Talking Drupal

Today we are talking about the Drupal Association Board, Its Strategic Initiatives, and The Future of Drupal with guest Baddý Sonja Breidert. We'll also cover Advent Calendar as our module of the week.

For show notes visit: www.talkingDrupal.com/429

• Former member of Board of Drupal Association
• What does the board do
• How does the board operate
• Are there term limits
• How does someone get on the board
• Strategic Initiatives
  • Innovation
  • Marketing
  • Fundraising
• Now that you are no longer on the board what's next
• CEO of 1xInternet
• How did you get started with Drupal

• Try Drupal

Baddý Sonja Breidert - 1xinternet.de/en baddysonja

Nic Laflin - nLighteneddevelopment.com nicxvan John Picozzi - epam.com johnpicozzi Ron Northcutt - community.appsmith.com rlnorthcutt

Martin Anderson-Clutz - @mandclu Advent Calendar

• Brief description:
  • Have you ever wanted to reveal content a day-at-a-time, in an interactive advent calendar? There's a module for that.
• Brief history
  • How old: created less than month ago in Nov 2023 by listener James Shields, whose drupal.org username is lostcarpark
  • Versions available: 1.0.0-beta3 release, which works with Drupal 10.1 and newer
• Maintainership
  • Actively maintained, latest release made earlier today
  • Test coverage
  • Number of open issues: 5, 3 of which are bugs, but all but one are now marked as fixed
• Usage stats:
  • 6 sites
• Module features and usage
  • James actually created a Drupal advent calendar a year ago, on his website lostcarpark.com. The idea was to showcase a new module every day, similar to advent calendars that provide a chocolate or a toy each day, hidden behind a cardboard door
  • James' initial version displayed the content in a traditional calendar format, using the Calendar View module. What he really wanted, however, was a way to present the content using clickable doors to reveal new entries
  • The new Advent Calendar module provides a new view display, so you can configure what content type or other filters to apply, and use fields to specify what information to show
  • The module uses a Single Directory Component for display, hence the 10.1 requirement
  • There is also an "Advent Calendar Quickstart" submodule that sets up everything for you, including a content type, view, and 24 nodes to populate it for you
  • Each site visitor gets to "open" the door to new content as it is published each day. For authenticated users, which doors have been opened is stored as user data, and for anonymous users it's kept in local storage via Javascript
  • In addition to this being an interesting module in its own right, the advent calendar James has created this year is also a community effort. He's managed to enlist a wide variety of contributors to write about modules or aspects of the Drupal community that they're passionate about, so it's a great way to up your Drupal game. You can open a new door yourself every day at https://lostcarpark.com/advent-calendar-2023

Today we are talking about Being a Digital Nomad, common nomadic hurdles, and realized work/life benefits with guests Chad Hester and Shelley Goetz. We'll also cover Flag as our module of the week.

For show notes visit: www.talkingDrupal.com/428

• What does digital nomad mean?
• When did you first start to think about this
• What was your physical journey like
• What do you do for work
• What is the biggest win
• How did this affect family dynamics
• What was the biggest gotcha
• Tips and tricks
• Long term plan
• Why not Europe or South America
• Question from Stephen: As a Patriots fan what are your thoughts on the 2023 season, is Bill Belichick staying or going

• The Flag module
• US-CA Nomads on Instagram
• US-CA Nomads on Flicker
• Chad on LinkedIn
• Chad's website
• Chad's d.o profile
• Shelley on LinkedIn
• Shelley on Instagram
• An off-grid (on Vancouver Island) youtube channel that inspires Chad and Shelley
• Snowshoe Fondue on Mt. Washington

Shelley Goetz - shelleygoetz Chad Hester - chadkhester.com chadhester

Nic Laflin - nLighteneddevelopment.com nicxvan John Picozzi - epam.com johnpicozzi Ron Northcutt - community.appsmith.com rlnorthcutt

