Category: pnwds

what I’m hoping to get out of this: gotchas I may not have considered in building the theme, things I might want to share with Justin & Naomi.

[full disclosure: not 100% listening, because I’m trying to get my screenshots together.]

Fieldgroup is in fact the bomb. (he’s using “div” in order to have something for theming. So this is on Manage Display. I should talk to Justin about that maybe for some of the more complex content types. Faculty profiles, maybe? Can also add classes to those divs in a fieldgroup under manage display. (I feel like maybe that’s something I’m already doing somewhere?))

 

 

what I’m looking for: I’m not really sure TBH.

forming/storming/norming/performing — this actually clicks with the confab presentation — and I think we can add that awareness to our work sessions! Because we want them to conform to our process, but we also have to feel out their anxieties and interests.

and I want to grab this stat about verbal vs vocal vs body language for my presentation as well, for that section on active listening.

“common frame of reference” — that’s why we added the intro/kick-off, and that’s what a lot of the question-asking is about, building a frame of reference. and that’s why the questions should be as low-level as possible, because you’re trying to understand their frame of reference, and listening to find out the underlying issues.

“what’s the gap?”

retrospective — that’s the word I was looking for yesterday! (we should totally do more of those.)

“don’t argue about the experience” — “you shouldn’t be mad” — can’t talk people out of that feeling.

interesting note from audience from book “how to talk to your children so they will listen …” – don’t tell people they don’t feel a thing. (I HAVE FEELINGS ABOUT THIS.)

the 6 basic feelings: happy, sad, mad, afraid, ashamed, confused (also: surprise? disgust? words & pics don’t quite match.)

YUP, I definitely want to bring in some of the therapy tools to my confab talk.

what I’m hoping to get out of this: what are some possibilities for integrating? What should I be looking for?

make it easy for editors to build pages/forms and connect them to the campaigns in the CRM

avoiding tightly coupled systems

at the one end, just link to the forms built in the CRM, and at the other, actually building a CRM in Drupal

finding the habitable zone.

using “Users” to manage sessions, without actually giving them a login?! the hell.

entity registration (module)

fields to represent CRM integration

form block (module) to put user registration on lots of different content

a kind of “guest” user with a long session lifetime

I’m not sure if any of THIS is appropriate to our uses, but its intriguing.

drop-down field for “lead source” and then details, including a campaign ID. (the lead sources sync, but could be just as simple to give editors access to Taxonomy)

when the form is filled out, it also sends a POST to create them in the CRM. (so the important thing to know is how to do the POST. From there: cake?)

“the end user watching the video would never see [the CRM’s] interface” (HELL YES)

Form API post-submit handler (could probably also do this in webform interface?)

There’s a whole thing of a sorta-blank form with a button? I’m not 100% that I get it, but ok.

[long discussion of de-duping]

be careful of the cache_form table if using their system, could get out of control?

they use hidden fields to send that stuff in the form, rather than doing it all server-side with the post-submit handler, etc. (stuff I wouldn’t even know what to do)

they’ve also thought about creating a queue and doing batch, but the downtime just wasn’t enough to justify the work. have a logging system in case of a failure.

[lost track for a sec, I think something about analytics tracking urls?]

context form alteration seems intriguing. (there’s other modules mentioned in a slide)

what I’m hoping to get out of this: what are some cool tools for making sure I’m not messing it up?

“views cache bully”?

site audit – drush. can produce html reports.

doesn’t check usability & UX (obvs!) or design (including accessibility) or the actual content.

the HTML output is pretty sweet, TBH…but it does require shell access, so that’s maybe an issue?

module: unused_modules – things that can be safely deleted.

module: security_review

cacheaudit has some overlap with site audit, but does some slightly different ways of looking at what is and isn’t cached.

[slides with a bunch of generic PHP cleanup/audit tools, maybe send to Dave/Jamie?]

GitStats (does Gitlab integrate some sort of statistical analysis?)

ESLint is in D8, FWIW.

webpagetest.org — that’s the one Justin uses, yes?

