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Our new Drupal Code of Conduct

Drupal Post Feed - Tue, 08/31/2010 - 00:19

As our community grows, it is imperative that we preserve the things that got us here; namely, keeping Drupal a fun, welcoming, challenging, and fair place to play. The new Drupal Code of Conduct (DCOC) states our shared ideals with respect to conduct. Think of this as coding standards for people. It is an expression of our ideals, not a rulebook. It is a way to communicate our existing values to the entire community.

Our friends at Ubuntu have blazed a brilliant trail in this area. They use Drupal as their CMS, and in turn we have embraced their Code of Conduct. This code of conduct is essentially identical to that used by Ubuntu, except that the name of the project has been changed, and the conflict resolution process has been removed since we don't have one.

The DCOC has been under discussion for several months on groups.drupal.org and discussed further at Drupalcon Conpenhagen. Folks who are interested in talking more about the DCOC should do so in the Drupal.org Policies group.

The short version:

Be considerate
Be respectful
When we disagree, we consult others.
When we are unsure, we ask for help.
Step down considerately.

Categories: Drupal

Case Study: StyleWorks Premium Photoshop Styles

Drupal Post Feed - Tue, 08/24/2010 - 04:35

This past March, I decided it was time to put my skills as a Drupal developer to use and launch a new online business. I knew early on that I wanted this business to be product-based, and after several weeks of playing with different ideas, I settled on selling premium Photoshop layer styles. It was the perfect opportunity to combine my love of photography and Photoshop with my passion for web development and Drupal.

Several months of product development later, StyleWorks was born. The site runs on Drupal 6, and integrates with FastSpring for e-commerce capabilities.

Designing the site: To Zen or not to Zen?

After iterating through several hundred designs in Photoshop, I finally had the look I wanted to go with, and it was time to make it come alive in Drupal. But first, a key decision had to be made: Start from scratch, or go with Zen?

Categories: Drupal

Joomla 1.6 Beta 8 Now Available

Joomla News Update - Mon, 08/23/2010 - 05:30

The Joomla Project is proud to announce the immediate availability of Joomla 1.6 beta 8 (download). IMPORTANT NOTE: This is a beta version and is not intended to run any type of production site. It is intended to be used for evaluation purposes only.

Since the Joomla 1.6 beta 7 release on August 9, we have fixed approximately 90 issues in the tracker. This progress is directly related to the continued efforts of the Joomla! Bug Squad. Thanks for all your hard work in bringing us one increment closer to stable!

See the CHANGELOG for details of what has been changed in this release.

What's next?

This is the eighth in our series of continuous beta releases. Beta 9 will be released on September 6, 2010.

Download here: http://joomlacode.org/gf/project/joomla/frs/?action=FrsReleaseBrowse&frs_package_id=5378

Cargoh.com- Drupal Ubercart powered Marketplace

Drupal Post Feed - Thu, 08/19/2010 - 20:04

In 2009 Appnovation Technologies was asked to design and develop a Drupal based community and e-commerce website called Cargoh. The driving idea behind the site is to create a “social marketplace” for independent artists from all over the world to be able to showcase and sell their products and services. It features community tools such as forums, an internal messaging system and events section.

Cargoh.com was founded by Paul and Cariann Burger when they noticed the lack of avenues for independent artists, designers and musicians to get their work to the world. They realized that some of the most talented people in the world were making them coffee in the morning at the local coffee shop. They set out to change that by creating a super accessible, highly affordable and unbelievably feature rich venue for artists, designers and musicians to sell the things they create. Above that, they wanted to create the world's best online shopping mall for all the uniquely independent products in the world. So from those two missions, Cargoh.com was born. The world's most exciting social marketplace for independent creatives!

Categories: Drupal

The Cara Program: Case Study

Drupal Post Feed - Tue, 08/17/2010 - 20:16

Founded in 1991, The Cara Program is a Chicago-based non-profit that empowers men and women affected by homelessness and poverty with the skills, confidence and resources to secure and sustain quality jobs and achieve long-term success. Since their founding, they have placed more than 2,500 individuals into full-time, rewarding positions with leading Chicago area companies such as ABM Lakeside, The Hilton Hotels, JP Morgan Chase, Sodexho, and more.

