally not recognized on the report until the month of the Con.

And, keep in mind that all Association financial statements are reported in US Dollars.

How to Read the Financial Statements

A goal of financial statements is that they are supposed to make financial information easier to understand. However, the truth is that it is difficult for mere mortals to read financial statements. It takes both training and practice. However, let's see if I can walk you through some details. I'll use the March 2014 financial statements in this example.

Income Statement

The Income Statement presents the income and expenses for both the month of the report (in this case, March) as well as the year to date, or YTD, amounts (in this case, 1 January through 31 March 2014). So the top of the report looks like this:

Here's what what the columns represent:

• Actual: Amounts for the month the financials report represents. In this case, March 2014.
• Budget: The budgeted amount for the month the financial report represents. In this case, the amount we budgeted for March 2014.
• YTD Actual: Total amount for the year, through the month the financial report represents. In this case, 1 January through 31 March 2014.
• YTD Budget: Total budgeted amount for the year, through the month the financial report represents. In this case, the amount we budgeted for 1 January through 31 March 2014.
• Var %: The percent difference between the YTD Actual and YTD Budget. This gives you a sense of how good a job we did at budgeting. Variance can occur because we receieved or spent money faster than we anticipated, or our models were off entirely. Remember that the Association only began budgeting and reporting in these formats 18 months ago, so we're still learning about what our cycles of revenue and expense are, so we expect the variance to decrease overall throughout the next few years as we get better at this.

Balance Sheet

The Balance Sheet presents the assets and liabilities as of the month of the report, which is March 2014 in this example. The balance sheet almost always also shows a comparative period - the same period the year prior, which is March 2013 for this example. This gives you the opportunity to see how things have changed in the last year. The report looks like this:

Cash Summary

The Cash Summary report shows the flow of money into and out of the organization in the given period. For compartive purposes, it also includes a Year to Date (YTD) column that shows all cash movement for the year, which is 1 January through 31 March in this example. The Cash Summary looks like this:

What our Financial Statements do not show

Simply put, our financial statements do not show a lot of information. The point of statements is to take complex and copious amounts of data and distill it into something digestable. We do not, for example, show each of the tickets sold for a DrupalCon and who they were sold to. We don't show each invoice that was received for Association software as a service subscriptions. We have the data, and I'm not oppposed to sharing it (as long as I check that we are not violating any privacy or other laws - you never know). However, it does not make sense for us to publish this level of detail on a monthly basis. 

That said, if there is something our financial statements do not show you, you can always ask. If it's not published here, it's not because we don't want to share the information. It's because we want to share information that can be meaningfully understood.

Summary

That should help you get through some of our financial statements a little better. I am not an accountant, but I am always happy to field any questions you have about these documents, and our amazing Operation Team of Kris and Leslie love to help. Just drop me a line via email or go ahead and post in a public channel like Twitter or a forum. Give me a heads up and I will get back to you.

Flickr photo: Doug88888

I was recently working on a Drupal project that had some internal DNS managed via hosts file. Tell me about it. Having no publicly accessible DNS or IP creates a challenge when your SaaS based Jenkins runs the tests.

The solution for this is a little custom work in your FeatureContext constructor and a BeforeScenario method.

And a little glue in the behat.yml to pass the custom hostHeader variable to the FeatureContext. Make sure that you're also setting the IP of the server for base_url and you're all set.

You can use this same pattern to pass around other variables from behat.yml to your FeatureContext.

Tags: 

• behat
• Planet
• Code Snippet

From your local machine ..

1. Create your keys

ssh-keygen -t rsa

2. Upload to your server

scp ~/.ssh/paulbooker.pub root@92.243.12.252:/tmp/paulbooker.pub

From your server ..

1. Install Gitolite.

apt-get install gitolite

2. Create a user for Gitolite.

adduser \ --system \ --shell /bin/bash \ --gecos 'git version control' \ --group \ --disabled-password \ --home /home/gitolite \ gitolite Adding system user `gitolite' (UID 103) ... Adding new group `gitolite' (GID 105) ... Adding new user `gitolite' (UID 103) with group `gitolite' ... Creating home directory `/home/gitolite' ...

3. Setup Gitolite

su - gitolite gl-setup /tmp/paulbooker.pub The default settings in the rc file (/home/gitolite/.gitolite.rc) are fine for most people but if you wish to make any changes, you can do so now. hit enter... /usr/bin/select-editor: 1: /usr/bin/select-editor: gettext: not found 'select-editor'. /usr/bin/select-editor: 1: /usr/bin/select-editor: gettext: not found 1. /bin/nano <---- 2. /usr/bin/emacs23 3. /usr/bin/vim.tiny /usr/bin/select-editor: 1: /usr/bin/select-editor: gettext: not found 1-3 [1]: 1 creating gitolite-admin... Initialized empty Git repository in /home/gitolite/repositories/gitolite-admin.git/ creating testing... Initialized empty Git repository in /home/gitolite/repositories/testing.git/ [master (root-commit) 7e358c3] start 2 files changed, 6 insertions(+) create mode 100644 conf/gitolite.conf create mode 100644 keydir/paulbooker.pub

