Software

My blog has been suffering alongside my work with DrupalCamp Gothenburg. It's hard work since we're only two guys making it happen this year, and there's a lot done and more to do. It brings me great pleasure to say that we just passed a major mile-stone when releasing the website for DrupalCamp Gothenburg. It's a new take on camp-sites, at least what I can gather. This site wont disappear after a couple of years, when the community looses interest in it. This site will not only promote this year's camp, it will also act as a collection of the earlier sites, tying sessions together, acting like a "blast from the past" - one site to rule them all. 

Why, you might ask? Well, time is limited and since it's hard to get volonteers in Gothenburg to help out, this is a way to tighten the information flow and a way to skip doing the same thing year after year (making, coding and releasing a new site). Instead, we will focus on presenting the information from former DrupalCamps in a good way on the site, perhaps making it more interesting for our sponsors since their sponsoring presence won't disappear after a couple of years.

This year, though, we have a new design, since it's a new take on the website all together, and Daniel Andréasson is the one pulling the strings behind the curtain. He has done a lot of work on it, and I'm truly grateful for his help. His effort has given me the chance to focus on the sponsoring part, talking to hotels to bring good rebates to our visitors during the camp-weekend, and also see if some of all the other ideas might come to life at the camp.

Well, enough talking, head over to the new site and check it out. And, if you're up for the task - add a session and share your Drupal knowledge!

http://gothenburg.drupalcamp.se/

Ever have wanted to import data into your Drupal site from JSON or a big ol' PHP array? You don't need to sweat all the gory details of matching up nodes and fields and coding massive for loops. Let the Drupal Feeds module do that for you.

In the immortal words of Queen: “all I wanna do is bicycle!” If you’re heck on two wheels and love nothing more than the feeling of the wind on your face and pavement whizzing underneath your wheels, you may want to consider joining in the Tour de Drupal leading up to DrupalCon Amsterdam.

Drupalers from countries all across Europe are teaming up for the Tour de Drupal, an epic bike ride from the UK and Switzerland to Amsterdam. Taking place the weekend before DrupalCon Amsterdam, the triumphant arrival of the Drupalcyclistas is expected on Sunday, September 28th between 4 and 5 PM at Eta Vondelpark in Amsterdam.

It’s not too late to join in on the bike ride, where you can find information here. Of course, if cross-country bicycling doesn’t do it for you but you still want to cruise around with a crew of awesome folks, consider renting a Yellow Bike during DrupalCon Amsterdam. For €50, you can rent a bike, a bike helmet, two bike locks, a bike map of greater Amsterdam, and insurance. The rental is from Monday-Friday. You can find more information here.
There are a lot of passionate bikers in the Drupal community— and we all care about our causes, too. UK Tour de Drupaler Alan Burke is combining his love of biking and charity by participating in a two-day, 360 kilometer cycle around Galway for charity. For more information about Alan’s ride, click here.

Regardless of whether you fly, bike, or take a train— we’re looking forward to seeing you in Amsterdam.

Image by Sonny Abesamis on Flickr.

Every modern framework nowadays provides a scaffolding tool code generator for speeding up the process of starting a new project and avoiding repetitive tasks. Now Drupal does, too! In this session you can build a module while following along with the live demo. You will learn how to take advantage of the Symfony Console Component to provide a CLI tool that automates the creation of Drupal 8 modules, automatically generating the module directory structure, controllers, forms, services, plugins, and required configuration files.

I just returned from my first CiviCRM sprint. It was called the DC Sprint, but as Jeremy has already posted, we were actually in Maryland.

As a first time attendee of a CiviCRM conference and sprint, I really did not know what to expect. I was very pleased that both WordPress and Joomla! received some real attention at the sprint and I hope we are heading to a place where CiviCRM can be truly CMS agnostic.

WordPress CiviCRM installs can now benefit from WP-CLI tools. WP-CLI is a Drush equivilant for WordPress. We were able to merge Andy Walker's port into 4.5 and Tim Otten added full API Explorer support for this. At the developer training day in DC on Saturday, we noticed an issue with civix and WordPress. This also fixed and now civix works with all CMSs without having to be directly tied to one as in the past. These two enhancements will help WordPress developers immensely.

Dana Skallman and I also worked through the unresolved tickets for WordPress. A great deal of progress has been made there, and in addition to all the new features in 4.5 users will find that the WordPress integration is better than ever.

What really made the sprint a great event were the people. We had three CMSs represented and while there was some good natured kidding going on, it is clear to me that the community is focused on the CiviCRM project and supporting Drupal, Joomla! and WordPress.

I cannot wait to see the 4.5 release and I encourage everyone to participate in the CiviCRM Community. Whether you go to a meetup,  attend CiviCon in the spring or go to the next Code Sprint, you will not be disappointed and the community will be the better for it.

