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Lullabot for Drupal
Drupal as a URL Shortener
Tue, 08/24/2010 - 10:40Announcing Lullabot's short URL site: lb.cm
URL shorteners are the bane of the internet. However, for those of us who use Twitter on a regular basis, you know that 140 characters can be limiting. URLs can theoretically be 2,000 characters or more, but most are in the 40 to 80 character range. That's almost half your tweet! So we use URL shorteners to not only shorten the URLs, but (in the case of some services like Bit.ly) to track clicks and get statistics about who clicked on these short URLs.
The problem, however, with the popular URL services is that the more that they are used, the longer their URLs get. Both Bit.ly and Tiny.cc are up to 6 characters in their autogenerated URL paths. Add in the URL protocol (http://), the hostname (bit.ly) and the initial slash, and you've got minimum 20 character URLs.
So why use someone else's short URL service, when you can create your own, branded, shorter short URL service with URLs like lb.cm/a or jen.cm/j? A branded URL shortener can also be a sign of prestige or add a layer of trust. For instance, Flickr's URL shortener, flic.kr only links to Flickr photos. When you click on a flic.kr URL, you know what you're going to get. Google has a similar service with goo.gl and WordPress has recently launched wp.me. Even if you open it up for the public to use, as we have with lb.cm, there's just a certain geek prestige in having your own URL shortener.
Why Drupal?So why use Drupal as a URL shortener? There are several single-purpose stand-alone Open Source URL shorteners out there already. And Drupal is sometimes criticized as being big and slow. URL shorteners need to be small and fast. On the other hand, we're not really expecting bit.ly-level traffic here, are we? Maybe we can consider Drupal.
Categories: Web Development
Drupalcon Copenhagen Core Developer Summit wrap-up
Sun, 08/22/2010 - 18:04Today, Drupalcon Copenhagen kicked off with the Core Developer Summit. At least a couple hundred Drupalistas from old school to new filtered in throughout the day, and we made tremendous progress on Drupal 7, as well as the future of the project.
The day kicked off with presentations by myself on how to improve our CVS application process, Larry Garfield with a short pitch for his talk Wednesday morning on Drupal: The Next Generation, Jen Simmons on HTML 5, its importance, and how it fits into Drupal, and David Strauss on Kargo Event-driven Drupal for crazy high-performance sites. These presentations laid out both current challenges, as well as whet our appetite for what's possible in the future in Drupal 8 and beyond.
Thanks to Justin Christofferson of larsdesigns, there are even videos of these sessions on archive.org!
- http://www.archive.org/details/AngieByronwebchickSpeaksInCopenhagenDrupa...
- http://www.archive.org/details/DrupalconCopenhagenPre-conferenceDavidStr...
Categories: Web Development
Be a Lullabot Drupal trainer!
Thu, 08/19/2010 - 09:27Looking for workshop leaders in Europe and North America
First off, thanks to those of you who have already applied for the Lullabot Drupal trainer job as well as our other current job listings. We're planning to hire and train about 4 new Drupal trainers in the next few months. We're also hoping that a few of these trainers will be from Europe. So if you're in Europe or North America and you'd like become part of Lullabot's outstanding Drupal training team, please read more about the job and fill out the application.
Additionally, several from the Lullabot team will be in Copenhagen next week for DrupalCon. If you're interested in teaching and you're going to be at DrupalCon, please make sure you get your application to us by Sunday. We will be interviewing prospective candidates in Copenhagen. If you've already applied, please send an email to jobs@lullabot.com and be sure to let us know. If you have yet to apply, please mention DrupalCon on your application.
Categories: Web Development
Tag it Up!
Mon, 07/26/2010 - 10:21Release management with version control Managing the code on your servers is a very important part of the release process. Over the years we've tried many different ways and have found the below process as a tried and true starting point, but here we'll focus on revision control (Subversion or Git) and the use of tags in each for any given project. Since many of our clients are large traffic websites and need multiple web heads, we also have some standard practices and scripts that we like to use on our projects to help keep the web heads synchronized. So let's take a look.
