First Annual May First People Link Membership Meeting
Congratulations to the new leadership committee for May First People Link!
In Chicago? Don't Have a DrupalCon Ticket Yet? But You're Reading This on a Weekend?
Update: Ticket taken. But if you want to come, please read below the fold.
See Permissions' Machine Names (and much more) with Xray Module for Drupal 7
With Drupal 7's third and final release candidate unleashed on us all this morning, it is long past time to help the #D7CX movement with a seasonal offering of our own.
+1 to Ending comment-to-subscribe on Drupal.org
As starving authors we at Agaric don't have a lot of cash to burn right now, but we've thrown $25 in the project to make it possible to subscribe to drupal.org issues without commenting. (On top of whatever we donated when this request for funding went out a year and a half ago).
Drupal Work Collectives
Agaric proposes the creation of a new kind of workplace, essentially a Drupal commune, but really more like an open source free software idea & brainstorming commune, kind of along the same lines as an artist's or writer's colony.
We're Writing a Book!
Yes it's true, for the past few months we've been hard at work with a lot of other co-authors on The Definitive Guide to Drupal 7.
Agaric Backs Community Coworking Center in NYC
Thinking it would be a great place to work a day or two while in New York City for clients or DrupalCamps, Agaric dropped a few dollars in the Kickstarter fund for New Work City: Community Coworking Center for Independents in NY.
Agaric Sponsors Modulecraft for the Building of Drupal Shared business, Development, and Training Tools
For community shared business, development, and training tools, Agaric throws a little sponsorship at modulecraft.
Agaric Provides Very Minor Assist in Readying Insert Module for Drupal 7
Benjamin Melançon of Agaric helped with a patch for the Drupal 7 version of Insert module.
Agaric?
What the word agaric means and why Agaric took it for our cooperative's name.
Designed to Life
Functionality designed to your life is the Agaric Design signature. Utilizing open source, free software from around the world, Agaric Design websites are impeccably crafted with a modern, sophisticated and understated spirit.
The Story on Agaric
I've always had a passion for good design and healthy coding, even back in the days of owning a web site cart in downtown Natick. Back then, my business partner and I made all natural HTML roll-up web sites and, as an incentive for customers to wait in line, we baked Drupal into different flavored designs.
Full participation in Agaric's Drupal 8 migrations quickstart (half-day training) and Drupal 8 content migrations (full-day training) courses requires a working, local installation of Drupal 8.
The morning can be done online with a Pantheon.io free development site or SimplyTest.me (only web browser and working internet connection required).
Development Environment
The afternoon portion of the training requires a local dev environment— if you aren't able to get this set up ahead of time, we can help you during a break. The two approaches we have tested:
- DrupalVM (requires VirtualBox and Vagrant)
- Alternatively and as a fallback, Drupal's quick start with PHP's built-in server
All of these approaches work on GNU/Linux, MacOS, and Windows.
Prerequisites
Although no prior Migrate module knowledge is required, it is expected that you have a basic understanding of nodes, content types, and fields. You can learn about these and other Drupal concepts by watching this session recording.
A working Drupal 8 installation is required. It is possible to follow some examples using a hosted Drupal service like pantheon.io To get the most out of the training a local installation is needed. Installing Drupal locally using composer is recommended.
Drush needs to be installed in order to run migrations from the command line. Xdebug and PHPStorm are used for the debugging example (techniques apply for other debuggers and IDEs).
It is recommended to use DrupalVM and configure it to use the drupal composer template.
Follow the quickstart guide to install DrupalVM with the xdebug extra package.
Install the following contrib modules:
- address
- entity_reference_revisions
- migrate_plus
- migrate_source_csv
- migrate_tools
- paragraphs
Assistance can be provided before the training starts, but it is better to come with your local environment already set up.
About the trainers:
Agaric builds websites and online platforms that give people more control over their technology, including working with Drupal for more than thirteen years. They bring their expertise in backend development and Drupal migrations to projects for clients in different sectors including government, education, businesses, and not-for-profits/NGOs. Agaric is committed to giving back to the community. Over the last few years, they have presented 40+ sessions and full day trainings in 16+ DrupalCamps and DrupalCons in the Americas and Europe.