Martin Anderson-Clutz - @mandclu Flag

• Brief description:
  • Have you ever wanted a simple way to let users bookmark, like, or even flag as inappropriate content on your Drupal site? There's a module for that.
• Brief history
  • How old: originally created in 2008 by quicksketch, who listeners may remember as the original author of Webform
  • Versions available: 7.x-3.9 and 8.x-4.0-beta4
• Maintainership
  • Actively maintained, but no commits in the last year
• Has a handbook, but it's in the old documentation system
• Number of open issues: 675, 132 of which are bugs against the 8.x branch
• Usage stats:
  • Over 38,000 sites
• Maintainer(s):
  • Recent releases by Berdir, who we recently mentioned as the maintainer of TMGMT in episode #426
• Module features and usage
  • The Flag module provides a flexible system that can reference any kind of entity, so content, users, comments and so on
  • When you create a flag type, you set the target entity type, and then you can optionally choose specific bundles that can be flagged
  • Flags can be per-user, like bookmarks, or global, meaning that they're the same for everyone
  • Links to Flag or Unflag content or other entities can be displayed in a variety of ways: in a field, in entity links, as contextual links, and more
  • By default flag links are rendered as AJAX links that flag or unflag content without reloading the page, but you can configure them to display in various ways, including a links to a field entry form, because flag types are also fieldable
  • There is extensive views integration, so it's easy to list flagged content, for example to show a user content they've flagged as their favorites. The ecosystem of modules around Flag includes one called Views Flag Refresh that can trigger a view to automatically update via AJAX as soon as any content in that view is flagged or unflagged
  • Not long ago I used Flag as part of a lightweight task management system within Drupal, and anyone wanting to try that out can install the Tasks module

On today's show we are turning the tables and Nic and John will be interviewed by our guest host Melissa Bent. We'll also cover Content Model Documentation as our module of the week.

For show notes visit: www.talkingDrupal.com/427

• What made you decide to start the podcast
• Who does what tasks
• The first episode was on May 30 2013. What do you know now that you wish you knew then
• When did the guest host start
• What has been your favorite episode
• How did you come to this format
• Where did the tagline come from
• What technology do you use in production
• The show is supported by multiple platforms, would you recommend this
• What advice would you give someone just starting

• GovCon Session for Content Model Documentation
• First Episode
• Three hundred
• The Night before DrupalCon
• Wade Wingler
• Jono Bacon
• Dries' First Episode
• Needs Review Issue Queue
• Sustainability Guidelines
• A Website's Carbon Footprint
• vdo.ninja
• kdenlive
• Audacity
• Patreon
• Youtube
• Libsyn
• Kid3
• Auphonic
• Midjourney
• Trello
• Hackmd.io

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

Melissa Bent - linkedin.com/in/melissabent merauluka

Martin Anderson-Clutz - @mandclu Content Model & Site Documentation

• Brief description:
  • Have you wanted to make your Drupal site self-documenting directly within the admin UI? There's a module for that.
• Brief history
  • How old: created in Jan 2023
  • Versions available: 1.0.23, compatible with Drupal 9 and 10
• Maintainership
  • Actively maintained, latest release was a week ago
  • Test coverage
  • No official guide, but there was a recent talk about the module at GovCon, so you can watch that
  • Number of open issues: 43 open, 9 of which are bugs
• Usage stats:
  • 82 sites
• Maintainer(s):
  • Steve Wirt (swirt) who works for Civic Actions
• Module features and usage
  • Allows your Drupal site to generate its own documentation
  • Has fieldable Content Model Document entities that allow you to customize what data will be stored
  • Can optionally document things like your content types, taxonomies, block types, paragraph types, and more
  • Documentation elements can also be associated with parts of your site configuration, and they become available within the relevant parts of your admin UI. For example, if you add documentation for a specific content type, when a site builder goes into edit that content type they will see a link to the documentation as a tab
  • You can generate entity relationship diagrams using MermaidJS
  • Also includes a field search capability originally developed as a separate module by Matthieu Scarset, who was a guest on this show back in episode #298
  • Will also generate diagrams to illustrate your content workflows, showing the states defined and the transitions between them

Today we are talking about The Needs Review Queue Initiative, What it is, and How it's helping to improve Drupal with guest Stephen Mustgrave. We'll also cover Translation Management Tool as our module of the week.