The Cara Program sought a redesign of their static website, one that engaged visitors by quickly delivering key information that was clear and concise, and could be easily maintained by Cara staff. Being a non-profit website, they also needed a way to accept donations, recruit volunteers, allow visitors to join their mailing list, and recruit sponsors and employment partners. In addition to being able to simply accept donations, they wanted to eventually “empower” donors to use social media and/or other outlets to spread the word, champion their cause and help others donate or otherwise support. The ability to share some content also needed to be a feature on The Cara Program "child" program websites: Clean Slate, Quad Communities and Career Pathways.

Duo Consulting was chosen to implement their goals and Drupal was the platform chosen.

Categories: Drupal

DrupalCon Copenhagen: The program and pre- and post-conference activities

Drupal Post Feed - Fri, 08/13/2010 - 21:05

It's time for another update from DrupalCon Copenhagen! This time around we have updated information on the core developer summit, the unconference, and the code sprint.

Official Program

First of all, we are happy to announce that the final version of the program is now available on the site. The few remaining slots in the schedule will be used for sponsor sessions and lightning talks. We'll try to keep schedule changes to a minimum, but if we do have to shuffle a few sessions around, this is the page to watch. Also, we'll make the entire program available as a PDF if you would rather keep it on your laptop or print a copy to keep in your pocket during the conference.

Now that the program has been finished, you can start planning your DrupalCon Copenhagen. Go to the session schedule and add all your favorite sessions to your personal schedule. You can see a list of your chosen sessions by going to your user profile and clicking the "My schedule" link.

Core Developer Summit

If you're in Copenhagen on Sunday, August 22nd, and interested in helping improve Drupal core, you should participate in the Core Developer Summit. The summit will provide opportunities both for people to discuss changes to Drupal code and processes as well as people interested to move Drupal 7 closer to release. The summit will start wit three shorts sessions by Dries Buytaert, Sam Boyer, and Jen Simmons. After the kick-off sessions, the summit will break up into two groups, with plenty of space to be fruitful and get stuff done. All ideas are welcome!

Categories: Drupal

Drupal 6.19 and 5.23 released

Drupal Post Feed - Thu, 08/12/2010 - 00:29

Download Drupal 6.19
Download Drupal 5.23

Drupal 6.18 and 5.23, maintenance releases which fix security vulnerabilities are now available for download.

Drupal 6.19 also fixes other small issues reported through the bug tracking system.

Upgrading your existing Drupal 5 and 6 sites is strongly recommended. There are no new features in these releases. For more information about the Drupal 6.x release series, consult the Drupal 6.0 release announcement, more information on the 5.x releases can be found in the Drupal 5.0 release announcement. Drupal 5 will no longer be maintained when Drupal 7 is released. Upgrading to Drupal 6 is recommended.

Categories: Drupal

Redesign update: Sprint 1

Drupal Post Feed - Thu, 08/12/2010 - 00:26

This post is part of a series to inform the Drupal community about the drupal.org redesign project, and the work the Drupal Association is funding to help get the redesign completed. If you would like to contribute to the redesign as a volunteer, see the community initiatives redesign page. If you'd like to contribute to the redesign financially, see the Drupal Association memberships and donations pages.

Categories: Drupal

Joomla 1.6 Beta 7 Now Available

Joomla News Update - Tue, 08/10/2010 - 00:49

The Joomla Project is proud to announce the immediate availability of Joomla 1.6 beta 7 (download). IMPORTANT NOTE: This is a beta version and is not intended to run any type of production site. It is intended to be used for evaluation purposes only.

Since the Joomla 1.6 beta 6 release on July 26, we have fixed approximately 85 issues in the tracker. This progress is directly related to the continued efforts of the Joomla! Bug Squad. Thanks for all your hard work in bringing us one increment closer to stable!

See the CHANGELOG for details of what has been changed in this release.

What's next?

This is the sixth in our series of continuous beta releases. Beta 8 will be released on August 23, 2010.

