Nedelchev Personal Space

Hi,

Following on from last week's call for feedback on iteration 5 of the prototype ... we have now progressed to iteration 6, whereby we have begun to integrate the visual design into the prototype, making the prototype feel more like a website now and less like wireframes.

We encourage you to browse through the prototype and feedback your thoughts and ideas in this thread. The link to the latest iteration is below (please note the slight change in URL - this is because of a new version of Blueprint, and additions to CSS etc.):

http://drupal.markboultondesign.com/visual/iteration6

Key points on this iteration:

• If you've viewed the prototype before please dump your cache or things may look a little screwy.
• Applied visual design concepts to prototype (disclaimer: This is the 3rd iteration - things will be changed, and things will get better. Also, ignore the CSS and semantics of the HTML - this is all currently based on Blueprint.)
• Added new logotype (rationale forthcoming on a blog post on the MBD site, which you can read in Planet Drupal, but also a post here)
• Amends to several section, including moving logged in homepage to 'Dashboard' (name tbc)
• Revisions to Documentation
• Major changes to homepage to include revised copywriting

On the initial schedule, this was due to be the last week for community feedback, but due to the overwhelming and undeniably useful response, we have added 3 more dates for your feedback.

Don't forget to keep browsing the Flickr group (http://flickr.com/groups/drupalredesign/), and if you aren't doing so already, there is still plenty of time to follow the redesign on Twitter (http://twitter.com/drupalredesign)

We hope you are as excited about these developments as we are.

Thanks again.

Mark

(www.markboultondesign.com)

DrupalDay, Italian association for the development and promotion of the famous Open Source CMS, is pleased to announce the first DrupalDay.

The event will be held Friday 28th November 2008 from 9,30 am to 5,30 pm at Auditorium of Polytechnic of Milan located in Viale Romagna, 62 in Milan (Italy).

The program will provide a wide range of reports on technical and functional issues and offer opportunities for debates and comparison.

The event is hosted by POUL, no profit student association and is sponsored by Wellnet, web software house in Milan. Participation is free but a pre-registration is recommended.

DrupalDay, movimento italiano di promozione e sviluppo del famoso CMS Open Source a cui aderiscono numerosi sviluppatori ed aziende è lieto di annunciare il I° DrupalDay

L’evento si terrà venerdì 28 novembre 2008 dalle 09,30 alle 17,30 presso l’Auditorium del Politecnico di Milano in Viale Romagna, 62 a Milano.

Il programma prevede relazioni di esperti su diverse tematiche sia tecniche che funzionali e offrirà ampi spazi per dibattiti e confronti.

L’evento è promosso dal POUL, associazione studentesca no profit ed è sponsorizzato da Wellnet, web software house di Milano. La partecipazione è gratuita ma si consiglia la pre-registrazione.

Hi All,

The redesign has made great progress over recent weeks and we would really like to share this with you!

Below is a link to the latest iteration of the redesign prototype. Please take the time to look through the pages and feedback your thoughts and ideas in this thread.

http://drupal.markboultondesign.com/iteration5

We also welcome comments on the initial design and visuals, and as with previous weeks, all posts here will be read and fed back into the redesign process

Don't forget to keep browsing the Flickr group (http://flickr.com/groups/drupalredesign/), and if you aren't doing so already, there is still plenty of time to follow the redesign on Twitter (http://twitter.com/drupalredesign)

Thanks for your continued support and interest in the project!

Mark

(www.markboultondesign.com)

[EDIT - 24 October 2008]

Following some comments on this thread, I've had a quick look at amending the design visuals for this initial direction:

They're at the foot of the latest prototype iteration index: http://drupal.markboultondesign.com/iteration5/

• The masthead now has a background of gradiated blue. A nod to the history of Drupal, showing a clear evolution. As wmostrey hinted to, the blues are what makes Drupal.org look like Drupal.org. Maybe we should be taking that on board.
• I've included tabs in the logged in homepage - of course, this would need further refinement

Some small changes. Question is: blue background, or not?