Benjamin Melançon (mlncn on drupal.org) has been working with Drupal since 2005. He led the 36 author project that produced the Definitive Guide to Drupal 7 and contributed dozens of modules to Drupal 5, 6, 7, and 8. For client projects, Benjamin uses this deep understanding of Drupal internals along with more general frontend, backend, and infrastructure knowledge to make sure requirements and expectations are met. He is a frequent speaker at Drupal and other technology events in North America.
Mauricio Dinarte is passionate about teaching. He is creating educational material in English, Spanish, and French to help break the language barrier when learning Drupal and other technologies. Check out his educational project at https://understanddrupal.com.
Have you ever been asked to log into a website while you are viewing a page? And after doing so you get redirected to some page other than the one you were reading? This is an obvious and rather common usability problem. When this happens people lose track of what they were doing and some might not even bother to go back. Let's find out how to solve this in Drupal 8.
In a recent project a client wisely requested exactly that: whenever a user logs into the site, redirect them to the page they were before clicking the login link. This seemed like a very common request so we looked for a contrib module that provided the functionality. Login Destination used to do it in Drupal 7. Sadly the Drupal 8 version of this module does not provide the functionality yet.
Other modules, and some combinations of them, were tested without success. Therefore, we built Login Return Page. It a very small module that just does one thing and it does it well: it appends destination=/current/page to all the links pointing to /user/login effectively redirecting users to the page they were viewing before login. The project is waiting to be approved before promoting it to full project.
Have you had a similar need? Are there other things you are requested to do after login? Please share them in the comments.
UPDATE: It seems to this is a regression from Drupal 7 and there is an issue that would fix it. Thanks to Wim Leers for letting me know about it.
Agaric is excited to announce online training on Drupal migrations and upgrades. In July 2020, we will offer three trainings: Drupal 8/9 content migrations, Upgrading to Drupal 8/9 using the Migrate API, and Getting started with Drupal 9.
We have been providing training for years at Drupal events and privately for clients. At DrupalCon Seattle 2019, our migration training was sold out with 40+ attendees and received very positive feedback. We were scheduled to present two trainings at DrupalCon Minneapolis 2020: one on Drupal migrations and the other on Drupal upgrades. When the conference pivoted to an online event, all trainings were cancelled. To fill the void, we are moving the full training experience online for individuals and organizations who want to learn how to plan and execute successful Drupal migration/upgrade projects.
Up to date with Drupal 9
Drupal is always evolving and the Migrate API is no exception. New features and improvements are added all the time. We regularly update our curriculum to cover the latest changes in the API. This time, both trainings will use Drupal 9 for all the examples! If you are still using Drupal 8, don't worry as the example code is compatible with both major versions of Drupal. We will also cover the differences between Drupal 8 and 9.
Drupal 8/9 content migrations
In this training you will learn to move content into Drupal 8 and 9 using the Migrate API. An overview of the Extract-Transform-Load (ETL) pattern that migrate implements will be presented. Source, process, and destination plugins will be explained to show how each affects the migration process. By the end of the workshop, you will have a better understanding on how the migrate ecosystem works and the thought process required to plan and perform migrations. All examples will use YAML files to configure migrations. No PHP coding required.
Date: Tuesday, July 21, 2020
Time: 9 AM – 5 PM Eastern time
Cost: $500 USD
Upgrading to Drupal 8/9 using the Migrate API
In this training you will learn to use the Migrate API to upgrade your Drupal 6/7 site to Drupal 8/9. You will practice different migration strategies, accommodate changes in site architecture, get tips on troubleshooting issues, and much more. After the training, you will know how to plan and execute successful upgrade projects.
Date: Thursday, July 23, 2020
Time: 9 AM – 5 PM Eastern time
Cost: $500 USD
Getting started with Drupal 9
We are also offering a training for people who want to get a solid foundation in Drupal site building. Basic concepts will be explained and put into practice through various exercises. The objective is that someone, who might not even know about Drupal, can understand the different concepts and building blocks to create a website. A simple, fully functional website will be built over the course of the day-long class.
Date: Monday, July 13, 2020
Time: 9 AM – 5 PM Eastern time
Cost: $250 USD
Discounts and scholarships available
Anyone is eligible for a 15% discount on their second training. Additionally, if you are a member of an under-represented community who cannot afford the full price of the training, we have larger discounts and full scholarship available. Ask Agaric to learn more about them.
Customized training available
We also offer customized training for you or your team's specific needs. Site building, module development, theming, and data migration are some of the topics we cover. Check out our training page or ask Agaric for more details. Custom training can be delivered online or on-site in English or Spanish.
