Talking Drupal

Today we are talking about Creating Recipes, What Recipes already exist, and helpful tips and tricks with guest Jim Birch. We'll also cover Features as our module of the week.

For show notes visit: https://www.talkingDrupal.com/470

• What are recipes
• How do you recommend someone get started writing recipes
• Where can people find recipes
• Can you include sub recipes
• How should you test recipes
• Any tools that make writing recipes easier
• What recipes are needed that do not exist
• How can people move recipes forward

• Recipe Author Guide
• Drupal Core Recipes
• Preconditions for recipes
• Drupal Recipes Cookbook
• Recipes Packagist
• Recipe type
• Phase 2 roadmap
• Umami profile recipes
• Minimal profile recipes

Jim Birch - linkedin.com/in/jimbirch thejimbirch

Nic Laflin - nLighteneddevelopment.com nicxvan John Picozzi - epam.com johnpicozzi Aubrey Sambor - star-shaped.org starshaped

Martin Anderson-Clutz - mandclu.com mandclu

• Brief description:
  • Have you ever wanted an admin UI to manage sets of configuration, to version and share across Drupal sites? There's a module for that.
• Module name/project name:
  • Features
• Brief history
  • How old: created in Mar 2009 by yhahn, though recent releases are by Dave Reid
  • Versions available: 7.x-2.15 and 8.x-3.14, the latter of which works with Drupal 9.4 and 10
• Maintainership
  • Minimally maintained
  • Security coverage
  • Test coverage
  • Documentation: Has a documentation guide and probably hundreds if not thousands of of tutorials available
  • Number of open issues: 610 open issues, 54 of which are bugs against the 8.x branch
• Usage stats:
  • Almost 117,000 sites, though the majority are using the D7 version
• Module features and usage
  • Many listeners will remember Features as the de facto solution for configuration management in Drupal 7 and earlier
  • As the name implies, it was really intended to share common capabilities across different Drupal sites
  • Unlike recipes, Features can have version numbers, because there is a path to sync configuration updates across sites using a Feature, though this is where a lot of teams found Features could be complex to use
  • We did previously cover Features as MOTW all the way back in episode #147, but I thought it was relevant to today's discussion because of the way it provides a UI for organizing and exporting specific sets of configuration
  • There is an open issue for Features to directly export recipes, because it already does a lot of the time-consuming work of collecting together necessary config files, including dependencies
  • Even its current state, it could be a time saver for anyone wanting to start creating their own recipes

Today we are talking about Drupal's Popularity & Dev Experience, what could be better, and things that are great with guest Nathan Dentzau. We'll also cover Spam Master as our module of the week.

For show notes visit: https://www.talkingDrupal.com/469

• Drupal's popularity
• What can Drupal to enhance popularity and enhance dev experience
• What is missing in Drupal
• What could use improvement in Drupal
• What about recent tooling improvements
• Drupal CMS (Starshot)

• New drupal
• Drupal at your fingertips
• Laravel
• Next.js
• Document using DDEV as the recommended Drupal local development environment
• Just say drupal

Nic Laflin - nLighteneddevelopment.com nicxvan John Picozzi - epam.com johnpicozzi Nate Dentzau - dentzau.com nathandentzau

Martin Anderson-Clutz - mandclu.com mandclu

• Brief description:
  • Have you ever wanted to defend your Drupal website from webform spam using a constantly updating list of known bad actors? There's a module for that.
• Module name/project name:
  • Spam Master
• Brief history
  • How old: created in Mar 2018 by Pedro Alves (pedro-alves)
  • Versions available: 8.x-1.99 and 8.x-2.50, the latter of which support Drupal versions 8 through 11
• Maintainership
  • Actively maintained
  • Security coverage
  • Documentation on SpamMaster.org
  • Number of open issues: no open issues
• Usage stats:
  • 449 sites
• Module features and usage
  • Spam Master is a website protection technology that was originally created back in 2012, and is used across sites based on a variety of technologies, including Wordpress, Drupal, Joomla, and more
  • It uses a variety of techniques to identify and block malicious actors, including "real-time block lists", honeypot traps, comment analysis, and more
  • By maintaining a list of known bad actors, tracked by IP address and email addresses used, you can also benefit from a "network effect" by being able to identify them based on malicious behavior on any of the thousands of sites using Spam Master
  • The module claims compatibility with a variety of forms, including registration, comments, commerce, and more
  • It includes a variety of reports you can use to understand the amount of spam your site is receiving, and the module can automatically send you an email if it believes your site has reached "Level 3" of spam targeting
  • Spam Master does use licenses on SpamMaster.org, but free licenses are available