• Community
• Drupal
• Joomla
• Sprints
• WordPress

GSoC 2014 is over and it was a great summer for me. As a student, I lead the development of Entity Embed module for Drupal 8. I learnt a lot about Drupal 8 and the core values of Drupal community. Apart from working on my project, I also got involved with the Media Team and now I'm also trying to contribute to some of the other projects of the Drupal 8 Media initiative. It's been a fun journey with Drupal so far and I expect it to become even better.

To top it all off, I've been selected as a delegate to represent Drupal at the GSoC Reunion summit. Details at the original post on gdo. I'm absolutely delighted that I've been selected as one of the delegates given the fact that Drupal os such a big community. What makes it even better is the fact that Angie Byron, (webchick) will be accompanying me at the summit as she's the other delegate. Its going to be a great chance for me to meet her in person.

I'm all set for the summit. Visa approved, flight & hotel booked. I'm eagerly waiting for this summit and I'm extremely thankful to the Drupal community for providing me with this wonderful opportunity.

Tags: Google Summer of CodeReunion SummitgsocDrupal Planet

There are many different ways to host a Drupal website.

Giving back to the Drupal community was one thing I wanted to make sure we did more of as a company. It's been a little over a year since I took ownership of LightSky and our Drupal contributions are increasing. We are actively contributing patches where we can, sponsoring local Drupal meetups and camps and even hanging out on IRC. One thing we have not done until now was to contribute a module. At some point, I would like all my development staff to contribute a module (or modules) back to the community and I figured if I was to ask this of my staff, it was only fair that I did it first. It took some time to figure out what to contribute back, but once I had an idea I was excited to get started.

My first attempt was to write a Tweet Embed module. It would create an input filter so that when you dropped a link to a tweet into it, it would embed it into the content. I spent a few weeks polishing the module and felt ready to submit it to review. After submitting it, it was discovered by an approver that there was an issue in the Twitter module issue queue to implement this exact functionality. That means this module was a no go since it would cause duplication. At the time I was frustrated, but only at myself. I should have been more diligent on ensuring that I was not duplicating functionality.

My second attempt, and the one that would be successful, was to write a module to encapsulate the LinkedIn Company API. The module would pull in shares and display them in a themeable block. I wound up writing two modules, one for the authentication and one to pull in the shares. I spent some time writing, testing and polishing and finally felt it was ready to submit.

The Review Process

The review process was immensely helpful. It is encouraged that you do a peer review of three other modules that are awaiting approval. This allows your application to move a little more quickly through the process, but I would encourage you to do it even if that is not something you are interested in. For me, the review process did a few things. One, it allowed me to see how other people were solving problems in Drupal. I've been doing Drupal development for five years or so, but there are always things to learn. It also allowed me to become intimately familiar with what is expected of your module during the review process. After I did my initial set of reviews, I found myself going back to my module and making improvements that I may have not made otherwise. 

After adding the reviews to my application issue, I started to get feedback on my module. The feedback that was given was very helpful and informative. I can confidently say that I learned a few things in the process. I got quite a few reviews of my module and each pointed out things that I should fix. At one point the reviewers asked me to contact the LinkedIn module maintainers and verify that my modules functionality was not something they intended to implement. It was not and I got the green light to move forward. From there my module sat in a RTBC state for 3-4 weeks. It was difficult during this time to remain patient, but with so many applications awaiting approval and so few approvers, this is what happens. Eventually, I was granted the ability to promote my module to a full project, and the ability to create full projects in the future.

Final Thoughts and Tips

The review process is thorough, and that is a good thing. As a community we want to make sure that the people who are submitting modules are properly vetted and that they use best practices when coding. Although there was a bit of inactivity after the module was RTBC, it was not unbearable and if anything has encouraged me to remain involved in the review process to help alleviate some of the load. The biggest tip I can give is to not only be patient, but also be open to criticism. It's a little nerve wracking to have many people comb through your code line by line, but that is the nature of open source software. The feedback they provide will help you become a better Drupal developer and I know for me it was very exciting to learn how I could do things better. One of my big stumbling blocks the first time around was the fact that I did not do enough research when determining what module to write. Make sure that the module you are submitting doesn't duplicate functionality of another module. If there is a similar module out there, create an issue asking if they intended to implement your functionality. Sometimes a patch is a better place for a piece of functionality than a module and that is how it should be. Putting in a little extra research and effort on your end early on will prevent headaches during the review process.

If contributing is something you want to do, I would encourage you to take the jump and do it. I really do believe that you get back ten times what you give to the Drupal community.

 

If you have not already be sure to follow us on social media or subscribe to our RSS feed and newsletter. You can also contact us directly or request a consultation. 

We recently added a Featured Discount/Benefit section to the Membership page and the first benefit to be featured is a really good one.

InMotion Hosting is giving you one year of free Drupal Association Individual Membership when you buy a new hosting plan.

This is an unprecedented and generous offer that will help support Drupal Association community programs. If you have been thinking about signing up for site hosting check out the offer from InMotion.

We will rotate the Featured Benefit every month so expect more good offers to come your way. And big thanks to the InMotion Hosting team for giving back and being part of the Drupal community.

