Our thoughts, perspectives, and musings on drupal
We share knowledge, ideas and ambitions openly, constantly improving and crtiquing our ideas in the larger community.
We share knowledge, ideas and ambitions openly, constantly improving and crtiquing our ideas in the larger community.
January 30, 2020 by Simon Westyn
Recently, we were asked if we could integrate some small, one-page websites into an existing Drupal website. This would not only make it easier to manage those different websites and their content, but also reduce the hosting and maintenance costs.
Recently, we were asked if we could integrate some small, one-page websites into an existing Drupal website. This would not only make it easier to man...
September 28, 2018 by Jonathan Westman
Pairing Composer template for Drupal Projects with Lando gives you a fully working Drupal environment with barely any setup. Lando is an open-source, cross-platform local development environment. It uses Docker to build containers for well-known frameworks and services written in simple recipes. If you haven’t started using Lando for your local development, we highly recommend it. It is easier, faster, and relatively pain-free compared to MAMP, WAMP, VirtualBox VMs, Vagrant or building your own Docker infrastructure.
Pairing Composer template for Drupal Projects with Lando gives you a fully working Drupal environment with barely any setup. Lando is an open-source, ...
September 13, 2018 by Tom Friedhof
We are building a 12 factor app with Drupal. This is part two in our series, building a 12 factor app. Today I'm talking about Factor Two...
We are building a 12 factor app with Drupal. This is part two in our series, building a 12 factor app. Today I'm talking about Factor Two...
August 15, 2017 by Sam Tabari
So you just finished building an awesome new website on Drupal, but now you’ve run into a new dilemma. How do optimize the site for search engines? Search engine optimization, or SEO, can be overwhelming, but don’t let that cause you to ignore certain things you can do to help drive traffic to your website. There’s nothing worse than spending countless hours to develop a web application, only to find out that users aren’t able to find your site. This can be extremely frustrating, as well as devastating if your company or business heavily relies on organic traffic.
So you just finished building an awesome new website on Drupal, but now you’ve run into a new dilemma. How do optimize the site for search engines? Se...
August 2, 2017 by Evan Jenkins
When migrating from Drupal 7 to Drupal 8, it is important to remember to migrate over the redirects as well. Without the migrations users will not find your content if for example: the redirect was shared on social media. Using the Migrate Plus module, it is quite simple to write a migration for the redirects. The Migrate Plus module contains some good examples on how to get started writing your custom migrations.
When migrating from Drupal 7 to Drupal 8, it is important to remember to migrate over the redirects as well. Without the migrations users will not fin...
June 15, 2017 by Tom Friedhof
Tom Friedhof: There’s a lot of hype around integrating Pattern Lab with your Drupal theme these days. Particularly because Drupal’s template...
Tom Friedhof: There’s a lot of hype around integrating Pattern Lab with your Drupal theme these days. Particularly because Drupal’s template...
March 6, 2017 by Tom Friedhof
In the modern world of web / application development, using package managers to pull in dependencies has become a de-facto standard. In fact, if you are developing enterprise software and you aren't leveraging package managers I would challenge you to ask yourself why not?
In the modern world of web / application development, using package managers to pull in dependencies has become a de-facto standard. In fact, if you a...
October 12, 2016 by Tom Friedhof
Ron Huber: Proprietary software does a really good job of being everything to everybody. When somebody goes and pitches something for a...
Ron Huber: Proprietary software does a really good job of being everything to everybody. When somebody goes and pitches something for a...
October 1, 2016 by Tom Friedhof
Jordan Ryan: Are any of you selling, in particular with Drupal, the power of integrations or integrating with other systems? Kind of like...
Jordan Ryan: Are any of you selling, in particular with Drupal, the power of integrations or integrating with other systems? Kind of like...
September 19, 2016 by Tom Friedhof
Ron Huber: It does go back to what Dries said earlier this year, about who adopts Drupal, right. I mean, they're truly ambitious web...
Ron Huber: It does go back to what Dries said earlier this year, about who adopts Drupal, right. I mean, they're truly ambitious web...
September 9, 2016 by Tom Friedhof
Tom: Hey guys, we're here at DrupalCamp LA 2016, at UC Irvine. We've got a few shop owners here. We just wanted to have a conversation and...
Tom: Hey guys, we're here at DrupalCamp LA 2016, at UC Irvine. We've got a few shop owners here. We just wanted to have a conversation and...
August 25, 2016 by Tom Friedhof
You guys asked so here we are. In my last video I answered the question, "Should I build on Drupal 7 or Drupal 8?" I mentioned in that video...