Categories: Web Development
Assembling Pages with Drupal
Sat, 07/17/2010 - 02:00Blocks vs. Context vs. Panels
As with many facets of Drupal, and coding in general, there are multiple ways to accomplish the same task. A good exmple of this was with the recent additions to the Lullabot team. The expanded team brought together three skilled developers and an amazing designer each with their own methods of site building. On one side we have Jerad Bitner and myself, who for the past few years have been building sites exclusively with Panels module. On the other side we have James Sansbury and Jared Ponchot who also build beautiful sites using the more recent Context module.
Our first collaboration was the redesign of Lullabot.com, since this project was initially designed and scoped by James and Jared, the decision to use Context module was already in place. I was in no rush to learn Context, when I knew the same result could be achieved with Panels. Lucky for me James and Jared are both excellent resources for answering questions and giving great examples. Now that the project is complete I have a better understanding of Context module. This article is intended to identify the similarities, differences, pros and cons of using each module to build a Drupal website.
Categories: Web Development
FAPI/CCK Confusion: 'value' vs '#value'
Mon, 07/12/2010 - 10:14Angie Byron wrote a nice article on Drupal.org that explains something about how to form_alter CCK fields. At the very end it says:
No, you didn't read that wrong. Sometimes you need to set both ['value']['#value'] and ['#value']['value']. And other times you need to change the field value in $form_state['values']. It seems to be that one controls the value displayed on the form, and the other affects the value sent to the database. You need both to avoid NULL values and "Value is required for field blah blah blah" errors.
If anyone can shed some light on what the heck is going on here, that would be awesome. ;P
Categories: Web Development
DC Workshops Sold Out. Portland Discounts End Friday!
Wed, 07/07/2010 - 14:06In other words, register for the Portland workshops now!
That's right, our upcoming Drupal Module Development Deep Dive workshops week in Washington, DC is now officially sold out. Congratulations to those of you who were fortunate enough to register in time. To those who didn't register, better luck next time (insert sad trombone sound here).
But wait! Speaking of next time, we're continuing our new Deep Dive tradition with another full week of workshops in Portland, OR from August 2nd through 6th. This Drupal Theming Deep Dive week will focus on all things Drupal Theming. We guarantee to turn you into a Drupal theming expert in one week! If you register by this Friday, July 9th you'll save mucho bucks with the Early Bird Discount, so go check it out and register today.
Drupal Theming Deep Dive week in Portland, OR
Categories: Web Development
Last day for 25% off all Drupal & jQuery videos
Mon, 07/05/2010 - 10:38Our weekend sale is almost over
If you're not on our mailing list or following us on Twitter, you might have missed the Independence Day weekend sale going on in our store. Today (Monday) is the last day to get 25% off all Lullabot Drupal and jQuery tutorial DVDs and high-definition video downloads.
Spend some time this summer turning yourself into a Drupal superhero!
Categories: Web Development
New features in Drush 3
Thu, 07/01/2010 - 00:00It just keeps getting better. Seriously.
So… Drush. Are you using it yet? If not get drushing!—or whatever you call it. If you're not familiar with it, Drush is a command line interface for Drupal sites. It's the bees knees, if you ask me. You can use it to enable/disable modules, run update.php, get a SQL dump of your site, and all sorts of other magically delicious things.
The problem is, it just keeps getting better. I almost can't keep up with it! The recent release of Drush 3 includes all sorts of goodies, and every day I seem to find more and more. I'm going to take a quick look at a few of them that I'm most excited about.
One of the awesome new features in Drush 3 is the ability to run Drush commands on a remote server. So, I can run commands on a remote site without having to manually connect to that server. In order for this to work, you'll need to have Drush on the server as well as your local machine, and you probably want them to be the same version as well. You'll also need to be able to ssh to the server using key authentication. Check this out:
drush username@myserver.com/path/to/drupal#mysite.com status
Categories: Web Development
WYSIWYG as a Feature
Mon, 06/28/2010 - 11:25One of the things Drupal core does not do well at all is provide an easy way to switch on a WYSIWYG editor. There is no editor out of the box and setting it up requires some custom configuration of several Drupal core settings, installing and configuring several contributed modules, and also installing one or more external libraries, like the TinyMCE library. The Lullabot book, Using Drupal (O'Reilly), devotes a whole section to describing one way to configure a WYSIWYG editor.
