July 2009 - Development - lists.drupal.org

Form Api - Passing arguments to a form
by Joop Sint Jago 26 Jul '09

26 Jul '09

Hello, I have searched d.org but cannot find the answer. I'm converting a D5 module to D6, but cannot succeed into passing some arguments when calling the form. $output = drupal_get_form('mymodule_form', $arguments_array); function mymodule_form($arguments_array) { // '#defualt_value' => $arguments_array['name'], // } If I'm not mistaken nothing changed at this point with D6. Thanks.

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Announcing DRUPAL-7-0-UNSTABLE-8
by Angela Byron 26 Jul '09

26 Jul '09

Howdy there, development list! Sadly, it's been a shamefully long time (almost two months!) since our last interim unstable release. But the good news is that this release is BURSTING with awesome. That's right. Not merely filled with awesome. BURSTING with it. More on that in a second. Since this will probably be the last interim unstable release before code freeze, I have some unsightly begging to do, and I also want to take as many opportunities as possible to point people towards existing efforts. This e-mail will be a bit long. You have been warned! First, remember that there are *less than 6 weeks* until code freeze, which is September 1 (same day Drupalcon Paris starts, which you already have your ticket for, RIGHT? :)). Remember: at code freeze, we need to turn off the glorious fountain of world-dominating awesome (also known as new features and API changes), and instead turn our attention to removing the scum that's accumulated on its sides and the bits of bird poop clogging its nozzles (also known as bug fixing). Hm. I think my analogy fell apart there a little bit... Anyway! The point being: there has NEVER been a more critical time to help drive forward important Drupal 7 patches than *right now*! To support this, I've identified some of these areas that need assistance inline with related new changes. Click a link, get a list of oodles of would- be-totally-fantastic things that need people to push them through! To help these efforts along, every weekend for the entire month of August I will heading up "virtual" patch review sprints on IRC in #drupal and #drupal-dev. Details on patch review sprints can be found at http://drupal.org/node/442368. *Anyone* can drop by, learn the ropes of reviewing patches from the Drupal ninjas, and help important new features get committed by trying out proposed changes and giving feedback. It would *also* be awesome for these sprints to coincide with "real life" patch review sprints at local Drupal meetups, as the LA group will be doing at their bug-fixing sprint: http://drupal.org/node/ 520184. So, please! Organize something in your own community for some weekend during the month of August! :) Maybe someone can head up compiling a big list of these somewhere. Finally, I am away for the next week on what my wife informs me is commonly referred to as some very bizarre word I've never heard of before (must be Sumerian) called "vacation." So I will not be on IRC, reading/responding to e-mail, or... committing patches. :( However! I'm told that these "vacations" are often very "relaxing" and sometimes you even get to catch up on "sleep" (so many of these new words!) so when I get back on August 2, I hope to be pounding at the issue queue with renewed vigor! A nice big fat RTBC queue waiting for me when I get back, filled with many fantastic improvements would be a wonderful welcome-home present! :) (Note: *especially* usability- related patches: I want end users to feel the same sense of wonder at Drupal 7's greatness that developers will feel!) Ok. Stepping off my soapbox, now. Let's get down to business: what's new in DRUPAL-7-0-UNSTABLE-8! --- Changes for developers: ======================= - Berdir has been leading the charge on lots of conversions to the new database abstraction layer in Drupal 7 (DBTNG). Most of core has now been converted, with just *two more* open issues! Check the "DBTNG Conversion" tag http://drupal.org/project/issues/search/drupal?status%5B%5D=Open&issue_tags… or the "database system" component for more general issues: http://drupal.org/project/issues/search/drupal?version []=7.x&component[]=database+system Note that this a *great* place to help out as you'll get a real jump-start on the new DBTNG syntax you'll need to know to code Drupal 7 modules. (Incidentally, it's also a great time to *port* your modules to Drupal 7 to ensure that the new DB layer contains everything you'll need to do the job!) - Speaking of database stuff, Schema API now has support for defining foreign key relations between tables. While core doesn't do anything with this information yet (due to the fact that we have to support stinky old MyISAM tables), contrib modules certainly could. There's also now support for queries to ignore slaves when you are using a replication set up, which is great for high performance sites. - The miserable DX suck-fest that is node_get_types() has been split up into much more reasonable function names like node_type_get_types() and node_type_get_names() etc. YAY! - Installation Profiles have at long last gotten some love! They now come with .info files where all of the various metadata such as name, description, dependencies, etc. goes. No more learning obscure PHP functions, and this lays important ground work for being able to smarten up the packaging system. Hooray! Adrian has big plans for a more robust installation profile system. Check the "installation profiles" tag for places to help out: http://drupal.org/project/issues/search/drupal?issue_tags=installation+prof… - Catch has been going bananas with a code profiler, filling the issue queue with all sorts of interesting optimization issues and patches. This is an important area, because right now D7's performance as compared to D6's is not so hot. Wanna help? Check out issues under the "Performance" tag: http://drupal.org/project/issues/search/drupal?issue_tags=Performance - Field API improvements galore, including conversion of node's "body" and "teaser" fields, a query API for our pluggable storage system, alter hooks for all of the various metadata and settings, and fieldable taxonomy terms. See the "Fields in Core" tag for many, many more places to help out! http://drupal.org/project/issues/search/drupal?issue_tags=Fields+in+Core - Lots of improvements in the testing world, including user interface improvements to SimpleTest module (you can now re-run the same batch of tests easily), a 'verbose' debugging mode, improved test coverage of long-neglected areas such as Poll module, and various under-the- hood improvements for rolling out version 2.0 of the testing bot. Check out http://drupal.org/project/issues/drupal?component=simpletest.module for issues about SimpleTest, or http://testing.drupal.org/%20PIFR-2-Client-Configuration-FAQs for how you can help bring about the next generation testing framework. - t() now supports additional contextual information for short strings, which comes in really handy since words like "View" can often mean entirely different things depending on what it's referring to. The "i18n sprint" tag at http://drupal.org/project/issues/search/drupal?issue_tags=i18n+sprint has many more issues vying for attention. Changes for themers: ==================== - Under the banner of "eliminating WTFs/minute for new themers", themes no longer auto-recognize scripts.js and style.css: you specify those in the .info file same as you do all other CSS/JS files. Additionally, themes no longer support the theme_engine prefix name on function calls: always use the theme name. http://drupal.org/project/issues/drupal?component=theme+system has lots of other theme improvements that need review and code. - All dynamic classes in templates are now in a single $classes string (and corresponding $classes_array). Good bye, class="node<?php if ($sticky) { print ' sticky'; } ?><?php if (!$status) { print ' node- unpublished'; } ?>" and hello class="<?php print $classes ?>" w00t! Check out the tpl-refresh tag for similar .tpl.php clean-up patches: http://drupal.org/project/issues/search/drupal?issue_tags=tpl-refresh - New functions render(), hide(), and show() have been introduced for selecting exactly when and where to print *part* of a complex variable such as $content without having to micro-manage the whole thing. I'm very tired and doing a horrible job of explaining this, but hopefully http://drupal.org/update/theme/6/7#granular helps. - jQuery UI now ships with Drupal core! Would love to see some patches that take advantage of this library to improve user experience, and/or replace our old, crusty custom implementations of stuff like autocomplete. Additionally, a new drupal_add_library function was added, to provide a centralized registry for JS/CSS libraries such as jQuery UI. Are you a JS wizard? Hit up the "javascript" component: http://drupal.org/project/issues/drupal?component=javascript - Does accessibility tickle your fancy? mgifford and Everett Zufelt are heading up a massive movement for making Drupal conform to WAI- ARIA standards. http://drupal.org/project/issues/search/drupal?issue_tags=accessibility is the place to be to dive in there. Changes for end-users: ===================== - A swanky-looking new admin toolbar, and some re-working of administration paths. This isn't quite what you see in the mocks at http://www.d7ux.org/header/ (it's missing icons, for one), but lays the initial ground work for further improvements. The "d7ux" tag has a plethora of places to help drive this important work home, especially if you have front-end development (JavaScript, CSS, etc.) skills. http://drupal.org/project/issues/search/drupal?issue_tags=d7ux - IMAGE HANDLING IN CORE!! You heard it here first. (Well. Unless you heard it on Drupal Planet, or Twitter, or...) So far, we've got ImageCache in core - which allows the set up of "image styles" (like thumbnail or album cover) with various "image effects" attached (like "scale & crop" or "rotate") which can then be applied to any image in the system, such as user pictures. Check out the "ImageInCore" tag if you want to help quicksketch and drewish drive home the remaining patches: http://drupal.org/project/issues/search/drupal?issue_tags=ImageInCore - Tons of work is being put forth into an effort to move "Plugin Manager" into core. What is Plugin Manager you ask? Can you say automatic project updates from within Drupal? I *knew* you could! So far we have some underlying libraries for handling SSH/SFTP/FTP communication, but there's still much more work to be done before this is ready, and could use YOUR help. I don't think this one has a tag, but http://drupal.org/project/issues/search/drupal?text=plugin+manager+in+core should get you the relevant issues. - Path and Search module are now enabled in the default profile, thus eliminating the first step that 90% of Drupal site builders do once they've installed Drupal. Core also ships with an admin role, eliminating the second step that 90% of Drupal site builders do once they've installed Drupal. ;) There's more of this kind of stuff under the "usability" tag: http://drupal.org/project/issues/search/drupal?issue_tags=usability - The wall of text that appears when you first install Drupal, including (mysteriously) to anonymous visitors, and whose instructions "helpfully" disappears when you post your first piece of content thus leaving you completely straded, has been moved to the landing page of the help system. In its place is a simple message that there has been no front page content posted yet, and invites you to either create content or go change your home page. Drupal's default out-of-the-box experience is being discussed at http://drupal.org/node/483987. It would be wonderful to have some folks working on this before code freeze. - A variety of help text clean-up patches, mainly in removing useless or overly verbose messages. If squeaky-clean text is up your alley, try the "user interface text" component: http://drupal.org/project/issues/drupal?component=user+interface+text - Per-content type block visibility that we ripped out of core in Drupal 5 or so is now back! There'll now be a nice little selection for showing a block only on "Story" nodes, for example. - Form element titles no longer end with a colon by default. Goodbye, "How old are you?:" You will not be missed! --- Hm. I think those are all the commit messages that stand out to me at this hour. Thanks very much to everyone's tremendous efforts towards these great improvements, and thanks in advance to everyone who helps drive us through the most exciting 6 weeks of Drupal yet! :D -Angie