You guys asked so here we are. In my last video I answered the question, "Should I build on Drupal 7 or Drupal 8?" I mentioned in that video...
July 30, 2016 by Jonathan Westman
On a recent project, we had to create multiple sitemaps for each of the domains that we have setup on the site. We came across some problems that we had to resolve because of the nature of our pURL setup.
On a recent project, we had to create multiple sitemaps for each of the domains that we have setup on the site. We came across some problems that we h...
June 15, 2016 by Jonathan Westman
The web development community can have a long list of requirements, languages, frameworks, constructs and tools that most companies or bosses want you to know.
The web development community can have a long list of requirements, languages, frameworks, constructs and tools that most companies or bosses want you...
June 7, 2016 by Bez Hermoso
Continuing from Evan's blog post on building pages with Paragraphs and writing custom blocks of content as fields, I will walk you through how to create a custom field-formatter in Drupal 8 by example.
Continuing from Evan's blog post on building pages with Paragraphs and writing custom blocks of content as fields, I will walk you through how to crea...
June 4, 2016 by Tom Friedhof
Which version of Drupal should you build your site on, Drupal 7 or Drupal 8? This question comes up quite frequently, and for good reason! Your website is an investment and could be serving you for the next 3-5 years. It's important to weigh the pros and cons of choosing to build on Drupal 7 or Drupal 8. If you're thinking about building your new site on Drupal 7, you need to watch this video first. Drupal 7 adoption is going down, with Drupal 8 adoption going up. Drupal 8 should hit critical mass by the end of 2016.
Which version of Drupal should you build your site on, Drupal 7 or Drupal 8? This question comes up quite frequently, and for good reason! Your websit...
June 3, 2016 by Evan Jenkins
On a recent project we had to create a section that is basically a Twitter search for a hashtag. It needed to be usuable in different sections of the layout and work the same.
On a recent project we had to create a section that is basically a Twitter search for a hashtag. It needed to be usuable in different sections of the ...
May 17, 2016 by Tom Friedhof
Actually, we never left. We didn't stop building Drupal sites, even through the long release cycle. However, we did move our company website, activelamp.com, off of Drupal about 18 months ago. Our company site had been built on Drupal since the Drupal 4.7 days. That was back when it started to become uncool to write and maintain your own home-grown CMS. I eventually found Drupal, ditched my custom CMS, and never looked back. Our site started on Drupal 4.7, upgraded onto Drupal 5, then Drupal 6, and also Drupal 7 all at the beginning of the release cycles of Drupal. About 18 months ago, when our site was in dire need of an update, we evaluated Drupal 8 but realized with no release date in sight, and the fact that we did not want to chase HEAD and develop on unstable API's, we decided to go a different route and build our updated site on Jekyll, a popular static generator. It's more fun to tinker with new technology when working on non-billable stuff, which is what we did. We brushed up on our Ruby skills and built out a Jekyll site (which is this site you're looking at if you're reading this blog post before Q3 of 2016). We're getting ready for another update to our company website and moving back to Drupal to do it. Jekyll was great, but it came with its disadvantages over something like Drupal. This post will highlight some of the advantages and disadvantages of working with Jekyll the past 18 months, as well as highlight why we're excited to put activelamp.com on Drupal 8 in Q3 of this year.
Actually, we never left. We didn't stop building Drupal sites, even through the long release cycle. However, we did move our company website, activela...
May 14, 2016 by Tom Friedhof
One of the best things to happen with the Drupal 7 release was the introduction of Entities. Drupal Entities have been around forever, but it seems like a lot of developers still refer back to using Nodes when creating content that requires more functionality than what Nodes give you out of the box. In this video, I talk about why it's a good idea to create your own Entities when the content you're adding requires extended functionality. I talk about the "what" and the "why" of Entities, not necessarily "how" to create an Entity. There are a bunch of resources already out there on the Internet for that. I talk about using the Entity API module, and defining your own Class for your custom Entities. This presentation was given at SandCamp 2016.
One of the best things to happen with the Drupal 7 release was the introduction of Entities. Drupal Entities have been around forever, but it seems li...
May 7, 2016 by Evan Jenkins
Drupal 8 has greatly improved editor experience out-of-the-box. It comes shipped with CKEditor for WYSIWYG editing. Although, D8 ships with a custom build of CKEditor and it may not have the plugins that you would like to have or that your client wants to have.
Drupal 8 has greatly improved editor experience out-of-the-box. It comes shipped with CKEditor for WYSIWYG editing. Although, D8 ships with a custom b...