4. Add the Gitolite user to your SSH configuration file.

nano /etc/ssh/sshd_config PermitRootLogin yes #without-password PasswordAuthentication no AllowUsers root gitolite #no commas service ssh reload # /etc/init.d/ssh reload .. Rather than invoking init scripts through /etc/init.d, use the service(8) utility, e.g. service ssh reload

On your local machine.

nano ~/.ssh/config Host Git user git hostname 92.243.12.252 port 22 identityfile ~/.ssh/git Host * user paul hostname * port 22 identityfile ~/.ssh/paulbooker

1. Clone your gitolite repository

$ git clone gitolite@92.243.12.252:gitolite-admin

Cloning into 'gitolite-admin'... remote: Counting objects: 6, done. remote: Compressing objects: 100% (4/4), done. remote: Total 6 (delta 0), reused 0 (delta 0) Receiving objects: 100% (6/6), done.

2. Add a test repository

cd gitolite-admin vi conf/gitolite.conf git commit -a -m "Add a test repository" [master ee674e9] Add a test repository 1 file changed, 3 insertions(+) git push Counting objects: 7, done. Delta compression using up to 2 threads. Compressing objects: 100% (3/3), done. Writing objects: 100% (4/4), 399 bytes, done. Total 4 (delta 0), reused 0 (delta 0) remote: creating test... remote: Initialized empty Git repository in /home/gitolite/repositories/test.git/

To gitolite@92.243.12.252:gitolite-admin
7e358c3..ee674e9 master -> master

3. Clone the test repository.

git clone gitolite@92.243.12.252:test Cloning into 'test'... warning: You appear to have cloned an empty repository. cd test echo "test" > README git add . git commit -m "Initial commit" [master (root-commit) 21e352e] Initial commit 1 file changed, 1 insertion(+) create mode 100644 README git push origin master Counting objects: 3, done. Writing objects: 100% (3/3), 224 bytes, done. Total 3 (delta 0), reused 0 (delta 0) To gitolite@92.243.12.252:test * [new branch] master -> master

4. Add committer to the repository.

Add public key to the gitolite-admin key directory and edit the gitolite configuration file gitolite.conf

repo gitolite-admin RW+ = git repo testing RW+ = @all repo repo1 RW+ = git = paulbooker paul$ git add -A Paul-Bookers-Mac-mini:Git paul$ git commit -m "Updated configuration" [master 511d9af] Updated configuration 2 files changed, 5 insertions(+) create mode 100644 keydir/paulbooker.pub Paul-Bookers-Mac-mini:Git paul$ git push Counting objects: 10, done. Delta compression using up to 2 threads. Compressing objects: 100% (5/5), done. Writing objects: 100% (6/6), 1012 bytes, done. Total 6 (delta 0), reused 0 (delta 0) remote: creating repo1... remote: Initialized empty Git repository in /home/git/repositories/repo1.git/ To git@92.243.12.252:gitolite-admin 05c16f3..511d9af master -> master 5. Commit and push changes to the server. git commit -m "Initial commit to repo1" git remote add origin git@92.243.12.252:repo1.git git push origin master Tags:

• git
• gitolite
• drupalplanet

Tweet

In my last post we went over the new Drupal 8 plugin system as it concerns blocks. Today, we're going to take this idea a bit further and create a simple next/previous navigation.

First thing's first, you're going to want to create another new file at modules/YOURMODULE/src/Plugin/Block/YOURBLOCKNAME.php

In my case, this file looks like this:

There is a saying that "All good things come to those who wait".

Ukrainian Drupal community with an active support of InternetDevels team has actually invented completely unique kind of Drupal event, which makes the whole community go wow! So, ladies and gentlemen, we proudly present you Drupal Tour! The main point of the event is in it’s dynamics and velocity — we’re not going to stop just on one location, but would travel all around the country to involve even larger amount of audience, interested in Drupal development.

Read more

Published: Wed, 11/12/14Download this episodePerformance Optimization

• Before we dive deep into Varnish, I’d like to get a feel for the various performance improvements anyone can make to speed up their Drupal. What’s the process you think through when optimizing a site?
  • DB Tuning
  • Boost
  • Memcache
  • Redis
  • APC
  • Varnish
  • Module Choices!

Varnish

• What exactly is Varnish?
• When researching Drupal performance optimization, I came across a lot of references to APC and Varnish. What is the difference?
• Is this for anonymous or authenticated traffic?
• Is the Varnish module required to utilize Varnish with Drupal?
• What are the steps needed to install and utilize Varnish? (Broad terms, not actual terminal commands)
• Does SSL affect Varnish?
• What doesn’t Varnish do? (What needs to be done by Drupal, or other software instead?)
• How does Varnish affect a dev/staging/live workflow? Does Varnish need to be instlaled on the local machine?