Personal blog tags: membership benefits

On Sept 15, 2014, Searchmetrics released their 2014 Ranking Factors Study. In it, they analyzed 10,000 search results and created correlations between characteristics of websites and their rankings. In other words, webites that rank high, do x. Sites that ranks low, do y. For this blog post, I’m leaving out things like Backlinks (factor 4, 9, 12, etc.) because - as far as I know - there just aren’t that many modules or settings that can help you with it.

Now, with all the usual caveats about correlations not equaling causation, here’s a list of their top correlated ranking factors that can be influenced with the proper use of Drupal and/or a module. (A quick note about correlations. Um...NM. Just read this.)

Factor 1: Click-Through Rate

People that click in the search engines, want to visit relevant and interesting websites.

Correlation: .65 (Pretty Strong)

Now, take this with a grain of salt. Of course sites with high rankings have a high click-through rate. They're at the top of Google. Still, there are some things you can do to increase your click-through rate and that's never a bad thing.

How to influence your website's click-through rate in Google.

Make your listing in Google as interesting as possible to make it stand out from everyone else. Use your target keyword at least once in the title (Factor 45) and in the description (Factor 40). Make sure the keyword is used as close to the beginning of the Title tag as you can (Factor 27 & 29). Google bolds words that match the search so your listing will stand out.

Module(s) that increase your click-through rate:

• Metatag - Write great, optimized Title Tags and great Meta Descriptions (Factor 35).

• Custom Breadcrumbs - If they’re available, Google search results will list breadcrumbs instead of the URL. It looks nicer.
  
  source: loseyourmarbles.co

• Schema.org - Highlights events or product ratings that will make your listing stand out and give you extra links in the search results.

Factor 2: Relevant terms

People search for topical content, not just specific keywords. Including keywords that are not exact or are on related topics can help your rankings.

Correlation: .34 (Weak) How to increase the number of SEO relevant terms on your Drupal website.

Think about topics and organization based on topical areas, not just keywords. Create topical silos in your site content. Write your content using a list of terms, not just a single term.

Module(s) that increase the SEO relevant terms on your site:

• Path & PathAuto: Create paths that naturally organize your content by topical areas.

• Taxonomy: Tag content with appropriate terms. Tags link to term pages. Term pages link to related content. That connection helps.

Factor 3: Google +1

People love to share great content so top ranking content tends to have a lot of shares. This also encompasses Facebook Shares (Factor 5), Facebook Total (Factor 6), Facebook Comments (Factor 7), Pinterest (Factor 8) Facebook Likes (Factor 10), and Tweets (Factor 11). Social is very important to SEO!

Correlation: .33 (Weak) How to increase your social shares on a Drupal website

Write great, unique, sharable content. Make it easy to share by sharing it first. (Retweets and likes are easier than sharing it yourself.)

Module(s) that increase social sharing on Drupal

• There are many social modules! Pick one.

• ShareThis is popular.

• Google+ module
  

By the way…if this blog post is helpful, please share it to your favorite social network! :)

(Note: Factor 4 - 18 are almost all either Linking or Social. These are very important factors that are outside the scope of this article.)

Factor 18: Number of Internal Links

Linking to yourself is a good indicator of the quality of a piece of content.

Correlation: .16 (Very Weak) How to increase the number of internal links

Link to your own great content! Use keywords in your internal links for extra credit. (factor 30)

Module(s) for internal linking on a Drupal website

• aLinks - Use this module judiciously. For example, set up links to your taxonomy term pages for your top keywords or topics.

• Menu - Build menus of great content. Use them throughout your site. Those links are valuable!

• Taxonomy - As mentioned above, tag your content. Drupal automatically creates the links.

• Solr's More Like This - Adds links to related content using Apache Solr.

Factor 20: Keywords in the Body

It’s just logical. If you want to rank for a certain term, you’ve got to have that term on the page.

Correlation: .15 (Very Weak) How to use keywords in the body

Use the target keyword once or twice in the body field of each node. Don’t write like a robot, though. That’s bad.

Module(s) to increase keyword use in the body

• SEO Compliance Checker - Set up the rules to match these recommendations. SEO Checker will also look at other SEO-related things like use of keywords in the title or header.

Factor 21: HTML Length

Longer articles tend to rank better than shorter ones. I’m going to lump in Text Character length (factor 22), Word Count (factor 23) here as they’re practically the same correlation and meaning.

Correlation: .14 (Very Weak) How to increase HTML Length

Write longer content. (Seems pretty obvious...)

Modules(s) to help you write longer content

• Rules or Workbench would allow you to create workflows that require certain body length.

• Field Validation module could be set to require a certain length. Seems draconian to me but certainly possible.

Factor 24: Site speed

People don’t like to wait so don’t make them!

Correlation: .11 (Very Weak) How to increase your Drupal 7 website speed

Make your pages lean and mean. Use sitespeed testers available online such as in Google Webmaster Tools or (my favorite) in Chrome (hit command-i). Fix any problems or suggestions.