For show notes visit: www.talkingDrupal.com/426

• Can you give an overview of Needs Review Issue Queue Initiative
• Is the bug smash initiative related to the needs review issue queue
• Is this the same as the needs review bot
• How many issues were in the Needs Review status when you started
• How many issues today
• How long did it take until it was manageable
• How long do items stay on average
• Who else is helping
• Let's talk through the pagination heading level issue
• What help can the community provide
• How does someone get involved
• Do you think this helps with burnout for core committers
• What's the future of the initiative

• Needs Review Queue Bot
• Needs Review Issue Queue
• Pagination heading level issue

Stephen Mustgrave - smustgrave

Nic Laflin - nLighteneddevelopment.com nicxvan John Picozzi - epam.com johnpicozzi Melissa Bent - linkedin.com/in/melissabent merauluka

Martin Anderson-Clutz - @mandclu Translation Management Tool (TMGMT)

• Brief description:
  • Have you ever wanted to automate the process of creating content translations on your Drupal site? There's a module for that.
• Brief history
  • How old: created in Jan 2012
  • Versions available: 7.x-1.0-rc3 and 8.x-1.15, the latter of which works with Drupal 9 and 10
• Maintainership
  • Actively maintained
  • Test coverage
  • Documentation
  • Number of open issues: 595, 139 of which are bugs against the 8.x branch
• Usage stats:
  • 8,766 sites
• Maintainer(s):
  • Berdir, a very prolific maintainer in his own right, who also supports well known projects like Search API, Token, Paragraphs, and many more
• Module features and usage
  • Provides a tool set for automating the process of creating translations for your site content, as well as strings used within the site like menus, interface text, and so on
  • Works with more than 30 translation service providers, including many that leverage human translators, but also AI-based services like DeepL and OpenAI
  • Also has a plugin system to determine what text needs to be translated, so it can be easily adapted to very custom needs
  • With the module installed that Translate tab on your nodes changes to have buttons to request a translation in each language
  • Once a translation has been requested, it will run through states like unprocessed, active, and finished
  • Also provides an option for Continuous Translation, where new and updated content is automatically submitted for translation
  • Allows for professional translation at scale, using whatever kind of service works best for your site
  • The need for robust translation capabilities is what originally got me started using Drupal, so it's great to see that there are enterprise-grade options for sites that need to manage translations at scale

Today we are talking about the a new Drupal Book Modernizing Drupal 10 Theme Development, What's new in Drupal 10 theming, and tools that can help speed up theming with guest Luca Lusso. We'll also cover Admin Dialogs as our module of the week.

For show notes visit: www.talkingDrupal.com/425

• Why write a book about Drupal theming
• How does the book modernize theming
• Who is the book for
• Do you have to have a certain level of knowledge to start
• What are some new aspects of Drupal 10 that are covered in the book
• Does the book talk about:
  • Javascript frameworks
  • Native Web Components
• What tools outside of Drupal do you talk about
• How did you conduct your research
• Do you have plans to keep the github updated
• How long did it take to write the book
• Tech moves quickly, what is the shelf-life of the book
• Future editions
• Purchase from Amazon or Packt
• Translation
• Plans for another book

• Admin Dialog Blog
• Book github
• Buy the book

Nic Laflin - nLighteneddevelopment.com nicxvan John Picozzi - epam.com johnpicozzi Melissa Bent - linkedin.com/in/melissabent merauluka

Jacob Rockowitz - @jrockowitz Admin Dialogs

• Brief description: (from the maintainer)
  • The Admin Dialogs module improves the UI by reducing the number of page loads. For example, instead of opening a delete confirmation page, the module will show the form in a dialog (modal) form.
  • https://www.chapterthree.com/blog/improve-drupal-admin-ui-new-admin-dialogs-module
• Brief history
  • How old: Created on May 2023
  • Versions available: 1.0.x stable release
  • Last release: 1.0.17 - July 12, 2023
• Maintainership
  • Actively maintained? Yes
  • Number of open issues: 6
  • Test coverage
    • No test coverage
    • Module is fairly simple and easy to manually test
    • Code quality is very good
• Usage stats:
  • sites 150+
• Maintainer(s):
  • Minnur Yunusov (minnur)
  • https://www.drupal.org/u/minnur
  • https://www.minnur.com/
• Sponsor
  • Chapter Three
• Module features and usage
  • Comes with the ability to add modal or off-canvas dialogs to different links in Drupal.
  • Easy to use. Most features available after installing the module.
  • Adds controls dialog type for operation links like Edit, Delete etc.
  • Adds and controls dialog type for local tasks.
  • Adds and controls dialog types for local actions.
  • Ability to add dialogs via specified A tag paths.
  • Ability to add dialogs via specifying CSS selectors (classes and IDs).
  • Adds option to control delete button dialog.
  • You can add support for your modules by adding configs created in the module.
  • Experimental: Add loading spinner to form submit elements on form submit.
• Discussion
  • The module does one thing and does it really well
  • Require no initial configuration.
  • Worth reviewing common administration tasks for contributed modules and deciding if a modal dialogs or sidebar can improve the admin UX.

