Drupal Planet

pPalantir is pleased to announce the recent launches of two new Drupal-based higher education Web sites: The Kroc Institute for International Peace Studies at the University of Notre Dame and the Northwestern University Alumni Association./p pa href=http://www.palantir.net/blog/two-new-higher-education-sites-kroc-institute-and-northwestern-alumni-association target=_blankread more/a/p

pDuring our retreat in Playa Del Carmen MEX over the summer, a href=http://pajamadesign.com/category/solr/ title=Jacob SinghJacob Singh/a (now a CivicActions Alumnus, Class of 2008) showed and explained to me a project he was working on to create a hosted Solr Search service for Drupal. a href=http://lucene.apache.org/solr/Solr/a (via the a href=http://drupal.org/project/apachesolrSolr Integration module/a written and maintained by Robert Douglas) provides a method to bring very robust faceted search to Drupal sites. A few weeks ago, Jacob went to work with Acquia in order to bring this product to the masses. Read about a href=http://acquia.com/blog/hosted-solr-site-search-for-drupal-is-on-the-wayAcquia's hosted Solr Search plans/a./p pa href=http://www.civicactions.com/blog/acquia_announces_hosted_solr_search_product target=_blankread more/a/p

pPutting your content on a highly custom map is now as quick and as easy as putting those same nodes in a list. That#8217;s because the a href=http://drupal.org/project/nicemapNice Map module/a can do the heavy lifting for you by acting as a span class=capsWMS/span client that integrates with Views. A span class=capsWMS/span #8211; or a href=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Web_Map_ServiceWeb Mapping Service/a #8211; is a standard that lets applications like websites request a map from a mapping server. Using the span class=capsWMS/span standard gives you the flexibility to use a public span class=capsWMS/span server or to use your own mapping server where you have complete control over the maps, which is what we#8217;ve been doing recently for our custom mapping work. /p pa href=http://s3.amazonaws.com/video.devseed/nice-map.mp4img src=http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3059/3042153266_216731029f_o.png alt= width=500 height=387 //a/ppa href=http://www.developmentseed.org/blog/2008/nov/18/hey-thats-nice-map-new-custom-mapping-module-drupal target=_blankread more/a/p

pIt's a little late in posting, but here is a presentation we put together for the September a href=http://groups.drupal.org/northern-va-users-groupNOVA/a Drupal Meetup. This presentation outlines some strategies for implementing effective SEO on a Drupal site./p div align=center a href=/files/SEOforDrupal_fnl.pdf target=_blankimg src=/files/u12/slides.png width=400 alt=slides.png //a /div

pOver the last week or two I've spent a lot of time on an aspect of my Quick Tabs module that I am certain none of its users will care a hoot about. It wasn't a case of adding a new feature or fixing a bug or even improving usability, but a question of, to put it succinctly, cutting down on its evilness. The admin form for creating and editing Quick Tabs blocks (where you choose either a block or a view for each tab) had a serious amount of ahah functionality: click a button to instantly add a new tab, click a button to instantly remove one of your tabs, select a view for your tab and have the view display drop-down be instantly populated with the correct options for that view. It was pretty user-friendly; there was just one problem: it flew in the face of Form API best practices./ppa href=http://www.katbailey.net/blog/katherine/the-dual-aspect-of-drupal-forms-and-what-this-means-for-your-ahah-callbackread more/a/p

pOne of the toughest aspects of transitioning an existing site to Drupal can be content migration. While there's an a href=http://drupal.org/project/Modules/category/64entire category/a of modules available for import/export tasks, sometimes you just need to bite the bullet and parse some HTML./p pOne of the tools I like to use for this is the a href=http://simplehtmldom.sourceforge.net/PHP Simple HTML DOM Parser/a. This allows you to use the Document Object Model (DOM). For our purposes, all this means is that the document is modeled as a tree – each element, such as a lt;divgt; or a lt;pgt;, has parents, children, and siblings, and you can search for them. (I'm sure to many readers this is already familiar, especially if you are using jQuery). Compared to an event-driven parser, I find that using the DOM results in smaller code that's easier to write./ppa href=http://www.opensourcery.com/blog/dylan-tack/parsing-html-easy-wayread more/a/p

