December 2005 - Development - lists.drupal.org

'Database compatibility' forum
by piotr＠mallorn.ii.uj.edu.pl 28 Dec '05

28 Dec '05

Hi, at http://drupal.org/node/42462 I've requested creation of a 'Database compatibility' forum. I don't think anyone will have anything against, so the only thing left is to choose the name of the forum and then create it. Any suggestions for the name? -- Piotrek irc: #debian.pl Mors Drosophilis melanogastribus!

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Re: [development] let's cleanup /misc
by Theodore Serbinski 28 Dec '05

28 Dec '05

Right right good point :-) Ok so it is agreed this isn't 4.7 worthy but next release worthy. It seems Ber has taken a lead on this and I'd like to help out as well. I'd like to make this one of the first patches to go into the 4.8 branch so we can all on be on the same foot from the beginning as we develop in the branch and maybe find things should be shifted around slightly. I'll keep bugging everyone about this until we can get a consensus and if you don't hear from me bug me so I make sure this gets done. ted > On 12/28/05, Khalid B <kb(a)2bits.com> wrote: > > You should speak up, and not "keep your mouth shut". A dumb question > > is the one never asked, as they say. > > > > I agree it should NOT be in 4.7. It is too late for major changes for > > a release that already has 2 betas out. > > > > For 4.8, I think this should be considered. > > > > Whatever scheme we chose should address > > > > a) Clutter in the DocumentRoot > > > > b) Security: easier to set file and directory permissions en masse. > > > > c) Isolation (this is the big one for me) the separation of : > > > > 1. Drupal Core files. > > 2. Contributed modules > > 3. Site data files (attachments, images, ...etc.).

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Re: [infrastructure] Drupal.org should have better URL aliases
by Dries Buytaert 28 Dec '05

28 Dec '05

> To Adrian's point, node IDs aren't useful to your casual web > visitor. Therefore Drupal distros should default to include and > have enabled pathauto and perhaps follow the WordPress model (the > only model with which I'm familiar; if another system is better, > I'd be interested in its structure as well). I think WP doesn't use an intermediate table that contains (source URL, destination URL)-tuples. Instead, it directly translates the URL to a database query that looks up the post. Drupal: + Any URL can be aliased, not just those related to posts. + Any URL can have multiple aliases: 'team', 'about' and 'about-us' can point to the same page or content. (A bad idea as Google will penalize you for this.) - Performance penalty when URL aliases are enabled; up to 100+ queries/page. These queries are very fast though. + Very fast when URL aliases are disabled. WordPress: - Only some URLs can be aliased. - Limited to one alias per post. + Small performance penalty. - Not as fast as Drupal when URL aliases are disabled. -- Dries Buytaert :: http://www.buytaert.net/

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strange inconsistency: 'custom_url_rewrite'
by Bèr Kessels 27 Dec '05

27 Dec '05

Hi there, while writing a tiny module to make these fancy 'web2.0' *cough* urls in the form of tag1+tag2+tag3 I ran across a rather strange issue. custom_url_rewrite works as expected, but is rather OO unfriendly. I mean, if I define that, Drupal wil FAil to even load if someone adds another module with this, or if a person has this function define in her settings.php. Why is this not hook_url_rewrite? Am I missing something? Is it a performance thing? Bèr NB: I am aware of pathauto. But there is no bleeping way that I am going to alias my 1500 (and still growing) tags plus all its combinations in there! That would mean ~5e4114 aliases. thats a five with 4114 zeros! I doubt MySQL can handle that at all. -- | Bèr Kessels | webschuur.com | website development | | Jabber & Google Talk: ber(a)jabber.webschuur.com | http://bler.webschuur.com | http://www.webschuur.com |

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Module that does a read receipt type thing
by Simon Lindsay 27 Dec '05

27 Dec '05

Hi All, Just wondering if anyone knows of/has made a module that would force a user to view/read a node and/or attached pdf bulletins before letting them continue. For legal reasons, a client has to do everything possible to get staff to read these bulletins when they come in. Any ideas on a way to do it other than write a nodeapi module? TIA Simon

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PHP Sessions behaving strangely
by Khalid B 26 Dec '05

26 Dec '05

Hello Folks. Hope everyone is enjoying their time off in the holidays. For the rest of us addicts (I would say most of us), here is a question. I am developing a module that relies on storing something in the session. It works fine on my test machine. When I copied the module to the customer's test machine, I found that sessions behave very strangely. Instead of reusing the session id that was assigned on the last access, it is creating a new session every time the same person from the same browser and same IP address accesses the site. The result is the module does not work, since a new session is assigned, and the old one is not reused, and the stored values are not visible. Looking at session.inc, I found that the function sess_read() is the one responsible for this. It is passed a $key parameter, which I assume is assigned by PHP, and hence is not a Drupal assigned value. I checked the session settings parameters in php.ini on the customer's machine, and found them to be normal. What can be the cause for this?