Nice slide on the structure of an audit report.

pareview.sh is for reviewing custom modules? if you want to post them to d.org.

nice audience recommendation of wave.webaim.org

there’s a version of site_audit available already for D8.

what I’m hoping to get out of this: some understand of what Solr is, how it works, and/or what we might get out of using it over Google Site Search

search_api

search_api_solr

search_api_page

search_api_views

search_api_facetapi

search_api_solr_overrides

Search API vs actual Solr module: more flexible? Also has more options? I’m a little confused TBh.

[slide about installing Solr — his handwaving feels a lot like mine for tomorrow’s presentation.]

There’s also a bunch of hosted Solr options, if I want to try stuff out.

Can include/exclude specific fields from being indexed. (“Compound fields”, which includes the body field! are available through an extra expando-box.)

(I’m glad he said this was a run-through. It feels really rough. But watching this, I’m wondering if I should move away from the screenshot method vs actually running a live demo, because it is a lot easier to understand this way.)

Interesting gotcha of having to make sure to index the full content. If you’ve got it set to index as items are edited/created, then it isn’t being indexed with cron.

Interesting stuff in the Search database advanced config, as far as highlighting, etc.

Sounds like the layout is adjusted through Panels vs Views? (I try to avoid Panels, because of previous bad experiences, but in some instances it’s ok: I’m already doing that to override the My Workbench default.)

Honestly: are facets really useful for most people most of the time?

Primary performance savings is on the indexing (which is important) vs the display.

But the sorting of results (by pub date or something else) using Views is sort of intriguing.

Aaaaaaannnnnnd then his computer crashed.

“Aggregated fields” — can use to combine fields into a single indexed *thing* — “like field collections”

This session really feels unfinished. (Like, I actually feel really prepared compared to this!)

Can bundle into Features, but then add an override (there’s a module, search api solr override?)

One place where faceted search might be useful: pages vs directories.

Potentially useful blog post on troubleshooting.

since I saw Dave going in to the titanium/mobile app session, I thought I’d check out this.

“world adult kickball association”? and that’s the site he works on. kickball.com, 60k visitors/day.

going to be high level. [would like the front lights to be low so I can actually see his slides] – not going to talk about what to do once it’s in drupal, or about geodata, or about twitter or facebook connect, or about D6 or D8.

two options: migration – moving the data from whatever into Drupal, which is a habit in the Drupal community – or reading & leaving the data where it is.

do you have access to the database? if not, then more likely to be *reading* vs migrating.

is the data a moving target? if often changing, leave it outside. otherwise can add a lot of overhead.

quantity of data?

is the data “drupally”?

[and I start to appreciate where Dave’s at, even if he’s not always great at explaining how he got to that POV.]

migrating: two “and a half” options –

1) Feeds module. Lots of formats, UI-driven. (o look, it’s Dave Reid.) Altho I’ll admit that I still find the Feeds module somewhat baffling. Someday…. Huh: Feeds Tamper. Cleaning up data, breaking apart fields, etc. Feeds Image Grabber, downloads & attaches images in data pulled by Feeds. Feeds Readability Parser, tries to work out the title of the page and the content, stripping ads & navigation, etc. Lots more parsers!

2) Migrate! “there are a lot of times when you need a sledgehammer” – slide with link to denver presentation “migrate workflow” – has lots of options. (oh, is that the one I used to use to grab spreadsheets of stuff? (branches, mortgage staff, business members, etc)) Migrate Extras, covers a lot of major modules.

deciding: non-sql data, you’ll probably prefer Feeds. more complex the data, more likely to want Migrate. [no, wait, I was using Node Import, which I loved to pieces, and for which there will not be a D7 version. it was so SIMPLE.]

[also: HUNGRY. Should have had breakfast.]

If you’re thinking about custom code, just extend Migrate instead.

Exposing data to Views.

(which makes me think Forena is just an insane idea altogether.)

