[consulting] Best way to set up Drupal exercise files?

[Tom Geller]

Hey, Gang. Thanks for all the suggestions! Taking them one at a time:

Matt Chapman writes:

> Patterns or any other PHP solution won't help you with copying files
> to places that aren't writable by the web server (i.e., installing
> modules). You'll need shell scripts.

This can't be true, because Drupal 7 lets you install modules via the Web interface. Am I missing something? If not, how could this be used?

Victor Kane et al. wrote:

> One solution would be to use a Git Repository like GitHub, and version
> everything (drupal, contrib modules, assets, sql snapshot). Then you make a
> Tag for each Chapter, and on GitHub, for example, it's straightforward to
> download a TGZ or ZIP snapshot file for each Chapter.

Hmm... I guess that could work. I've never successfully used a VC system... shocking, I know. I'll have to play with GitHub to figure out a way to do this smoothly. Would the client need to install Git? If so, this is probably not going to work... Git is far too complicated for my users. But worth exploring, perhaps with a one-click Web interface of some sort.

Side note: Patterns will also be problematic, as I see no plans for a D7 version. I've posted (http://drupal.org/node/812866) to find out.

Kevin Davison writes:

> If there were also a way to connect the DB to a hosted solution

Nah -- that'll be what's delivered by Lynda.com. Users will have to run update.php as the course ages, but that's O.K..

> How do you help with each student's server? Perhaps Acquia's stack installer (http://acquia.com/downloads) or MAMP (http://www.mamp.info/en/index.html)?

We include installation videos, but can't take responsibility for the AMP stack -- there are simply too many variables. For the first two series I leaned on MAMP and WAMP, and most of my tech-support questions were about WAMP. This time around I'm leaning heavily on DAMP, then importing core D7 to replace Acquia Drupal.

> I wonder if there's a way to do this in "the cloud" as well, and I still have yet to mess with Pantheon.


Beyond our scope.

Keep 'em coming! Thanks again,

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          Tom Geller  *  Oberlin, Ohio  *  415-317-1805
             Writer/Editor * http://www.tomgeller.com
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