Module(s) that speed up Drupal 7

• Advanced CSS/JS Aggregation + HTTP Parallel Request & Threading Library

• CDN

• Caching like Varnish or Memcache

 

That’s it! Covering those 21 factors (7 major factors with another 14 mixed in for good measure) should be fairly straightforward for any Drupal 7 website owner. There are other factors as well but with correlations weaker than very weak, I’m just not sure they matter that much. Read about correlations here, by the way.

Miscellaneous SEO Factors and the Drupal Modules that affect them

Here’s a quick shotgun list of a lot of the remaining low-correlation factors and modules that might help.

• Time on Site - Solr's More Like This Module

• Presence of H2 - Theming

• Image Count (the more the better) - Media

• Presence of H1 - Theming (Don’t put the H1 on the site name or logo, please!)

• Video Integration - YouTube add-on module for Media (and many others)

 

Did I miss anything? Let me know in the comments.

Here's the full infographic if you'd like to see for yourself:

We look at the searchmetrics 2014 SEO factors and apply them to Drupal 7.drupal seo, Planet Drupal seo-ranking-factors-2014-big.png

Feature

Drupal's philosophy regarding backward compatibility is "the Drop is always moving". In order to create a framework that is as performant, scalable, and extensible as possible, each major release of Drupal can and will make changes, often radical changes, to its developer APIs in order to provide optimal solutions for Drupal users and developers.

To this end, Drupal 8, far more-so than any previous release, has undergone extensive refactoring under the hood. It sports an object-oriented architecture powered by Symfony components. In addition, it utilizes modern PHP (5.4 or later) best-practices, a new Plugin API that provides consistency for pluggable pieces such as blocks and image styles, a revamped and complete Entity and Field API, a new Configuration API to provide fully deployable settings, and numerous other great improvements.

The flip-side is that while a data migration path is always provided between major versions of Drupal for a site's content and users (and in Drupal 8's case, from both Drupal 6 and Drupal 7), migrating the code of contributed and custom modules is left for developers to do.

This article will therefore provide some starting points for folks trying to port their modules from Drupal 7 to Drupal 8. (If you still have Drupal 6 modules kicking around, the "Coder Upgrade" sub-module of Coder will get you a fair chunk of the way towards converting them to Drupal 7.)

Note that as of this writing, Drupal 8 is still in active development. While the hope is that by the time this article is published, Drupal 8 will be at least in beta, and the APIs relatively stable (apart from API changes necessary to fix critical issues), information here could still change prior to D8’s final release.

LightSky recently welcomed Columbus Mennonite Church to the ranks of Drupal users with the launch of their new Drupal 7 site.  Columbus Mennonite Church is located in Columbus, Ohio, and was looking for a site that would help them not only help drive their message to members of the community and welcome people with open arms, but also that could help streamline some internal processes among their congregation.  Drupal offered an excellent platform to build the Columbus Mennonite site on, giving them what they needed now, and not preventing them from growing into the future. 

While a responsive design wasn't in the works for Columbus Mennonite, careful attention was paid to how things worked and looked on devices of all sizes, and the Drupal platform provides Columbus Mennonite a firm foundation with which to add a responsive design down the road.  Columbus Mennonite's beautiful forward facing design isn't the end of what their site offers though, as we created a great members only functionality that allows them to share certain information on their site with only members.  This allows them to distribute information to their congregation without having to worry about whether or not it is appropriate for the general public to have access to.  For churches this is a much needed feature to keep the congregation in touch with each other in the digital age.  Not only is there a members only section, but LightSky was also able to streamline their worship scheduling allowing schedulers to make changes to individual responsibilities each week, while allowing the congregation to view the schedule and find out if their help is needed.

As part of this project LightSky launched the new site on Pantheon, a hosting platform that provides some of the best stability and uptime by being fine tuned for the Drupal framework.  

If you have a new web project, one of the very first thoughts you probably have is ‘How much will it cost to build?’. The best tip I can give is if an agency has only received an RFP, no matter the level of details, it will not be enough to determine with any amount of accuracy how much a build will actually be.

Google Summer of Code 2014 has triumphantly concluded for Drupal as a participating organization. We selected thirteen students (https://groups.drupal.org/node/423558) out of fifty project proposals from around the world and twelve of the projects passed with success. Help us by reviewing each project's code (https://groups.drupal.org/node/442493).

Not only did students dedicate their summer contributing to Drupal, but most importantly they had fun. With Drupal 8 on the horizon, most projects were focused on porting modules many people will utilize everyday. Students worked on a vast array of functionality ranging from porting the Diff module with extensible new options to integrating Disqus comments in Drupal 8. As Drupal's GSoC Organization Admin I personally checked in with all projects to find busy students resolving issues no one had ever encountered and happy to be a part of our open source community. We can only hope that these talented young software engineers stick around.