Today we are talking about the Web Sustainability Guidelines, How sustainability applies to the web, and how your website can be more sustainable with guests Mike Gifford and Andy Blum. We'll also cover LB Plus as our module of the week.

For show notes visit: www.talkingDrupal.com/424

• What are the Web sustainability guidelines
• Do they only apply to environmental impact
• When we think about sustainability we think of funding, does WSG speak to that
• Why are the WSG important
• What is the best way to implement WSG
• How do the WSG's apply to Drupal
• Have the WSG's been finalized
• Are they open source
• How can someone get involved

• Web Sustainability Guidelines
• Carbon footprint of your website
• Eggcorns
• Andy's blog post
• w3c/sustyweb
• Sustainable web design working group
• Green Web Foundation

Mike Gifford - mgifford.medium.com @mgifford

Nic Laflin - nLighteneddevelopment.com nicxvan John Picozzi - epam.com johnpicozzi Melissa Bent - linkedin.com/in/melissabent merauluka

Martin Anderson-Clutz - @mandclu Layout Builder Plus

• Brief description:
  • Have you ever wanted to make Layout Builder easier and more intuitive for content creators? There are a few modules that can help with that, but today we're going to talk about one called Layout Builder Plus
• Brief history
  • How old: Originally created in Apr 2022
  • Versions available: 2.0.1 release, compatible with Drupal 10 and 11
• Maintainership
  • Actively maintained, latest release just a week ago
  • Number of open issues: 2, both bugs, but both marked as fixed
• Usage stats:
  • 9 sites
• Maintainer(s):
  • Tim Bozeman of Tag1
• Module features and usage
  • Provides an overhaul of the Layout Builder UI, to make it easier for content creators:
  • Show a curated list of promoted blocks with icons, with lesser-used blocks available in a separate tab
  • Once a block is placed it shows automatically generated content, instead of asking the user to fill out a form before they can see what it will look like
  • Editing the content of a block happens in an overlay instead of the settings tray, so it can use more of the screen
  • Moves the Save Layout and other action buttons to the bottom of the page
  • Also adds some nice capabilities to Layout Builder, including:
  • Drag and drop entire sections
  • Change the layout of an existing section, even if it has blocks in it
  • Clone and update existing blocks
  • Finally, it includes a submodule to integrate with the Section Library module, which allows for a section within a layout to be saved so it can be reused again and again
  • I'll also note that this is a module nominated by one of our listeners in the #talkingdrupal channel of the Drupal slack workspace, so if there's a module you'd like to hear about in this segment, drop us a note in there

Today we are talking about The Conflict Resolution Team, What they do, and Why they do it with guest Mark Casias. We'll also cover Smart Trim as our module of the week.

For show notes visit: www.talkingDrupal.com/423

• What is the Conflict Resolution Team
• Why is the Conflict Resolution Team needed
• When / Why was the Conflict Resolution Team created
• What kinds of issues does the Conflict Resolution Team deal with
• Do you meet separately from discussing issues
• How do you handle burnout
• How does one become a member
• Why are you a member
• How do you submit an issue to the Conflict Resolution Team
• How many submissions do you get
• Do you have to include the Drupal Association
• Does the DA provide tools
• Does the Conflict Resolution Team need help
• Is there any specific training you look for
  • Code of conduct training
• Anything you would like to add

• Conflict Resolution Team

Nic Laflin - nLighteneddevelopment.com nicxvan John Picozzi - epam.com johnpicozzi Mark Casias - kanopi.com - markie

