Talking Drupal #461 - Distributions

Today we are talking about Drupal Marketing, how it applies to Drupal CMS, and what a Drupal and Drupal CMS Marketing Future look like with guest Suzanne Dergacheva. We’ll also cover Drupal 11.1 as our module of the week. For show notes visit: https://www.talkingDrupal.com/481 Topics Drupal marketing moves New brand Marketing people at the DA Goal of marketing How does this impact Drupal CMS Drupal CMS marketing How will you educate people about the differences between core and CMS Any challenges How do you like the new homepage Next steps to move the brand forward Case studies Why did you volunteer If someone wants to get involved how can they Resources Brand Portal Drupal.org homepage https://new.drupal.org/home https://www.drupal.org/project/drupalorg/issues/3475832 Case study guidelines Webinar with Suzanne and Rosie Gladden about Key Strategies for Expanding Drupal’s Reach Advent Calendar Freelock.com - 24 days of Drupal automations Hosts Nic Laflin - nLighteneddevelopment.com nicxvan John Picozzi - epam.com johnpicozzi Suzanne Dergacheva - evolvingweb.com pixelite MOTW Correspondent Martin Anderson-Clutz - mandclu.com mandclu Brief description: Have you been wanting a version of Drupal with improvements to the recipes system, the ability to write hooks as classes, and an icon management API? The new Drupal 11.1 release has all of that and more. Module name/project name: Drupal 11.1 Brief history How old: created on Dec 16 by catch of Tag1 and Third & Grove Module features and usage We’ve talked a number times on this show about the recipes system, particularly because it’s at the heart of Drupal CMS. In Drupal 11.1 recipes can define whether or not to use strict comparison for provided configuration, and there are a ton of new config actions. These allow your recipe to place blocks, take user input, enable layout builder for content types, clone configuration entities and more. It’s a huge leap forward, and I think you’ll quickly see a number of recipes that require Drupal 11.1 or newer. Hooks have long been a powerful Drupalism that allow for deep customization of how your website functions. These hooks can now be written as classes, thanks to the new Hook attribute on methods. This will bring many of the object-oriented benefits of modern Drupal to the hooks system, and should also make it easier for developers new to Drupal to understand the code to create these customizations. A new Icon Management API allows themes and modules to define icon packs, with unique identifiers for each included icon. Drupal 11.1 also includes PHP 8.4 support. I haven’t been able to find any data on speed improvements compared to PHP 8.3, but there are interesting new features like property hooks, asymmetric visibility, new functions for finding array items, and more There are plans to use Workspaces for content moderation, so the UI for Workspaces is now in a separate module. For new site builds if you want your editors to be able to use Workspaces, you’ll need to remember to enable this new UI module as well New installs of Drupal 11.1 will also see improvements to the initial experience. These include defaulting to admin-created user accounts only, not adding the body field by default when creating new content types, and more. Drupal 11.1 also includes a new views entity reference filter, opt-in render caching for forms, and improved browser and CDN caching for Javascript and CSS, among a host of other improvements. A number of these improvements will also find their way into the upcoming 10.4 release, ensuring, for example, that recipes built to use the new config actions can be used with Long-Term Support (LTS) versions of Drupal, that will be supported until the stable release of Drupal 12 in mid- to late-2026

Today we are talking about The Ripple Makers program, How it benefits Drupal Association members, and Why it’s important to Drupal with guest Julia Kranzthor. We’ll also cover Migrate Boost as our module of the week. For show notes visit: https://www.talkingDrupal.com/480 Topics What is Ripple Makers Taxes Why did the Drupal Association (DA) membership program need overhauling Are DA individual memberships different than Ripple Makers Do people have to sign up if they are already a DA member Coming up with the benefits Where did the name come from Does this have new benefits What has the impact been Resources Ripple Makers https://www.drupal.org/association/RippleMakers https://www.classy.org/give/386338#!