Talking Drupal

In this episode, Mike Anello and Mike Herchel dive into a casual conversation covering a wide array of topics. They start by discussing the concept of a podcast with almost no effort required and the mystery of Stephen's involvement. The conversation then quickly shifts to Florida Drupal Camp, mentioning its impressive 16 uninterrupted years, the increase in attendees, and how fun it is. They touch upon single directory components in Drupal, their importance, and intricacies like CSS styling, schemas, and Experience Builder. The discussion also includes insights into popular Drupal events like Florida Drupal Camp, Drupal Dev Days, and the upcoming DrupalCon. They infuse humor and personal anecdotes while engaging in thoughtful technical exchanges and playful banter. For show notes visit: https://www.talkingDrupal.com/cafe003 Topics Michael Anello Mike, widely recognized by his Drupal.org username "ultimike," is a prominent figure in the Drupal community with over 15 years of experience as a developer, educator, and community leader. As the co-founder and vice president of DrupalEasy, a Florida-based training and consulting firm, he has been instrumental inshaping the careers of countless Drupal professionals through comprehensive programs like Drupal Career Online and Professional Module Development . Anello's contributions extend beyond education. He has been deeply involved in the Drupal ecosystem, serving as a core contributor to the Migrate module, co-maintaining several contributed modules, and actively participating in issue queues and documentation efforts . His leadership roles include membership in the Drupal Community Working Group and the Conflict Resolution Team, as well as organizing the Florida Drupal Users' Group and Florida DrupalCamp for over a decade. As the host of the long-running DrupalEasy Podcast, Anello provides insights into Drupal development, community news, and interviews with key contributors, fostering a sense of connection and ongoing learning within the community (DrupalEasy). His dedication to mentoring and community building has made him a respected and influential voice in the Drupal world. Mike Herchel Mike is a seasoned front-end developer and a prominent contributor to the Drupal community, with over 15 years of experience in web development. He is best known as the lead developer of Olivero, Drupal's default front-end theme, which emphasizes accessibility, modern design, and user experience. (ImageX) In addition to his work on Olivero, Mike serves as a core CSS maintainer for Drupal and is the creator of the Quicklink module, which enhances site performance by preloading links in the user's viewport. He also has amazing calves. They're the size of small children. Rumor has it that his vertical jump is over 4.5 inches! He has also contributed to the introduction of Single Directory Components (SDC) into Drupal core, aiming to streamline component-based theming.  Beyond his technical contributions, Mike is an active community leader. He has served on the Drupal Association Board of Directors and is a primary organizer of Florida DrupalCamp. (Drupal) As a speaker, he has presented at various events, including EvolveDrupal, discussing topics like the future of Drupal theming and the Starshot initiative, which seeks to make Drupal more accessible to site builders.  Professionally, Mike works as a Senior Front-End Developer at Agileana, where he continues to advocate for accessibility, performance, and the open web.  He shares his insights and experiences through his personal blog at herchel.com, contributing to the ongoing evolution of Drupal and its community. Discussion Topics: The Best Podcast Idea Ever Florida Drupal Camp: A Legacy of Success Single Directory Components: Getting Started TD Cafe: The Podcast Name Debate Deep Dive into Single Directory Components Experience Builder and Component Integration Custom Themes and Single Directory Components Design Tool Integration CSS Variables and Component Architecture Template File vs Render Array CSS Preferences: Plain CSS vs Post CSS Top Drupal Events Concluding Remarks and Personal Plans Guests Mike Anello - DupalEasy ultimike Mike Herchel - herchel.com mherchel

Join Tiffany Farriss, CEO of Palantir.net and a longtime Drupal Association board member, as she discusses the roadmap for the Drupal Marketplace. Tiffany delves into the challenges and goals of creating a trusted space for developers to showcase site templates, highlighting the importance of community trust and sustainability. She shares insights on the Views CSV Source module and the need for effective community engagement. The conversation also touches on balancing monetization while ensuring quality and transparency in the open-source ecosystem.