Meet your lead trainer
Mauricio Dinarte is a frequent speaker and trainer at conferences around the world. He is passionate about Drupal, teaching, and traveling. Over the last few years, he has presented 30+ sessions and full-day trainings at 20+ DrupalCamps and DrupalCons over America and Europe. In August 2019, he wrote an article every day to share his expertise on Drupal migrations.
We look forward to seeing you online in July at any or all of these trainings!
Louis has been a Linux user since his childhood, although there was a period when he did not want to be free because it was too tricky to get PC games set up in the liberated zone.
As an adult, after deciding on a skill that could pay the rent and leave a little extra Louis bit into Jennifer Robbins' Learning Web Design: A Beginner's Guide to HTML, CSS, JavaScript, and Web Graphics and Marijn Haverbeke's Eloquent Javascript. When he was starting off Louis loved spending non shelf-stocking, fruit cutting, floor mopping, hours solving (or attempting to solve) code challenges. He would spend hours wrestling with problems which he should have given up on much earlier and just learned from the solution.
Professionally, Louis got started working with NOVA Web Development setting up LibreOrganize sites an association management system built with Django. Now with Agaric Louis works developing and configuring Drutopia sites.
Louis is thankful and excited to be the newest member of Agaric. Louis likes worker-coops and exploring the role they play in transitioning to the society of the emancipated worker.
Agaric adapts our approach to fit each project. Some building blocks to our approach are so fundamental that we use them on nearly every Drupal project we work on. These are those fundamental aspects to our approach.
Results-Driven Design
Design decisions will be made whether intentionally or not, so it pays to go in with a plan. Design can be a nebulous, subjective process. We give that process structure and purpose by focusing on the results. The design system we create speaks to your audience and meets your goals. We share our designs early, with real content, and in as interactive of a way as possible with your key stakeholders.
Content Strategy and Information Architecture Approach
We will work closely with your team to define an effective content strategy for your website and a clean, scalable information architecture. These will result in the following deliverables:
- Website goals
- User personas
- Content style guide
- Sitemap
- Technical architecture
Knowing that design is never truly done, we like to get the design "80% of the way there", and then apply it to the actual site. That way we can improve and refine along the way using the actual site, not static files open to misinterpretation.
We begin with a clean, responsive theme. We then identify and implement the customizations that will set your website apart and best tell your story, reflecting the unique voice and tone of your organization. By launch time your site will have a design that is:
- On-brand – speaks to your audience
- Results-driven – prioritizes the right content in the right contexts
- Secure – built on a theme covered by the Drupal security team and implementing security best practices
- Accessible – works with assistive devices and keyboard-only navigation
- Responsive – looks beautiful on any device
- Extensible – well organized templates to easily adjust or add new design components as your site evolves.
Development Approach
After defining the information architecture we will write user stories to clearly define the site's functionality. We use the agile methodology to prioritize together the critical functionality first, getting a functional site in your hands as soon as possible for review.
We continue this iterative and collaborative development cycle in two week sprints, always building the most relevant functionality.
Digital Commons Development
Drupal is a free software project built by thousands of designers and developers. As a result, your site benefits from security coverage and high quality code that follows best practices and ongoing maintenance and improvement.
As leaders in the Drupal community, we contribute to Drupal Core and maintain dozens of public modules (called "contributed modules" in the Drupalsphere) used by thousands of sites. For nonprofits in particular we are helping to build a Drupal 8 distribution putting together and providing ready-to-go configuration for key modules, many of which we also contribute to.
We draw from shared solutions whenever possible, tapping into and contributing back to this digital commons, because it saves time by not reinventing the wheel, and ensures your site continues to be maintainable and benefits from ongoing improvements from the community.
Accessibility
It is critical that your site be accessible to as many people as possible, including those using screen readers. To that end, all of our work is built to support compliance with W3C Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.0. The WCAG Guidelines, however, are not comprehensive and so we go beyond those guidelines to ensure high accessibility. Lastly, much of what makes a site accessible happens on the content entry and management side. We will provide resources for your content team so that after the site launches, you can rest assured that what you are creating is reaching as many people as possible.
Search Engine Optimization
Our developers will also follow SEO best-practice development and utilize Drupal’s range of SEO-related features that allow administrators to edit page titles, implement human-readable and editable URLs, enter meta tag information, and more. For further SEO-related services, we can also recommend SEO consultants.