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historical date field suggestions?
by Jon Lee 26 Jul '09

26 Jul '09

Hello, I wish to make a CCK Date field that allows for approximate historical dates. As far as I understand in D6 you can have a from and to date, but the granularity is applied to both fields, for every use of the field. If I made a new content type called Historical Figure, and had birth and death dates, I would want to allow the user to be able to enter different kinds of birth dates, like "circa 1634", "April 1837", "Summer 1919" or "late 1600's". >From a db perspective I imagine I could make it a combination of a date or datetime plus an enum, and some drupal hook would be responsible for turning the date+enum into the phrase. What would be the best way of creating this new date field? I know the Date API has been extensively worked on, but am unsure how to hook into it. Should I just create a new date field type? Or try to use existing modules (say-- a multigroup of date + text area with the calculated fields module)? Thank you Jon

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Howto: Override $node_url in theme
by nan_wich＠bellsouth.net 25 Jul '09

25 Jul '09

My module implements template_preprocess_hook, but when it fires, the $variables['node_url'] is not set yet. I have gone through the themong guide and tried just about every preprocess hook there is and none of them has that variable set when I get control. It is set in theme.inc in template_preprocess_node, without regard as to whether or not it is already set. I even tried mymodule_preprocess_node, and it is still not set there. The problem may be because my module's weight is -2 due to a timing problem with the user module. So I am probably getting called before node.module too. So how can I change that value? -- Nancy E. Wichmann, PMP Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. -- Dr. Martin L. King, Jr.

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File Storage and Path Display
by Bushidodeep 25 Jul '09

25 Jul '09

Greetings, I've run into a "best practices" question, I've created a directory (i) inside the sites->default->files->i for storing thumbnails and custom logo and manually placed the thumbnails there. Linking to the thumbnails with a text link. Upon a:hover, the path to the files directory( sites/default/files/i) appears in the status bar. Is this customary or have I forgotten a setting in one of the path modules, that would obscure this? CK

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Custom Directories
by Bushidodeep 24 Jul '09

24 Jul '09

Greetings, I've run into a "best practices" question, I've created a directory (i) inside the sites->default->files->i for storing thumbnails and custom logo and manually placed the thumbnails there. Linking to the thumbnails with a text link. Upon a:hover, the path to the files directory( sites/default/files/i) appears in the status bar. Is this customary or have I forgotten a setting in one of the path modules, that would obscure this? CK

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Redirect a CCK node form
by Brian Vuyk 24 Jul '09

24 Jul '09

What is the best way to redirect a node form after submission? I've tried adding a new submit handler via hook_form_alter(), then setting $form_state['redirect'] in my submit handler. However, it appears to be overwritten later to go to the newly-saved module. -- Brian Vuyk Web Design & Development Phone: 613-534-2916 brian(a)brianvuyk.com | http://www.brianvuyk.com

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Custom form to create multiple related CCK nodes
by Isaac Simon Hodes 24 Jul '09

24 Jul '09

I need a form which will allow users to create several related CCK nodes at the same time. Node (a) will include a filefield. Node (b) will need to refer to node (a) using a nodereference field. I would like to use as much of CCK's built-in validation, submission, input widget, and security functionality as possible/practical. It seems that I should either create a custom form from scratch, or concatenate and manipulate the 'normal' node creation forms for the relevant content types. What is the best way to accomplish this in Drupal 6? Several CCK gurus have warned against using drupal_execute for this purpose, so I'd like to stay away from that. Thank you very much for your help!

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node_preview return access denied page
by sivaji j.g 24 Jul '09

24 Jul '09

I am working on quiz questions import module. This module allows quiz authors to create bulk of questions from csv text files. I have no problem in creating questions node from imported file and saving it to database. I would like to show a preview of import question (which are nodes) before they get saved into database. Node object generated from file looks like http://drupalbin.com/10639 . When i call node_view or node_preview with this node object it returns access denied page. Is there anything i need to do before calling node_preview ? Any help will be greatly appreciated. -- Thanks Sivaji

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Apollo 11 code for Drupal?
by Tomáš Fülöpp (vacilando.org) 22 Jul '09

22 Jul '09

Anybody wants to take a stab at using some open source code from the Apollo 11 onboard computer in Drupal? http://googlecode.blogspot.com/2009/07/apollo-11-missions-40th-anniversary-… 8-) -- Tomáš J. Fülöpp http://www.vacilando.org

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