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What should we do with checkboxes?
by Karoly Negyesi 26 Dec '05

26 Dec '05

Hi! There are two kinds of elements where you get an array as the value: multiple selects and checkboxes. Upon submit of a multiselect, you get a list of selected values. With checkboxes, however you get an associative array of something_that_has_the_information => 1 the information is in the *keys*. Note that #options have the same structure for multiselects and checkboxes: something_that_has_the_information => display_this. Currently, core has a problem: #default_value for checkboxes holds a list of something_that_has_the_information and it breaks serious havoc, because #value is either a list of these (when filled from #default_value) or it is an array of something_that_has_the_information => 1 when filled from submit. There is a special case: when you do not check any checkboxes on submit then it'll be copied from #default_value. Therefore the structure of #value changes per submit. This simply does not work, #value always needs to have the same structure. Either we change #default_value structure or we change #value. a) We could make #default_value an array of something_that_has_the_information => 1 pairs. This would make it more complicated to build #default_value and it's looking strange. b) we change #value instead to be a list of selected values, like in multiselect. The code change in form.inc for this is minimal: if ($form['type'] == 'checkboxes') { $edit = array_keys(array_filter($edit)); } I like this one much better. The only problem is that somewhat it differs from what you get from HTML -- but this is the information you actually need. I feel like this is something for 4.8. For 4.7, I suggest a whole another approach: we take #default_value as a list of checked things (that's what we have now) and change it in form.inc to be a). If this feels hackish, there are 16 #type => checkboxes in core and if do either a) or b) then we need to check at least 16 screens but most of these are settings, so we need to check whether they take effect. For example, we need to check whether vocabulary settings result in the correct node form. Happy holidays, Karoly Negyesi

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A bug in 4.7b2 which won't be fixed
by Karoly Negyesi 25 Dec '05

25 Dec '05

Hi! I have already submitted a patch which stops $user->data going oversize, basically it will add an unset($form_values['_account']) to user_edit_submit, so that the huge _account key won't be saved. But for 4.7b2 and HEAD users, who already have $user->data blown up, they need a different thing: $form_values['_account'] = NULL and this will never get into the core because there is no reason to. So add this statement, and when the patch lands, remove it. Regards NK

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Let _link() return structured link info
by Bèr Kessels 25 Dec '05

25 Dec '05

Sorry, to cross post this to the list, but I think this issue deserves some more attention. http://drupal.org/node/18260 As I say in the issue " Its not only one of the longest standing issues in Drupal [1], it also fixes one of the most FA-edQ wrt themeing. *anyone* who has *anything* to do with tweaking Drupal to its needs needs this patch badly." In other words: you most probably needed it a couple of times too. Just look at the complex regexps in Freindselectric, for example. Just look at the trazillion posts on drupal.org about 'how can i change the read more link', 'is there a way to get rid of the 'printer-freindly version link with the books' etcetcetc. You get it! Give it some love, and make my last days of 2005 a happy few days! Bèr [1] http://drupal.org/node/636 , October 11, 2002 -- [ Bèr Kessels | Drupal services www.webschuur.com ]

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Re: [consulting] Req for (paid) support
by Bèr Kessels 25 Dec '05

25 Dec '05

Can we please take this discussion to development(a)drupal.org. Thanks Op zondag 25 december 2005 02:19, schreef John Sechrest: > Dan Robinson <dan(a)civicactions.com> writes: > > > % have you seen it work badly? > > Yes. > > > % What hasn't worked for you? > > A) The timeframe for messages coming from the site are irratic and so > it is not possible to have a meaningful flow of email conversation with > it. > > B) The content/format of some of the setups make it so that you may get > announcements by email, but you can not reply reasonably. All you can > do is go to the website and use the website. > > C) Some set ups assume that my mail client is a web mail client. Which is > not true. And so they break my client > > D) the format of messages are often restrictive, so when people > use the natural features of the mail clients, they don't translate > directly to what the forum supports. > > E) I have yet to see a seemless interaction where one person used email > and the other used the forum for anything but the most minor of > conversations. > > > F) Using mailhandler assumes that I have rights to change the PHP > installation configuration of my ISP. This is an assumption that is most > often false. And I have not yet seen a mail handler installation which > could be done cleanly on a site where I did not have root. > > (But I have not looked at mailhandler for several revs.... ) > > % > Do you have a recipe that works well? > > % There is one here - <http://civicspacelabs.org/home/dgroups-recipe> look > % down where it talks about mailhandler - they are integrating with sympa > % - but I've done it with mailman and ezmlm - no difference. > > > thank you. I will study it. I have found that organic groups breaks my > node permissions by role code. And since node permissions are of high > priority to me, I have not ever gotten an organic groups solution to work > as I want. > > but I will ignore that and try to understand the steps to see how clean it > can be. > > > > > > > ----- > John Sechrest . Helping people use > . computers and the Internet > . more effectively > . > . Internet: sechrest(a)peak.org > . > . > http://www.peak.org/~sechrest > _______________________________________________ > consulting mailing list > consulting(a)drupal.org > http://lists.drupal.org/mailman/listinfo/consulting -- | Bèr Kessels | webschuur.com | website development | | Jabber & Google Talk: ber(a)jabber.webschuur.com | http://bler.webschuur.com | http://www.webschuur.com |

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