Student GSoC Experiences:

"My first GSOC Experience and one of the best summers I spent in the past few years." -Umar Ahmad (https://www.drupal.org/u/umar-ahmad)

"The best part of GSoC is the opportunity to be a part of a Open Source community, which is a venture we're unlikely to explore so soon if not for GSoC and to see your hard work put into actual use." -Sachini Aparna Herath (https://www.drupal.org/u/sachini)

"Coding for such a big project as Drupal was a great honour for me. GSoC helped me to discover Drupal community and to make my summer an exciting experience." -Andrei - Marius Dincu (https://www.drupal.org/u/andrei.dincu)

Mentor GSoC Experiences:

"With GSoC, students significantly participated in getting Drupal 8 core and contrib ready. Thank you for making this happen!" - Miro Dietiker (https://www.drupal.org/u/miro_dietiker)

"This was my first GSoC as a mentor and I enjoyed it! The learning curve was quite steep for my student and I felt her pain since many of the APIs she needed were unstable and not documented. In the end she managed to "survive" the learning curve and release a working alpha version of RDF UI module (https://www.drupal.org/project/rdfui)." -Stéphane Corlosquet (https://www.drupal.org/u/scor)

"GSoC provides opportunities that are unseen in the world of Open Source industries. Drupal 8 will thrive, and partly it's due to GSoC and the influx of those students in Drupal. Thanks!" -Nick Veenhof (https://www.drupal.org/u/Nick_vh)

"One can think that only the students learn, it's not always true. Mentors (especially with several years of industry experience) can learn enthusiasm from their students. It was great to work with Lucian." -Aron Navak (https://www.drupal.org/u/aron-novak)

Reunion Summit

Each year Google organizes a "Mentor Summit" after Summer of Code to help summarize the positive and negative experiences in an unconference style weekend of meetings. This year Google is organizing a "10 Year GSoC Reunion" instead of the traditional mentor summit where two delegates from each successfully participating organization are invited. Many past and present participants responded to our post to represent Drupal at the event (https://groups.drupal.org/node/437643). Because of this we decided to select one of our top GSoC Drupal alumni and one of our best students from this summer. We're proud to select Angela Byron (https://www.drupal.org/u/webchick) and Chandan Singh (https://www.drupal.org/u/cs_shadow) to represent Drupal at the 10 Year Reunion in California (https://sites.google.com/site/gsocmentorsummitstudentreunion/home).

Drupal's GSoC team is delighted we're able to send our most qualified alumni to the reunion because no one else deserves this more than webchick to represent Drupal. Angie's story of starting with Drupal working on the Quiz module (http://webchick.net/node/105) as a GSoC student almost ten years ago and becoming one of the most important people in our community is now legendary (learn more @ http://webchick.net/about). In an effort to repeat history, we're excited about Chandan becoming a rockstar developer pushing Drupal to the next level as a promising new contributor. Beginning by leading development of the Entity Embed module as a GSoC student (https://www.drupal.org/project/entity_embed), Chandan continues to be actively involved in Drupal 8 Core development with over 25 commit mentions. It is truly amazing to review the post and commit log from a user only 6 months old (https://www.drupal.org/user/2828287/track/) and realize our opportunity to find multiple success stories similar to webchick and cs_shadow via GSoC.

Thank You!

A big thanks to all the students with mentors who helped make this summer a success and of course the entire Drupal community for their amazing support. Last but certainly not the least, thanks to Google for making it all possible. The entire open source community is forever in debt to the gift Google provides us with Summer of Code. Google has funded at least $66,000USD (12 students x $5500USD) to Drupal alone in 2014.

What's Next?? How Can I Help??

Next we switch our focus from GSoC into Google Code-In 2014 (https://developers.google.com/open-source/gci/). Our current need is creating task ideas for Code-In students. If you have great ideas for small tasks taking up to several hours or want to be a mentor, please update our GCI task idea spreadsheet (https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1sFf5wnuCSkNauNw26-Kml0snplF4Fx0j...).

GCI is a contest for high school students to contribute small tasks to open source organizations to win a trip to GoogleHQ. Our GCI organization application usually opens in October and contest runs from November to January. GCI is a great way to learn the responsibilities of being a mentor prior to GSoC. Join our GCI group (https://groups.drupal.org/google-code-in) to learn more.

It's never too early to start planning for next year's Summer of Code in 2015. Join our GSoC group (https://groups.drupal.org/google-summer-code) to learn more and comment in our GSoC 2015 planning post (https://groups.drupal.org/node/437638) and chat with us in real time in #drupal-google on Freenode. If you're attending Drupalcon Amsterdam be sure to attend our BoF (https://groups.drupal.org/node/440663) on Wed Oct 1st at 10:45-11:45 to learn more about our initiatives in person.