Today we are talking about Artificial Intelligence (AI), How to integrate it with Drupal, and What the future might look like with guest Jamie Abrahams. We'll also cover AI SEO Analyzer as our module of the week.

For show notes visit: www.talkingDrupal.com/468

• What is AI
• What is Drupal AI
• How is it different from other AI modules
• How do people use AI in Drupal
• How does Drupal AI make AI easier to integrate in Drupal
• What is RAG
• How has Drupal AI evolved from AI Interpolator
• What does the future of AI look like

• AI Agents

Jamie Abrahams - freelygive.io yautja_cetanu

Nic Laflin - nLighteneddevelopment.com nicxvan John Picozzi - epam.com johnpicozzi Martin Anderson-Clutz - mandclu.com mandclu

Martin Anderson-Clutz - mandclu.com mandclu

• Brief description:
  • Have you ever wanted an AI-based tool to give your Drupal site's editors feedback on the SEO readiness of their content? There's a module for that.
• Module name/project name:
  • AI SEO Analyzer
• Brief history
  • How old: created in Aug 2024 by Juhani Väätäjä (j-vee)
  • Versions available: 1.0.0-beta1, which supports Drupal 10.3 and 11
• Maintainership
  • Actively maintained
  • Number of open issues: none
• Usage stats:
  • 2 sites
• Module features and usage
  • Once you enable this module along with the AI module, you can select the default provider, and optionally modify the default prompt that will be used to generate the report
  • With that done, editors (or anyone with the new "view seo reports" permission) will see an "Analyze SEO" tab on nodes throughout the site.
  • Generated reports are stored in the database, for ongoing reference
  • The reports are also revision-specific, so you could run reports on both a published node and a draft revision
  • There's a separate "create seo reports" permission needed to generate reports. Within the form an editor can modify the default prompt, for example to get suggestions on optimizing for a specific topic, or to add or remove areas from the generated report.
  • By default the report will include areas like topic authority and depth, detailed content analysis, and even technical considerations like mobile responsiveness and accessibility. It's able to do the latter by generating the full HTML markup of the node, and passing that to the AI provider for analysis
  • It feels like it was just yesterday that the AI module had its first release, so I think it's great to see that there are community-created additions like this one already evolving as part of Drupal's AI ecosystem

Today we are talking about The Config Actions System, What it does, and how it helps with Drupal Recipes with guests Alex Pott and Adam Globus-Hoenich. We'll also cover the Events recipe as our module of the week.

For show notes visit: www.talkingDrupal.com/467

• Explain Config Actions
• Is this related to the Actions UI
• How are config actions used in Drupal
• How will the average user interact with Config Actions
• What does non-desctructive mean
• Where did the Config Action system come from
• Future of the Config Action system
• How can people help out
• How does the Config Action system help with Drupal CMS

• Event platform
• Config action list

Alex Pott - alexpott Adam Globus-Hoenich - phenaproxima

Nic Laflin - nLighteneddevelopment.com nicxvan John Picozzi - epam.com johnpicozzi Nate Dentzau - dentzau.com nathandentzau