Download here: http://joomlacode.org/gf/project/joomla/frs/?action=FrsReleaseBrowse&frs_package_id=5364

Drupal 7 Docs need your help!

Drupal Post Feed - Mon, 08/09/2010 - 19:34

With Drupal 7 down to 30 critical bugs, and Drupalcon Copenhagen just around the corner, it's only a matter of time before Drupal 7.0 ships. We want to make sure our Drupal 7 documentation is in great shape for this fantastic new release, and the Documentation Team could really use YOUR help getting there!

Categories: Drupal

Case Study: PulpMX - Drupal as a Rich Media Hub

Drupal Post Feed - Fri, 08/06/2010 - 22:35

PulpMX.com was launched in early 2009 as a place for well-known motocross columnist Steve Matthes to post his musings about the sport and its history. Originally conceived of as a modest site, it was built in early 2009 using a stock theme with a handful of custom images, the FCKeditor and IMCE modules to provide a built-in visual editor, and little else. Over time it had grown organically as needs developed: CCK, Filefield, and SWF Tools for posting audio interviews in a built-in player, for example. In early 2010 PulpMX also took on discussion forums from a site that was no longer able to host them, so an existing phpBB installation was also imported.

The site was developing a growing following and it was becoming obvious that it needed an overhaul to better reflect the character of the site, and provide more cohesive and initiative navigation among the quickly expanding areas of the site. Says Steve:

Originally I had gotten Tooth and Nail to design me a basic site for blogs and photos, what they gave me was way better than I had thought I needed. The traffic and the new media things that I was doing (podcasts, slide shows and a live internet show) demanded that I get something new and fresh. I was now big-time I suppose.

Categories: Drupal

DrupalCon Copenhagen: Ticket prices go up on August 16th

Drupal Post Feed - Thu, 08/05/2010 - 03:04

Get ready to meet and learn from the top Drupal developers, designers and architects from around the world.

Save €31 and get your DrupalCon Copenhagen ticket now at the current price of €279, because on August 16th at 8am CEST the ticket price will go up to €310 + VAT.

Go to the DrupalCon Copenhagen site to buy your ticket for the conference.

Your ticket includes:

94 sessions spread out over 3 days
Ad hoc BOF (birds of a feather) sessions
Access to the Core Developer Summit and the post-conference code and documentation sprint
Access to the ChX Coders Lounge where you can hang out and code all night
Access to FooBar, the official bar of DrupalCon Copenhagen
…and, last but not least, a chance to meet your fellow Drupalers

Categories: Drupal

August 1, 2010 - The Joomla! Community Magazine Issue Released

Joomla News Update - Wed, 08/04/2010 - 00:52

The Joomla! Project proudly announces the August 2010 Issue of the Joomla! Community Magazine. The magazine is a collection of articles and illustrations highlighting events and accomplishments of the free software community behind Joomla!, an award-winning open source content management system.

Administrators, Developers and Designers

The Administrators Toolkit article, The prefix has nothing to do with telephony , includes a free program to enhance site security. In the Developers Workbench , instructions to synchronize a Joomla! website with MAMP and Dropbox and advice on creating end-user documentation is shared. The Joomla! Setup focuses this month on developer and designer Fotis Evangelou.

The Designers Studio calls for participants to Redesign Joomla! for version 1.7. The Administrator interface, largely unchanged since Mambo, is in need of renovation, a task that will require the diverse talents of the Joomla! community. This month's Website Case Study looks at the team, the planning, and extension choices behind the new Scottoiler Joomla! website .

Extensions and Evaluations

A key strength of Joomla! is template development. To help community learn about offerings, the Extensions and Evaluations section continues an examination of Joomla! Template Frameworks and Toolsets. Podcast interviews and comparative analysis of three leading template providers: JoomlArt, JoomlaPraise, and ProThemer are available, along with advice on how to select templates, improve site search engine optimization >and additional learning resources .

Events and User Groups

This month, the Joomla! Events and User Groups section features Joomla! Day West 2010 , a community event to be held October 1-3 in San Jose, California, and a story about the August 27-29th OpenCa.mp in Dallas, Texas, where members of the Joomla! community will present.

