August 2008 - Development - lists.drupal.org

Can I Indicate failure from hook_user?
by Pushyamitra Navare 03 Sep '08

03 Sep '08

Hello there, I'm new to Drupal, just started a couple of weeks ago. I had following queries regarding hooks. It would be great if someone could provide feedback/suggestions on this. 1. I have written a module which implements "hook_user" and handles "update" and "insert" operations. I want to be able to signal failure/ success from this function. For e.g. if I return failure (boolean FALSE) from "hook_user" for "update" operation, then user update should not happen. I want to do this for "insert", "update" and "delete" operations. * Is it possible to indicate failure in this way so that update/ insert/ delete will not take place? * If yes, how can I accomplish this? 2. Also, I quickly glanced through the user.module. At the top there is a function called "user_module_invoke" which takes care of invoking "hook_user" in various modules. But it does not check for return value, nor does it return anything. So probably result of invoking a hook_user is never checked. If Drupal hooks currently don't check for return value, would it be good idea to add such a functionality? A "pre-operation" hook, which will indicate (boolean TRUE/ FALSE) if the operation should continue or not. Such a hook could be used for various validations when Drupal is integrated with some third-party applications. Any takers for this? Do reply. Thanks in anticipation, Pushyamitra

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Drupal 7 branch maintainer
by Dries Buytaert 01 Sep '08

01 Sep '08

Hello all, during my keynote presentation at DrupalCon Szeged this week, I announced that Angela "webchick" Byron will be my Drupal 7 co-maintainer. For the duration of one release cycle, she will help me coordinate Drupal 7 development. Additional detail at http://buytaert.net/angela-webchick-byron. Kind regards, -- Dries Buytaert :: http://buytaert.net/

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Value of submit button on insert
by Dan Robinson 29 Aug '08

29 Aug '08

Folks, I've written a module and used hook_form to create a form. I want the "Save" button to read "Print Registration Form", not "Save". If I put my own button in: $form['#submit'] = array('mymodule_process_registration'); $form['#arg'] = $node; $form['#redirect'] = 'registration/complete'; $form['submit'] = array( '#type' => 'submit', '#value' => t('Print Registration Form'), '#weight' => -2, ) Then the node won't get inserted because the 'op' is set to 'Print Registration Form' instead of 'Save'. I've looked at using hook_validate and hook_nodeapi but no joy there. Any suggestions? Thanks, Dan

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New module makes custom menus from taxonomy - experienced coder wish to pick this up?
by robert crowther 28 Aug '08

28 Aug '08

Sorry for the long title, but wanted to get the key facts in there. I've also posted in the module development forum, which seems more appropriate, but the module needs a little time from an experienced coder, up to speed on Drupal 6.x, so I'm leaving a message here, too. I've made a new module. It creates creates custom menus from the taxonomy. It stands out from the other solutions (unless I've missed something), like this, - It's a bigger module (two modules) than other cuter solutions (Tax'o'menu, TinyTax, Taxonomy-strider, Taxonomy-context, Site-menu, Menu-tree...) - It's far more generalised. In short, you can index any part of your taxonomy. The menus it produces update on the fly. They look like the navigation menu or the book menu, because they use the same Drupal systems. There are more details on my recent forum post. If the Dutch play total football, this is total Drupal (bit of hype). When researching, I found repeated requests in forums and lists for such a module, but nobody has made one, which leads to the question, shouldn't I post my work? Answer, no. I only started on Drupal a few months ago. I only started coding in PHP just before the 6.x upgrade, so this module has lived through that. What I have works very well for me. But if the community would like it, the module needs someone experienced to look it over and tidy it up. Anyone want to help? Or point me in some useful directions where I can get help? It's exciting coding, as it uses many of the new features in Drupal 6.x. You don't even have to do the tricky stuff, as the general approach is now worked - the module is up and running as a proof of concept. All you have to do is mail me back, and we can take it from there. Robert