Martin Anderson-Clutz - mandclu.com mandclu

• Brief description:
  • Have you ever wanted to set up and configure a robust events system in your Drupal website, in just a few seconds? There's a recipe for that.
• Module name/project name:
  • Events
• Brief history
  • How old: originally created in Mar 2013 as a distribution, but reborn as a recipe in July 2024
  • Versions available: 1.0.0-alpha3, compatible with Drupal 10.3 and 11
• Maintainership
  • Actively maintained
  • Security coverage? - no stable release
  • Documentation in the works
  • Number of open issues: 1 open issue, which is a bug
• Usage stats: not tracked for recipes
• Maintainer(s): mandclu
• Module features and usage
  • Listeners probably won't be surprised to hear that Smart Date is at the heart of what you'll get when you apply the Events recipe
  • You will have an Event content type, and a view to list upcoming and past events
  • The recipe will also set up add-to-calendar links on your event page, making it easy for your site visitors to be reminded of when your event will take place
  • There are companion recipes to add a calendar view, to be able to associate locations (with maps), and to add event registration
  • A modified version of the Events recipe has already been integrated into Drupal CMS, so it will be even easier to apply for a site based on that
  • Internally it makes use of the createIfNotExists and setComponents config actions, which is why I thought it would be relevant to today's discussion

Today we are talking about Progressive migration with Drupal, What it is, and how you can do it with your organization with guest Stephen Cross. We'll also cover Views JSON Source as our module of the week.

For show notes visit: www.talkingDrupal.com/466

• What is a progressive migration
• What other types of migration are there
• What problem does progressive migration solve at the ATF
• What versions of Drupal are involved
• Technical implementation
• Technical challenges
• Non-Technical challenges
• Processes needed for success
• When to use another migration process

• Drupal GovCon Presentation - Progressive Migration
• Talking Drupal #334 - Managing Drupal Teams in Government

Stephen Cross - stephencross.com stephencross

Nic Laflin - nLighteneddevelopment.com nicxvan John Picozzi - epam.com johnpicozzi Nate Dentzau - dentzau.com nathandentzau

Martin Anderson-Clutz - mandclu.com mandclu

• Brief description:
  • Have you ever wanted to use Drupal's Views interface to allow visitors to browse and navigate data from another source? There's a module for that
• Module name/project name:
  • Views JSON Source
• Brief history
  • How old: created in Apr 2020 by Pradeep Venugopal (venugopp), but recent releases are by Viktor Holovachek (astonvictor), a member of the Ukraine Drupal community
  • Versions available: 2.0.2 compatible with Drupal 8.8 and newer, all the way up to Drupal 11
• Maintainership
  • Actively maintained
  • Security coverage
  • Documentation: pretty lengthy README to help you get started
  • Number of open issues: 17 open issues, 4 of which are bugs against the current branch, although one had a fixed merged in the past week
• Usage stats:
  • 1,641 sites
• Module features and usage
  • After installing the module, you can create a view and specify it should show "JSON" instead of some kind of content entity
  • In the view settings you can then provide a URL for where to retrieve the JSON, and an optional Apath value to indicate a section of the data to show
  • It also supports contextual filters, so you can create a single view that will show different sections of data depending on the path used to access it
  • From there you can build out your view in the normal way: using fields to specify what data should be shown and how, filters to limit which rows will be shown, and sort criteria to specify the order in which it will be listed. And of course, the ability to expose controls for users to filter and sort the data in ways that meet their own needs make this an extremely powerful way to make data available to your site's visitors
  • We spoke a couple of episodes ago about how powerful it can be to use Drupal as the "glass" or experience layer through which visitors can interact with other systems, and I think this is another great example of that

Today we are talking about The Greater Cleveland RTA, How they use Drupal, and how they built a Drupal team with guests Mike Cermak & Rithya Lath. We'll also cover Geofield Directions as our module of the week.

For show notes visit: www.talkingDrupal.com/465

• What does the Greater Cleveland RTA do
• Is the RTA a state agency
• What kind of Digital Service do you provide
• How does the GCRTA use Drupal
• Whay was Drupal selected
• Let's talk about the team
• How long has the team existed and how many people
• What type of skill makeup doest hte team have
• Local development and deployment
• Point and click learning, how do you keep up to speed now
• Day to day responsibilities
• Drupal con and Starshot

• Greater Cleveland RTA

Rithya Lath - ral1239 Mike Cermak - riderta.com MikeCermak

Nic Laflin - nLighteneddevelopment.com nicxvan John Picozzi - epam.com johnpicozzi