Personally I think it works, but only with the iconless wordmark. It certainly looks a little more Drupal than before.

http://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/bsc/peps/2008/00000061/00000003/ar...

I saw this article referenced in the economist. Groups.drupal.org has done wonders for the community by empowering local and working groups and giving them control over their groups. What we seem to be missing is training. Does it make sense to provide training for group organizers and event managers?

Discuss.

The redesign has been doing lots of great stuff, rethinking how we approach Drupal.org. We should take this opportunity to really think about how we present documentation on the site. There has been a lot of talk and there are lots of little nits of annoyance in addition to the larger complaint of organization with regard to the handbooks. I wanted to try to gather up at least some of the larger things for us to consider and continue the discussion so that we can focus on specific changes while we have the services of MBD available to us. MBD has put up a new prototype iteration that is now beginning to address the documentation section. This is the perfect time for us to organize our thoughts and give feedback to craft a better solution.

There is an older discussion that was started earlier this year about a Drupal Knowledge Base, which was a doc-specific spin off of ideas from an original high level redesign post. Incorporating some of the thoughts from that, as well as other discussions on the mailing list and in the issue queues, here is a (I'm sure incomplete) summary of "big" things I think we should address during this redesign. I encourage everyone to not just talk about this, but to actually make some quick wireframes to help everyone see it.

• Overall architecture of the handbooks:
  Everyone has different ways they expect to find the information they need. The documentation comprises of several different "books." What content belongs in which book is one issue, but also pulling back a bit and looking at what we are using as top-level books to compartmentalize our content needs to be looked at. Do we have too many separate books? Not enough? Should we be grouping things together differently? In particular a book like "Beyond the basics" is really more of just a catchall bin and rather vague.

• Versions
  Much of Drupal's documentation is written to the version of Drupal software (and we currently mark the version(s) with a vocabulary). Many pages apply to more than one version, some pages apply to all or no versions. It would be great to be able to look at the Drupal 5 version of the handbook and cut out the clutter and noise of other versions. It is a lot harder than it sounds. Much of this is a technical problem to solve but what would an ideal, or even achievable ;-), design for this look like? What would we even shoot for >? Something like the API version tabs? What do we do about pages that need no version at all? This is a really hard problem but if we can find a solution that even moves us in that direction, it could be a huge boost to make it easier for people to find the info they need.

• Taxonomy/Tagging
  We currently have two vocabularies for handbook pages: Drupal version and a new page status. These act as "flags" but do not really help us organize our content, nor make any easier to find what you need. How can we think about using taxonomy to improve this? People want to find info in different ways at different times. Tagging our content to give people more "meta" info could help people track down and group the information they need. Again, how does this look? How would this most help us?

• Videos
  We currently have a video section of the handbooks (under Beyond the basics) but as video becomes more and more popular, I think we need to look at how to really effectively address these informational videos. Where should they be? How best to organize them? How do we make them easy to find and view while also linking them up with the appropriate written parts of the handbook? There is a thread on video ideas that can be looked where some of these things are discussed. We should also note that the Dojo will be reviving their external site as a simple way to host videos. I think we should work with and think about this as a prototype for what we can do within the Drupal.org handbooks for videos.

I've been pointed in the direction of the High Performance group to discuss my requirements (http://drupal.org/node/317535). I’m looking at building a gallery site that runs the following predicted metrics each month:

• 320k visits
• 200k unique visits
• 5m page views

• 14k uploads
• 16Gb total uploads

Anecdotally I'm being told that running this on Drupal is a risk, but all the documentation suggests that as long as we have good (dedicated) hardware, good 'normal' website tuning practices and a caching facility, then we should be OK.

When I'm evaluating a development partner, what questions should I be asking in terms of their understanding of high volume sites to make sure that they build Drupal in the right manner to make our site fly??

Cheers, Mombee.

I've uploaded my code for a MSSQL-compatible Drupal 5 installation. The only folder that didn't commit properly was modules/color, so I'll try to get that working soon - hopefullly that doesn't prevent you from installing and using a non-color module theme. You can find the files on cvs.drupal.org at /contributions/sandbox/pcorbett/drupal-mssql. You'll need to checkout all the folders and then move the contents of the root_folder_files into your root folder (CVS doesn't let me commit files that aren't contained in a folder).

