March 2007 - Development - lists.drupal.org

A request for your input.
by lmth＠deakin.edu.au 20 Mar '07

20 Mar '07

Hello My name is Lara Thynne and I am a PhD candidate at Deakin University Australia. I am currently researching the boundary between work and leisure activities directly related to the open source community and open source program development. As part of this I am running a survey at the following address. https://dcarf.deakin.edu.au/surveys/oss/ The survey is completely confidential and looks at your views and motivations to use Open Source software and to participate in the community. It will only take a five to ten minutes to complete and your contact details will not be recorded. You can withdraw your participation at any stage. I sincerely apologize for the spammish nature of this e-mail - I don't mean to abuse this list. I am trying to collect responses from as many open source developers and users as possible and a mailing list like can be the only way to reach many developers. Thanks again Lara P.S The program that I am using is open source, of course (www.phpsurveyor.org)

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SoC Proposal - Drag Drop and Sort API
by Sean Adams-Hiett 20 Mar '07

20 Mar '07

*Synopsis* Drupal stresses ease of use. To that end, I will be submitting an API to offer dragging, dropping, and sorting functionality to modules. This will greatly enhance not only the ease of making changes to the user interface, but also the development of associated drop and drag projects. To highlight the abilities of the API, I will also be creating a module to drag and drop blocks. *Project details* One of my main considerations in designing the Drag Drop and Sort API is flexibility. Namely, I would like the API to be usable by all content elements within drupal. The API will achieve this flexibility by performing several operations: 1. Identifying appropriate positioning information to be altered by the API (i.e. weight and region). 2. Querying the database for the relevant positioning information for each element that will be affected by the change. 3. Attaching javascript class information to position variables that will make them draggable, droppable, and sortable. 4. Providing the framework for a user interface to use this functionality. 5. After each sort, the API will recalculate weights of all relevant elements and reassign position information that has changed. 6. Finally, using an AJAX submit process, it will update the position information in the database without reloading the page. In order to test the API, I will also build a Blocks DnD module that will incorporate the drag, drop, and sort functionality. This module will allow users with the right permissions to sort blocks within each region, as well as moving blocks from region to region. *How does this benefit Drupal?* - By enhancing ease of use, we open the door to a wider range of would-be users and developers. - By de-emphasizing the need for complex programming, we allow users and developers to focus on style and content. - Easily integrated Web 2.0 features makes for an easier sell to prospective clients or a boss. - Since drag and drop features mimic such popular operating systems as Windows and OS X, it makes the user interface more familiar and intuitive to users that are already familiar with functionality. - And let's be honest: Drag and drop is really cool! *Criteria for Success* - Creation of the above specified modules. - Successful functionality on all the most widely used browsers, including Internet Explorer 6 and 7, Mozilla Firefox and other similar browsers, Opera 8 and up, as well as Safari. - Graceful degradation in browsers that don't support these features. *Roadmap* 1. *Now to the end of April* - Submit my plans to the Drupal community to generate feedback and suggestions on how I might enhance this project and make it truly universal in scope. Completely familiarize myself with the Drupal structure to ensure that my code is in line with Drupal coding standards, and to enhance continuity with the core. Discuss my proposal with developers who engaged in similar or complimentary work. Examples include the Panels Module <http://www.drupal.org/project/panels>, Mysite Module <http://www.drupal.org/project/mysite>, and any other projects that might be affected or enhanced by this project. 2. *Beginning of May to the end of June* - Complete initial development of Drag Drop and Sort API and Blocks DnD module. Release for testing and improvement. 3. *Beginning of July to the end of August* - Implement bug fixes and any improvements. *Who am I?* Ever since I was young, I have been fascinated with web design. Having no skill in building things with my hands, I loved the idea of being able to manipulate a virtual space to suit my fancy or needs. Ever since then, I have tried to hone my skills and reach for ever greater control over the virtual environment. My love affair with Drupal began more than a year ago. After building many websites with straight html and a little javascript here and there, I discovered the concept of a CMS. I began searching for the best CMS to build my online t-shirt store with. I quickly learned that although a CMS can greatly enhance productivity, they can also be very difficult to learn. Then I discovered Drupal. Within a couple of days, I was able to build an initial test store that I was quite happy with. Since then I have honed my skills and endeavored to learn as much about Drupal as I could. I have provided feedback for several projects and have been aching for some time to get my hands dirty with actually developing a module for Drupal. I now run several websites off the same code base (a feature I am quite enamored with). I am ready to take the next step and ride the web 2.0 tidal wave that is sweeping the internet. I am interested in making Drupal easier to use so that more people will have the opportunity that I have had to work with such amazing software. I think that my success in creating the above mentioned enhancements to Drupal will help me accomplish that goal. I would appreciate any feedback that you might have for me. -- Sean