Martin Anderson-Clutz - @mandclu Smart Trim

• Brief description:
  • Have you ever wanted to truncate provided user text in a more intelligent way than the "summary or trimmed" formatter in Drupal core? There's a module for that.
• Brief history
  • How old: Originally created in Apr 2012
  • Versions available: 7.x-1.6 and 2.1.0 versions available, the latter compatible with Drupal 8, 9, and 10
• Maintainership
  • Actively maintained
• Number of open issues
  • 74, 8 of which are active bugs against the 2.x branch
• Test coverage, using the new GitLab CI
• User guide for documentation
• Usage stats:
  • 66,919
• Maintainer(s):
  • Friends of the podcast, markie, ultimike, volkswagenchick
  • Module features and usage
  • Adds a variety of configuration options, in addition to the trim length:
  • Whether the length is characters or words
  • An optional suffix at the trim point e.g. ellipsis
  • Whether or not to add a more link after the trimmed text
  • Stripping HTML tags from the trimmed output
  • The ability to customize the output even more via twig template override
  • Because it works by providing a field formatter it works with entity display but also views, layout builder, and more
  • A module I've used many times myself and found extremely useful. I haven't had a chance to try the latest release, but given the recent focus on UI improvements, documentation, and flexibility in the twig template it should be even better than I remember

Today we are talking about Commerce Kickstart, Commerce in General, and What's new at Centarro with guest Ryan Szrama. We'll also cover Navigation as our module of the week.

For show notes visit: www.talkingDrupal.com/422

• High level overview of commerce kickstart
• Is it a distribution
• Will it move to recipes
• Why use commerce directly over kickstart
• Does kickstart lend itself to a specific type of site
• Compare with Shopify
• Do you ever recommend Shopify
• Are there additional conditions or events being added
• Can people contribute to kickstart
• What is Centarro focused on now
• What is the state of headless

• Selling File Downloads and certificates through Drupal Commerce
• Commerce Kickstart
• Driesnote
• Methodical coffee

Ryan Szarma - ryanszrama.com rszrama

Nic Laflin - nLighteneddevelopment.com nicxvan John Picozzi - epam.com johnpicozzi Mark Casias - kanopi.com - markie

Martin Anderson-Clutz - @mandclu Navigation

• Brief description:
  • Would you like to try out and give feedback on a proposed overhaul to how Drupal's administration menu works? There's a module for that.
• Brief history
  • How old: project created in 2004, but the namespace was taken over earlier this year as a place to work on the proposed new navigation in the contrib space
  • Versions available: No releases yet, so you need to clone the repo into your custom modules
• Maintainership
  • Very active development, commits in the past day
• Number of open issues:
  • 46, 14 of which are bugs
• Usage stats:
  • Officially 1 site is using it, but not recommended for production anyway
• Maintainer(s):
  • Include Christina Chumillas, Sascha Eggenberger, Lauri Eskola, Mike Herschel, and more
• Module features and usage
  • At this point, really a prototype, trying to define what the user experience should be
  • Worth noting that the latest release for the Gin admin theme also includes this new updated navigation as an experimental feature that can be updated, but still best to leave feedback on the Navigation project
  • The main idea is that instead of having dropdowns that fly out for deeper level menu items, the navigation is in a sidebar, with menu items that expand to reveal child items when clicked
  • It's worth noting that dropdown menus with multiple levels handled in flyouts are a known usability pain point, and are often cited by industry experts like Jakob Neilsen as something to avoid
  • There are still some usability issues to be thought through with this approach, for example there is no longer a way to reach the top page of a section or subsection, because clicking on the link shows or hides the child items instead
  • This was a subject of some very active discussions at DrupalCon Europe last week, so I thought it would be good to cover this week, so our listeners can add their voices

Today we are talking about The Future of Drupal article, What Challenges Drupal may have, and How we can overcome them together! with guest Ricardo Marcelino.

For show notes visit: www.talkingDrupal.com/421

• Can you describe the article this topic is based on
• Module percentages
• Drupal's challenges
• Drupal's unique selling proposition
• How can Drupal expand relevance
• Why is relevance important
• How does Drupal move forward
• What's next for Drupal
• Do you think this is a natural change for a project like Drupal
• How do we ensure the future of Drupal

• The Future of Drupal
• Drupal Day Portugal Slides
• Dries note

Ricardo Marcelino - omibee.com rfmarcelino

Nic Laflin - nLighteneddevelopment.com nicxvan John Picozzi - epam.com johnpicozzi Mark Casias - kanopi.com - markie