If you need help getting started, let me know. This may or may not be helpful to anyone - I'm using this in a production environment, but with some 3rd party apps such as FreeTDS to talk between PHP and SQL Server using phpdblib.dll instead of the typical php_mssql.dll (which poses some restrictions on DB calls made from PHP and making it difficult to use Drupal).

There are some php.ini settings that may not be obvious, so if you have issues, feel free to contact me.

Hopefully we'll have D6 ready for SQL Server shortly. I've heard rumors that others are already working on this and there are some new developments that should make using FreeTDS unnecessary.

So, if there are still D5 users out there dying to run it on SQL Server, here you go, enjoy!

The Iowa Drupal Users Group is declaring November "Drupal Hand-Up Month". Join Us!!

The Iowa group meets the last Monday of the month. In November, instead of having a presentation and discussion like we usually do, we will have an IRC #drupal-support sprint. For 2 hours we will give high quality support on the freenode #drupal-support channel. This is a great way to help new Drupal users on-board, expanding the community. Everyone can participate! We need newbies to ask the questions and we need experienced users to answer them. Ask what you need to know and answer what you can. Our group will still physically meet but maybe at a more comfortable social setting (bar w/wifi) than usual.

The Ann Arbor Drupal Users Group has already pledged to join us. Their November meeting agenda, like ours, will be a working meeting on the IRC #drupal-support.

I am calling all "local user groups" to join us. If your group meets monthly and particularly you are planning to meet some time this November join us! Set your local user group meeting agenda to be an IRC #drupal-support working meeting.

Local group leaders willing to join our support sprint, comment below so we can see who is participating and pledge to spend at least 2 hours on IRC #drupal-support answering questions in the month of November!

Help me spread the word and post this to other local user groups. I only posted to the largest groups.

IRC information:
http://drupal.org/irc
http://groups.drupal.org/node/2326

An issue in Drupal 6+ contrib needing some thought is the current misuse of t().

Prior to D6 there was no clear way to provide translation for strings other than ones built into code. So many module authors started resorting to passing variables through t(), e.g.,

<?php
$output .= t($variable['key']);
?>

where $variable['key'] might be some string entered by a site admin. A quick fix, but one with significant problems. Yes, site users now could enter translation through the locale UI, but it was essentially a misuse of the locale system. The data coming into t() have no context. So, e.g., when the data are updated, there's no way to invalidate or replace the previous version. Etc.

With D6 we have a flexible locale system that can accept multiple types (called 'groups') of data (as defined hook_locale()). The strings module included in i18n (i18nstrings) provides methods to facilitate working with custom groups. i18nstrings allows modules to uniquely identify strings that are being sent for translation and handles updating of existing strings. (Strings are identified by a colon-separated series of identifiers, in which the first item is the locale group and subsequent ones provide whatever level of specificity is needed. At the simplest, an identifier might look like: mygroup:mysetting).

But few if any contrib modules have introduced an i18nstrings dependency. And introducing a new locale group every time we have one or two new strings to translate would quickly clutter the locale interface.

Perhaps we need a new general purpose locale 'group' in i18nstrings, e.g, 'configuration'? Module authors could identify their strings as e.g.

configuration:mymodule:mykey

and, if they want to avoid a requirement for i18n, use conditional calls like:

<?php
if (module_exists('i18nstrings')) {
  $variable = tt('configuration:mymodule:mykey', $variable);
}
?>

Or maybe we need a simpler version of i18nstrings, or one not part of i18n to avoid this large dependency?

As announced, I've been working with the Software Freedom Law Center, lawyers, and the Drupal Association on drafting a public trademark policy for use of the Drupal trademark. We're all happy with the current draft, so this is the time to open it up to the community to get further input and feedback. Please read it carefully, and let us know if you have comments or suggestions. This policy is obviously an important one as more and more people starting abusing the Drupal trademark. Thanks!