In this episode, John Picozzi and Jason Pamental explore the connections fostered by using Drupal across different geographies, the evolution of conferences, and how design systems are being utilized at Chewy. We also delve into the application of AI in e-commerce and coding, and discuss the practicalities of maintaining governance in large organizations. Join us for an engaging discussion filled with personal anecdotes, professional insights, and future prospects. For show notes visit: https://www.talkingDrupal.com/503 Topics John Picozzi John Picozzi is the Solutions Architect at EPAM Systems, where he helps organizations implement scalable and sustainable digital solutions—most often using Drupal. With over a decade of experience in web development, John has become a trusted voice in the Drupal community for his commitment to open source, user-centered design, and thoughtful architecture. John is a contributor to Drupal and an active member of the community as the organizer of the Drupal Providence Meetup and New England Drupal Camp. He’s also well known as a co-host of the Talking Drupal podcast, a weekly show focused on all things Drupal, where he interviews community members and shares insights on development, strategy, and community engagement. Outside of podcasting and coding, John frequently speaks at DrupalCamps and conferences across the U.S., offering sessions that span technical deep dives to community and career development topics. You can find more about his work and speaking engagements at picozzi.com, or follow him on Drupal.org Jason Pamental Jason Pamental is a designer, strategist, and technologist specializing in typography, variable fonts, and digital design systems. He is currently Principal Designer at Chewy, where he leads their design system efforts and helps guide their mobile app architecture and strategy. With over 30 years of experience, Jason has worked with organizations such as Adobe, ESPN, Fidelity, and the State of Rhode Island to shape impactful digital experiences. He’s a globally recognized expert in web typography and the author of Responsive Typography. His work has helped define how variable fonts are used on the web today. Jason is a frequent speaker at conferences like Beyond Tellerrand, An Event Apart, and SmashingConf, and he shares his knowledge through writing, teaching, and open source contributions. His articles, presentations, and resources can be found at rwt.io — short for Responsive Web Typography — and many of his talks, videos, and associated resources are available on https://noti.st/jpamental An active supporter of the open web and the Drupal community, Jason is committed to bridging the gap between design and development. Outside of work, he enjoys riding bikes, making espresso, spending time with his family in Rhode Island, and following Leo and Henry around Turner Reservoir, posting photos on Instagram. Hosts John Picozzi - epam.com johnpicozzi Jason Pamental - rwt.io.

Jacob Rockowitz, a leading developer of the Webform module and an active Drupal community member, joins Martin Anderson-Clutz, a distinguished Drupal Grand Master. They discuss the challenges of being a module maintainer, emphasizing the need for community support to combat burnout. The conversation highlights the role of sandbox modules and AI tools in enhancing development. They also touch on the importance of visibility for lesser-known projects and the value of face-to-face interactions during upcoming conferences.

Join Dries Buytaert, the founder of Drupal, as he reflects on nearly 25 years of innovation in the platform. He shares his motivations and strategies for future growth, discussing the exciting Starshot initiative designed to enhance Drupal's capabilities in the face of AI advancements. Dries emphasizes the importance of community collaboration and improving the developer experience, while also celebrating Drupal's impactful contributions, like helping a UK food bank boost donations. Dive into a heartfelt exploration of Drupal's journey and its vibrant future!

Join us for an extraordinary celebration of Talking Drupal's 500th episode! In this milestone episode, we dive into a treasure trove of memories, insights, and updates from an array of special guests. From innovative Drupal contributions to the future of open-source technology, this episode is packed with valuable discussions. Don't miss appearances from notable guests like Dries Buytaert, Tim Doyle, Tim Lehnen, Mike Anello, and many more. Celebrate with us as we look forward to 500 more episodes! For show notes visit: https://www.talkingDrupal.com/500 Topics Guests include, in order of appearance: Jason Pamental Dries Buytaert Tim Doyle Tim Lehnen Carlos Ospina Mayela Jackson Mike Anello Jonus Cuyvers Jacob Rockowitz Antonio Estevez Norah Medlin Kevin Quillen Chris Wells Steven Jones Jürgen Haas Thomas Scola Chad Hester Matt Glaman James Abrahams Avi Schwab Josh Mitchell James Shield Resources Road to deprecating .module files Hosts Nic Laflin - nLighteneddevelopment.com nicxvan John Picozzi - epam.com johnpicozzi Martin Anderson-Clutz - mandclu.com mandclu Stephen Cross - stephencross