Plenty of people have written about the tremendous potential that Drupal Commerce has to expand the capabilities of higher learning sites already running on Drupal. Colleges and Universities have overwhelmingly chosen Drupal as their CMS, and it’s a growing need for schools to use commerce functions to process a myriad of things, from registration and book sales to donations and permits. We just don’t think it makes sense to create these functions with a bolted-on commerce platform when Drupal Commerce provides such a smoothly integrated solution to serve a wide range of commerce needs at no cost. Leveraging the investment already made in knowledge, training and resources to serve commerce needs is the way to go.    These schools felt the same way.    Check out the ways they use Drupal + Drupal Commerce:     Harvard University - Uses Drupal + Drupal Commerce to sell books and other physical goods at the Harvard Art Museum website http://www.harvardartmuseums.org/   Stanford University SLAC - Uses Drupal + Drupal Commerce to manage event registration for conferences held at the Stanford Linear Accelerator Center (SLAC). https://conf-slac.stanford.edu/   Georgia Tech - Uses Drupal + Drupal Commerce to manage their broad offering of Professional Education courses, enabling students to select, register, and pay for their courses and streamline Georgia Tech's ability to track, manage, and report on this important revenue channel. http://www.pe.gatech.edu/   Emerson College - Uses Drupal + Drupal Commerce to sell both physical and digital subscriptions and individual issues of their Ploughshares and Omnibus publications. https://www.pshares.org   Grinnell College - Uses Drupal + Drupal Commerce for fundraising and donations, allowing donors to select how and where their gift will be utilized through one-time or recurring gifts. www.grinnell.edu   Columbia Grammar and Preparatory School - Uses Drupal + Drupal Commerce for fundraising and donations as well as ticket sales. http://www.cgps.org/   Ready to join the Drupal Commerce community? Plug in at DrupalCommerce.org   Want to share your higher learning story or learn more about how Drupal Commerce can address your needs? Talk to us   

We're approaching the middle of the third day of the 2014 East Coast code sprint, situated in a bucolic farmhouse just outside of Frederick, Maryland. The location has made this sprint a little different, with some people being able to commute back and forth. In total, 14 or so sprinters have been working on webtests, improvements to CiviVolunteer, and improvements to buildkit for all platforms, which some renewed focus on Joomla and Wordpress. It's looking promising that buildkit will be fully supporting all the CMS platforms by the end of the sprint, making it even easier to contribute.

As this was my first sprint, I wasn't completely sure what to expect. In between some intense, heads-down work, we've found time for decompression as well. We've worked in great meals on the various porches at the farmhouse, great conversation around the firepit, and a spirited round of "The Greatest Game Ever." Monday also included a spirited discussion on forms strategy for Civi 5.0 focusing on usability and a robust architecture that will allow CiviCRM to integrate more seamlessly with all the CMS platforms and work in responsive design frameworks. This release is on track to provide an amazing level of capability and flexibility for developers while being the most user-focused release of CiviCRM yet.

While the work at the sprint has been focused on Civi, the time with other developers has been invaluable as well. It's been a great experience to have candid and in-depth conversations with developers on Drupal, Joomla, and Wordpress covering not only infrastructure, but also challenges and best practices. While there are plenty of conferences and events where you do effective networking, it is rare to be able to spend both work and leisure time together. Getting to work together and in person with this extended set of collegues is already providing me with a lot of tools to take back to my company and to contribute even more to CiviCRM.

If you haven't considered participating in the community, or haven't done it in awhile, it's worth a look. You can make a measurable contibution, and you'll get so much more out than you put in.

 

• Community
• Drupal
• Joomla
• Sprints
• WordPress

If you have Drupal skills, or you are with a company that designs, builds or deploys Drupal websites, the good news is: business is strong.

According to a recent survey conducted by the Drupal Association, 82% percent of employers seeking Drupal talent expect to hire within the next six months, with 40% saying they are “constantly hiring Drupal talent”.  A whopping 92% of hiring managers surveyed say the market needs more Drupal talent to meet their needs. See the infographic.  

The positions most sought after by employers are:

• Developers
• Themers
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Why do employers need so much Drupal talent? Over 75% percent of those businesses constantly hiring Drupal talent point to business growth. 

The vast majority of Drupal talent who responded say they feel their skills are “very” valuable and that there are typically many open positions. The top criteria for job seekers are location, compensation, and whether the organization provides time to work on the Drupal project.

It’s no surprise Drupal talent is in high demand from employers. To fill their needs, employers can clearly define their requirements in order ensure the best fit, and be as flexible as possible with regards to geographic location. For talent seeking new opportunities, flexibility is also important and there are opportunities to invest time building a broad skill set with a variety of projects on their resume in order to have the best chance to land the perfect job.

For anyone considering a career in Drupal, these finding point to a bright future. 

Click the image to see the infographic.

 

 

Since we started our long-form Drupal Career Starter Program in 2011, we've always struggled a bit trying to find a single local Apache-MySql-PHP stack that is powerful enough for day-to-day Drupal development, easy to set up, and that works for a wide range of people new to local web development.

We're always on the lookout for a local Drupal development stack that will help to reinforce the lessons and best practices that we strive to instill in all of our students. It's pointless to teach students methods and processes that aren't typically found in the community, so being able to bring students up-to-speed as quickly as possible with things like Drush, Git, and commonly-used workflows is of the utmost importance.