This trademark policy describes licensable uses of the Drupal trademark owned, licensed or controlled by Dries Buytaert. The Drupal Trademarks are managed with help from the Drupal Association (the "DA"). This policy is not a license and grants no permissions, nor does it make any promises. Some of this policy is simply a restatement of trademark law. Use of the trademark in connection with any product, service, organization or event (the "Product") except by permission from Buytaert or the DA and in conformity with the policy described here is expressly forbidden. This policy may be changed at any time with no notice.

You need to apply for a written license if you are using the term "Drupal" as part of your own trademark or brand identifier, regardless of whether the Product is commercial or not. This includes use in: the names of software products (ABC Drupal), domain names (abcdrupal.com), web site names (ABC Drupalzone), web services (ABC Drupal Address Verification Service), books (Drupal ninja secrets: the complete guide), training courses and curricula (ABC Advanced Drupal Administration) and certification programs/exams (Drupal Black Belt Certification) and events (ABC Drupal Confernece).

We would like domain names of the form "Drupal.xx.tld" to take people to local, non-profit Drupal organizations for the appropriate locale. Other uses are prohibited.

Non-commercial Products that exist solely to support Drupal and its adoption, use and users may use the Drupal trademark in promotional materials, such as posters, books, pins, and t-shirts.

Use of the trademark that is merely descriptive of the Product is acceptable without need of a license. If such description clearly separates your trademark from the Drupal trademark (e.g. by describing the Product as "YourProduct for Drupal"). In other words, you would not need a license to promote the name "TotalTraining for Drupal" but branding your product so it seems like it comes from Drupal (e.g. "Drupal TotalTraining") would not be permissible.

Any use of the trademark, whether under a license or not, must clearly indicate, and avoid all confusion about, the true source of the Product. You should mention your own trademark in combination with the Drupal trademark to make the Product unique and identifiable. For example, references to "Drupal Certified Administrator" may be confusing and should be avoided. Rather, please describe such a Product as "TotalTraining Drupal Certified Administrator".

If Buytaert or the DA request, you must accompany your use of the trademark by the following text: "The Drupal Trademarks are owned by Dries Buytaert and are managed with help from the Drupal Association. They are used with permission and do not indicate the approval the Drupal Association or Dries Buytaert of the content or the material herein."

The requirements of this policy, including the need to acquire a written license, apply regardless of whether you are already using the Drupal trademark, regardless of how long you may have been using the trademark. All prior permissions granted by the Buytaert to use the trademarks are hereby terminated. If you don't have a written agreement, you have no license, and you'll need to get one or stop using the trademark. Sorry, but it has to be that way.

To apply for a license, please submit a complete application form to Buytaert (for commercial uses) or the DA (for non-profit uses) that details exactly what use you want permitted and why such permission should be granted. It may take a month or more for your application to be evaluated. Applications may be rejected for any or no reason. You may reapply as often as you like. For commercial projects, a license fee might be required to help defray trademark expenses.

Buytaert and the DA are generally inclined to permit use of the trademarks for products and services that, in their sole judgment:

1. Promote expanded Drupal adoption and usage; and
2. Are not forks of Drupal and do not promote or encourage forks of Drupal; and
3. Are licensed in ways that are compatible with the Drupal open source license; and
4. Substantially strengthen and empower the Drupal community; and
5. Are highly innovative and differentiated from existing efforts; and
6. Are of the highest quality in both form and function; and
7. Are priced and packaged in ways that make them highly affordable and accessible to a broad audience; and
8. Are created by significant contributors to the Drupal project; and
9. Are created by those with a track record of liberally "giving back" to their communities.

Any license granted by the Project is terminable at any time for any or no reason.

I think it is crazy that the regional events don't get more coverage over at the drupal.org main site. DrupalCampLA just had a 400+ person event, but if you put DrupalCampLA into the d.o search box, all you get is a forum post from last year where one of the badcamp organizers mentions them as inspiration. We (badcamp) will probably have around 300 people show up and I am sure DCNYC was huge. g.d.o placement is nice, but d.o is missing out on a big marketing opportunity by not bragging about these events more.