/donation/checkout Drupal Certified Partner (DCP) Drupal staff page Migrate Boost 'workbench_moderation', 'pathauto', 'xmlsitemap', 'search_api', 'search_api_algolia', Guests Julia Kranzthor - JR_KThor Hosts Nic Laflin - nLighteneddevelopment.com nicxvan John Picozzi - epam.com johnpicozzi Suzanne Dergacheva - evolvingweb.com pixelite MOTW Correspondent Martin Anderson-Clutz - mandclu.com mandclu Brief description: Have you ever wanted to disable hooks to accelerate your Drupal migration? There’s a module for that. Module name/project name: Migrate Boost Brief history How old: created in Sep 2023 by our own Nic Laflin Versions available: 1.0.1, compatible with Drupal 10 and 11 Maintainership Actively maintained Security coverage Documentation README / project page have instructions Number of open issues: none! Usage stats: 119 sites Module features and usage Having hooks fire during a migration can significantly slow down the process, and what’s worse, it can also cause some significant problems, for example sending email notifications every time a node is created You disable hooks by defining an array in your settings.php file, either an array of specific hooks you want to disable, or an array of modules for which you want to disable all hooks This was a capability available for the Drupal 7 Migrate module, but hasn’t been available in the Migrate API in Drupal core since version 8, so this module can be invaluable if you’re working on a sizable migration Hopefully there are a lot of folks working on migrations ahead of the January 5 EOL for Drupal 7, so I thought this module would be timely

Today we are talking about Drupal CMS Media Management, How media management has evolved, and Why managing our media is so important with our guest Tony Barker. We’ll also cover URL Embed as our module of the week. For show notes visit: https://www.talkingDrupal.com/479 Topics What do we mean by media management in Drupal CMS How is it different from media in Drupal today Why is media management important How are you applying these changes to Drupal What phase are you in Will this be ready for Drupal CMS release in January What types of advanced media will supported Do you see it growing to replace some DAMs Are there future goals How did you get involved How can people get involved Resources Track 15 Proposal for Media Management Issue to publish research on other CMS and the questionnaire results Vision for media management https://www.drupal.org/project/drupal_cms/issues/3488393 Contributed module file upload field for media https://www.drupal.org/project/media_widget and these related modules https://www.drupal.org/project/media_link https://www.drupal.org/project/media_remote_embed Slack: #starshot-media-management and #starshot Drupal Core strategy for 2025-2028 Guests Tony Barker - annertech.com tonypaulbarker Hosts Nic Laflin - nLighteneddevelopment.com nicxvan John Picozzi - epam.com johnpicozzi Suzanne Dergacheva - evolvingweb.com pixelite MOTW Correspondent Martin Anderson-Clutz - mandclu.com mandclu Brief description: Have you ever wanted a simple way to insert oEmbed content on your Drupal site? There’s a module for that. Module name/project name: URL Embed Brief history How old: created in Sep 2014 by the venerable Dave Reid, though recent releases are by Mark Fullmer of the University of Texas at Austin Versions available: 2.0.0-alpha3 and 3.0.0-beta1, the latter of which works with Drupal 10.1 or 11. That said, it does declare a dependency on the Embed project, which unfortunately doesn’t yet have a Drupal 11-ready release Maintainership Actively maintained Security coverage technically, but needs a stable release Test coverage Documentation guide Number of open issues: 63 open issues, 4 of which are bugs against the current branch Usage stats: 7,088 sites Module features and usage A content creator using this module only needs to provide a URL to the content they want to embed, as the name suggests The module provides both a CKEditor plugin and a formatter for link fields. Note that you will also need to enable a provided filter plugin for any text formats where you want users to use the CKEditor button Probably the critical distinction between how this module works and other elements of the media system is that this bypasses the media library, and as such is better suited to “one off” uses of remote content like videos, social media posts, and more It’s also worth mentioning that the module provides a hook to modify the parameters that will be passed to the oEmbed host, for example to set the number of posts to return from Twitter I could definitely see this as a valuable addition to the Event Platform that we’ve talked about previously on the podcast, but the lack of a Drupal 11-ready release for the Embed module is an obvious concern. So, if any of our listeners want to take that on, it would be a valuable contribution to the community