Martin Anderson-Clutz - mandclu.com mandclu

• Brief description:
  • Have you ever wanted to make it easy for visitors to your Drupal site to get directions to a location via Google Maps? There's a module for that.
• Module name/project name:
  • Geofield Directions
• Brief history
  • How old: created in Feb 2021 by Christopher Martin (ccjjmartin), though recent releases are by Allan Chappell (generalredneck)
  • Versions available: 1.0.1, compatible with Drupal ^8.8 ^9 || ^10 ^11
• Maintainership
  • Minimally maintained, Maintenance fixes only
  • Security coverage
  • Test coverage
  • Documentation? Not even a README
  • Number of open issues: 1 open issue, not a bug
• Usage stats:
  • 26 sites
• Module features and usage
  • The module provides a new field formatter, so you can install it and then update a view mode to use Geofield Directions. Now your content display will include a link to get directions
  • You can figure the text of the link, whether the link should open in a new tab, the magnification of the destination map, and more
  • The module also includes token support, so you can dynamically include things like the name of the location in the link text
  • I think the only downside I can see is that because this is implemented as a formatter, you have to choose the directions link OR a map, where I could foresee sites wanting to show both

Today we are talking about Producing content with Drupal, How Drupal can help content producers, and ways it could be better with guest Jerry Ta. We'll also cover Stage File Proxy as our module of the week.

For show notes visit: www.talkingDrupal.com/464

• Brief overview of Urban Institute using Drupal
• What are the day to day responsibilities of a content producer
• Layout Builder or Paragraphs
  • What is your opinion
• You've been in content production for almost 2 decades, what was your first website editing tool.
• How long have you been using Drupal
• What is your number one wish the Drupal community would solve
• Drupalcon
  • What value do you look for for a content producer
• What is the hardest part of using Drupal
• Starshot reaction
• Predictions for Drupal in 5 years for content producers

• Modules for replacing files on Drupal - , Media Entity File Replace, etc.
  • File Replace
  • Media Entity File Replace
  • File Field Replace
• Content Sync
• Tokens with CKEditor module
• Shortcode
• Common Spot
• Scheduled transitions
• Experience builder
  • https://drupal.slack.com/archives/C072JMEPUS1
  • https://www.drupal.org/project/experience_builder
• Starshot
  • https://drupal.slack.com/archives/C072BF486FN
  • https://www.drupal.org/project/starshot

Jerry Ta - joshmiller

Nic Laflin - nLighteneddevelopment.com nicxvan John Picozzi - epam.com johnpicozzi Josh Miller - joshmiller

Martin Anderson-Clutz - mandclu.com mandclu

• Brief description:
  • Have you ever wanted to work on code or configuration changes to your Drupal site in a non-production environment, without having to copy over all the images and other content files? There's a module for that.
• Module name/project name:
  • Stage File Proxy
• Brief history
  • How old: created in Jan 2011 by netaustin, by recent releases are by Stephen Mustgrave, who listeners will probably recognize from the Needs Review initiative, among his many other Drupal contributions
  • Versions available: 7.x-1.10, 3.0.0-alpha2, and 3.1.0, the last of which works with Drupal 10.3 and 11
• Maintainership
  • Actively maintained
  • Security coverage
  • Test coverage
  • Documentation - not a lot, but it has been the subject of numerous blog posts over the years
  • Number of open issues: 15 open issues, 2 of which are bugs against the current branch
• Usage stats:
  • 16,710 sites
• Module features and usage
  • Once you have Stage File Proxy site up on your non-production site, when the environment gets a request for a content file it doesn't have like an image, it will query the production site to create a local copy
  • It also has a mode where those requests are served 301 redirects to their location on the production server, so no files are ever copied
  • Once you have the module installed, you can set the origin website URL using the admin UI, using a drush variable-set command, or you can add a line to your settings.php file.
  • Also, if you have simple HTTP authentication set up on the site you want to pull from (for example using the Shield module), you can add URL-encoded versions of the username and password to the origin URL, and the module will still be able to copy down the files.
  • This module was previously covered in this podcast way back in episode #33, but I thought it was worth bring back because it is so useful for working on site locally or across non-production environments

Today we are talking about DIY Site Builders, what are the benefits over Drupal (If Any), and When using Drupal makes sense with guest Ivan Stegic. We'll also cover Drupal 11 as our module of the week.