!--paging_filter-- pOpen source software applications are becoming an increasingly viable alternative to vendor provided commercial software. Jeff Walpole explores the differences between these types of software, and the pros and cons of each alternative in a a href=http://www.idealware.org/articles/opensource_vendor.php target=_blankfull article/a written for a href=http://www.idealware.org/ target=_blankIdealware/a , a 501c3 nonprofit that provides candid Consumer-Reports-style reviews and articles about software of interest to nonprofits. /p pa href=http://agileapproach.com/blog-entry/opensource_vendorread more/a/p

pIf you#8217;ve been following along you#8217;d be aware that a href=http://www.disambiguity.com/drupalorg-redesign-making-modules-findable/one of the nuts we#8217;re currently trying to crack/a is the modules section of the drupal.org website - how can we make modules more findable?/p pIn the interest of gathering more information to help make a good decision, i#8217;ve put together a href=http://www.disambiguity.com/drupalorg-help-overhaul-the-information-architecture-participate-in-our-online-card-sort/another/a little cardsorting exercise. If you have a spare 15mins or so, I#8217;d love if you could take a look at it!/p pYou can find it here: a href=http://disambiguity.optimalsort.com/drupalmodules/http://disambiguity.optimalsort.com/drupalmodules//a/p pIf you have any comments/questions/feedback to the contents of the cardsort or the process, feel free to post them here./p pThe cardsort is set to close on Friday 21 November./p pThank you!/p

pI checked out the new a href=http://www.techcrunch.com/2008/11/18/first-look-at-google-mobile-app-for-iphone-great-but-not-second-coming/voice-activated Google Mobile App for iPhone/a this morning. It works pretty well - not perfect - but solid./p pa href=http://jeffwhatcott.com/drupal/content/google-iphone-voice-app-angle-no-one-talking-aboutread more/a/p

pI checked out the new a href=http://www.techcrunch.com/2008/11/18/first-look-at-google-mobile-app-for-iphone-great-but-not-second-coming/voice-activated Google Mobile App for iPhone/a this morning. It works pretty well - not perfect - but solid./ppa href=http://jeffwhatcott.com/drupal/content/google-iphone-voice-app-angle-no-one-talking-aboutread more/a/p

pspan class=inline inline-centera href=http://versionsapp.comimg src=http://codebaboon.com/files/images/versions-screeny.jpg alt= title= class=image image-_original width=500 height=307 //a/span/p pa href=http://versionsapp.comVersions/a has finally made it out of beta. It's a very intuitive GUI for managing subversion repositories and working copies. We've been using this application for a long while now, and found it to be user friendly and suitable for designers and developers alike. Recommended!/p div class=image-clear/div

pJay just announced a href=http://acquia.com/blog/hosted-solr-site-search-for-drupal-is-on-the-wayAcquia's plans to get into the hosted search business/a. By doing so, we hope to provide Drupal sites a (i) faster, (ii) more scalable search solution that (iii) can work across multiple sites, that (iv) can handle broader content, (v) that offers faceted navigation and more. /p pContent management systems with basic keyword search are going nowhere but out of style. Content management systems that do search really well can improve a site's navigation in new and significant ways. We want Drupal sites to be in the latter category./p pAs we've learned with big sites like a href=http://drupal.orgdrupal.org/a, it is extremely difficult to do search well from within Drupal, hence the need for a powerful hosted search service. By offering a hosted search service, a href=http://acquia.comAcquia/a continues to tear down barriers for adoption so Drupal can fulfill its full potential./p pWe're still working on this new service, and we don't know yet when it will be ready, but let us know if you're interested in being an early private beta tester./p

