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Drupal and acceptance testing
by Caleb Gilbert 21 Aug '08

21 Aug '08

So far all documentation and comments I can find on Drupal.org seem to give the impression that the Drupal project/community-at-large is taking the stance that simpletest should be used for acceptance testing (please correct me if I'm wrong). This, however, would be counter to simpletest's own documentation which suggests to look at other solutions for acceptance testing: http://simpletest.org/api/ (bottom of page) In the interest interest of stimulating solutions/attention/discussion to these subjects I've posted an article which contains information and links to other Drupal.org resources about this: http://highervisibilitywebsites.com/researching-drupal-and-acceptance-testi… Cheers! Caleb

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autocomplete.js and http error 0
by Roger Leigh 21 Aug '08

21 Aug '08

I'm working with an autocomplete text field in a module, and some users were getting an alert error, "An HTTP error 0 occured". I was finally able to reproduce this error, not only on my form but on a standard CCK form as well; if you click the form submit button while the autocomplete is retrieving entries (the 'blue wheel' is present), it triggers the error. Surprisingly, I couldn't find a lot of info on a drupal search, though I did see some related reports in other projects. Looking at the autocomplete.js file, I see the alert at line 285. Obviously I can change it here, but always hate to hack the core. Any ideas? Regards, Roger

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delete menu not appearing
by Lluís 21 Aug '08

21 Aug '08

I have developed several node types for an application, and in one of them "delete" menu doesn't appear when viewing it; first I thought it could be a permission problem, so I wrote: function hook_access($op, $node) { return true; //debug ... } but nothing happend; then I tried with user 1 and it is the same (I cleared all cache tables using phpmyadmin). besides hook_delete and hook_access is there anything else necessary for the menu to appear? From the administrative interface I can delete the node without problems. thanks -- *La vida és com una moneda, la pots gastar en el que vulguis però només una vegada. *La felicitat ha de ser compatible, compartible i cooperativa. *Envellim quan els records superen les il·lusions. *Als llocs desconeguts només s'hi arriba per camins desconeguts. *Abans d'imprimir aquest missatge, pensa en el medi ambient.

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form_set_value and multistep
by Caleb Gilbert 21 Aug '08

21 Aug '08

This link starts off the most helpful thread/thing I've seen about form_set_value() - might be worth a look before filing an issue: http://drupal.org/node/160160#comment-820709 - Caleb

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form_set_value and multistep
by Dave Cohen 21 Aug '08

21 Aug '08

Hi, I've written a form element for drupal 5.x which, in it's #validate callback, converts a comma-seperated string into an array of ids. It uses the form_set_value() function to change the string value to an array. My element fails in multistep forms. The reason being that first the form is processed, then the $form_values which my call to form_set_value() affected is discarded (at the end of drupal_process_form()) then drupal_retrieve_form() is called again, this time passing in $_POST (this happens in drupal_get_form()). Because my call to form_set_value() affects $form_values and not $_POST, my changes are lost. I've noticed that if I also change the $_POST after I call form_set_value(), I can work around the problem: // Here's the call usually make: form_set_value($element, $items); // Here's the workaround that modifies $_POST: _form_set_value($_POST, $element, $element['#parents'], $items); For a number of reasons, I feel that call to _form_set_value() is hacky and does not belong in my code. However, it might be a reasonable addition to form_set_value(). If I were to submit that as a patch, any chance it would be committed? I'm not the only one who's had problems with form_set_value(). Most people find workarounds usually avoiding it entirely, but I have yet to find one for my case. For example, http://drupal.org/node/264743. Thanks, -Dave

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[Fwd: [support] Staging]
by Christopher M. Jones 19 Aug '08

19 Aug '08

I have been looking for a clean solution to the problem of how to stage a drupal site, using the common dev->QA->production development cycle. I originally posted to [Support], but someone there suggested that I post my questions here, as well. My original message follows below. -------- Original Message -------- Subject: [support] Staging Date: Thu, 07 Aug 2008 15:22:54 -0400 From: Christopher M. Jones <cjones(a)partialflow.com> Reply-To: support(a)drupal.org To: support(a)drupal.org I'm looking for a decent approach to staging a drupal site. The production site will be a collaborative authoring project, with forums, blogs, and lots of media. The client will have access to this site, and will be maintaining some of the content. Other content will be maintained by us. The development company that hosts this project prefers to make all of their changes, both to content and templates, in a testing environment. Once their client has approved the changes, they like to 'push' them to production. However, while these changes are taking place, the client may be administering forums and writing blog posts in the -production- version. To further complicate things, my company wants a three-stage cycle. They want a dev site, where they make changes for in-house review, which they then push to testing for client review before everything is pushed to production. I'm unsure how to approach this. The site in question has always been static html created in Dreamweaver. At some point they started adding other things, so now there are two wordpress blogs, and two phpbb forums. The forums and blogs presently are excepted from the development cycle. They simply appear to be part of the site, because their templates have been designed so. But that means that we've got to propagate template changes across five templates. Things are breaking constantly, and this is why I piped up to them about drupal. I've seen a lot of discussion about this topic, but I really need some hard answers. What should I do? I've seen the Staging module for 6.x. Is it safe to use? If so, then we could use that for the database. Templates could be pushed with rsync or svn... whatever. But would this work two ways? Could we sync the dev / testing sites to the production site, then sync the other way? Would we need to? Also, I envision using a multisite environment so that all sites share the same modules, media, etc, but use different templates. I desperately need the detailed advice of someone with experience, here. -- [ Drupal support list | http://lists.drupal.org/ ]

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What about reviewing patches?
by Karoly Negyesi 16 Aug '08

16 Aug '08

All this rant about this and that and noone reviews patches. Shame on you.

