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Adaptive, Responsive, Mobile First and Drupal Theming for the Future

This is a live blog of the session “Adaptive, Responsive, Mobile First and Drupal Theming for the Future with HTML5, CSS3 and Omega” by Jake Strawn at DrupalCon London.

I’m hoping this session is the bookend to the mobile design theme that’s run through this DrupalCon. It is the future – there is no doubt. From the keynote this morning, to the previous session on mobile adaptive design, its obvious that this is the way we should be thinking in all our design efforts. This session is presented by @himerus) and its packed!

The Path to Mobile Drupal: Session Recap from DrupalCon London

This is a live blog of the session “The Path to a Mobile Drupal: Techniques, Tools and Failure” by John Albin at DrupalCon London.

“The Wile E. Coyote Method of Mobile Development”. Passionate, but it keeps blowing up in his face. And that’s pretty much how the web community is experiencing development for mobile devices.

Data Migration into Drupal: Session Recap from DrupalCon London

This is a live blog of the session “Data Migration into Drupal” by Moshe Weitzman at DrupalCon London.

This session was packed! I got the last seat in the overflow – a very popular topic for Drupal.

Towards an Open Source Accreditation Scheme for Drupal

This is a live blog of the session “How Do You Know that Gal Knows Drupal? Towards an Open Source Curriculum and a Community-Based Accreditation Scheme for Drupal” by Heather James and Dominik Lukes at DrupalCon London.

This session is a presentation on the current and future state of training, certification and accreditation for Drupal.

The Workbench Module: Managing Content Management

This is a live blog of the session “Workbench: Managing Content Management” by Ken Rickard and George DeMet at DrupalCon London.

This session should be one of the best so far. There is a general lack of workflow in Drupal (out of the box). One of my beefs with Drupal 7 is that it just isn’t that easy to edit your content, add images etc. The old phrase “there’s a module for that” doesn’t really cut it. So hopefully this module will put my beef in the pot and stew it … sorry, I’m thinking about the lamb chops last night for dinner, with real mint sauce. I really love eating in London

Display Suite Module – Taking Full Control of Your Layout

This is a live blog of the session “Take Full Control of Your Site Layout with Display Suite for Drupal 7” by Kristof De Jaeger and Jan-yves Vanhaverbeke at DrupalCon London.

Display Suite is a module allows you to easily manage the layout of your site without knowing PHP and CSS. You can read our full Display Suite tutorial here.

DrupalCon London Keynote by Dries

I’m sitting in the main concert hall at Fairfield Halls in Croydon, UK waiting for the beginning of the 1st keynote. The hall is getting full and there’s obviously a ton of geek energy in the air….

Dries is on the stage now …
1750 attendees – totally sold out. (largest European Drupal ever)

Move Drupal 6 Content Construction Kit (CCK) to Fields

CCK, or Content Construcion Kit is at the heart of many Drupal 6 sites. If you are migrating, you not only need to migrate the module, but you need to migrate the data as well.

This is a little more complicated than a simple upgrade.

Much of Content Construction Kit (CCK) in Drupal 6 is part of Drupal 7 core fields. Much but not all of CCK functionality is now part of Drupal 7 core. Several features require the installation of new, dedicated 7.x modules.

Planning for a Drupal 6 to 7 Migration

A simple site with only a few modules is a snap to upgrade. But if you have site with numerous modules, customizations and a custom theme, going from Drupal 6 to Drupal 7 requires a lot of thought and planning.

Many contributed modules that you added to Drupal 6 are now part of the core, so you don't have to move them. Some modules or your personal customizations may not have an upgrade path, in which case you can't upgrade. There are many decisions and some research involved in accomplishing a smooth upgrade.

Installing CKEditor in Drupal 7

By default, Drupal does not install any type of editor for adding styling to content. The good thing about that is you get to choose which one you want to use.

The CKEditor is one of the most popular WYSIWYG editors and with version 3.6.1 the installation is a little simpler than previous versions. Here's how to do it.

Migrate Drupal 6 to Drupal 7

Changing from Drupal 6 to Drupal 7 is not just a simple update. The steps seem straightforward, but there are major changes in the way Drupal 7 works and stores data. So a move up across major version numbers is really a "migration" as opposed to a simple update or patch.

If your site is fairly simple, with good backups, and you use the right approach, you can accomplish the migration without too much trouble.

The more complex your site is, the more complex the migration will be.

Upgrading to Joomla 1.7 in 15 Seconds

Congrats to Andy Poorman who won our "Upgrade at the OS Corral" competition. The goal of the competition was to upgrade from Joomla 1.6 to 1.7 in less then the existing record of 23 seconds. Andy was able to upgrade his Joomla site in around 15 seconds.

Andy's video proof is below. Click here for a more detailed tutorial on upgrading 1.6 to 1.7.

How to Activate WordPress Post Formats

Something not often understood in WordPress is the difference between Post Formats and Post Types.

There are 5 page types built into WordPress: Post, Page, Attachment, Revision and Nav Menu. Since the release of 3.1 you can now add custom types, but we'll go over that in another tutorial. This tutorial is going to show you how post formats work:

Creating a Directory or Phonebook in WordPress

Do you need to create a company directory with employee profiles? Maybe multiple departments in a larger company? Or a family directory for your next reunion?

The Connections plugin can make this a fairly easy task, allowing you to load headshots, full contact information and details on every member or employee, then display them on custom pages. In this tutorial we'll show you the basic features. The developers at http://connections-pro.com also sell extra features.

s2Member Paid Membership Plugin for WordPress

s2member-pro WordPress is great for multi-users and for creating blog sites. But what if you want to monetize it so you can charge for subscriptions? There are some plugins available, this one we found to be not only free, but fully featured.

Of all the ones tested, this was the most complete out-of-the-box, and had the most documentation, with over 50 help videos. The documentation is excellent, but I found the first few steps to be time consuming with trial and error. Here is a quick-start guide to s2Member:

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