Programmers

What you will learn from this book

• Getting familiar with the user interface
• Creating reaction rules using Events, Conditions and Actions
• Re-using configurations using Components
• Debugging Rule configurations
• Using Loops and Lists
• Extending Rules using other modules like Views Bulk Operations and Flag
• Creating your own Events, Conditions, and Actions
• Executing Rule configurations programmatically

In Detail

Rules is what every Drupal site builder and developer has to use when creating event – action-based applications. The framework provides a highly flexible way to create sophisticated, condition-based functions any Drupal based system into an interactive application. Rules makes Drupal rule the CMS world.

"Drupal Rules How-to" is a practical, hands-on guide that provides you with a number of clear step-by-step exercises, which will help you take advantage of the real power of the Rules framework, and understand how to use it on a site builder and developer level

This book demonstrates the power and flexibility of the Rules framework. It discusses the main aspects of the module both from the site builder and developer perspective, from basic and advanced Rule configurations using Events, Conditions, Actions and Components to getting familiar with the Rules API.

You will also learn how to use additional modules together with Rules to further extend the possibilities of your Drupal system, such as Rules Scheduler to schedule the execution of your Rule configurations and Views Bulk Operations to execute Rule configurations on a view result list. The book also demonstrates the main API features that enable you to create your own Events, Conditions and Actions, provide new data types to Rules and execute your configurations programmatically

Approach

Filled with practical, step-by-step instructions and clear explanations for the most important and useful tasks. Get the job done and learn as you go. This book is a practical, task-based, step-by-step tutorial that starts in a simple way, identifying disk device partitions, and culminates with advanced tasks such as preparing for new operating systems.

Who this book is for

This book is for Drupal site builders and developers who want to take full advantage of the Rules framework's power and flexibility. Readers of this book should be familiar with the Drupal 7 user interface

What you will learn from this book

• Manipulate and utilize comment, file, field collection, node, term, user, and vocabulary entities
• Attach, manipulate, and utilize date, file, image, link, number, text, and term reference fields
• Write type-agnostic code dealing with more types of Drupal data than ever before
• Upgrade a legacy Drupal node module to expose and utilize entities
• Expose your legacy database tables as fully-fledged Drupal entities
• Batch import remote data and expose them as entities
• Glean good coding practices for dealing with entities

In Detail

Writing code for manipulating Drupal data has never been easier! Learn to dice and serve your data as you slowly peel back the layers of the Drupal entity onion. Next, expose your legacy local and remote data to take full advantage of Drupal's vast solution space.

Programming Drupal 7 Entities is a practical, hands-on guide that provides you with a thorough knowledge of Drupal's entity paradigm and a number of clear step-by-step exercises, which will help you take advantage of the real power that is available when developing using entities.

This book looks at the Drupal 7 entity paradigm, and breaks down the mystery and confusion that developers face when building custom solutions using entities. It will take you through a number of clear, practical recipes that will help you to take full advantage of Drupal entities in your web solutions without much coding.

You will also learn how to expose local and remote data to give your legacy data new life as fully-fledged Drupal entities that can be used by other modules such as views, rules, and so on. In addition to this, you'll learn to create, retrieve, update, and delete (CRUD) entities, their properties and fields, along with some programmatic wizardry to manipulate complex entities such as field collections. If you want to develop quickly and easily using Drupal entities, then this is the book for you.

You will learn everything you need to know to develop code and expose data using entities in Programming Drupal 7 Entities.

Approach

The book follows a standard tutorial-based approach to create, retrieve, update, and delete Drupal 7 entities, their properties and fields.

Who this book is for

Programming Drupal 7 Entities is perfect for intermediate or advanced developers new to Drupal entity development who are looking to get a good grounding in how to code using the new paradigm. It’s assumed that you will have some experience in PHP development already, and being vaguely familiar with Drupal, GIT, and Drush will also help.

What you will learn from this book

• Configure your Drupal site to run imports of migrated content using the Feeds module
• Run an import of migrated content using Feeds module and a Feed importer
• Package your configuration using the Features module
• Utilize the Migrate module and its benefits
• Migrate blog posts from WordPress to Drupal
• Upgrade your Drupal 6 site to Drupal 7
• Configure the Feeds Tamper module to preprocess your Feeds imports
• Run additional imports using the Feeds modules to update and add new data and content to your Drupal site

In Detail

This book will show you how to migrate your content into the Drupal content management system. You’ll start by building a content type in Drupal to hold your migrated content. You’ll then import your content into Drupal using the Feeds module. In order to be able to easily use them again and again, you will also learn the best methods of maintaining and packaging migration configurations.

In "Migrating to Drupal 7" you’ll learn how to quickly package your legacy site’s data into a format that’s easy to import into Drupal. You’ll then build a content type to hold migrated data in Drupal. To save time and hassle you will learn how to import content into Drupal using the Feeds module. You’ll then get a brief introduction to the Migrate module and its powerful features.

