Drupal core, contributions and trends track

Overview

The Context and Spaces modules are tools to make complex site building tasks easier. This session will cover the approach of the Context and Spaces suites, and show developers how they can be used and extended. The examples in the presentation will focus on 'Communities of Practice'-style online collaboration, Sites-within-sites, and Intranet projects.

Background

The Context suite provides a way of mapping various architectures on top of Drupal's components. Allowing developers to define what panels, views, content-types, menus, blocks, etc comprise the recognizable 'sections' of their sites. Spaces extends this concept by integrating with Organic Groups. This allows you to associate 'sections' with groups and provides a way to enabled and customize these features on a group by group basis.

Agenda

• Introduction to Context and how it lets you map your client's IA to Drupal's IA.
• Context_ui in practice, moving beyond admin/build/blocks.
• Spaces for online collaboration, extending OG and giving groups the tools they want.
• Using Context and Spaces to extend your site as a non-coder, in ways that non-coders couldn't do before.
• Real live usage: Sites that use spaces to provide the right stuff for online collaboration.

Goals

To give developers and advanced Drupal administrators an idea of the advantages of using context and spaces on their projects. We'll review the standard set of problems the context and spaces aim to address and look at sites where it's been used.

Resources

http://drupal.org/project/context
http://drupal.org/project/spaces
http://www.developmentseed.org/tags/context-ui

Overview

This session presents a replacement for the existing aggregator module in Drupal 7 core. It is not just geared towards coders but to anybody who's dealing with aggregation in Drupal. We'd like to show you what's exciting about the new aggregator, talk about new possibilities it opens up and ask you for your feedback.

Background:

Drupal core's aggregator module wasn't designed with a wide range of use cases in mind. It supports aggregation of RSS and Atom feeds to a configurable set of categories on your Drupal site. But there is much more that users want to do with aggregation in Drupal aside from simple news aggregation, e. g.:

* Import iCal feeds to events
* Import to complex content types with custom fields
* Support workflow, access control or commenting on feeds or feed items
* Import special feed formats like NewsML

These and other demands have lead to a plethora of aggregation modules in contrib land: aggregator2, leech, simplefeed, aggregation and feedapi are just some of them. Most of them satisfied specific use cases and failed to cover the wider field of scenarios, hence none of them made the breakthrough to being the prevalent solution.

After a first attempt with FeedAPI in 2007 Aron Novak did it again for Google Summer of Code 2008: he took on the task to come up with a solution fit to replace ye olde aggregator. The result is a simple yet extensible and efficient architecture that should serve us well as a basis for the coming years.

Agenda

* Give an overview over existing aggregation modules in Drupal and its properties
* Explain why a new aggregator in core is better than the module-that-fits-best out there
* Present architecture of new aggregator for D7
* Present important features and explain specific design decisions
* Real world examples of what the new aggregator does or enables us to do:
** aggregate lightweight feed items or nodes
** lazy instantiation of feed items
** high performance setups
** (more to be announced when presentation is ready)

Goals

* Give you a good understanding of what's in the box
* Get your feedback on specific design decisions
* Do another step away from "many similar incompatible modules that do the same thing but slightly different" towards "many compatible modules that give you more flexible and better options"
* Inspire you to think beyond the current boundaries in aggregation

Resources

This is not mandatory by any means, but if you want to prepare for this session, we recommend to

* Test drive the new aggregator: http://drupal.org/project/new_aggregator or http://drupal.org/node/236237 (patch)
* Read the architecture outline http://groups.drupal.org/node/12772
* Have a look at the code

 
Introducing Ubercart:
Where it is and where it's headed...

Overview

Ubercart is an exciting e-commerce module package for Drupal. It is a flexible, easy to use system that is already working across the web to sell physical goods, file downloads, site memberships, node access, and much more! This session will be all about exposure... presenting as much of Ubercart to as many new (and experienced) users as possible. The nature and size of the module package means there is always more to learn and share, and we couldn't be more excited about the rapid pace of the Drupal 6 migration.

The session will briefly cover the project's history, basic feature set, and points of integration with Drupal and other contributed modules. It will then showcase some of the advanced features Ubercart provides with demonstrations for setting up dynamic shipping quotes, selling paid file downloads, and selling role promotions. Each of these will be accompanied with real life use cases and demonstrations on live sites where possible.

The formal session will wrap up with a word about Ubercart's development roadmap. In Drupal 5, a foundation was laid in both code and community development. In Drupal 6, we'll focus on optimization - refining the core, making it easier for developers to contribute, and taking advantage of Drupal 6's updated APIs wherever possible. Work on a D6 compatible Uber Tuber is well underway and will be reported on in this session.