Features and Leadership

This month's Feature Stories include an in-depth interview with Elin Waring, former President of OSM and an invitation to community to submit non-English articles . In Leadership Connections , the magazine spotlights Mike Carson who supports Joomla! User Groups. Open Source Matters board member, Steve Burge, discusses July board activities and thanks outgoing members Elin Waring and Dave Huelsmann for their service.

For more information

For more information about the Joomla! Community Magazine , contact Paul Orwig , Lead Editor and Joomla! Community Leadership Team member. For more information about Joomla!, see the Joomla! in the Press and Media section. The Joomla! Community Magazine Team invites those interested to get involved and help tell the Joomla! story.

Categories: Joomla

FusionDrupalThemes.com case study: Packaging & selling code with Project, Ubercart, and Organic Groups

Drupal Post Feed - Tue, 08/03/2010 - 20:06

In mid-2009, TopNotchThemes started building Fusion, a theme system that would pave new ground for Drupal themes. Along with this new technology, we started dreaming of our ideal website where products could be deployed automatically, customers had access to a much more friendly account area, and of course a brand new look and feel for this new line of themes.

Our current Drupal 5 website at TopNotchThemes.com (to remain active until remaining themes are ported to Fusion) is showing its age and does not have the control we need in order to be able to adapt content and features as our visitors demand.

Launched this spring, FusionDrupalThemes.com is not only a showcase for our products, but a wonderful showcase of community and commercial synergy. It integrates Ubercart, Organic Groups, and the Project module suite to create a feature rich platform for selling code-based products.

Categories: Drupal

WordPress 3.0.1

WordPress Update - Fri, 07/30/2010 - 03:08

After nearly 11 million downloads of WordPress 3.0 in just 42 days, we’re releasing WordPress 3.0.1. The requisite haiku:

Three dot oh dot one
Bug fixes to make you smile
Update your WordPress

This maintenance release addresses about 50 minor issues. The testing many of you contributed prior to the release of 3.0 helped make it one of the best and most stable releases we’ve had.

Download 3.0.1 or update automatically from the Dashboard > Updates menu in your site’s admin area.

Note: If you downloaded 3.0.1 in the first 20 minutes of release (before 2200 UTC), you’ll want to reinstall it, which you can do right from your Updates screen. Our bad.

Categories: WordPress

Case Study: www.aidshilfe.de relaunch

Drupal Post Feed - Thu, 07/29/2010 - 00:03

The Deutsche Aids-Hilfe (DAH) is the leading German non-governmental organization that deals with the concerns of people living with HIV/AIDS and helps raise awareness of effective HIV prevention techniques.
As the governing body for more than 120 local AIDS service organizations, it supports this work at many different levels.

The DAH website, aidshilfe.de, is one of the organization’s main communication channels. It offers information on HIV and other sexual transmitted infections and covers the field of counseling for private matters. The website also provides contact information for local self-help-centers, a broad selection of free information material, workshops, community features, etc.

Work on the aidshilfe.de project was supported by many partners. Christoph Schüßler designed the website, which was implemented in Drupal by Berlin-based Werk21. The new aidshilfe.de is a step forward toward a future-proof system that features an attractive new design, interactive features, user-friendly community functionality and great usability.

Categories: Drupal

Ticket Cake - An Event Ticketing Website

Drupal Post Feed - Mon, 07/26/2010 - 19:13

TicketCake.com is an event ticketing and promotion start-up that recently launched using Drupal as its framework. The website features an innovative design by White Label Graphics which balances functionality and simplicity.

Because Drupal has many ways to display dynamic content, finding the right way to implement a design can be a problem in itself. To overcome this obstacle, the Ticket Cake team focused a significant amount of time creating wireframes for the project.

Drupal’s unique ability to display content in various ways made the process of developing wireframes a constant back and forth. With each iteration, the team updated price quotes, layouts, and site flow.

“Throughout the construction of the wireframes, we always looked to a keep it simple philosophy that ended up being vital,” said Joe Henriod, head of the Ticket Cake business development team. “Measure twice, cut once.”