Views API is well documented.

hook_views_api — array with the version.

some weird stuff if you’re trying to read D6 data on a D7 site.

hook_views_data

“you’re not going to have a good time”

set up the database info in settings.php

defining the node table programmatically, so it doesn’t flip out about it not being a nodes table? ok, I think I hit the point where I don’t actually know enough. but damn this is just so much more DRUPAL. the only question is how to get this to a UI that admin computing doesn’t freak out about. all that code is about getting around namespace collisions when having one drupal get data from another drupal.

create in the UI or in code? I still don’t really understand what he’s actually doing.

It would be interesting to write a Banner Views module. He does talk about if you have non-Drupal external data, then you’ll need to write external code…which I guess is where Forena comes in.

discussion about getting users from external sources, which is something I don’t need to worry about, since we have that CAS module. also: not my problem.

all the code is at github.com/abelb/drupal_styletiles/ (works with education clients!)

funnymonkey, does distros for education.

interior designer mood boards…all the way to pinterest.

styletil.es

need to ask Susan if she wants me or Justin to do this for OARS.

adjectives technique didn’t work with stakeholders on one of her projects.

Foundation – a frame work – SASS.

Again: SASS or LESS?

grids, with modular scale typography. also responsive layout stuff. she likes it for prototyping. there’s a theme that uses foundation. Twitter Bootstrap : Less :: Zurb Foundation : SASS?

style guide module. ORLY.

First email on Monday: Amy G, Erik, Justin, Dave: SASS or Less? Pros and cons? Any dependencies? WP templates or Drupal themes?

She likes the D7 Zen theme.

Oh, that grid class system is actually easy to read and understand, ie “five columns offset-by-two” — I’m impressed.

[What frameworks, if any, use em-based grids?]

she’s using sublime text 2. (how do these tools work for coda 2?) oh, the color declarations in the scss show with the actual color in the background. nice touch. damn, I need to get better w/keyboard shortcuts in coda & oxygen.

I wonder if it would be possible to describe our existing site as a style tile setup. (Clunky as it is.) And then in theory we could gradually change them. Same deal with my.e.e.

She’s just awesome…kinda fun to watch her work through ideas & opinions as she talks.

I would really like to find some decent developer tools for this tablet. Never did find a code editor that I really really liked.

typecast app for doing typography in the browser. send to Justin ASAP.

“I tried to thank the guy on Twitter, but he doesn’t tweet at all.”

sassy buttons – jaredhardy.com/sassy-buttons/ — cute!

csshat.com for turning photoshop layer styles to css3. daaaamn. ($30)

question about mixins degrading gracefully? pretty standard? sounds like it does all the combos to get as close as possible.

Sass vs. LESS

I have plots & daydreams….

This room is about packed. Huh.

Sort of a vendor presentation from ImageX Media, their major emphasis is higher ed.

OpenEDU – not a ready-to-go product. (OpenScholar? OpenAcademy?) its features can be added on to other distributions, or can be used as a framework. (Portland State is their flagship client, met one of their devs this morning.) Multi-site: can do in a variety of ways, will come back to that. It can be used ala carte or as a set.

framework/features that “complement marketing initiatives” — “enroll, engage, retain” — ah, so they get that!

(fwiw, looks like OpenAcademy is focused on a department website model, which totally doesn’t work for us.)

“surfing the tension between control and freedom”

maintaining core brand while allowing unique identity of individual units.

multisite with full template customization, or a flexible site-wide theme with consistent elements, configurable options. options they can pick while working on a page.

it sort of looks like the panel layout picker. I like that A LOT.

content sharing options. (we could move all the non-academic users from WP into Drupal) — created a stand-alone syndication server for that sharing. innnnteresting. gets at the “picker” idea that I’ve been worrying over with embedding offering descriptions, news, events, profiles.

single sign-on – integrates with CAS. nice. is that related to the one that Dave works on? can then apply additional roles/permissions and have that spread out among other sites, and also granularity site-to-site.

oh, this is a very talky presentation. getting restless. time for knitting?

is this only available through them, with their services? (as the guy next to me has in his notes: “giant sales pitch…but not a bad one”)

modules they’ve released or are releasing: single sign-on, openedu helper, programs & courses, link block

they’re working on getting a shareable enhanced administration toolset. which is good, because that is what I see as the biggest stumbling block.

alfresco document management — plays nicely with drupal?

probably should not be trying to learn a new technique (knitting) while in a presentation. I just got restless. :\

their syndication setup is based on Services module. innnnteresting. loads images from the syndication server/site, not locally to the client (dept, whatever) site. clever clever clever.