If times permits, the session will close with a question and answer period.

As always, the developers are available after the session for further inquiries and are always interested in meeting new people. Feel free to stop any of the Uberdevs in the halls for a word or a high five.

Agenda

* Brief history of Ubercart.
* Ubercart features overview.
* Integration with Drupal core and contributed modules.
* Configuration demonstrations and examples:
  - Advanced shipping with Workflow-ng
  - File downloads
  - Role promotions
  - Setting up PayPal
* Development roadmap for Drupal 6 and beyond.
* Q/A if time permits.

Goals

Session attendees should leave with a broad understanding of what Ubercart is and what it enables them to do. Attendees will gain an initial familiarity with various parts of the administrative interfaces through the demonstrations, and they should know where to go to find help when they start their next Ubercart project. Finally, everyone will be brought up to speed on the current state of Ubercart development and find out how they can get involved!

Resources

* Ubercart project page - http://drupal.org/project/ubercart
* Community site/support forums - http://www.ubercart.org
* Documentation - http://www.ubercart.org/docs
* Live sites directory - http://www.ubercart.org/site
* Livetest (front end demo) - http://livetest.ubercart.org
* Admin demo - http://demo.ubercart.org
* Development roadmap - http://www.ubercart.org/forum/development/5115/...

More resources to follow... check back for updates!

Related sessions

Drupallers interested in more of the Drupal 6 work should consider attending at least the first part of the Ubercart in Drupal 6 session.

We'll also be performing A Hands On Guide to Module Development in which we will discuss the things we've done wrong and are starting to do right in module development. The session will include an example of developing a module that integrates with Ubercart.

Overview

Messaging and Notifications are two complete frameworks for handling subscriptions, notifications about site events, or simply sending out messages using any kind of delivery method. The goal of this presentation is to show the new developments we've been building on top of these frameworks and the new and exciting possibilities that have happened in just the past couple of months since the first beta was introduced at DrupalCon Boston.

Background

Your Drupal site is generating all kinds of mail for all kinds of reasons: You have giant announcement list, a few dozen group discussions, automated content notifications, send-to-friend messages, petitions and postcards.
Now there is the Messaging framework that attempts to abstract all the needs of other modules regarding the sending of user messages, adding also a centralized way to manage all your message templates, filtering, and delivery settings. The Messaging framework accepts different kinds of plug-ins for different sending methods, like different email modules (mimemail, phpmailer), SMS, web notifications, etc..
The Notifications framework, which in turn uses Messaging as the delivery layer, attempts to simplify building subscriptions-like systems in Drupal. It is a collection of modules that provide a core set of notification types and developers API for building specialized user interfaces, use multiple message delivery methods (including email, sms and IM) and developing custom subscription types.

Agenda

* Moving beyond 'e-mail only'; let the users decide how to interact with your site.
* Enabling round-trip email discussions for any content type or topic
* The Messaging Framework - More than just email, IM & SMS plugins.
* Building on the Messaging framework: free message templating and sending for other modules
* Extending the framework with your own modules or distribution types
* Notifications modules - How to configure & use subscriptions and notifications.
* Integration example: Organic Groups now using the Notifications framework
* Real life usage: Some examples of live sites using this solution.

Goals

* Show you we can move beyond the mail only paradigm to sending and receiving messages through different methods.
* Raise awareness about new and exciting possibilities for user interaction or why just sending emails is not enough nowadays.
* Let other developers know how they can build on this framework and abstract message sending from their modules.
* Overview for site builders of how to set up a full featured subscriptions/notifications solution
* Present the latest developments built on these two frameworks and some new plug-in modules

Resources

http://drupal.org/project/messaging
http://drupal.org/project/notifications
http://www.developmentseed.org/tags/messaging

Overview

Media RSS (MRSS) is an RSS module used for syndicating multimedia files (audio, video, image) in RSS feeds. It was designed in 2004 by Yahoo! and the Media RSS community, and adds several enhancements to RSS enclosures. PicLens is Browser extension which reads in such an rss feed and provides your visitors with an immersive slideshow experience for rich media on your website. If you don't have the plugin installed, PicLens Lite can be enabled to use a flex application.

Agenda

* What is MediaRSS and what's the format
* Showcase of PicLens extension
* Introduction to Piclens Module and sub-modules and API
* Plan for the future: mediarss api in core or separate contrib?