Today we are talking about The Contact Form Initiative, What it is, and how it helped Drupal with guest J. Hogue. We’ll also cover Local Tasks More as our module of the week. For show notes visit: https://www.talkingDrupal.com/499 Topics What is the Contact Form initiative What makes up the contact form recipe Why did you want to run this initiative What are the responsibilities of an initiative lead Were there any unexpected speed bumps Who was involved As a non-backend developer, any hesitation to lead this effort What was onboarding like What was the timeline Any tips for others thinking of leading an initiative Guests J. Hogue - oomphinc.com artinruins Hosts Nic Laflin - nLighteneddevelopment.com nicxvan John Picozzi - epam.com johnpicozzi Kathy Beck - kbeck303 MOTW Correspondent Jacob Rockowitz - jrockowitz.com jrockowitz Brief description: Nodes can have too many local tasks. Only the first few, like View, Edit, Layout, Revisions, and Translate, are used daily. Would you like to hide or reorder less commonly used local tasks, which include Usage, Clone, Devel, and Convert. There is a module for that Local Tasks More (local_tasks_more) Brief history How old: created on November 6th, 2024 Versions available: 1.0.0-beta2 r Maintainership Actively maintained No security coverage Has test coverage Does not require much documentation No issues Usage stats: 22 sites Maintainer(s): jrockowitz (me) Module features and usage Enter the base routes that support the show more/less task link and alterations. Enter the local task id and the altered title and weight. Set the local tasks to FALSE to remove it. Enter the number of links to trigger show more/less tasks link/icon from primary and secondary tasks (aka tabs).

In this episode of Talking Drupal, we discuss the latest DOJ accessibility ruling and its implications for Drupal with special guest Josh Mitchell. Josh, a seasoned expert who has led teams in digital agencies, governments, and non-profits, sheds light on what the ruling means for state and local governments, the importance of accessibility, and steps to achieve compliance. We also explore the Sa11y module, a powerful tool for enhancing website accessibility, and compare it with the Editorially module. Additionally, we touch on the upcoming MID Camp 2025. Tune in for an insightful discussion on making web content more accessible for all. For show notes visit: https://www.talkingDrupal.com/498 Topics Can you give us an overview of the DOJ Accessibility Ruling Does this apply to federal websites When does this go into effect How does this affect current sites Hwo is Drupal positioned against this Does this rule apply to all content such as PDFs Any tips to organizations JS widgets Resources Announcement of the rule Full text of the rule - PDF Fact sheet for meeting the requirements of the rule https://www.ada.gov/resources/2024-03-08-web-rule/ https://www.drupal.org/docs/getting-started/accessibility/how-to-do-an-accessibility-review AXE Core Core issue to automate accessibility tests with Nightwatch.js Keyboard traps COTS - Commercial off the shelf software VPATS - Voluntary product accessibility template Accessibility Conformance Report (ACR) Monsido - Acquia optimize - PDF Josh’s blog post Guests Joshua "Josh" Mitchell - joshuami.com joshuami Hosts Nic Laflin - nLighteneddevelopment.com nicxvan John Picozzi - epam.com johnpicozzi Kathy Beck - kbeck303 MOTW Correspondent Martin Anderson-Clutz - mandclu.com mandclu Brief description: Have you ever wanted your Drupal site to have a built-in accessibility tool that could identify things like potential color contrast issues? There’s a module for that Module name/project name: Sa11y Brief history It’s worth mentioning that the name is a numeronym, so spelled s-a-1-1-y, which plays off of a common way the word “accessibility” is abbreviated How old: created in Jan 2018 by Bryan Sharpe (b_sharpe) but the namespace was taken over in Jun 2024 by Mark Conroy (markconroy) of LocalGov Drupal, so the current 3.0.1 release, which supports Drupal 10 and 11, is a completely different module than the original 8.x-1.x branch. Maintainership Actively maintained, in fact this module came out of the ongoing work being done on the LocalGov distribution and profile Security coverage Test coverage: no, but the module is effectively just a wrapper for the Sa11y library, which is CMS agnostic and used in the Wordpress and Joomla communities as well The Sa11y library has its own website, which includes documentation Number of open issues: 1 open issues, which isn’t a bug Usage stats: 62 sites Module features and usage We did cover the Editoria11y accessibility checker as MOTW all the way back in episode #350, almost 3 years ago, and Sa11y was mentioned at that time. Both modules have had major releases since then, so I thought this week’s episode would be a chance to do an updated comparison Sa11y does include some checks that Editoria11y does not, such as color contrast checking and a readability score The Editoria11y module, on the other hand, includes site-wide reporting that would be helpful for site admins, as well as a wealth of configuration options including one or more DOM elements to use as the container to check within, a list of elements to exclude, and so on. Recent versions of Editoria11y also include an option for live feedback as you edit, which should work with CKEditor 5, Paragraphs 5 or newer, and Gutenberg At the end of the day, however, both projects are intended to provide your content editors with immediate feedback on the accessibility compliance of what they create. So, it’s worth looking at the feedback each tool provides and deciding which one is more useful for your team in particular

