August 2007 - Development - lists.drupal.org

hackathon on the 23th?
by Karoly Negyesi 18 Sep '07

18 Sep '07

Hi, It seems we could hire http://www.rentbydays.com/apart_detalle.php?lang=1&id=3 for a day for 300EUR. The NowPublic team moves in 17th, out 23th and I thought that we could maybe hack around on the 23 (+ into the night to 24th)? The place is huge... though not chairs and tables but I remember hacking at Eaton/Robert's room in Sunnyvale for example, dunno how many of us were there 7-8 maybe. Beds, floor... I would not be surprised if this place could hold 40 people -- there is a nice patio, too. So, who is interested, costs would be split up evenly? There are two things that can make this not happen: - I am still waiting to get Internet connection confirmed - If there are too few people (less than ten, I guess) Regards, NK

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Re: [development] Data import and synchronization to nodes
by Earnie Boyd 14 Sep '07

14 Sep '07

Quoting Larry Garfield <larry(a)garfieldtech.com>: > > So, I toss the brain-teaser out there: Is there a good way to have my nodes > and import them too, or are these cases where nodes are simply the wrong tool > and the direct-import-and-cache mechanisms described above are the optimal > solutions? > Not that I've found and I've spent several hours recently researching this. Chris Mellor and I have begun collaborating on this issue here http://portallink.linkmatics.com/gdf and have development staging here http://datafeed.progw.org. Help is welcome, we want to be able to feed all types of external data. Goals are being established and documented on the http://portallink.linkmatics.com/gdf pages. *Note* we are aware of all the existing modules and API and our plans are to use the existing things as well as create what is missing. I've found http://drupal.org/project/feedparser which will accept RSS, RDF or ATOM feeds and create nodes or aggregated lists. I am successfully using that module with a change documented in issue http://drupal.org/node/169865 at http://give-me-an-offer.com. Earnie

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Module to make text collapsible?
by Richard Morse 12 Sep '07

12 Sep '07

Hi! I'm wondering if anyone knows of a module that lets users create collapsible blocks on the page, such as can be done with forms? As an example, I'd like to be able to type something like: [block title=Members collapsible collapsed] A. User T. Person A. Member [/collapsible] and have it display a collapsed fieldgroup with a legend of "Members". Does anyone know of anything out there that would provide something like this? Thanks, Ricky The information transmitted in this electronic communication is intended only for the person or entity to whom it is addressed and may contain confidential and/or privileged material. Any review, retransmission, dissemination or other use of or taking of any action in reliance upon this information by persons or entities other than the intended recipient is prohibited. If you received this information in error, please contact the Compliance HelpLine at 800-856-1983 and properly dispose of this information.

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Modules that integrate non-GPL PHP apps violate the GPL.
by Jeff Eaton 12 Sep '07

12 Sep '07

For quite some time, it has been commonly understood in the Drupal community that non-GPL software (like a third-party PHP message board system) can be integrated into Drupal legally by using an intermediary 'bridge' module. After some in-depth emails with the Free Software foundation's license gurus, it's become clear that this is NOT the case. Before going any further, I want to make clear that I'm not expressing approval or disapproval of this: I'm just relaying the conclusions that were reached after several days of discussion and questioning with the FSF. Why do these modules violate the GPL? 1) Under the FSF's accepted interpretation of the GPL, if a module is integrating Drupal and another PHP script, by calling one's APIs when triggered by the other for example, its purpose is to make a single unit of software out of those parts. 2) If multiple programs are operating together and functioning as one unit, all the pieces must be GPL'd. There are a lot of angles to approach the question from, but that's what it boils down to. From a developer's perspective, if debug_backtrace() can ever include functions from both Drupal and an external program, you've turned them into a single program. There are some potential solutions, though none of them are ideal. 1) Add a notice to Drupal's license that clarifies that writing such modules IS explicitly allowed. This is problematic, however, because that would make Drupal non-GPL'd itself, a GPL variant, and we would require explicit relicensing permission by the authors of any GPL code we wish to include. 2) Remove modules that integrate with third-party non-GPL code from the CVS repository, even if they do not *include* the aforementioned non-GPL code. 3) Continue on as we are, and don't try to police these issues as there are NOT likely to be any real complaints. (No one that I know of is trying to SELL modules that integrate with non-GPL resources, for example.) This is an important question for us, and other GPL'd projects, to work through. Many GPL CMS's rely on integration components for critical functionality (message boards and mass mailing are two common examples). I can provide some detailed snippets from the correspondence to those who want them, but I'm not sure it would be useful for me to spend any more time corresponding. I exhausted my list of questions, and I'm just summarizing what I found out. --Jeff

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drupalcon: what does a brainstorming session involve?
by Martin Frost 07 Sep '07