Martin Anderson-Clutz - @mandclu (Next.js)[https://www.drupal.org/project/next]

• Brief description:
  • Have you ever wanted to build a website with a React-based front end, but with lots of the robust and mature CMS capabilities that Drupal provides? There's a module for that.
• Brief history
  • How old: created in Jan 2021 by shadcn, who continues to support it, including in the #nextjs channel in Drupal slack
• Versions available:
  • 1.6.3 for Drupal 9 & 10
• Maintainership
  • Actively maintained, though it uses a Github repo as its place for collaboration, including issues
• Number of open issues:
  • 135 open, 12 of them bugs
• Test coverage? Y
• Usage stats:
  • 1,249 sites
• Maintainer(s):
  • shadcdn, who continues to support it, including in the #nextjs channel in Drupal slack
• Module features and usage:
  • For anyone not familiar with Next.js, it's a React framework for building front-end applications that gives developers a number a number of useful capabilities, such as dynamic routing, performance optimizations, integrations, and more
  • The Next.js module for Drupal optimizes your Drupal backend for use as the content repository for a Next.js front end
  • It add functionality like headless preview of unpublished content, even across multiple front end apps
  • It also supports Incremental Site Regeneration, a best practice to ensure your front end site can serve static pages for the fastest possible delivery, but without the risk of serving stale content
  • Works with the JSON:API Menu Items and JSON:API Views Drupal modules to allow even more of your front end site to be managed within your Drupal backend
  • There's even a Next.js Webform module that allows your Drupal site builder to create webforms, and have the React forms automatically created
  • There is also a specialized version of Next.js, a "next-drupal-basic-starter", also maintained by shadcn, that helps to get your Next.js front end working with Drupal more quickly

Today we are talking about Same Page Preview, Why it's needed, and When it might land in Drupal Core with our guest Chris Weber. We'll also cover Type Tray as our module of the week.

For show notes visit: www.talkingDrupal.com/420

• Origin story
• What does same page preview do
• Who maintains the module
• Current state
• How does the module handle smaller screens
• Performance
• Caching concerns
• Core inclusion
• Roadmap
• How can people get involved
• Listener Question: Stephen 10+ years ago, I recall connecting to Drupal Coffee on Google+ hosted by you, this is when we started Talking Drupal. Am I remembering right?

• The Randomatics
  • https://www.facebook.com/therandomatics
  • https://soundcloud.com/therandomatics
• Pitchburg
• Getting it into core
• loom tool
• Talking Drupal #48 Overnight Website Challenge with Chris Weber
• Twin Cities Drupal talk about Same Page preview
• Loom videos showing progress:
  • Phase 1: https://www.loom.com/share/425c0abedaf448f486a0289a7121361d
  • Phase 2: https://www.loom.com/share/97fea8c3819a44aba0690aacb77f7a37
  • Phase 2.1: https://www.loom.com/share/04c5ced243314cdeb1a22e95b101b54e

Chris Weber - nerdery.com - cosmicdreams

Nic Laflin - nLighteneddevelopment.com nicxvan John Picozzi - epam.com johnpicozzi Mark Casias - kanopi.com - markie

Martin Anderson-Clutz - @mandclu Type Tray

• Brief description:
  • Have you ever wanted to present a better, more organized version of the Content Add page, on a Drupal site with a large number of Content Types? There's a module for that
• Brief history
  • How old: created in Mar 2021
• Versions available
  • 1.2.4 for D9.2+ & D10
• Maintainership
  • Actively maintained, latest release <3 mo ago
• Number of open issues:
  • 3, only 3 of which are bugs (2 have patches)
• Test coverage? Y
• Usage stats:
  • 8,704 sites
• Maintainer(s):
  • Created by marcoscano, along with a couple of co-maintainers, all of Lullabot
• Module features and usage
  • Allows a site builder to categorize the content types and present them in a list or grid view
  • Each content type can be a assigned a thumbnail and/or icon, to give content creators a visual idea of the options available to them, in addition to an extended description field
  • Also an ability to assign a "weight" to each content type, to control the order in which it will display, within its category
  • Also a Gin Type Tray module available to the Type tray look better when used with the Gin admin theme
  • Listeners may remember our discussion of the Schema.org Blueprints module back in episode. That project includes a schemadotorg_type_tray module to provide its own Type Tray integration