Generally, we've stuck with a combination of Acquia Dev Desktop (version 1), Uniform Server, and DrupalPro, depending on each student's skill level and previous experience.

Until recently, we've always had more Windows users than Mac or Linux users (combined!), and usually didn't run into any problems until we introduced Drush, Git, and other Linux-y command line tools, at which point Mac and Linux users spent a lot of time attempting to help Windows users get Drush installed.

When Acquia Dev Desktop 2 was made available, the list of features definitely piqued our interest. Integration with Acquia Cloud is nice (similar to what Kalabox does for Pantheon), but what we were really excited about was the Drush integration.

Since we are using Acquia Dev Desktop 2 for the first time with our 2014 Fall Drupal Career Online program, we thought it would make sense to run through the pros and cons from a training perspective.

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Recently, the biggest piece of news in the Drupal 8 world is that we are finally down to just one beta-blocker. This is really great, but what does it mean exactly? Well, in the big picture it means that we are very close to releasing a beta version of Drupal 8 for everyone to start playing with, and this is a major step towards getting the final release out the door.   What is a Beta?

Ticket bought, flights and accommodation booked, like hundreds of others you’re DrupalCon bound for the very first time! No doubt you are very excited, perhaps a little nervous, not quite sure what to expect? Panic not, by the time you’ve read this blog you’ll be all set to make the most of the experience.   Rest assured, approaching half of attendees are first timers, just like you. Everyone was a newbie once. Drupalists are a friendly bunch, so once you get going it’ll be a breeze.    So here goes ….   Plan now!   Don’t spend valuable time during DrupalCon picking what session to watch next. Do yourself a favour, plan your schedule ahead not when you arrive  but be flexible in case something good comes up you might have overlooked! https://amsterdam2014.drupal.org/schedule.     “be flexible, you never know what opportunities you'll get during the conference, sometimes you might have to break your schedule to accommodate.” James Davidson @davidsonj   Who’s coming?   Browse the attendee list [https://amsterdam2014.drupal.org/attendees] ahead of time, there are bound to be some familiar faces you have spoken to on IRC, Drupal.org or social media.    Beyond this there will be other Drupalists sharing your interests, reach out to them and start a conversation ahead of time to help crystallize new friendships during the conference.   Not everyone is able to stay the whole time so be sure to ask those who you are most keen to see. Hatch a plan beforehand, most people’s calendars fill up fast.   Business cards   Even if you aren’t on the business side of Drupal, you will speak to a LOT of people at DrupalCon. Do get some business cards printed. This will save time and ensure you remain in touch with people beyond the conference. Moo.com [www.moo.com] are cost effective or use Lullabot’s wicked new digital card app “Shoot” [ https://www.lullabot.com/blog/article/lullabots-latest-mobile-app-shoot]   What (not) to pack   Be clear - there is no dress code. DrupalCon is inclusive, anything goes. Bring comfortable shoes, you will walk miles during the conference. To be honest, I always pack light and wear less than I think. Don’t forget smartphone and laptop chargers!   An international power adapter and power strip is an essential accessory. Keep those gadgets juiced up.    “Carrying a power strip around with you is often a good way to make friends at conferences.”  Larry Garfield @Crell   I find a notepad invaluable although you can be sure to stock up on these in the Exhibitor Hall.   Make sure you pack enough to survive in your carry on baggage just in case your hold bag goes missing. Even better, just go carry on.   Mobile data   Be sure to check with your mobile phone supplier any costs associated with data usage before you arrive. There will be ample free wifi at the conference centre so maybe you can manage without.   Money   Are you sure your credit card is accepted in The Netherlands? Be sure to inform your card company that you are traveling and to expect overseas transactions charges. Arrange euros ahead of time.   Twitter is your friend   Not only will major announcements be made on @DrupalConEur, there will be a stream of helpful advice and a certain amount of cat herding so be sure to follow.   A lot of attendees use Twitter to make plans during the conference so be sure to track the official #DrupalCon hashtag. Use the hashtag yourself to make plans, form new connections and share photos.    Help   The volunteers at the Help Desk where you register are available throughout the duration of the conference to assist with any enquiry or help you may require.   Before DrupalCon if you need to contact the conference organisers, the best method is the site contact form [https://amsterdam2014.drupal.org/contact-us]   “volunteer, be front desk, on the rooms, whatever, there is not a better way to meet new people if you don't already” Pedro Cambra @pcambra   Arriving   A lot of people save money travelling from the airport by sharing transport. This can be planned ahead of time using social media or more spontaneous or bumping into people wearing Drupal t-shirts. Remember there are thousands of us arriving in a short space of time, you are bound not to be alone.   Registration   Avoid the queues at registration by visiting before Tuesday morning. The registration desk is open during Sunday and all day Monday.   Say hello!   