07 Sep '07

(not sure whether this is on-topic?) Hi All I'm interested in holding a brainstorming session on booking systems, but I'm not sure on what they involve! (other than a group of developers trying to come up with ideas!) I have a need to come up with a room booking system (and this was a part of my cvs application) for work, but I also want to abstract it so that it becomes (almost?) a booking system api. If I can successfully map out this idea, I envisage a booking system api that would then have 'bolt-on' or contributed modules that would extend it to cover meeting rooms, seats on an airline, hotel rooms, etc. And where the need arises for ecommerce, this would also be an 'added feature' not a requirement. Currently we (http://extra.shu.ac.uk/cse) use a thing called iCalScheduler (http://sourceforge.net/projects/icalscheduler) - but I hacked it to work within phpBB as I originally used phpBB as a framework. But I'm now using drupal (and have been since v4.6) and obviously want to get it integrated without the hassle of phpBB. (this is the only thing that's holding me back from totally drupalising the site) I know it's viable, I just think I need some other like-minded developers to flesh it out with; and I also think drupal would benefit!! Can anyone help, and would you be interesting in helping me get my head around this?! Cheers (sorry for rambling, see *note to self*!) -- _fronbow_ devel(a)fronbow.co.uk aka Martin in the Real World(tm) note to self: never drink on an empty stomach! Or have _that_ much at dinnertime when you're (supposed to be) working ;)

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Drupal 6 beta 1 planned for next Monday
by Gábor Hojtsy 04 Sep '07

04 Sep '07

Hello World! After some short discussion with Dries, I'd like to let you know, that I plan to release a beta 1 on next Monday (that is 3rd, September), or very close to that. This should help us either get a second beta or an RC by the time for DrupalCon, but this definitely depends on *you*. In the past weeks, the RTBC queue was 4-8 patches long, and there were important patches committed, like the update.php fixups. If you are interested in having a Drupal 6 release sooner then later, then please help concentrate on fixing bugs, review existing patches, move the ones which are ready to the RTBC state. If you think that there are definitely important issues, which might not be possible to fix after the beta is released (ie. because they involve at least small bits of database or API modifications), then please let me know the issue links. If you'd like to drum up interest/reviewers for the issues, then post them here in public, otherwise send them my way. If anyone sees show stoppers, don't hesitate to tell. It would also be helpful, if someone would be able to collect a list of new features and cool modifications for a beta release post on the frontpage. The changelog is a good start/reference. We should make more people excited about this beta (because it is awesome :), so we get more feedback, and a more stable release at the end. No patching knowledge required, to write this up :) Thanks to everyone involved with stabilizing this release, your work is highly appreciated! Gabor

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Drupal memory consumption (was: coding standard question)
by Khalid Baheyeldin 01 Sep '07

01 Sep '07

On 8/28/07, Jeff Eaton <jeff(a)viapositiva.net> wrote: > > Also, I would like the bikeshed to be blue. Pink! How about we look at memory usage by Drupal bootstrap and modules? Here is a start http://2bits.com/articles/measuring-memory-consumption-by-drupal-bootstrap-… Patch your install and start playing ...

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JS coding standards?
by Peter Wolanin 31 Aug '07

31 Aug '07

webernet and Joon Park (dvessel) just figured out why JS breaks when the aggregator is enabled in 6.x: http://drupal.org/node/172149 I just started a handbook page relating to standards for JS code, since there doesn't seem to be one: http://drupal.org/node/172169 Please add to that page or point me to any existing page. -Peter

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Help fix Actions API - test the patch!
by Jeff Eaton 31 Aug '07

31 Aug '07

The Actions API is now officially part of Drupal 6, and it's a tremendously powerful addition that (I think) will bear lots of fruit over the D6 life cycle. Things like custom workflow management solutions, streamlined application-specific user and content administration panels, and so on are all easy to build on top of the Actions API. However, the current implementation has a couple of subtle issues that cripple it for broad use. Our pattern for core constructs (menus and paths in particular) is to provide a foo.inc file that exposes a core API, and an optional foo.module that provides additional advanced customization options. Actions in D6 follows this pattern, but there appear to be a number of unintentional dependencies between the .inc file and the .module file. Specifically, action-related tables are never created, and action data is never initialized, until actions.module is installed. This means that actions.module -- which is only ONE possible application of the Actions API, and one that is unnecessary for many sites -- becomes an absolute requirement. Webchick and I have built a patch that fixes this, moving the truly core actions API functions into the .inc file, moving one setup screen into system.module, and keeping the advanced hook-to-action mapping UI in the optional actions.module. The patch also fixes a number of schema related issues and code style problems that chx has pointed out in the past. I'd encourage everyone who's interested in a powerful and flexible Actions infrastructure to check out http://drupal.org/node/155828 ;-) Thanks!

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node caching
by Robert Douglass 31 Aug '07

31 Aug '07

Sorry for jumping into this late in the game, but I was only aware of node caching after it went in. Just for my edification, please explain how, in Drupal 6, how one handles these three situations: 1. dynamic data 2. role based differences between loaded nodes 3. node_access based differences between nodes. Please understand, I'm a great fan of caching and would love to see node caching; I just need to understand how module programmers are supposed to handle these cases, since in D5 they could do all of this in nodeapi without cause for concern. Thanks Robert

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