Categories: Drupal

Joomla 1.6 Beta 6 Now Available

Joomla News Update - Mon, 07/26/2010 - 05:30

The Joomla Project is proud to announce the immediate availability of Joomla 1.6 beta 6 (download). IMPORTANT NOTE: This is a beta version and is not intended to run any type of production site. It is intended to be used for evaluation purposes only.

Since the Joomla 1.6 beta 5 release on Jun 12, we have fixed approximately 98 issues in the tracker. This progress is directly related to the continued efforts of the Joomla! Bug Squad. Thanks for all your hard work in bringing us one increment closer to stable!

See the CHANGELOG for details of what has been changed in this release.

What's next?

This is the fifth in our series of continuous beta releases. Beta 7 will be released on August 9, 2010.

Download here: http://joomlacode.org/gf/project/joomla/frs/?action=FrsReleaseBrowse&frs_package_id=5346

PHP 4 and MySQL 4 End of Life Announcement

WordPress Update - Sat, 07/24/2010 - 00:31

Our approach with WordPress has always been to make it run on common server configurations. We want users to have flexibility when choosing a host for their precious content. Because of this strategy, WordPress runs pretty much anywhere. Web hosting platforms, however, change over time, and we occasionally are able to reevaluate some of the requirements for running WordPress. Now is one of those times. You probably guessed it from the title — we’re finally ready to announce the end of support for PHP 4 and MySQL 4!

First up, the announcement that developers really care about. WordPress 3.1, due in late 2010, will be the last version of WordPress to support PHP 4.

For WordPress 3.2, due in the first half of 2011, we will be raising the minimum required PHP version to 5.2. Why 5.2? Because that’s what the vast majority of WordPress users are using, and it offers substantial improvements over earlier PHP 5 releases. It is also the minimum PHP version that the Drupal and Joomla projects will be supporting in their next versions, both due out this year.

The numbers are now, finally, strongly in favor of this move. Only around 11 percent of WordPress installs are running on a PHP version below 5.2. Many of them are on hosts who support PHP 5.2 — users merely need to change a setting in their hosting control panel to activate it. We believe that percentage will only go down over the rest of the year as hosting providers realize that to support the newest versions of WordPress (or Drupal, or Joomla), they’re going to have to pull the trigger.

In less exciting news, we are also going to be dropping support for MySQL 4 after WordPress 3.1. Fewer than 6 percent of WordPress users are running MySQL 4. The new required MySQL version for WordPress 3.2 will be 5.0.15.

WordPress users will not be able to upgrade to WordPress 3.2 if their hosting environment does not meet these requirements (the built-in updater will prevent it). In order to determine which versions your host provides, we’ve created the Health Check plugin. You can download it manually, or use this handy plugin installation tool I whipped up. Right now, Health Check will only tell you if you’re ready for WordPress 3.2. In a future release it will provide all sorts of useful information about your server and your WordPress install, so hang on to it!

In summary: WordPress 3.1, due in late 2010, will be the last version of WordPress to support PHP 4 and MySQL 4. WordPress 3.2, due in the first half of 2011, will require PHP 5.2 or higher, and MySQL 5.0.15 or higher. Install the Health Check plugin to see if you’re ready!

Categories: WordPress

Case Study: Grandiflora

Drupal Post Feed - Fri, 07/23/2010 - 13:23

Grandiflora is a boutique florist based in Sydney, Australia. Although you might not have heard of them before, you've probably seen their work in the pages of Vogue, Harpers Bazaar and many other fashion magazines. They've also created the floral design for many celebrity weddings and events in the Australia's premier harbour city.

Recently Grandiflora were interested in updating their identity and marketing (including their website), so they tasked the team at House of Laudanum to create a custom online shopping experience to sell their products online. The previous website was a custom CMS written in Perl and while it did have some e-commerce facilities, it required updating to be a more integrated shopping solution.

Why was Drupal chosen for the project?

Although WordPress was considered early on in the decision making process, the team chose Drupal mainly because of the Ubercart module and some other contributed modules which laid the foundation for the integrated payment solution required for the project.

Categories: Drupal