There is a significant difference when you stand up in front of two hundred people to give a single presentation or a lecture, and when you stand up in front of ten trainees, for giving a three months course. Especially an ICT course, where much of the time you have to be clicking on the right place and not making mistakes, because people use to panic, when noticing red alert messages. This latter, compared to the first, feels more like a relationship - long lasting, well planned, with predicted results. And actually, a long lasting knowledge that has to come out of all that.

I had the chance to read Matt Butcher's Drupal6 Javascript and jQuery published by Packt Publishing. So here is my short book review.

Many people, including myself, don't have wonderful memories of JavaScript. With a cryptic syntax and error messages, it didn't really do anything useful. If you're like me, don't let the title of the book scare you. The Drupal6 Javascript and jQuery does not talk a lot about JavaScript itself, it only makes a brief review of it, and moves on to an extensive coverage of jQuery and how to integrate it in a Drupal website. It assumes you are familiar with general programming concepts (such as PHP) but always makes short and clear descriptions of details specific to JavaScript.

Matt addresses the book to web designers and developers who are familiar with Drupal's basic operations. For example, the book does not include yet another Drupal install howto, but does provide a useful short review of Drupal essentials, from blocs to Firebug, to the Theme Developer module (chapter 1).

Designers only looking for quick recipes to integrate in their theme (chapter 3) may be a bit overwhelmed by the chapters that follow. They will, however, find all the necessary information to build original and useful web interfaces. Advanced designers should find the chapter on client side JavaScript theme engine interesting (chapter 6).

Developers should find everything they need in the book to create dynamic interfaces. There are good explanations of Drupal behaviours, Ajax (with JSON), the translation system (client side). It also includes good examples on how to create a jQuery plug-in.

Technically, the examples provided are realistic and useful. They do not try to reinvent the wheel and the examples make use of useful third party
projects. For example, a "new comment notifier" which is use to describe how to create dynamic events with Ajax makes good use of the "Views datasource" module. The sample code is technically correct and encourages the use of good programming practices.

Those who are not advanced programmers will get a good understanding of the code since the examples are usually shown in their full form, then the author cuts the code into smaller pieces to explain each concept in detail.

The only exception to this is the chapter on JavaScript theming (chapter 6). I had to read it twice before understanding the general idea. Some examples were not obvious at first glance and didn't look useful. For example, it presents a long example on how to create new theme placeholder functions, before showing quick examples on how to use existing functions provided by the JavaScript Theming module. I think it may have been more clear if this chapter was placed after the one on Ajax (chapter 7).

Overall, this is a useful book and a good reference. Aiming at experts, it is a good reference guide for people who are already familiar and work with Drupal. It is not one of the beginners' books, which can be found everywhere, but a good comprehensive guide for a more advanced knowledge building.

And finally, here is a PDF with chapter 2: Working with JavaScript in Drupal.

Hello!

Here are published the slides of the Drupal6 Course we did at the Studio XX in the period November, 2009 - January, 2010. More slides will appear after each course, so don't hesitate to revisit each week!

Please note that some slides are joined, so the course 5 slides appear in the SlidesCourse3 file. To not make a mistake, please read the list with titles of the contents of each presentation.

List of slide presentations:

• SlidesCours1: Introduction to Web Publishing and Drupal.
• SlidesCours2: Choosing and Configuring Modules.
• SlidesCours3: User Management and Taxonomy.
• SlidesCours4: Content Construction Kit
• SlidesCours5: Views

Monday was the first day of our Drupal Course, organised by Studio XX and given by myself. The first class is always a big question mark, since there are always surprises. This time, there was the uncertainty about the level of knowledge on Drupal by the participants, the language (English or French), the expectations. It is a question mark because it takes the first course to see the speed of learning of the participants and the time it takes for solving technical problems. This way, you know how to program the next sessions.

So, just a couple of details:

• the course is having this fancy nameDynamic Website Conception with Drupal 6, and is taking place at Studio XX lab.
• it will continue for three months, but is not more than 30 hours in total (3hrs per week for 10 weeks)
• there are 11 female students, most of which visual artists by profession.
• starting from next Monday (this one was mainly introductory course), we will be installing Drupal and each of the participants will be building her own website with Drupal.

In the overall, the group is going with a good speed, the Drupal knowledge of the participants is almost the same level, and also all speak English, which helps out a lot (in other courses there has been one that does not understand English, and another one that does not understand French - which slows down the speed in double!). And actually, people are brilliant: I will be learning as much as them in this course. Only the scope of learning will be different.

Summary of course 1 (for the absent ones and for the curious ones).

In this first course, we got to know each other, and to equalise our knowledge on terminology and principles such as: how websites work, world wide web, static vs dynamic content, content management systems. Short introduction to Web Development (from needs to analysis and to production), and to different types of CMS. Comparison, terms, names. Drupal and community. Advantages and disadvantages. Administrative interface and examples. Free and Open Source Software.

Students also had a homework: to draw their needs for a personal website. They will need to draw their website on a paper - including structure, basic design (colours), and to think for the content. They also need to find 1 or 2 examples of websites which they like and are quite similar to what they want to create.

Handouts and slides coming soon in the HowTo FOSS section on ludost.

There is a book by Matt Butcher that just came out, covering the Javascript and jQuiery in Drupal 6. Published by Packt Publishing. I will be getting a free copy for review around mid-November.

There is a PDF with Chapter 2 of the book, for the ones who are interested : Working with JavaScript in Drupal. The PDF also offers an overview of the chapters and an info about the author.