pAt a href=http://mollom.comMollom/a, we're focused on blocking spam. To do that, we've built a world-class (and world-wide) infrastructure that evaluates your site's comments and posts in real time, freeing you from moderation duties to spend your time on more satisfying pursuits./p pMollom is built on the a href=http://www.buytaert.net/the-freemium-business-model-giving-away-paysfreemium business model/a, and our customers have a variety of different needs. While many of our clients take advantage of our free filtering service to protect their site, a growing number use our Mollom Plus subscription service. We're always looking for new ways to add value for all of our customers, especially those with Mollom Plus subscriptions./p pTo that end, we're pleased to announce our new 99.9% availability standard for the back-end network available to our Mollom Plus subscribers. With 99.9% availability, we guarantee to keep our infrastructure working on your behalf. Those guarantees are in writing at a href=http://mollom.com/standard-service-level-agreementhttp://mollom.com/standard-service-level-agreement/a and part of the a href=http://mollom.com/service-agreement-paid-subscriptionsupdated web service agreement for paid subscriptions/a./ppa href=http://buytaert.net/99-dot-9-percent-availability-for-paying-mollom-usersread more/a/p

pThe strongsearch/strong technology area is highly important to people with websites. As a result, I've spent serious time looking at it. Several things have come from this time spent:/p ul liThe important thing: We'll soon be adding hosted site search capabilities to the Acquia Network for our subscribers. More about this below./li pa href=http://acquia.com/blog/hosted-solr-site-search-for-drupal-is-on-the-wayread more/a/p

pa href=http://virtualization.com/guest-posts/2008/11/16/openqrm-4.2-released-includes-cloud-sauce/Last weekend/a I blogged about openQRM 4.2 being released./p pThis morning Matt finally let me know the long waiting fresh and new Drupal based a href=http://openqrm.com/openQRM.com/a is live ! /p pFeed Added!/p

a href=http://www.beyonceonline.com/Beyonce's official website/a is now using a href=http://drupal.orgDrupal/a. emOh oh oh!/em div class=figure img src=http://buytaert.net/cache/images-drupal-beyonce-500x500.jpg alt=Beyonce style=border: 1px solid #ccc; padding: 4px;/ /div

p a href=http://drupal.org/project/ffmpeg_wrapperFFmpeg wrapper/a just got a nice little utility for testing a href=http://ffmpeg.mplayerhq.huFFmpeg/a conversion settings. For most people the knowledge of video and audio codecs is a bit of an arcane science- what settings go with what codec, much less the rules about audio formats... it is all a bit messy. /p pSo I've put together the beginnings of an interface that lets an admin select a file uploaded to the server and run tests to their hearts content on it. Bitrates, codecs, and all the other options that FFmpeg Wrapper provides are available for use./p pPerhaps the most important aspect, however, is the debugging data that the FFmpeg provides when the conversion fails. If you are converting a 48khz wmv file to flv and wondering why the conversion keeps failing, this will help you see that you need to set the audio bit rate to 44.1khz. /p pThe interface is not perfect, and certainly the ability to pass the testing function a file path as an argument would be very helpful (especially off the Drupal attached files list), but these are all things to come. /p pCode is CVS DRUPAL-5 branch, will get ported up to 6x sometime soon. /ppa href=http://www.24b6.net/2008/11/18/ffmpeg-conversion-testingread more/a/p

pThe stereotype of an author, solitary and banging away at their typewriter, is only a little bit different in the digital age. Although the typewriter has been swapped out for a keyboard and a monitor, the solitary nature of writing for print is still true. Your work is your own and you are responsible for it. Editors give feedback and sometimes they are right and you are wrong, and sometimes they are right and your ego doesn't care. Sulking is (often) inevitable./ppa href=http://emmajane.net/node/859read more/a/p

pSo far we have gathered our resources, blocked out the site, set up content types, and created some simple views to display that content. In this post, we'll look at:/p ul liTargetting a landing page/li liBasics of setting up a Google ad/li liBasic user permissions/li liTerms and Conditions/li /ul pa href=http://www.dogstar.org/drupal/content/recipe-rapid-drupal-site-v target=_blankread more/a/p

pIf you sit down with another member of the Drupal community in a cafe to hash out something, then you are with... a friend (hardly, you might barely know each other)? a colleague (doesnt that mean that we are working at the same place)? associate? I am afraid that an open source community being such a new thing it needs a new word. Fellow Drupaler -- sure, try to say that to the average Joe and watch the glassy eyes :) And how do you explain to the average border guard that you are traveling to a code sprint...? A GSoC mentor summit?/p pa href=http://www.drupal4hu.com/node/178read more/a/p