Goals

Cool demo of piclens and getting more media maintainers interested to implement hook_media_rss_items into their projects.

Resources

http://drupal.org/project/piclens : piclens module
http://realize.be/image-galleries/drupalcon-boston-2008 : piclens module in action
http://search.yahoo.com/mrss : mediarss specification

Overview

Drupal 7 will feature a newly rewritten database layer providing improved database abstraction, portability, and scalability features. This session will cover the thinking and architecture behind the new layer, with an eye toward understanding how it fits into the larger scheme of high-performance Drupal sites. There will be some discussion of code, as well as words of advice for others looking to revamp one of Drupal's core systems.

There will be some code in this session, but you should not need to be a hard-core coder to follow it. This session will also serve as a lead-in to this code track session, which is aimed more at programmers.

Agenda

* Database abstraction: Why it's hard and even an unsolvable problem.
* The old Drupal approach, and why it's not good.
* The new Drupal approach, and why it's awesome.
* Leveraging the database on your own deployments.
* Request for feedback on some of the more big-iron-targeted parts of the new feature set.
* Recommendations for other core developers on how to (not) revamp Drupal subsystems.

Goals

After attending this session, you should have a good idea of ways to leverage the new, modernized database system for your own sites as well as how to go about making major changes to Drupal's infrastructure.

Resources

Knowing the basics of SQL servers before attending would be a good idea, for context.

Overview

This session will discuss how Drupal finds and renders pages. In other words, how a Drupal path (like node/4) is used to deliver a page to your screen. This will be a high level discussion, but with some reference to implementation details.

Agenda

• Overview of the menu system architecture
• The flow from request to page rendering in Drupal 6
• Page rendering in Drupal 7
• Alternative page renderers - e.g. XML and JSON
• What we've enabled, what's left to do

Goals

This session should give the participant an overview of how these central Drupal systems work in Drupal 6, and how they may change in Drupal 7. We will focus on how page rendering may change, and what other advances those changes enable.

Resources

It would be helpful to have a basic familiarity with how pages are defined using Drupal 6 hook_menu, and what a Drupal path is.

Overview

Google has shown us that search matters. Drupal's core search has strengths as well as weaknesses. What are they and how are the weaknesses being addressed? What new search options have emerged, and how does one evaluate them?

Agenda

* Core search in Drupal 7: What needs to be done?
* Minnesota Search Sprint: What got accomplished and where does it go from here?
* Xapian, Sphinx and ApacheSolr: With so many third-party options to choose from, how does one evaluate and decide?
* Search and Drupal.org: What special needs does Drupal.org have, and how can we improve things now and in the future?

Goals

Increase focus on improving core Drupal search. Increase awareness of alternative solutions. Increase awareness of different search features, such as faceted searching. Encourage more collaboration amongst developers.

Resources

* http://drupal.org/project/apachesolr
* http://drupal.org/project/xapian
* http://www.sphinxsearch.com/
* http://groups.drupal.org/node/4102 (Search group on g.d.o.)

Overview

The session will introduce the Field API intended for Drupal core. The Field API supports "CCK fields in core" as a new central concept for organizing content as an eventual replacement for the Node API model.

Agenda

* Motivation for Fields in core
* Design goals for the Field API
* Current status of the Field API
* Fields on remote data and the semantic web

Goals

Attendees should leave this session understanding what the Field API is, how it will work, and how to use it to create custom content types programmatically.

Resources

Attendees should be familiar with node types and how to use CCK user interface to define custom content types with fields.

Overview

This session will be presented by the maintainers of the Location and GMaps modules. Updated, stable versions of these modules will be released this summer, and we will talk specifically about the capabilities of these modules. We will also address the roadmap for growing these modules into a broader GIS/mapping platform for Drupal.

Agenda

• GMap and Location updates--stability, new features, api features
• current GIS/Mapping capabilities with GMap and Location--what we can do with Drupal right now
• GIS/mapping platform goals--what we want to be able to do with Drupal
• technical roadmap--a clear technical plan to meet those goals

Goals

The goal of this session is to engage people with the current evolution of Drupal mapping by sharing what is currently possible, and to get community buy-in on Drupal as a GIS/mapping platform by presenting a clear set of goals for the near future.

Resources

The State of Geospatial in Drupal:
http://groups.drupal.org/node/12485

Drupal mapping group:
http://groups.drupal.org/mapping

Location module:
http://drupal.org/project/location

GMap module:
http://drupal.org/project/gmap

Geo module:
http://drupal.org/project/geo

OpenLayers module:
http://drupal.org/project/openlayers