Today we are talking about WEBAssembly, How it’s used, and cool things you can use it for with Drupal with guest Matt Glaman. We’ll also cover Darkmode JS as our module of the week. For show notes visit: https://www.talkingDrupal.com/478 Topics What is WebAssembly Progressive Web Aoos Open source Does it have a community Browser support How does it work Common use cases How can you use this with Drupal This was an early concept for Drupal trial Challenges Wordpress playground Pieces that do not work for PHP Are there risks Are there resources for people that want to use WebAssembly Do you see it being used with Drupal Resources WEBAssembly WEBAssembly history Browser support 2038 WordPress Playground https://playground.wordpress.net https://github.com/adamziel Slides from Barcelona: The Web APIs powering the Starshot trial: https://mglaman.dev/sites/default/files/2024-09/The Web APIs powering the Starshot trial experience.pdf https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rJVM_uDGD5I&list=PLpeDXSh4nHjQOfQV-BUgoxHXlr4tHlhPO&index=64 Guests Matt Glaman - mglaman.dev mglaman Hosts Nic Laflin - nLighteneddevelopment.com nicxvan John Picozzi - epam.com johnpicozzi Suzanne Dergacheva - evolvingweb.com pixelite MOTW Correspondent Martin Anderson-Clutz - mandclu.com mandclu Brief description: Have you ever wanted your Drupal site to provide a widget that allows visitors to go over to the dark side of your theme? There’s a module for that. Module name/project name: Darkmode JS Brief history How old: created in May 2022 by Arthur Baghdasaryan (arthur.baghdasar) of Last Call Media Versions available: 1.0.7 which works with Drupal 9, 10, and 11 Maintainership Actively maintained Security coverage Number of open issues: 1 open issues which is a bug against the current branch, but is postponed, waiting for more info Usage stats: 89 sites Module features and usage The module is a wrapper for the DarkmodeJS library which gets 1,000 weekly downloads, according to NPM. That library does have its own demo / tutorial site, so if you want to understand the options it exposes, we will add a link in the show notes The module provides options to control where on the page you want the widget to appear, what colors it should use, whether or not to store a user’s choices in cookies, and whether or not to automatically match a visitor’s OS theme setting of light/dark Installing the module currently requires making some changes to your site’s composer.json file, then configuring how you want the widget to appear, and then placing the block in your site theme The module also doesn’t currently include a schema file for its configuration, which can cause challenges particularly for sites that run automated tests

Today we are talking about being the CTO of the Drupal Association, How the job has changed, and How its impacted Drupal with guests Josh Mitchell & Tim Lehnen. We’ll also cover Automatic Anchors as our module of the week. For show notes visit: https://www.talkingDrupal.com/477 Topics How long ago were you CTO Josh Tim when did you take over DA infrastructure Drupal Credit System Josh's proudest moment Tim's proudest moment Growth Josh if you could do one thing differently Tim if you could make one change Future of the CTO job Resources OOP Hook conversion Oregon State University Open Source Lab Whuffie: Cory doctorow Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom Rethink weighing of contrib projects and credits Guests Tim Lehnen - aspenthornpress.com hestenet Hosts Nic Laflin - nLighteneddevelopment.com nicxvan John Picozzi - epam.com johnpicozzi Joshua "Josh" Mitchell - joshuami.com joshuami MOTW Correspondent Martin Anderson-Clutz - mandclu.com mandclu Brief description: Have you ever wanted headings on your Drupal site to have unique id values, so links can be created to take users to specific parts of any page? There’s a module for that. Module name/project name: Automatic Anchors Brief history How old: created in Jun 2020 by Chris Komlenic (komlenic) of Penn State Versions available: 2.1.1-beta1, which supports Drupal 8.8, 9, and 10 Maintainership Test coverage Number of open issues: x open issues, y of which are bugs against the current branch Usage stats: 137 sites Module features and usage By default, the module automatically generates ids on , , , , and elements within the page content Even if two headings have the same content, the module will make sure their ids are unique, as well as making sure they are i18n-friendly, use hyphens instead of spaces, and are short enough to be useful The module won’t interfere with or change manually-added or already-existing HTML ids There’s a permission to view helpful links on each heading that the ids obvious and easy to copy Configuration options include the root element it should look within (defaults to the body tag), which elements should get ids, what content to use for the displayed links, and whether or not generate ids on admin pages