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Job Opening for- Sr. Drupal Developer / Contract for 6m / Palo Alto, CA
by Neetu 27 Aug '08

27 Aug '08

Contact me if you are interested in following job. Title: Sr. Drupal Developer Location: Palo Alto, CA Duration: Contract -to-Perm Responsibilities: The Sr. Drupal Developer will be responsible for defining and leading the development of a high performance, highly available multi-language web property. As a Sr. Developer, you will be engaged from all prospective development levels and play a critical role in driving VAM to its next level. You must possess excellent technical and leadership skills, be highly organized and able to manage the full project lifecycle from requirements to deployment. You will use your technical knowledge and creative thinking to provide the most innovative solutions. You must be able to lead and motivate the junior developers to meet aggressive deadlines in a rapid application development environment. Requirements: . Minimum 5 years experience developing web applications . Previous experience working with a team of technical developers with successful delivery of web-based applications . Extensive knowledge of LAMP (Linux-Apache-MySQL-PhP) based development . Experience working with Web Services (XMLRPC, SOAP) in a highly scalable, highly available environment . Experience integrating application pages into WCM, SFA's, and Tracking / Marketing systems . Strong fundamental understanding of web application technology . Strong understanding of basic web skills (D/HTML, CSS and Jscript) . Strong programming skills with the LAMP Stack - PHP5 and Drupal CMS Framework as well as exposure to Ajax and interaction with front-end technologies . Working knowledge of Web servers (Apache, Lighttpd, IIS) . Good communications skills and organization skills . Working knowledge of relational databases (Oracle and SQL) . Ability and desire to learn new applications/processes/environments Education: . B.S./M.S. in Computer Science/Engineering or equivalent in work experience Thank you for your time. Neetu ----------------------- Valiantica, Inc. 408-693-3145 Skype: Valiantica IM: neetuvaliantica

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External database handling
by Chris Johnson 27 Aug '08

27 Aug '08

Is it generally desirable that contributed modules use the Drupal database abstraction whenever possible when accessing external databases? That is, is it generally preferable to use db_query() and friends, instead of mysql_connect(), mysql_query(), etc. whenever possible? I personally think so at the moment, but would certainly like to hear any arguments to the contrary. An argument that it doesn't really matter is an argument against generally using Drupal's DB layer. If one agrees it is generally better to use the Drupal DB layer, there is a significant problem to doing so. The code which supports multiple databases (of which I admit to being partially the author), such as db_set_active(), requires the additional databases to be listed in an array version of the global $db_url variable (up to and including Drupal 6) and $databases (Drupal 7). This array is set in the settings.php file. When using the Drupal 6 installer, this file can be written for the user doing the install. One can assume that most installations will thus likely not involve someone hand editing that file. Yet, except for some ugly kludges involving overwriting the $db_url or $databases variable (a scalar by default) with an array form including the extra external database(s), the only way to add an external database is to hand edit that file. If one wants to write a contrib module which has all the ease of installation which D6 and D7 core have, and which uses an external database, one is rather stuck. One can either (1) kludge up the $db_url or $databases variable by overwriting it, (2) require the user to expertly hand-edit the settings.php file or (3) not use the Drupal DB abstraction layer. Or so it seems. The contrib modules I've looked at so far mostly resort to #3, not using the DB abstraction. I'd especially like to chat with the folks working on the DB layer for D7. It would be nice to provide an interface to allow adding an additional DB programmatically from the contrib module. ..chris

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Questions about views
by Roberto Bermejo Martinez 26 Aug '08

26 Aug '08

Hello I'm working with the version of drupal 6 with the modules and views cck 2. I need some way of creating a block to me shows a tree with links to the documents as the publication date. I make a page, but can not block. It would enable the block to obtain the arguments of the page? Sorry for my English. Thank you very much.