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$custom_theme when does it take effect... when does it not
by Jon Saints 15 Aug '08

15 Aug '08

I notice a bug in D6.4 and CVS in the block module. This post, however, is not to report the bug (i will use bug tracker for that). This post is to ask a development question that will help me create a patch for the issue. On our website we use different themes for different sections of the site. As the user browses to different sections of the site, the theme is changed automatically by changing $custom_theme global in hook_init(). Bug background: The bug occurs when administering blocks. For example, if my current active theme is foo_theme and I click admin/build/block/list/bar_theme a list of blocks for bar_theme is not displayed. Instead, a list of blocks for the active theme foo_theme is displayed. When the user clicks the link "Bar theme" they could reasonably expect that a list of the blocks for bar_theme should display. The development question: I think the bug has something to do with the code in the block module function block_admin_display(). In this function the author of the code tries to display a list of blocks for the theme the user selected by changing the global variable $custom_theme. The problem with this approach is that outside of hook_init() I have found that changing $custom_theme variable has no effect on changing the active theme. Have others found this to be the case that changes to $custom_theme variable have no effect on changing the active theme outside of hook_init()? If this is the case then we need to rethink how we are pulling the list of blocks in the block module admin. Thanks Jon

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[from support] Staging
by Yuval Hager 14 Aug '08

14 Aug '08

I'd like to draw the dev list members' attention to a thread from support about staging: http://lists.drupal.org/pipermail/support/2008-August/009492.html The reason I am sending this here, is that I believe there is no structured and well defined solution to the problem. There are many trials to handle this (e.g. even/odd nid numbering scheme, dbscripts), but most of them are cumbersome and/or limited in many ways. I believe this is a very common problem, and that the only real solution should come from core. I think the most difficult part here is to separate content from configuration. The first step would be how to define what is content and what is config (for example - site name - is it a content property or a config property?). The next step then would be to find a way to transfer config from a staging/dev site onto production, without overwriting any content that might have been added there during development. -- Yuval Hager [T] +972-77-341-4155 [@] yuval(a)avramzon.net

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best pratices, test environment, patch review: clues how to make easier to contribute
by Ivan Sergio Borgonovo 14 Aug '08

14 Aug '08

There are a lot of good tools for helping coders and reviewer. There should be a lot of experience in building up a dev environment *and* a patch review environment spread in the community but "hidden". If I had to put up a dev/review environment now I would: * install drupal HEAD * install coder devel modules(?) * fill drupal with some data using devel * backup * update from cvs * restore db connection setting * apply a patch - check if any schema change * test (benchmark?) * report * restore db Still this look very naive and I think there are a lot of tools that could help without getting into module frenziness and a lot of details that could streamline the process or setup that may hide some problems. There is not a compact knowledge base of several techniques that may make more profitable for people that already maintain drupal sites to contribute to core and contrib. I think that most developers are still applying common wisdom and their own hand made recipes. code coverage, deploy, drupal automated staging toolkit, drush, simpletest and auto test??? If tests are already automatically made on submitted patches, preparing a testing environment isn't so critical for a patch reviewer, but it could come handy for a developer. If I had to improve the above naive method I'd start from writing a script that given a patch url: * update from cvs * restore db connection setting * apply the patch Second thing I'd do would be to replicate the simpletest environment and start testing the patch. Then I'd choose a set of "important modules" and see if patches or HEAD breaks them. I think this looks a bit more tricky and may require some rcs wizardry especially if I've my modules to test too. Another thing I'd like to learn to do better is how to maintain modified drupal core, supposing I submitted patch waiting and I'd like to check if they still works when I update to HEAD/review a patch and mix svn (or any rcs of choice) with drupal cvs. A DVCS could come handy here... but... that's not the point here. The material about how to put up a dev/review environment is sparse. Something that may be interesting and I would like to read more about or see them grouped or add some glue so that it would be possible to guide people to a more rationalised dev/review environment: Using CVS to maintain a Drupal website http://drupal.org/node/93966 R. Keeping Your Local and Remote Sites Synchronized http://drupal.org/node/120617 Drupal development server configuration http://www.garfieldtech.com/blog/drupal-dev-server K. Moving Entire Drupal Site with Databases http://drupal.org/node/120627 Migrating Database Changes From Development to Live Websites http://drupal.org/node/199771 Drupal Performance Measurement & Benchmarking http://drupal.org/node/282862 Drupal with safe mode enabled and open basedir http://drupal.org/node/82223 More than one Drupal site on one machine http://drupal.org/node/274 Transforming a default table names installation into a prefix table names installation http://drupal.org/node/195758 How-To: Virtual Hosting with Drupal http://drupal.org/node/80472 -- Ivan Sergio Borgonovo http://www.webthatworks.it

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