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Re: [development] SoC Proposal - Drag Drop and Sort API
by Ken Rickard 19 Mar '07

19 Mar '07

Bringing two threads together. The Soc proposal is at http://groups.drupal.org/node/3225. I've been talking to Sean via email about this SoC project. Why? To mis-quote Boris: > Feedback: we have too many different [functionality] modules and all you > module authors should get together and co-maintain one or two solid > modules rather than writing new ones! :P I'm trying to implement Drag-and-Drop, so is Merlinofchaos and I assume several others. We need a single standard for two reasons: a) Common solution to common developer needs. b) Predictable UI behavior for end users. (See http://groups.drupal.org/node/2512) This project idea is also a good place to solve the issues raised by http://groups.drupal.org/node/2971 and http://drupal.org/node/124978 with regard to the Interface library for jQuery. The proposal may need some work, so please take a look. - Ken Rickard agentrickard

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Node Weighting
by Earnie Boyd 19 Mar '07

19 Mar '07

Currently there is no method other than modifying the publishing date to order a node. This becomes important mainly with the Top Sticky flag where the node is meant to provide first experience data. I would like to consider adding to the Publishing Options a Node Weight to add to the sorting criteria for the node display. I am thinking this node weight is only pertinent to the nodes with Sticky flag set but may be easier to implement for all settings. Do others see Node Weighting as beneficial? Earnie P.S.: This work would be for some future release beyond 6.x P.P.S.: I am not asking anyone else to do the work

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Drupal Staging to Production (was Re: Summer of Code 2007 Idea - Drupal software appliance)
by Boris Mann 19 Mar '07

19 Mar '07

On 3/19/07, KevinImNotSpacey <kevin.amerson(a)gmail.com> wrote: > > > A separate but somewhat related question/task/complicated activity is > moving changes between environments, such as moving a discrete change from > dev -> integration -> test -> production. There is a module called > importexportapi that does some of this, but no real complete solution. > Perhaps your project could include a methodology + utility to allow us to > hot deploy drupal changes to a prod environment. There are a number of people interested in solving this. Barry Jaspan recently blogged about this: http://jaspan.com/schema-project-database-abstraction-reflection-and-migrat… Not sure what the best place is to collaborate around this. We need different "recipes" around this, and likely some code as well. -- Boris Mann Vancouver 778-896-2747 San Francisco 415-367-3595 Skype borismann http://www.bryght.com

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Metadata question
by Gabriel Rossetti 19 Mar '07

19 Mar '07

Hello, I am trying to figure out how metadata is used in Drupal and I'm a bit lost. I am going to add new metadata to objects (nodes?) for a project I'm working on, and I came across flexinodes, node, taxonomy, relationships, and I need someone to clarify things up some for me. Are all things stored as the same object? Is an attachment (pdf, doc, jpeg, etc) stored as the same thing? Does it have metadata? Does regular content (non-attachment) also have metadata? Is it also stored like attachment metadata (if it has some)? Thank you, Gabriel

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Drupal Services Providers Listing Request
by jhef vicedo 19 Mar '07