For show notes visit: www.talkingDrupal.com/463

• What is a DIY site builder
• Does TEN7 use DIY site builders
• How are DIY site builders better than Drupal
• Are they less expensive than Drupal
• HAve you ever suggested a site builder to a client
• What does a migration from a site builder look like
• Do you think starshot will make Drupal competitive with site builders

• Workspaces Extra
• Talking Drupal 451 - Just say Drupal
• Shopify
• Webflow
• Wix
• Squarespace
• Wordpress vip
• Cosmic.build
• Preshow:
  • Eurion constellation

Ivan Stegic - ten7.com ivanstegic

Nic Laflin - nLighteneddevelopment.com nicxvan John Picozzi - epam.com johnpicozzi Josh Miller - joshmiller

Martin Anderson-Clutz - mandclu.com mandclu

• Brief description:
  • Have you been wanting a version of Drupal that can use Workspaces, Recipes, and Single Directory Components, while running all the latest versions of its underlying technologies? Drupal 11 is all of that and more
• Module name/project name:
  • Drupal 11
• Brief history
  • How old: created on Aug 2 by catch of Tag1 and Third & Grove
• Module features and usage
  • Limited additions vs 10.3: by design to make the transition easier
    • Mostly in the recipes API, e.g. new config actions
  • Recap of new features vs. 10.0
    • Workspaces
    • Revisions and workflow are possible in the UI for Blocks and Taxonomy Terms
    • UI updates for creating and reusing fields, as well as bulk content operations
    • New Access Policy API and Single Directory Components
    • New Navigation and Announcements Feed modules
  • Contrib support out of the gate: about ⅔ of the top 200 modules already support Drupal 11
    • Adding modules that Rector estimates will only need info.yml or automated fixes brings us to over 80% of the top 200, or about 75% of all Drupal 10-compatible projects on Drupal.org
  • Updated dependencies: PHP 8.3, Symfony 7, CKEditor 5 42.0,2, Twig 3.9, Yarn 4, jQuery 4.0.0-beta, jQuery UI 1.14-beta.2 and more
  • Modules moved to contrib (smaller core):
    • Actions UI
    • Activity Tracker
    • Book
    • Forum
    • Statistics
    • Tour
  • Drupal 10 will receive maintenance support until mid-2026, so the community created this release of Drupal 11 early to give sites as much time as possible to make the transition, in this case almost 2 years!

Today we are talking about DrupalCon Singapore, What you can expect, and What's next for Drupal in Asia with guest Mike Richardson & Surabhi Gokte. We'll also cover Filefield Paths as our module of the week.

For show notes visit: www.talkingDrupal.com/462

• When is Drupalcon Asia
• The last one was in 2016, what did it take to reprise
• How do you handle language barriers
• What are your roles in the organizing committee
• Steering committee and Drupal South
• What can attendees expect
• Any special programming
• What kind of diversity is expected from attendees
• Driving from Mumbai to Singapore is 110 hours
• Will Dries be there
• Can we expect future Drupalcon Asia's
• Planning and logistics regarding coffee
• Starshot

• DrupalCon Singapore
• Droptimes
• Drupal camp Pune
• Steering committee for Drupal South
• Linux Australia Council
• DrupalCon Singapore Sponsorship
  • Email [email protected]
• Park Royal Collection Marina Bay
• Singapore Wiki
• Singapore Visa

Mike Richardson - Singapore DrupalCon richo_au Surabhi Gokte - surabhi-gokte

Nic Laflin - nLighteneddevelopment.com nicxvan John Picozzi - epam.com johnpicozzi Josh Miller - joshmiller