Today we are talking about some things are on our mind including, The DOJ Accessibility ruling,Drupal CMS Event Recipes and Tooling for core development with our Hosts. We’ll also cover @font-your-face as our module of the week. For show notes visit: https://www.talkingDrupal.com/476 Topics DOJ Accessibility Ruling Drupal CMS Tooling for core development Open University Resources Accessibility ruling PHPUnit testing https://www.drupal.org/docs/develop/automated-testing/phpunit-in-drupal/running-phpunit-javascript-tests https://github.com/ddev/ddev-selenium-standalone-chrome Drupal Events Recipes Guests Martin Anderson-Clutz - mandclu.com mandclu Hosts Nic Laflin - nLighteneddevelopment.com nicxvan John Picozzi - epam.com johnpicozzi Martin Anderson-Clutz - mandclu.com mandclu Joshua "Josh" Mitchell - joshuami.com joshuami MOTW Correspondent Martin Anderson-Clutz - mandclu.com mandclu Brief description: Have you ever wanted to add and manage web fonts for your Drupal site, directly within the admin interface? There’s a module for that. Module name/project name: @font-your-face Brief history How old: created in May 2010 by Scott Reynen, but the most recent release was by Henrique Mendes (hmendes) of CI&T Versions available: 7.x-2.8 and 4.0.0 versions available, the latter of which support Drupal 9.4 and 10. Maintainership Actively maintained Security coverage Test coverage Documentation, but looks like it might be ready for a refresh Number of open issues: 48 open issues, 8 of which are bugs against the current branch Usage stats: 32,213 sites Module features and usage The module provides an interface to browse fonts from Google, Adobe, Typekit, and more License restrictions for fonts are clearly indicated When you find a font you want to use, you just click “enable”. You don’t need to write any CSS or define a library, and it’s easy to mix-and-match fonts from different providers. It can even make it easier to include your own local fonts The module includes submodules for the different font providers, so you enable the submodules based on where you want to use fonts from Then you can import the fonts for those providers, though you do need an API key to import fonts from Google The module does also have an API, so you can write your own modules to integrate with other font providers, or access the information about available fonts

Today we are talking about Workspaces, What They are, and How They Work with guest Scott Weston. We’ll also cover Workspaces Extra as our module of the week. For show notes visit: https://www.talkingDrupal.com/475 Topics What are Workspaces in Drupal What's a common use cases for Workspaces Are Workspaces stable Do Workspaces help with content versioning What does the module ecosystem look like for Workspaces Inspiration Workspaces best practices Any interesting ways it is being used Is there a way to access workspace content in twig Navigation integration Workspaces and workflows What aspects of a Workspace are limited to live If someone wants to get involved or get started Resources Drupal Workspaces Core issue: Media library form can only be submitted in the default workspace Integrate Navigation with Workspaces Guests Scott Weston - scott-weston Hosts Nic Laflin - nLighteneddevelopment.com nicxvan John Picozzi - epam.com johnpicozzi Joshua "Josh" Mitchell - joshuami.com joshuami MOTW Correspondent Martin Anderson-Clutz - mandclu.com mandclu Brief description: Do you want to extend the capabilities of the Workspaces system in Drupal core? There’s a module for that. Module name/project name: Workspaces Extra Brief history How old: created in Apr 2021 by Andrei Mateescu (amateescu) of tag1, who has also contributed to Workspaces in core, among other many things Versions available: 2.0.0-alpha3 which works with Drupal 10.3 or 11 Maintainership Actively maintained, latest release is less than a week old Security coverage: technically yes, but not really until it has a stable release