November 2008 - Development - lists.drupal.org

Announcing DRUPAL-7-0-UNSTABLE-3
by Angela Byron 13 Nov '08

13 Nov '08

Hello, devel list! :) Due to travel and other factors, it has been about a month since our last unstable release. There are some really exciting, big patches coming down the pipe, so I wanted to roll this interim release so contributed module developers interested in chasing HEAD have something a bit more current to build from. See http://drupal.org/node/224333#UNSTABLE-3 for the full list of API changes this release. Here are some of the things we've been up to for the last month. Once again, I encourage contributors to use http://groups.drupal.org/patch-spotlight as a place to organize, prioritize, and coordinate on patches they'd like to see in Drupal 7. For developers: =============== - drupal_set_title() now check_plain()s by default, which should help developers prevent XSS. - Performance improvements: the registry now keeps a record of all modules that implement a given hook, and caches registry lookups. - Taxonomy gets some love, with new hook_taxonomy_term_load/insert/update/delete() hooks and various standardization/consistency improvements. - SimpleTest now remembers the tests that were last selected so they can be re-run (WOOHOO) and can catch errors and warnings that come up during test runs, even if they're not part of an actual assertion. - Improvements to drupal_add_js(), which now has some cleaned-up parameters and a full-on weighting system for scripts. More drupal_add_js() improvements are in the pipeline, and expect them to make it over to drupal_add_css() as well. - Ground work has been laid in the database system for supporting of more exotic database drivers. Expect to see SQLite support in UNSTABLE-4! - Also on the database side of things, numerous files and modules have been converted from legacy syntax to the new DBTNG syntax. A great place to help out if you're interested in learning this stuff hands-on in advance of when you are forced to. ;) For users: ========== - New, swanky password checker during installation and on the my account page. - Cron is automatically run once upon installation so that Drupal doesn't immediately clobber you with a nasty error as a way of saying "Welcome." - The content types administration screen shrinks down the "in-your-face-ness" of the machine name of the type. - It is now possible (though not easy ;)) to upgrade from Drupal 6 to Drupal 7! Unfortunately, this currently still requires some manual futzing with settings.php. See http://drupal.org/node/304163 if you'd like to help. Looking forward to your patches/reviews in the issue queue! :) -Angie -- Join us at Do It With Drupal! A large scale, curated education event December 10-12, New Orleans http://www.doitwithdrupal.com

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how to start a drupal like project
by My Own Linux 13 Nov '08

13 Nov '08

I want to write my own open source web application and make it as flexible and usable as drupal. I have no experience with a project this size. How do I go about it ? What do I need to do first and how do I plan the project ? I dont know where to start. I need to know the core technical side of project planning (not the hosting, cvs, etc..) data structures file system layouts theme, modules support, etc..

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Beta release CVS tagging
by Syscrusher 13 Nov '08

13 Nov '08

Hmmmm....I *thought* I had RTFM and was following the instructions, but CVS thinks otherwise. I have, in CVS HEAD, a module that has been committed with current changes. I want to make an official release for Drupal 6.x compatibility, first release of this module for that core API level, and a "beta" level of stability. According to http://drupal.org/node/94155 and http://drupal.org/handbook/cvs/branches-and-tags/contributions I thought I needed to do this: $ cvs tag DRUPAL-6--1-0-BETA However, this returns the following error: cvs tag: Pre-tag check failed ** See http://drupal.org/node/93999 for the format of valid release tags.** ERROR: invalid tag for this directory: Can someone tell me what I'm doing wrong here? It's been a long time since I needed to do an actual release, and I think things may have changed since the last time I did one of these. Thanks. Kind regards, Scott -- Syscrusher <syscrusher(a)4th.com>

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automated patch testing comes to drupal.org
by Chad Phillips -- Apartment Lines 12 Nov '08

12 Nov '08

the automated patch testing framework has been enabled, and is currently working through the backlog of 7.x patches for the Drupal project on drupal.org to avoid any surprises or frustrations that this new workflow brings to the development cycle, i encourage everyone to read http://drupal.org/node/332678 for issues related to the framework itself use the appropriate project issue queues. for issues related to the sending and receiving of patches, display, auto status changes, etc: http://drupal.org/project/issues/project_issue_file_test for issues related to the automated testing itself: http://drupal.org/project/issues/project_issue_file_review

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Reviewing patches and making decisions
by Anselm 10 Nov '08