April 22, 2016 by Evan Jenkins
Writing custom layouts using the Layout Plugin module for D8 is really easy. This video will outline how to create a new layout in your theme using Foundation 6 as the base theme and how to extend the layout to add custom classes and id.
Writing custom layouts using the Layout Plugin module for D8 is really easy. This video will outline how to create a new layout in your theme using Fo...
April 9, 2016 by Tom Friedhof
Panels, is one of the most mis-understood modules in the Drupal eco-system. Drupal developers seem to either love Panels, or hate it with a passion. Most of the time, when I begin to unwrap why people do not like Panels, it is mainly a misunderstanding of what makes Panels so powerful, Page Manager. In this video, presented at SandCamp 2016, see a mock sports league built out with the Node system and Field system that includes various relationships between the different node types. Watch, as we realize the entity relationships we create through the Field UI through the page manager UI. Lots of power in this suite of tools.
Panels, is one of the most mis-understood modules in the Drupal eco-system. Drupal developers seem to either love Panels, or hate it with a passion. ...
April 4, 2016 by Tom Friedhof
This video will take you through the correct way to use composer dependencies in Drupal 7 and Drupal 8 using the Composer Manager module. This video part 2 to the PSR video we did last month, that shows how to write a views handler using PSR-4 class autoloading (http://activelamp.com/videos/psr-4-class-autoloading-with-drupal-7). At the end of the PSR-4 video, I pulled in a composer dependency not using Composer Manager. This video will show you the correct way to use Composer with Drupal.
This video will take you through the correct way to use composer dependencies in Drupal 7 and Drupal 8 using the Composer Manager module. This video p...
April 1, 2016 by Jonathan Westman
March 15, 2016 by Tom Friedhof
The San Diego Drupal Camp was great! You can't beat the weather in San Diego, and as usual, these regional events are great for catching up with old friends that are still plugging away with the Drupal content management system. Checkout our highlight video: This year I had the pleasure of giving 3 sessions at the camp, and as promised, I want to share the slides and code for everything that I presented. Each deck is iframed in on this article, feel free to checkout my github page if you want the speaker notes too.
The San Diego Drupal Camp was great! You can't beat the weather in San Diego, and as usual, these regional events are great for catching up with old f...
November 14, 2015 by Jonathan Westman
Shoov.io is a nifty website testing tool created by Gizra. We at ActiveLAMP were first introduced to Shoov.io at DrupalCon LA, in fact, Shoov.io is built on, you guessed it, Drupal 7 and it is an open source visual regression toolkit.
Shoov.io is a nifty website testing tool created by Gizra. We at ActiveLAMP were first introduced to Shoov.io at DrupalCon LA, in fact, Shoov.io is bu...
October 10, 2015 by Evan Jenkins
Running headless Drupal with a separate javascript framework on the front-end can provide amazing user experiences and easy theming. Although, working with content editors with this separation can prove to be a tricky situation.
Running headless Drupal with a separate javascript framework on the front-end can provide amazing user experiences and easy theming. Although, working...
August 14, 2015 by Jonathan Westman
I recently had time to install and take a look at Drupal 8. I am going to share my first take on Drupal 8 and some of the hang-ups that I came across. I read a few other blog posts that mentioned not to rely too heavily on one source for D8 documentation with the rapid changing pace of D8 the information has become outdated rather quickly.
I recently had time to install and take a look at Drupal 8. I am going to share my first take on Drupal 8 and some of the hang-ups that I came across....
July 3, 2015 by Jonathan Westman
The Picture module is a backport of Drupal 8 Responsive Image module. It allows you to select different images to be loaded for different devices and resolutions using media queries and Drupal’s image styles. You can also use the Image Replace module to specify a different image to load at certain breakpoints.
The Picture module is a backport of Drupal 8 Responsive Image module. It allows you to select different images to be loaded for different devices and ...
September 7, 2012 by Bryan Hazelbaker
<p> Occasionally a node reference or entity reference autocomplete widget will not operate as expected, specifically when it is based off a view reference display.<!--more--> Other widgets, the select box, or list of checkboxes, will still function correctly. </p> <p> This will happen if the view is depending on a contextual filter (an argument), but is not being provided one. Normally a view can try to automatically fill in the argument if one is not provided based on the current page url. If the view fails to receive an argument and is unable to infer its value from the url path then it will fail to provide any results. </p> <p> Outlined below is a possible scenario that would cause an autocomplete node reference field to fail. </p>
<p> Occasionally a node reference or entity reference autocomplete widget will not operate as expected, specifically when it is based off a view refer...
March 17, 2010 by Kristen Dyrr
January 12, 2010 by Kevin Herrington