The ProblemsIt's complicated because there are lots of inter-related parts:
- You need to set up one or more roles that can edit content.
- You need to create and configure 'Input formats' to create at least one format that allows users to add the html and css needed to create rich text content.
- You need to select and install a WYSIWYG editor: install the editor, download an appropriate javascript library and move it to the right location (which varies depending on which editor you are using), and then configure the editor to use the library.
And all of that gets you only to the point where you can edit text. If you want to allow users to upload images and insert them into their text, you also need to identify which of several possible methods of image handling you want to use, and install and configure the modules needed to manage that.
Categories: Web Development
Drupal.org's migration to Git update
Mon, 06/14/2010 - 10:45Sam's the man!
Sam Boyer (sdboyer) has been a long time inspiration to and awesome resource for me when it comes to Git. It's really no wonder that he was chosen as the Git Migration Lead by the Drupal Association.
Here are some of his plans and where you can help participate:
Categories: Web Development
Video: Angie Byron & Jeff Robbins on TWiT
Mon, 06/07/2010 - 14:00Last month Angie and I drove up to Petaluma, CA and did an interview with Leo Laporte at the TWiT Cottage. We talked about DrupalCon, the upcoming release of Drupal 7, and did a general check in with Leo about Drupal. We forgot to post this here on Lullabot.com right after it was posted, so in case you missed it, here's the video of the interview!
An audio version and other options are available at http://twit.tv/specials17
Categories: Web Development
DC Deep Dive Development Week: Early Bird Discount Ends Next Week
Fri, 06/04/2010 - 12:52Just a reminder that the early-bird pricing for July's Deep Dive Development Week in Washington, DC ends next Friday, June 11th. If you'd like to become a Drupal development genius and you'd like to save some money, be sure to sign up soon. Seats are limited and they're going fast.
Here's the synopsis:
The week of July 12th, Lullabot will be offering two back-to-back Drupal development workshops at the Hotel Palomar, in Washington, DC. The workshops are Basic Drupal Module Development (July 12 & 13) and Advanced Drupal Development (July 14, 15, 16). You can sign up for each workshop individually, or sign up for the whole week, save some money, and become a Drupal development super-hero!
Lullabot Drupal experts Angie "Webchick" Byron and Jeff "Eaton" Eaton will be spending an entire week in beautiful Washington DC teaching attendees how to customize and extend Drupal and bend it to their will! Spend an entire week with Lullabot and get an in-depth understanding of Drupal programming.
Categories: Web Development
Site Development Workflow: Keep it in Code
Fri, 06/04/2010 - 11:52The tools we use and the reasons we use them.
Almost a year ago now Development Seed had an article on some of the tools they were developing in order to address a very real, very important problem—that of the whole development to staging to live development process. Up until these tools were available, this process consisted of an archaic—and quite frankly, pain in the butt—method of either duplicating the clicks and changes you made through the Drupal UI in your various environments, or putting all of your changes that needed to be made to the database into update hooks that did very specialized queries, set variables, installed or uninstalled modules etc, etc. This came with a heavy price tag of testing your migration path over and over, resetting your database, and testing again. Oops! Small mistake there... change the code, reset the database, run it again, wash, rinse and repeat. These tools attempt to change all that and now that they're maturing, they've become a godsend for site builders and developers everywhere. Here is the workflow and process we are using at Lullabot and some of the finer points we've picked up along the way.
Categories: Web Development
Buzzr Goes Beta
Thu, 05/20/2010 - 12:01Almost 3 years ago, I wrote a article called How Drupal Will Save The World. In that post, I talked about the importance of usability to Drupal. I also outlined how a more easy-to-use version of Drupal could lead to a shift in not only the way that websites are made, but it would also change the people who make them. Easier website creation is the key to changing the demographic of Drupal site builders.
I certainly wasn't the only person to notice that Drupal needed to be easier to use. And over the past 3 years, the Drupal community has made many efforts to improve usability and user interface. Probably the most noticeable user interface changes will be coming with the Drupal 7 release in the next few months.