Episode Links: Dan on drupal.orgDan on TwitterDan on GitHubDan on ServerFaultVarnish moduleVarnish info on Drupal.orgXHProfXHProf Drupal moduleTags: PerformanceOptimizationplanet-drupal

Earlier this year, I posted a blog about Must-Attend Drupal Events of 2014; it was fairly well received so I figured I'd work on a similar list for the 2015 Drupal events.

It appears that BuildAModule keeps their list updated, as does Drupical's map. Instead of categorizing by Drupal Camps or Drupal Cons, this list will simply be in chronological order. I will be updating this blog over the next couple of months as more details are released. Also, don't forget to post in the comments if I missed one; I won't hesitate to add it.

• DrupalCamp Brighton - Brighton, UK - Jan. 16-18
• DrupalCamp NJ - Princeton, NJ - Jan. 31
  • The 4th Annual Gathering of Drupalists in the Garden State!
  • @DrupalcampNJ
• DrupalCon Latin America - Bogotá, Colombia - Feb. 10-12
  • "DrupalCon Latin America is our first DrupalCon in an emerging Drupal community, and we couldn’t be more excited to be hosted by the wonderful people of Bogota, Colombia."
  • Will be held at the RoyalPark Metrotel Convention Center Hotel
  • DrupalCon Latin America is the third DrupalCon in 2015
  • @DrupalconLatino
• Drupal Camp Utah - Salt Lake City, UT - Feb. 27
  • 5th Annual Drupal Camp Utah
• DrupalSouth Melbourne - South Wharf, VIC, Australia - Mar. 5-7
  • Will be held at the Melbourne Convention and Exhibition Centre (MCEC).
  • Stuff to do
  • @DrupalDownunder
• MidCamp (Midwest Area) - Chicago, IL - Mar. 19-22
  • @MidwestCamp
• NYC Camp - New York, NY - Mar. 23-29
  • other site
  • NYC (Nice) Camp is a free, week-long Drupal conference in New York City. We invite you to come learn from some of the brightest minds in Open Source, and expand your horizons. There will be numerous opportunities to contribute back to the community, so jump in!
  • @NYCCampDrupal
• DrupalCon LA - Los Angeles, CA - May 11-15
  • Host city of the DrupalCon North America conference in 2015.
  • Some of the world's best and biggest museums, universities and entertainment giants are in Los Angeles and they use Drupal. A Drupal powerhouse, Los Angeles is one of the most active areas for Drupal in the world. The Drupal community in and around Los Angeles organizes hundreds of Drupal events each year, including GLADCamp, Drupal Design Camp LA and DrupalCamp LA.
  • While you're enjoying DrupalCon, your family can enjoy Disneyland, bike rides at the beach, and culture and science at the Getty, Museum of Modern Art and the California Science Center. The Downtown area has a thriving nightlife, walkable streets and contrary to popular belief, is the heart of the LA Metro and can be enjoyed car-free.
  • @DrupalConLA
  • @GLADrupal
  • @DrupalConNA
• DrupalCamp Spain - Jerez, Spain - May 22-24
  • "Good wine improves with age, good code improves community."
  • @DrupalCampSpain
• DrupalCon Barcelona - Barcelona, Spain - Sept. 21-25
  • From the colorful tiles of Park Güell to the sparkling Mediterranean, Barcelona is a vibrant city where modernity joins timeless tradition. Experience the culture, festivals, sunny weather and world-class dining with friendly locals, all while celebrating the world’s best open source project.
  • @DrupalConEUR
• DrupalCamp Bristol - Bristol, UK - date: TBA
  • @DrupalCampBris

drupal, Planet Drupal

You will need to modify your .htaccess file located under your web root.

Change ..

# To redirect all users to access the site WITH the 'www.' prefix, # (http://example.com/... will be redirected to http://www.example.com/...) # uncomment the following: # RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} . # RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} !^www\. [NC] # RewriteRule ^ http%{ENV:protossl}://www.%{HTTP_HOST}%{REQUEST_URI} [L,R=301]

to ..

# To redirect all users to access the site WITH the 'www.' prefix, # (http://example.com/... will be redirected to http://www.example.com/...) # uncomment the following: RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} . RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} !^www\. [NC] RewriteRule ^ http%{ENV:protossl}://www.%{HTTP_HOST}%{REQUEST_URI} [L,R=301] Tags:

• apache
• seo
• canonical
• drupalplanet

Tweet

How often do pushes turn into nail biting, hair pulling, obscenity screaming, hours-long events? How often does one hear, “It works on my machine!” How fast can you push all the work (bug fixes, new features, etc.)  to production? Theoretically, only in the time necessary to deploy the code.

Programmatically Creating a Block in Drupal 8 Mon, 11/10/2014 - 16:21 matt