With the combination of the powerhouse jQuery library, with its own robust set of JavaScript tools, Drupal 6 comes with a pre-packaged killer JavaScript environment. Cross-platform by nature, it provides all of the tools necessary to create powerful AJAXenabled scripts, gorgeous visual effects, and view-enhancing behaviors. In addition, Drupal developers have ported some of its most powerful PHP tools (like a theming engine and support for localization and language translation) to JavaScript, making it possible to write simple scripts, where once only complex PHP code could be used.

For more information: Drupal6 Javascript and jQuery

Studio XX is organising a Drupal 10 weeks training.

Website installation and customization using Drupal.

Tuesdays 6 – 9 P.M. November 3 to December 15 and January 12 to 26, 2010.

Why make a static website that requires expensive tools when you can make a dynamic one using online open source software!? In this workshop dynamic websites made with web-based applications called content-management systems (CMS) will be introduced and explained. Participants will learn to install customize and style an easy to update and maintain website using Drupal, a well-known Open Source software.

Trainer: Christina Haralanova

DrupalCamp Montreal 2009 is on now. More than 100 people, presentations in 2 tracks and also some informal ones. This is my third DrupalCamp Montreal (even if on the website is written it is the second one).

The first one was in 2006, and this was my first meet-up with Drupal, and with the community. I must admit, at this time, I did not get much impressed by the software, since I was proud user and contributor to Spip (another cms). But I liked the community though. I met some great women (Myriam, Angie "webchick" and others).. some great people and an easy-going space, where you can join sessions, ask questions and fool around with the software.

DrupalCamp Montreal 2009 is different. It is much more big, more institutionalised (in McGill University), more organised (coffee, lunch, wifi, schedule, registration, t-shirts, book store, video streaming...). I like it because it has somehow kept its informality, and warm welcome for newcomers. I even attended the first day without registering, and it was not problematic. No fierce control, no stopping unregistered participants, things are voluntary and grass-root raisen, and since this does not stop the community to participate, to pay its fees, to organise in a good way, to have great and high quality participations. Even if companies participated, there was not big visibility of the corporate participants, no logos, no intrusion.

The most interesting for me was : Angie's Keynote about Drupal 7 from the first day and the training and support experience of Caroline and Deb.

I was also at the Gmap-ing and Views by Lis and Jake, but they took about 30 min to start, and then my concentration went away, the site kept crashing, the presentations was slow, full of tech probs.. and I got nothing in the end. People starting laughing and participating in troubleshooting, but not really into contents...

Since I will be teaching Drupal soon, it is a good warming-up excercise for me to get the new software directions and features.

Great work #drupalcampmtl !

It is a bit more than a year that I use Drupal instead of Spip for building my website. It was a revolutionary move, even if there's been a number of inconveniences.

Revolutionary ?

• Well, I can decide many more things with my website, without asking for technical help from others.
• I can have a great design theme, without mastering designing skills.
• Many ready to use options from user point of view.
• Looks much more like a real website, then like a self-created piece of online journal
• Since most of the people around me are masters in Drupal, I just feel more as a part of a community. Long time ago, we were implementing Spip all alone, in a different part of the world, where people around us were experimenting with other different CMS, so the contact with the community was made by one person only.

Inconveniences? Sure. Many.

• First of all, there was this new software that I need to master. It provides more options, therefore it is more complicated. Therefore, need more time to master... (the same socio-technical vicious circle)
• Second of all, not only the software, but also my old good habits. The terminology is much different, but also the whole website building concept is different. You don't only replace: article by node, but also you understand they are not the same thing. There is no rubriques (sections) in Drupal, no pages (articles), no order of the publications by section and language... shortly, it all broke my deterministic habits at once.
• Thirdly, I have never, really never managed to move my contents from Spip into Drupal. We tried to automatically move several sections, but the result was not great: lost their typographical details, language problems (like accents, cirilic, etc.), photos attached to the article would magically disappear, etc. So I had to move each posting manually. Blah, in fact I never actually did. Which is also the reason some of the sections still stay (and will stay) empty.
• Spip had great statistics, and many things worked magically well. Rather than with Drupal, being a gigantic project, there are number of things which still need improvement (like sending automatic e-mail messages when you receive a comment on the website).
• Spip is translated in a number of languages. The admin interface can switch language like magic. Rather, Drupal does not do that. I don't complain, Enlish is just fine, but when I do trainings, it is convenient to show people they can read the commands and the options in their own language.

Well, let's stop complaining. With Drupal were fixed some major personal problems like the langage(s) in which I should write. With Spip my site was multi-language. It was defining automatically your language skills and was showing you the right articles. However, I was stuck writing in each of the three languages, either translating it all, or just writing about my emotions in one language, about conferences - in other, and about gender and technology - in third. What a waste of time and resources!

What is weird is that with Spip, I needed a little bit more than 10min training to start using it. With Drupal, I passed a year of maintaining the site, posting and improving, and there is still long way to go... Maybe like the GNU/Linux learning curve...

Anyway, all this just to say: Happy Birthay my Drupal site! You are now one year old!

Thème : "Faire son blog avec Drupal".
L'heure et le lieu :
le 19 juin à 14 heures dans nos locaux :
6833, avenue de l'Épée
Bureau 308
Montréal

Plan de la formation

1. Introduction
2. Présentation de drupal
3. Planification de projet
4. Information du site
5. Utilisateurs et permissions
6. Activation des modules
7. Activer une langue
8. Blocs
9. Configuration des statistiques