Test coverage Number of open issues: 20 open issues, 3 of which are bugs against the current branch, though one has already been fixed Usage stats: 89 sites Module features and usage One of the big features in Drupal 10.3 was that Workspaces is now officially stable. That said, not everything works the way some site builders will want it to. That’s where a contrib solution like Workspace Extra can help to fill in the gaps It provides new options like letting you roll back changes from a published workspace, move content between workspaces, discard changes in a workspace, squashing content revisions when a workspace is published, and more Workspaces Extra, or WSE also includes a number of submodules to add even more capabilities. For example, they can allow your workspace to stage an allowlist of configuration changes, deploy workspace content using an import/export system, stage menu changes, and more. For workflow, there’s an option to generate a shareable workspace preview link for external users, and a scheduler to publish your workspace at a specific day and time I will add that the first time I played with workspaces I ran into an issue where I couldn’t create media entities within a workspace. I don’t know for sure that this hasn’t been fixed in core, but the core issue about it is still listed as “Needs work”. That said, the last comment on that issue (link in the show notes) lists WSE as something that helps, so if you encounter the same issue with Workspaces, WSE is worth a try

Today we are talking about the revolt event Loop, what it is, and why it matters with guest Alexander Varwijk. We’ll also cover IEF Complex Widget Dialog as our module of the week. For show notes visit: https://www.talkingDrupal.com/474 Topics What is an event loop Why does Drupal need an event loop What will change in core to implement this What problem does this solve Does this make Cron cleaner and long running processes faster What impact will this have on contrib How would contrib use this loop What does this mean for database compatibility What inspired this change Test instability Why Revolt Will this help with Drupal AI Resources Adopt the Revolt event loop for async task orchestration revoltphp/event-loop was added as a dependency to Drupal Core Add "EventLoop::run" to Drupal Core Migrate BigPipe and the Renderer code that's currently built with fibers Revolt Playground that shows converting some Fiber implementations from Drupal to the Event Loop DrupalCon Barcelona Talk about "Why Async Drupal a Big Deal Is" Async PHP libraries https://reactphp.org/ https://amphp.org/ Guests Alexander Varwijk - alexandervarwijk.com Kingdutch Hosts Nic Laflin - nLighteneddevelopment.com nicxvan John Picozzi - epam.com johnpicozzi Joshua "Josh" Mitchell - joshuami.com joshuami MOTW Correspondent Martin Anderson-Clutz - mandclu.com mandclu Brief description: Have you ever wanted to use Inline Entity Forms but have the dependent form open in a dialog? There’s a module for that. Module name/project name: IEF Complex Widget Dialog Brief history How old: created in Mar 2020 by dataweb, though recent releases are by Chris Lai (chrisck), a fellow Canadian Versions available: 2.1.1 and 2.2.2, the latter or which is compatible Drupal 8.8 or newer, all the way up to Drupal 11 Maintainership Actively maintained, latest release in the past month Number of open issues: 4 open issues, none of which are bugs against the current version Usage stats: 273 sites Module features and usage When you install the module, your Inline Entity Form widget configuration will have a new checkbox, to “Enable Popup for IEF” Includes specialized handling for different kinds of entities, like nodes, users, taxonomy terms, and users Will handle not just the creation forms, but editing entities, and also duplicating or deleting entities Not something you would always need, but can be very useful if the form you want to use for entity or even parent forms that are complex I should also add that IEF supports form modes, so often I’ll create an “embedded” form mode that exposes fewer elements, for example hiding the fields for URL alias, sticky, and so on. So I would start there, but if the content creation experience still feels complex, then IEF Complex Widget Dialog might be a nice way to help