19 Mar '07

I would like to request that Dig It All Solutions Inc. be added to the list of Drupal Services Providers. URL: http://digitalsolutions.ph/ We provide IT tools and consultation to help you capture, share and *bring knowledge* to those who need it. We develop websites and intranets for community collaboration and knowledge management, based on the Drupal platform. We also provide tech support and training on open source IT solutions, including Drupal, PHP and MySQL. We also have various outsourcing projects from the United States and the Asian region. We are a certified MySQL Network Partner. Our base of operations is in the Philippines. Contribution to Drupal: search engine integration (Swish-E module), internationalization (Filipino translations), documentation (taxonomy/categories), SoC mentoring (usability and social network analysis), various other contributions. Drupal developer usernames: jhefmv24, sofiya, benc (or cryptonomikon) Many thanks :)

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OG User Roles
by Ron Parker 19 Mar '07

19 Mar '07

Hello. I'm new to this list, so please bear with me. I've been working on a module for the past 9 months and recently submitted a request to the CVS administrator for a project account. The administrator told me I needed to run this project past the developers mailing list. I have posted details on the proposed project here: http://drupal.org/node/87679 Essentially, I updated the existing og_roles module to be able to define roles by individual groups. So, instead of assigning a role to a user account and that user then having that role everywhere in the site, my module assigns a role to a user in a group, and the user only has the access granted by that role in the group that role is assigned to him. Therefore, a user can now have different roles in different groups. The problem is that in order to make this work, I needed to modify the user_access function of the user.module to recognize roles based upon the group context. Specifically, the changes I make are: 1. Creating the og_users_roles table which is the same as the users_roles table except that adds the GroupID. 2. Modifying the user_access function so that it additionally reads the og_users_roles table, recognizes the existing group context (if any), and adds whatever roles are appropriate. The change to the user.module is small: simply replacing $user->roles with my function that returns the results of $user->roles + whatever roles are allowed based upon the group (og user roles). I haven't changed the core functionality of the function, only added the og user roles addtional functionality. In other words, if there are no og user roles, then the function still returns only $user->roles. If there are og user roles, then the function returns those roles + $user->roles. Needless to say, the CVS administrator has a big problem with #2. He asked that I run this concept by the developers mailing list in order to see if anyone might have a workaround solution that doesn't involve "hacking" the core. I don't see how you do it without user_access recognizing the group context, but then again, everything I've learned about Drupal has been through trial and error, so there is certainly a ton of things I don't know. Any suggestions? Thanks. -- Ron Parker Software Creations http://www.scbbs.com Self-Administration Web Site http://saw.scbbs.com SDSS Subscription Mgmt Service http://sdss.scbbs.com Central Ave Dance Ensemble http://www.centralavedance.com R & B Salsa http://www.randbsalsa.com

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Simple Images, SOC proposal
by Keizo Gates 18 Mar '07

18 Mar '07

Hi Drupalers (is that proper?) I've written up my soc proposal on posted it to the soc group. Below is my brief summary and the link. Would appreciate any feedback or suggestions. Also, if there's any interested mentors out there... SUMMARY The goal for the Simple Images project is to provide a module or collection of modules that allows anyone or their grandma to insert images into a Drupal node. There already numerous image solutions available, but none that match the simplicity of commercial services such as Blogger or the notes interface in Facebook. Simple Images will be that solution. full proposal: http://groups.drupal.org/node/3227 --- For any students or anyone else interested here were my other ideas: http://kzo.net/log/summer-of-code-ideas-for-drupal I've also made some notes on the files as nodes vs not as nodes debate: http://kzo.net/log/handling-images-documents-and-files-in-drupal Sorry the above links are in wordpress, I use Drupal for two other sites. :) Keizo Gates

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Re: [development] Release critical bugs for March 18, 2007
by michelle＠steelveils.com 18 Mar '07