This is your chance to meet people for real. Don’t spend your whole time head down in a screen. Conversations are all around you, go start one. Don’t be daunted because the person across the hallway is a ‘rockstar Drupaler’. We all like talking about what we love.   “do not session cram your day as it will make your head spin, say hi to people (we are not scary) :)” Emma Karayiannis @emma_maria88   “don't be surprised if everyone seems to know everyone; at my first #DrupalCon I thought: established social group; but half were newbies!” J-P Stacey @jpstacey   SWAG!   Sponsors compete with one another to see who can create the coolest Drupal related giveaways. The best goodies go fast so be sure to attend the exhibit hall at the earliest opportunity.    Pro-tip: The Exhibit Hall opens Monday 17:00-18:30. There is a party like atmosphere, it’s a really nice way to ease into the DrupalCon flow. This is also when the smart people get their SWAG.    Don’t be shy, the sponsors really want you to take their swag home. Also, be sure to leave spare space on your journey out for SWAG coming home. Be sure of the baggage allowance of your airline!   Bookstore   Then there’s the Drupal Association’s confusingly have a “Bookstore” which actually sells way more than books. They have some awesome Drupal memorabilia, proceeds of which go to fund the Drupal project.     Exhibit Hall [https://amsterdam2014.drupal.org/exhibit-hall]   Social calendar   Amsterdam in particular has some noteworthy social events scheduled by the local community and attendees alike. Dinners, cultural evening, women in Drupal, pub crawls, the arrival of Tour de Drupal are amongst some of the events currently available.    [https://amsterdam2014.drupal.org/event/women-drupal-meetup]   Monday   Many people arrive ahead of the main conference. This can be an excellent time to arrange meetings with people before things get too hectic.    The community summit [https://amsterdam2014.drupal.org/community-summit] or business day [https://amsterdam2014.drupal.org/business-summit] are a really great ways to forge new connections and share knowledge at the same time.    Tuesday   DriesNote The Dries’s Keynote is always a full house. In fact I strongly advise get your seat early or possibly miss out! A pro-tip is attend Rob & Jam’s pre-keynote, you’d be mad not to anyway [https://amsterdam2014.drupal.org/prenote] , and bag yourself a prime location for the DriesNote early (they always share the same location).    Say cheese! A huge tradition at DrupalCon is the group photo. Be sure to be among the sea of Drupalists immediately after the DriesNote. We hear an octocopter will make an entrance in Amsterdam to help capture the epic numbers we now have. See how we did it in Prague last year [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8tHvys7xTRM]   Thursday   Trivia Night A quiz night about Drupal. Unmissable, I am not kidding you. For many it’s the highlight of the social calendar. There are bonus points for teams with DrupalCon first timers so you will be most welcome! What better way to meet new people, and there are amazing prizes to be had.   Friday   Sprints! There are opportunities for everyone to contribute to sprints no matter if you’ve never attended a (code) sprint before. Special First-Time Sprinter Workshops [https://amsterdam2014.drupal.org/first-time-sprinter-workshop] exist to guide those of you who are new to sprinting. “Everyone can get involved in many aspects, including documentation, UX, design, testing, and development.”   Taking part in these mass participation sprints is invigorating and should certainly be on your schedule.   There’s more besides sessions at DrupalCon...   With so many great sessions to choose from there are bound to be clashes. Don’t panic, the amazing team at DrupalCon reliably have all sessions published same day to Youtube [https://www.youtube.com/user/DrupalAssociation].   Aware of these recordings you should consider what else there’s available to do ….   Hallway track   For many a highlight of the conference is those chance meetings in the hallway. Do take the opportunity to stop and spend time talking with people in the hallway.    BoFs?   Affectionately know as “BoFs” - Birds of a feather conversations offer a rare opportunity to meet and discuss a theme with Drupalists sharing a common interest. As a first time DrupalCon attendee I can’t stress how valuable BoFs are. There’s no need to register, just turn up or even arrange your own! [https://amsterdam2014.drupal.org/bofs]. Many presenters will arrange companion BoFs for their sessions, this is a great time to deep dive into a subject.   “the BoF is where the conversations happen, sessions are recorded but these aren't, many goodies happen there” Pedro Cambra @pcambra   Sprints   From 27th September all the way through to 4th October there are ample opportunities to get involved in sprints. In particular the mass Friday sprints are open to all with mentors to help you make your first core contribution. Go for it! https://amsterdam2014.drupal.org/sprints   Relax! There will be other DrupalCons   Don’t try and do everything first time round. With so many amazing keynotes, sessions, BoFs and people to meet plus a packed social calendar - there’s no denying there’s a temptation at DrupalCon to burn the candle at both ends. Be careful though, without some proper rest and healthy food you can easily get run down and suffer post conference DrupalFlu.   So pace yourself. Head for bed when others say “just one more”, eat some fruit, drink water and get some sleep. You’ll enjoy DrupalCon and take home just amazing memories.   Further reading   Jeffrey McGuire’s A-Z of DrupalCon https://www.acquia.com/blog/what-is-drupalcon   Doug Vann has further tips on what to bring to DrupalCon [http://dougvann.com/blog/top-ten-things-bring-you-drupalcon-austin]   Image courtesy of Michael Schmid