In the community

Drush, the brilliant command-line tool for Drupal, is capable of giving you its output in several ways. Its global --format parameter can be set to a type that you can use in useful ways. Most recently, I found this incredibly useful when I had made some configuration changes through Drupal's admin pages, and needed to then script those changes to automatically apply to hundreds of sites on a platform we manage. I simply asked Drush...

I recently produced the first release of the Webform Protected Downloads module that is compatible with Drupal 10. It provides the ability for sites to have 'gated' content which users can download once they have filled out a form for their details. This can convert engaged visitors into leads, set up licenses for customers, or simply validate a user for access to a file. Put simply, as the project's description says, this module could be...

In my previous article I outlined that I really needed to get Drupal 10 sites running in Aegir 3. I had no time to wait around for other solutions, and I was going to try to decouple Aegir from running Drupal sites, so that it wouldn't be tied to Drupal versions. Since writing that article and actually sitting down to do this work, I realised that it's quite an undertaking, and the approach outlined by...

Aegir is a hosting system built in Drupal, for Drupal. It lets you easily create new Drupal sites and create databases, filesystems, virtual hosts etc. for the sites. You can manage hundreds or thousands of sites using a simple Drupal based UI. As simple as you would manage a list of 100 blog posts, you can manage 100 Drupal websites. Currently the latest released version of Aegir is: Aegir 3. Aegir 3 relies on Drush...

Drupalcon Lille 2023 was my first experience of a large Drupal event. I didn't know what to expect but I was so excited and looking forward to it! I have to say Drupalcon exceeded all of my expectations, in a good way! In the beginning, I tried to remain humble as I’d never seen so many Drupal villagers before. But it didn’t take me long to start chatting to all the exhibitors, and contributors and...

A little over a year ago, I ventured into the world of Drupal; a complex content management system. Despite making considerable progress in understanding its intricacies, it's widely acknowledged that Drupal presents a steep learning curve. To navigate this learning curve successfully, one must maintain unwavering dedication and find satisfaction in troubleshooting and problem-solving, which can provide a rewarding sense of achievement. I was fortunate to have an exceptional team that provided a constant stream...

Personally I’ve found most value in the smaller sessions. There are discussion-style groups around a common interests (BoFs) and presentation seminars. I’ve enjoyed being able to share what wisdom I can in the former – for example, about what page building experiences work best for our clients, or ways to accelerate projects. Drupal is built on collaboration so it’s only fair to give back where we can. My colleague Steven has given back by volunteering...

Six of our team have come over to Lille in France where the annual Drupal conference for Europe is this year. It’s a new experience for some and a chance to reconnect with friends in the community for others. We’re all here to learn, and also share where we can. I’ll talk here about the first main keynote sessions, with more articles in the pipeline. Tuesday opened the conference with a comical introduction from the...

As a Drupal site administrator, you may notice in the website logs that there might be a large number of repeated log messages along the lines of "An illegal choice has been detected. Please contact the site administrator." We recently had this problem on a Drupal site that was upgraded from Drupal 7 to Drupal 9 which featured a product search that was built using Views. Due to slight differences in the way in which...

A common requirement for any website that sells products is to have a mechanism in place that ensures orders placed on the website are 'Exportable' - being made available as a file that can be sent across to a different system, to handle the processing of the order. The Drupal Commerce 2.x module (for Drupal 9, 10) has the concept of order 'Workflows', along with defined 'States' and 'Transitions'. A workflow is a set of...