Building a businessMy article didn't really have any action items so much as it laid out several possibilities and some "what if" scenarios. Liza, Matt, and I had been mulling over this idea of improving Drupal usability for a while, unsure how to pursue it, when Liza began talking to Ed Sussman. At the time, Ed was president of Mansueto Digital running FastCompany.com and Inc.com. He came from a more traditional business and entrepreneurial background and he had ideas about how this could be turned into a business – a situation which could provide the financial foundation to keep the concept moving forward and allow a dedicated team really streamline the user experience.
Thus began a 2-year project with lots of user research, usability experimentation, interface wrangling, and basically rethinking Drupal's functionality and user interface from the ground up. Ed eventually left Mansueto and became the CEO of our new company. Lullabot became a co-owner of the company and invested many hours of development, guidance, and experimentation. We also brought in Karen McGrane, a prominent user experience and interaction designer whose resume includes the current New York Times redesign.
Most people don't want Drupal. They just want what Drupal does.The result of all of this work is Buzzr, a complete reconcepting of Drupal. Buzzr is a user interface which sits on top of Drupal, allowing for easy one-click configuration, drag-and-drop layout changes, and simplified options. It's all Drupal underneath. We've just got a different interface. We flatten Drupal's learning curve by shielding site administrators and end users from Drupal's cockpit-like administrative screens.
Buzzr doesn't do everything that Drupal does, but it can do most things which most users want – and by building on top of Drupal, we've got lots of room for expansion with so many modules and functionality we can incorporate in the future.
Try it outIn case you missed the announcement, Buzzr went into public beta a few weeks ago at DrupalCon. You can visit Buzzr.com and start creating websites today. There is also a white labeled Enterprise Edition so that universities, corporate institutions, and other organizations can create their own customized web systems and give their users the ability to quickly create and edit their own Drupal sites using Buzzr's simplified user interface and hosting solutions.
Categories: Web Development
Show me the money!
Tue, 05/18/2010 - 14:33A Lullabot Business Case Study
Last month, I had the opportunity to speak at DrupalCon San Francisco. I had a great time speaking. I did a case study of Lullabot itself, in which I talked some about how the company is structured, some of our core beliefs, and about my own business ideas and strategies. (You can watch the slides and hear the audio here, or access the slides here.)
I'm a huge advocate of giving things away (creating value), and then using smart business models to capture some of that value. Part of what I talked about during this session was how to determine one's value as a Drupal shop. When I first came to Lullabot (about a month after Matt and Jeff founded the company), the company was swamped with work requests. Raising our rates was a great filtering mechanism for us, and also helped "buy" the free time that our awesome team members need to do things like write books, co-maintain an entire release of Drupal, and maintain four billion modules. But for us, it was a total guessing game. We basically raised our rates until we reached the point where we started meeting some pricing resistance. We've done careful tweaking of our rates over time, but we're at a point (after 4 1/2 years in business) that we're confident in our rates and very confident in the value that we provide for those rates.
Categories: Web Development
Drush Make and PressFlow
Wed, 05/12/2010 - 15:15Assembling a high performance site that uses PressFlow, ApacheSolr, and other external files
Most of us have heard of Drush by this time. It's a cool command line tool to make it easier to set up and update Drupal. A really handy addition to Drush is Drush Make, a tool that makes it easy to identify all the files needed to create a new Drupal site and automatically retrieve and download them. Most Drupal sites have at least a few files that come from non-Drupal locations -- like javascript or flash libraries that need to be downloaded separately and moved to some specific location within your Drupal installation. Drush Make makes it easy to pull these files together.
All the examples I had seen for Drush Make used Drupal core, but I recently wanted to create a new site using PressFlow, an alternative to the regular Drupal core code that has lots of performance enhancements. The PressFlow files are not hosted on Drupal.org, they need to be retrieved from the PressFlow site. The site will also be using ApacheSolr and jQuery UI, both of which require grabbing code from external locations. I wanted to create a system to pull these files together automatically using Drush Make, but it took a bit of digging to figure out how to do it.
Categories: Web Development
Making the transition to Git
Mon, 05/10/2010 - 11:33For the Subversion impaired
So you've probably already heard that Drupal.org is turning to Git for it's version control system (VCS) needs, but you may be wondering, "Well, how do I get into the practice of using Git?". And if, like most developers, you are using Subversion for most of your projects, then I have a really great suggestion on how to start making this transition.
Categories: Web Development