10 Nov '08

Hello, Having followed this thread for a while, I decided to do my bit, and start reviewing patches. I didn't get very far ; I stopped at the first patch. Not because of the code - I could understand what the original code did, and what the patched code did - but because there are two decisions to be made : 1. In that case - and I guess this is not uncomon - the old behaviour might be a bug, but it might have been by design. I have no way of telling. 2. Changing the old behaviour to the new one could break old modules that implicitely relied on the old behaviour. Again, this is probably not uncomon. How do I weight the importance of the patch vs stability of old modules ? So what do I do next ? I don't have a sufficient overview of that part of Drupal to make such decisions myself. Should I mark it as reviewed, and add as a note what the potential implications are ? Or is there another process to follow in such situations ? Best, Anselm

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Display Search Results as they are Located
by Ron Parker 10 Nov '08

10 Nov '08

I have a custom search. Right now, the search results page is displayed after the search is completed. Is there a way to display the search results as they are located? For example, in the hook_search api http://api.drupal.org/api/function/hook_search/5 , this is how the results are located in a generic custom search: <?php case 'search' : $find = do_search ( $keys , 'node' , 'INNER JOIN {node} n ON n.nid = i.sid ' . node_access_join_sql () . ' INNER JOIN {users} u ON n.uid = u.uid' , 'n.status = 1 AND ' . node_access_where_sql ()); $results = array(); foreach ( $find as $item ) { $node = node_load (array( 'nid' => $item )); $extra = node_invoke_nodeapi ( $node , 'search result' ); $results [] = array( 'link' => url ( 'node/' . $item ), 'type' => node_invoke ( $node , 'node_name' ), 'title' => $node -> title , 'user' => theme ( 'username' , $node ), 'date' => $node -> changed , 'extra' => $extra , 'snippet' => search_excerpt ( $keys , check_output ( $node -> body , $node -> format ))); } return $results ; ?> What I am asking: Is there a way to print each $result[] item as it is located rather than returning the $results array to print the page after the search is completed? My problem is that my custom search uses a 3rd party search, then I have to parse the those results using a query to a Drupal table. Then, I populate the $results array. This is taking a very long time, but I don't see a lot of ways round it. What would give the impression of it not taking so long would be if the search results started popping up immediately. Thanks for any suggestions. -ron

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Outstanding issues with .htaccess, settings.php or robots.txt on Drupal 6?
by Gábor Hojtsy 10 Nov '08

10 Nov '08

Hi, With each Drupal 6 release, we made it a best practice to include a note in the related SA that "the settings.php, robots.txt and .htaccess files have not changed and can be left as they are if upgrading from the current version of Drupal". As part of my usual Drupal 6 branch maintenance, I've worked down the RTBC queue for Drupal 6 to two issues: - http://drupal.org/node/28776 - Protect svn files in .htaccess (which also protects .test files on the Drupal 6 patch) - http://drupal.org/node/299582 - Update robots.txt to remove obsolete items and order existing ones in alphabetical order If we do change any of the three files, I think it is better to do them all at once and then try to stay away from touching them for another lengthy period to help people apply changes to these three files which are most likely patched on a considerable number of Drupal installs. Therefore I am asking if you have any issues with these existing two patches to sound your concerns before they are committed (avoid the next Drupal version to come with changes to these files). Also, if you have other issues against these files, which you think should be resolved sooner then later, it is the time to put them into the spotlight. Gábor

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jQuery Gradient Plugin
by Gordon Heydon 10 Nov '08

10 Nov '08

Hi, I was wondering if anyone has used this plugin http://plugins.jquery.com/project/gradient as part of the theming on their site. I have been trying to get it going but it is breaking all the Drupal js and other things. I was wondering if any has any ideas. Gordon.

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d.o schedule maintenance, time correction
by Chad Phillips -- Apartment Lines 07 Nov '08

07 Nov '08

apologies, folks, the maintenance window for drupal.org is sat, nov. 8th at 2am, not today the 7th as i had originally posted. i've corrected the announcement on the front page of d.o. sorry for the misunderstanding. i hate timezones. chad

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opt-in performance benchmarking on d.o.
by justin randell 07 Nov '08

07 Nov '08

hi all, i've been watching the inspiring work to integrate testing patches against HEAD at testing.drupal.org, and wondering if it would be useful/possible/desirable to have benchmarking integrated into d.o. as well? like the testing stuff, but maybe opt-in? i'd be willing to do some dev/sysadmin work, and i'd hope there would be enough dev resources, but we'd need some hardware dedicated to it. thoughts? suggestions? flames? cheers justin

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