18 Mar '07

The user michelle(a)steelveils.com does not accept mail from your address. The headers of the message sent from your address are show below: >From development-bounces(a)drupal.org Sun Mar 18 11:02:28 2007 Received: from steelvei by box162.bluehost.com with local-bsmtp (Exim 4.63) (envelope-from <development-bounces(a)drupal.org>) id 1HSym4-0007xz-39 for michelle(a)steelveils.com; Sun, 18 Mar 2007 11:02:28 -0600 X-Spam-Checker-Version: SpamAssassin 3.1.7 (2006-10-05) on box162.bluehost.com X-Spam-Level: X-Spam-Status: No, score=-1.7 required=5.0 tests=AWL,BAYES_00,NO_REAL_NAME autolearn=no version=3.1.7 Received: from drupal3.drupal.org ([140.211.166.54]) by box162.bluehost.com with esmtp (Exim 4.63) (envelope-from <development-bounces(a)drupal.org>) id 1HSym3-0007xo-KI for michelle(a)steelveils.com; Sun, 18 Mar 2007 11:02:27 -0600 Received: from localhost (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by drupal3.drupal.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 07AA657D7D; Sun, 18 Mar 2007 17:02:20 +0000 (UTC) X-Virus-Scanned: amavisd-new at drupal.org Received: from drupal3.drupal.org ([127.0.0.1]) by localhost (drupal3.drupal.org [127.0.0.1]) (amavisd-new, port 10024) with ESMTP id sjvNkFRA4S0S; Sun, 18 Mar 2007 17:02:19 +0000 (UTC) Received: from drupal3.drupal.org (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by drupal3.drupal.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 8F8C557D61; Sun, 18 Mar 2007 17:02:04 +0000 (UTC) X-Original-To: drupal-devel(a)drupal.org Delivered-To: development(a)drupal3.drupal.org Received: from localhost (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by drupal3.drupal.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 5630357D61 for <drupal-devel(a)drupal.org>; Sun, 18 Mar 2007 17:02:01 +0000 (UTC) X-Virus-Scanned: amavisd-new at drupal.org Received: from drupal3.drupal.org ([127.0.0.1]) by localhost (drupal3.drupal.org [127.0.0.1]) (amavisd-new, port 10024) with ESMTP id S+UQVEHFenGA for <drupal-devel(a)drupal.org>; Sun, 18 Mar 2007 17:01:52 +0000 (UTC) Received: from rocky.osuosl.org (rocky.osuosl.org [140.211.166.230]) by drupal3.drupal.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 2402A13813A for <drupal-devel(a)drupal.org>; Sun, 18 Mar 2007 17:01:51 +0000 (UTC) Received: from localhost (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by rocky.osuosl.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 7F64F30827A for <drupal-devel(a)drupal.org>; Sun, 18 Mar 2007 17:01:50 +0000 (UTC) X-Virus-Scanned: amavisd-new at osuosl.org Received: from rocky.osuosl.org ([127.0.0.1]) by localhost (rocky.osuosl.org [127.0.0.1]) (amavisd-new, port 10024) with ESMTP id cSpdYyQypO3e for <drupal-devel(a)drupal.org>; Sun, 18 Mar 2007 17:01:50 +0000 (UTC) Received: from drupal1.drupal.org (drupal1.drupal.org [140.211.166.61]) by rocky.osuosl.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 104483081F5 for <drupal-devel(a)drupal.org>; Sun, 18 Mar 2007 17:01:50 +0000 (UTC) Received: by drupal1.drupal.org (Postfix, from userid 81) id DE8AE57D42; Sun, 18 Mar 2007 17:01:49 +0000 (UTC) To: drupal-devel(a)drupal.org MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8; format=flowed X-Mailer: Drupal Project Issues module (http://drupal.org/project/project_issue) Date: Sun, 18 Mar 2007 17:01:35 +0000 From: drupal-devel(a)drupal.org Message-Id: <20070318170149.DE8AE57D42(a)drupal1.drupal.org> Subject: [development] Release critical bugs for March 18, 2007 X-BeenThere: development(a)drupal.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.9 Precedence: list Reply-To: development(a)drupal.org List-Id: A list for Drupal developers <development.drupal.org> List-Unsubscribe: <http://lists.drupal.org/listinfo/development>, <mailto:development-request@drupal.org?subject=unsubscribe> List-Archive: <http://lists.drupal.org/pipermail/development> List-Post: <mailto:development@drupal.org> List-Help: <mailto:development-request@drupal.org?subject=help> List-Subscribe: <http://lists.drupal.org/listinfo/development>, <mailto:development-request@drupal.org?subject=subscribe> Errors-To: development-bounces(a)drupal.org Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable

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