I bet it would be crazy spendy to have them come get us switched over to Drupal. wonder what all our options are.

looking at the afternoon’s sessions. might see what the BoFs are for the first two after lunch; I know what I want for the last one.

Yep, back to this again. Conference blogging! Pacific Northwest Drupal Summit, this time, which long-time readers will know that I have been to this event several times…technically every time. It’s back in Seattle again, which is nice because it’s technically commute-able from my house, although a loooong commute. Last night I actually came up early & visited with Kat, who I haven’t seen in ages. (So long that both of our old kitties have died since the last time we saw each other.)

But now I’m here, and already I’ve seen a bunch of people I know, which is lovely.

First up, a presentation on responsive web design in Drupal, by a guy on the Omega theme team.

To be covered, pitfalls dealing with: images, menus, layouts (will this work?), CSS (not too much detail, but some high-level stuff), performance.

(Wifi is being weird here….)

max-width 100% on images, keeps everything from going outside of its containing box, even if width is set bigger than screen.

Adaptive Image Module? doesn’t use it. Sets a cookie with browser width, to get the right size image. which does weird things when rotating screen, apparently.

high dpi screens of various sorts.1px = 4 retina pixels. (wtf?) large but optimized is still large. retina.js – lazy load of high resolution images, only if high res screen. prefers using css3 to draw stuff instead of images: the obvious stuff, gradients, transparencies, borders, etc. (buttons!) ok, he’s sorta talking about the REALLY obvious stuff.

some weird snobby moments about browsers.

responsive as a moment for rethinking menus and how to get people to the info they need.

oh, superfish. I’ve used superfish about a zillion times. and now superfish can tell if you’re touch or hover. I think I’m in love.

he does two menus: one for desktop, one for mobile. (altho i was really frustrated with the pnwds summit site’s mobile menu, because I couldn’t find schedule link IN THE MENU. hrm.) but the js for how it was done in this case will be in the notes.

jquery “slidetoggle”?

display suite module. includes block as a field? ood for more complex sites. define gridsets. advanced layout stuff.

breakpoint selection… I still think that we might get something interesting with ems, better than all this pixels stuff. I think he’s on the wrong track with the px stuff. but yes, use floats creatively. (again, that’s some of the wildly obvious stuff.)

damn I just want to completely redesign my.e.e. Or at least borrow Justin’s brain for a week to get started.

“.tpls”? template files.

work with, not against, designer — then again, happily, our designer is all about the mobile. 🙂

Sass. “broke all my bad habits” (would that help with trying to keep track of css in cascade? and what about Less? which one did Amy G want to get into?)

grid classes in display suite? something to look into.

mediaquery.js – change layout completely, moving the actual html around. (huh.)

sleepy.

performance.

aaaaand the browser on my tablet is being crashy. #ironyalert

know your audience. [PLEASE STOP SAYING UTILIZE.]

background images/image sprites. someone else suggests using svg, not image sprites. and then the issue of printing, and what happens when all the images disappear? :\

display suite vs delta module in omega? (well, for one thing, delta is going away) whoooosh, that went right over my head.

omega 4 is a complete rewrite. well. focused on performance. all sass, all the time. have to learn that if you want to use omega.

[hungry. sleepy. should’ve gotten coffee & pastry or something.]

I wonder if we could leverage sass into some of the weird forena stuff. also, Dave said something about trying to integrate Views & Forena. which might allow for some interesting directions.

[twitter bootstrap is Less? if Erik’s expertise is with bootstrap, then we might be leaning Less. is there another theme system that’s more Less-friendly?]