Today we are talking about Drupal Forge, how it works, and why it’s changing Drupal with guest Darren Oh. We’ll also cover ECA VBO as our module of the week. For show notes visit: https://www.talkingDrupal.com/497 Topics Elevator pitch for Drupal forge What is Drupal Forge built on What is the pricing model Does Drupal Forge only allow you to install Drupal CMS Drupal Forge and templates, was there an influence on Site Templates Why offer templates for Drupal Forge Camps Is Drupal Forge open source What is on the Roadmap How can people get involved Resources Drupal Forge on Drupal.org Drupal Forge DevPanel Guests Darren Oh - drupalforge.org Darren Oh Hosts Nic Laflin - nLighteneddevelopment.com nicxvan John Picozzi - epam.com johnpicozzi Kathy Beck - kbeck303 MOTW Correspondent Martin Anderson-Clutz - mandclu.com mandclu Brief description: Have you ever wanted a powerful and flexible way to create views bulk operations without writing code? There’s a module for that. Module name/project name: ECA VBO Brief history How old: created in May 2022 by mxh, a prolific maintainer in his own right, and an active member of the group that has made the ECA ecosystem so far-reaching Versions available: 1.1.1 and 2.1.1, the latter of which supports ^10.3 || ^11 Maintainership Actively maintained Security coverage Documentation: sort of. The README has step-by-step instructions, and the project page has links to both an example model and a tutorial video Number of open issues: 7 open issues, 1 of which are bugs against the current branch Usage stats: 320 sites Module features and usage With the module installed, your site will have a number of Events available within ECA, specifically for defining models that can perform bulk actions on the selected items in a view. In my own experience the most useful event is VBO: Execute Views bulk operation (one by one) From there, you can define the logic of what needs to happen to the selected items. I’ve used it for fairly simple operations like changing content to a specific moderation state, but you could define complex logic that is conditional on field values, site configuration, or even global factors like the time of day With one or more models defined, you can now add a field to your view for ECA bulk operations and then select which eligible models you want available in that specific view It’s worth adding that the ECA model can also include logic to define who should have access to perform a particular operation, which could be as simple as checking the role of the current user, but can be as complex as you need I came across ECA VBO during some recent work on the Drupal Event Platform, which is already available to try out on Drupal Forge, but there should be a more formal announcement on that front soon

Today we are talking about Drupal Basics, Why we got away from them, and what we do to bring them back with guest Mike Anello. We’ll also cover Entity Reference Override as our module of the week. For show notes visit: https://www.talkingDrupal.com/496 Topics Where did this idea come from Why do you feel more basic content is necessary How did Drupal get away from the basics How can we get more basic talks into Drupal events How do we balance basic content with new topics like recipes or Drupal CMS How do we entice speakers to take these talks Could this adversely affect attendance Question from Stephen: How do we address virtual events and that they are preferred by a younger crowd Will Florida Drupal Camp have a track Guests Mike Anello - drupaleasy.com ultimike Hosts Nic Laflin - nLighteneddevelopment.com nicxvan John Picozzi - epam.com johnpicozzi Kathy Beck - kbeck303 MOTW Correspondent Martin Anderson-Clutz - mandclu.com mandclu Brief description: Have you ever wanted to replace a text field on entities you reference in your Drupal site? There’s a module for that. Module name/project name: Entity Reference Override Brief history How old: created in Sep 2016 by Jeff Eaton, though recent releases are by Benjamin Melançon (mlncn) of Agaric Versions available: 2.0.0-beta3 which works with Drupal 10.1 or 11 Maintainership Actively maintained Security coverage, yes but needs a stable release Test coverage Documentation - user guide Number of open issues: 13 open issues, 2 of which are bugs against the 2.0.x branch Usage stats: 2,004 sites Module features and usage The module defines a new field type, with associated widgets and formatters. Your site editors will see a normal entity reference field (autocomplete or select) with an additional text field. Text provided in that additional field can be used to override a specific field in the referenced entity’s display, or add a class to its rendered markup. This could be handy in use cases like showing people with project-specific roles, or showing related articles with the summary tweaked to be more relevant to the main content being viewed. It’s not a super-common need, but if you need this capability, it can save having to set up a more complicated content architecture with some kind of intermediary entity I thought this module would be interesting because today’s guest, Mike Anello, is listed as one of the maintainers. Mike, what can you tell us about your history with the module and how you’ve used it?