With this guide you’ll also learn how to upgrade your Drupal 6 website to Drupal 7 in short, simple steps. You’ll also learn how to package your configuration code in Drupal using the powerful Features module.

In "Migrating to Drupal 7" you’ll start by collecting your current site’s content and packaging it up into a CSV file so you can easily import it into Drupal. You’ll then build a content type to hold your migrated data and content.

Mastering migrations using the Feeds module will be the next invaluable tutorial before you get a closer look at the Migrate module’s powerful features. You’ll then upgrade your Drupal 6 site to Drupal 7 and use helper modules to help run the upgrade faster and with less hassle. This book will then take you through the process of migrating CCK-based Drupal 6 fields to Drupal 7 using the Content Migrate module.

Using the Features module you will then package up our Feeds importer and content types into code to help you to build an easily maintainable and flexible Drupal website with.

Approach

Written in a friendly and engaging style with practical tutorials and step-by-step examples which show you how to easily migrate your Drupal 6 or WordPress site to Drupal 7.

Who this book is for

"Migrating to Drupal 7" is for anyone interested in how to move content from an existing website into the Drupal content management system. Both novice and advanced Drupal users will gain practical hands-on knowledge in how to migrate content into Drupal using this book. You will become experts in using the Feeds module to migrate content, and in packaging your code using Features.

Note: This edition is out of print. The 2nd edition of this book is now available; contains all of the content of the first edition, plus Drupal 8 content.

If you’re a web programmer new to Drupal, this book shows you which programming techniques you can use—and which you should avoid—when building custom web applications with this content management framework. Drupal has its own set of programming principles that require a different approach, and many programmers make mistakes when relying on skills they’ve used for other projects. The guidelines in this book help you through the transition by demonstrating which programming practices conform to the “Drupal way,” and which don’t.

If you’re familiar with PHP, you’ll quickly learn how to take advantage of the powerful Drupal API.

• Get a complete overview of Drupal, including Drupal core and add-on modules and themes
• Learn Drupal’s basic programming principles, such as the ability to customize behavior and output with hooks
• Discover common Drupal programming mistakes—and why hacking is one of them
• Explore specific areas where you can put your programming skills to work
• Learn programming tips and tools to help you perfect and debug your applications

See the original announcement about Pro Drupal Development’s release in the Drupal news section.

Publisher’s description:

Drupal is one of the most popular content management systems in use today. With it, you can create a variety of community-driven sites, including blogs, forums, wiki-style sites, and much more. Pro Drupal Development was written to arm you with knowledge to customize your Drupal installation however you see fit. The book assumes that you already possess the knowledge to install and bring a standard installation online. Then authors John VanDyk and Matt Westgate delve into Drupal internals, showing you how to truly take advantage of its powerful architecture.

You’ll learn how to create your own modules, develop your own themes, and produce your own filters. You'll learn the inner workings of each key part of Drupal, including user management, sessions, the node system, caching, and the various APIs available to you. Of course, your Drupal-powered site isnt effective until you can efficiently serve pages to your visitors. As such, the authors have included the information you need to optimize your Drupal installation to perform well under high-load situations. Also featured is information on Drupal security and best practices, as well as integration of Ajax and the internationalization of your Drupal web site. Simply put, if you are working with Drupal at all, then you need this book.

• This book is written by Drupal core developers.
• Drupal architecture and behavior are mapped out visually.
• Common pitfalls are identified and addressed.
• Chapters provide regular discussion and reference to why things work they way they do, not just how.
• Features a foreword by Dries Buytaert, Drupal founder.

See the original announcement about Learning Drupal 6 Module Development’s release in the Drupal news section.

Publisher’s description:

Walk through the development of complete Drupal 6 modules with this primer for PHP programmers, written specifically for Drupal 6 to get you started coding your first module. Are you a Drupal developer looking to update to version 6? This book covers the new and updated APIs to guide your transition to Drupal 6. The new menu system, the Forms and Schema APIs, and many core revisions are covered in this book. This book is written for PHP developers who want to add custom features to Drupal. You will need to know the basics of PHP and MySQL programming, but no experience of programming Drupal is required, although you will be expected to be familiar with the basic operation of Drupal.

About the Author

Matt Butcher is the principal consultant for Aleph-Null, Inc. (http://aleph-null.tv), where he specializes in content management systems, Linux system integration, and Open Source technologies. He has been an active participant in Open Source technologies for over a decade. Along with Learning Drupal 6, Matt has also written Mastering OpenLDAP, Managing and Customizing OpenCms 6, and Building Websites with OpenCms, all of which are published by Packt. When not pushing bits, Matt likes to explore Colorado with his wife and three daughters.