Today we are talking about Color with CSS, Sass, and bringing it all into Drupal with guest Aubrey Sambor . We’ll also cover Navigation Extra Tools as our module of the week. For show notes visit: https://www.talkingDrupal.com/473 Topics A little career background Why Front end Do you prefer JS or CSS How do colors work today in CSS Is this different from the past What is gamut Can color functions help with contrast What color functions make you the most excited Is Sass still a thing Do you use preprocessors with color functions Post CSS in Drupal Any modules you can recommend to help with CSS colros Any benefit for single directory compontents or web components Resources New England Drupal Camp Color in CSS: using new spaces, functions, and techniques to make your site shine Text wrap Gamut Do you still need Sass in 2023 Hosts Nic Laflin - nLighteneddevelopment.com nicxvan John Picozzi - epam.com johnpicozzi Aubrey Sambor - star-shaped.org starshaped MOTW Correspondent Martin Anderson-Clutz - mandclu.com mandclu Brief description: Have you been using the new Navigation module in Drupal core, but wanted some of the useful links previously available in the Admin Toolbar Tools submodule? There’s a module for that Module name/project name: Navigation Extra Tools Brief history How old: created in Oct 2024, less than a week ago by friend of the podcast James Shields aka lostcarpark Versions available: 1.0.0-beta3 which works with Drupal 10.3 and 11 Maintainership Actively maintained, already 3 releases Security coverage - too new, but hopefully will have in time Test coverage Number of open issues: 8 “open” issues, 4 of which are bugs, but all but one of which are now marked as fixed with the latest release Usage stats: 12 sites Module features and usage With this module enabled, the new left side Navigation menu available in Drupal core will include links to clear caches (all or a specific cache), run cron, and run database updates It’s a good example of a module that does something very specific and very useful, so I wanted to share it with our listeners as quickly as possible I know these functions are ones I’ve been missing in my own Drupal 11 dev sites, so I’m looking forward to using this module right away

Today we are talking about Access Policy API, What it does, and How you can use it with guest Kristiaan Van den Eynde. We’ll also cover Visitors as our module of the week. For show notes visit: https://www.talkingDrupal.com/472 Topics What is the Access Policy API Why does Drupal need the Access Policy API How did Drupal handle access before How does the Access Policy API interact with roles Does a module exist that shows a UI What is the difference between Policy Based Access Control (PBAC), Attribute Based Access Control (ABAC) and Role Based Access Control (RBAC) How does Access Policy API work with PBAC, ABAC and RBAC Can you apply an access policy via a recipe Is there a roadmap What was it like going through pitchburg How can people get involved Resources Access Policy API Access Policy Talking Drupal #226 Group Flexible Permissions External roles Test Super access policy Access policy talk at Drupalcon barcelona D.o Issue about exception on security issue Guests Kristiaan Van den Eynde - kristiaanvandeneynde Hosts Nic Laflin - nLighteneddevelopment.com nicxvan John Picozzi - epam.com johnpicozzi Aubrey Sambor - star-shaped.org starshaped MOTW Correspondent Martin Anderson-Clutz - mandclu.com mandclu Brief description: Have you ever wanted a Drupal-native solution for tracking website visitors and their behavior? There’s a module for that Module name/project name: Visitors Brief history How old: created in Mar 2009 by gashev, though recent releases are by Steven Ayers (bluegeek9) Versions available: 8.x-2.19, which works with Drupal 10 and 11 Maintainership Actively maintained Security coverage Test coverage Documentation guide is available Number of open issues: 20 open issues, none of which are bugs against the 8.x branch Usage stats: Over 6,000 sites Module features and usage A benefit of using a Drupal-native solution is that you retain full ownership over your visitor data. Not sharing that data with third parties can be important for data protection regulations, as well as data privacy concerns. You also have a variety of reports you can access directly within the Drupal UI, including top pages, referrers, and more There is a submodule for geoip lookups using Maxmind, if you also want reporting on what region, country, or city your visitors hail from It provides drush commands to download a geoip database, and then update your data based on geoip lookups using that database It should be mentioned that the downside of using Drupal as your analytics solution is the potential performance impact and also a likely uptick in usage for hosts that charge based on the number of dynamic requests served