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DrupalWebTestCase and changing permissions of authenticate user role
by Maarten van Grootel 25 Aug '08

25 Aug '08

Hello all, I'm currently in the process of writing a 7.x patch to create the 'edit own comments' permission, to give admins the option to prohibit editing of comments. The functionality is working, but I would like to write a testcase for it, just to be complete. Here I found either a limitation of my understanding of the drupal testing framework, or a limitation of the framework itself. Because the 'edit own comments' permission is on by default, (the 'authenticated user' role has the permission checked by default), any user created with drupalCreateUser($roles) will inherit the right to edit their own comment. Therefore, I can't make a test that checks that a person gets a 403 when trying to edit their post without the right permissions, because I can't disable the permission in the testing environment. What I need, and can not find, is a function that will change the role_permission values for the 'authenticated user'-role, something like DrupalWebTestCase->drupalSetPermissions($role-id, $permissions). Am I right to conclude that this can't be done with the current state of the Drupal WebTestCase? If so, do you have an idea how to solve this in an other way, or should I just leave the testcase out of the patch? Thanks, Maarten

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Module needs good home
by Larry Garfield 25 Aug '08

25 Aug '08

So I've been trying to put this off thinking I'd find time for it, but it's become very clear to me that I won't. NodeReview (http://drupal.org/project/nodereview) is in need of a new maintainer. I simply do not have the time or, honestly, interest to maintain it, as evidenced by the lack of activity by me in its issue queue. There is currently one other committer but he hasn't really done much with it either. Judging by the issue queue there's a fair number of people who really dig this module, and judging by the number of times I've gotten direct contacts asking to pay for upgrades and enhancements to it I'd say it definitely has a future with the right maintainer. NodeReview was also my very first released Drupal module (despite the fact that I have never used it in production, ironically) so it has a special place for me. I am hoping for a maintainer that can treat it well and give it the good home it deserves. Interested parties, please contact me directly. Be sure to include why you'd be a good maintainer for it; as I said, this module has a following and is a module I care about (just not enough to actually make time to work on it). -- Larry Garfield larry(a)garfieldtech.com

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Drupal and acceptance testing
by Caleb Gilbert 25 Aug '08

25 Aug '08

Thanks for the reply, Catch - good stuff. I'm going to take a look at what it would take to get Selenium RC to work with simpletest instead of PHPunit (the unit testing framework the Selenium RC docs refer to). An interesting note about Selenium's ties to Drupal - the new AutoPilot 2.0 beta - which was just released in time for Drupalicon - http://twitter.com/workhabit heavily relies on selenium (e.g., selenium's macro recorder/playback is being used in this case for handling change management [pushing changes from dev to staging to production], so apparently it is not just for acceptance testing!). - Caleb I suggested an automated javascript testing framework for gsoc, was thinking watir rather than selenium based on a few discussions about both, but it didn't go anywhere:http://groups.drupal.org/node/9511, While I'd love to see testing with Selenium or Watir or some other browser remote control that can handle stuff that simpletest or straight up javascript unit testing can't, like cwgordon said, it's a matter of effort and returns. The testing framework we have in core has the advantage that anyone can download and run tests without needing to install other software, tests can be written in PHP, and we're getting close to the tipping point where our coverage is high enough to start finding regressions before they're committed. On the other hand, and unfortunately, at the moment we don't have that many jQuery intensive patches - yes, it's really annoying trying to get cross-browser tests when a new jQuery is released, but that's once every few months - so in terms of saving click around time SimpleTest is giving higher returns at the moment. While it might appear to be a lack of interest at the moment, it's more a case of 1. a lack of resources (the 'testing brigade' is still pretty small) 2. a need to get the testing framework we actually have up to a point where it begins to actually save some work - it'll only do this when we're closer to 100% test coverage and tests are being run on patches automatically via testing.drupal.org That said - it's very clear that the core testing framework can't cover everything, so extending it would be the natural next step - and given the amount of time and work it's taken to get to where we are now, starting early surely wouldn't hurt.

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