Martin Anderson-Clutz - mandclu.com mandclu

• Brief description:
  • Have you ever wanted to use a variety of tokens to customize the directory and file names of your uploaded files? There's a module for that.
• Module name/project name:
  • File (Field) Paths
• Brief history
  • How old: created in July 2008 by Stuart Clark (Deciphered), though recent releases are by Oleh Vehera (voleger) of Golems GABB
  • Versions available: 7.x-1.2 and 8.x-1.0-beta7, the latter of which supports Drupal 9.3 or newer, and Drupal 10
• Maintainership
  • Seeking co-maintainers
  • Security Coverage
    • Opted in, but no coverage in practice for Drupal 9 or 10
  • Test coverage
  • Number of open issues: 131 open issues, 50 of which are bugs against the current branch
• Usage stats:
  • 34,609 sites almost 35,000 sites
• Module features and usage
  • This module allows you to customize file names and paths by leveraging a variety of entity-based tokens
  • It also integrates with the Pathauto module, giving you options to clean up the tokens for example by removing slashes, filtering out words or punctuation, and so on
  • It can also work with the Transliteration module to convert unicode characters into US-ASCII
  • Filefield Paths has options to rename and move existing files, and can retroactively rename files, effectively bulk updating and moving all your existing files
  • It can also work with the Redirect module to automatically create redirects from the old path and filename to the new location, when renaming
  • I'd also like to give a tip of the cap to Jim Birch of Kanopi for suggesting this module, when I was talking to a customer who was looking to achieve pretty much exactly what this module does

Today we are talking about The Benefits of Distributions, If they have drawbacks, and what the future of distributions looks like with guest Rajab Natshah and Mohammed Razem. We'll also cover Google Analytics Reports as our module of the week.

For show notes visit: www.talkingDrupal.com/461

• What is a distribution
• How does this differ from profiles
• What does Varbase provide
• What types of users is Varbase geared towards
• Paragraphs or Layout Builder
• Vardoc
• How do you overcome fear of lock-in
• What do you think the future of distributions look like considering recipes
• Any plans to move Varbase to recipes
• Starshot

• Varbase Distribution
• Vardoc
• Google analytics counter
• United nations refugee agency
• George washington university
• City of Detroit
• Bootstrap Layout Builder
• Bootstrap Styles
• Visual Distribution Operator
• Profile inheritance issue
• Starshot work tracks
• Linux from Scratch

Rajab Natshah - rajab-natshah Mohammed Razem - mohammed-j-razem

Nic Laflin - nLighteneddevelopment.com nicxvan John Picozzi - epam.com johnpicozzi Josh Miller - joshmiller

Martin Anderson-Clutz - mandclu.com mandclu

• Brief description:
  • Have you ever wanted to display Google Analytics charts directly within your Drupal website? There's a module for that.
• Module name/project name:
  • Google Analytics Reports
• Brief history
  • Created in Apr 2011 by raspberryman, but recent releases are by today's guest Rajab Natshah
  • Versions available include 7.x-3.2, 8.x-3.2, and 4.0.0, that last two of which support Drupal 10 and 11
• Maintainership
  • Actively maintained, recent releases were less than a month ago
  • Security coverage
  • A documentation guide for older versions, and a README with detailed instructions to get it set up
  • Number of open issues: 76 open issues, 9 of which are bugs against the current branch
• Usage stats:
  • 4,272 sites
• Module features and usage
  • To set up this module, you first need to set up the API connection in the Google Developers Console, and download the client secret JSON
  • You'll then upload that into the Google Analytics Report API submodule along with the property ID to enable the connection
  • Next, you need to install the Charts module, and either the Google Charts or Highcharts sub-module to see graphical reports
  • You will now have a new Google Analytics Summary in your site's reports menu, and new "Google Analytics Reports Summary Block" and "Google Analytics Reports Page Block" blocks available
  • I haven't had a chance to try the 4.0 version of this module yet, but I have used older versions with a variety of dashboard solutions, including Moderation Dashboard and Homebox
  • One of the many benefits of using a powerful, open source framework like Drupal to build your site is its ability to act as the "glass" for a variety of other systems, and this module is a perfect demonstration of that