modules

Sign Up for Entities and Fields

The challenge

Historically, the Signup module has been the go-to solution for managing event registrations (i.e., sign-ups) in Drupal. This venerable module has nearly 8000 reported installs, 14 contributors, and a vibrant ecosystem of additional contrib modules (such as Signup Integration for Ubercart). Signup is also a key component of the Conference Organizing Distribution.

All this considered, only 500 of Signup's installs are in Drupal 7, for which the module still does not have a tagged, stable release. And since the module must maintain an upgrade path for all those users, taking full advantage of Drupal 7's new features, such as the entity system, is very challenging.

Given ThinkShout's comittment to Drupal innovation, last year we began work on an entity-based alternative to Signup, drawing significant inspiration from the amazing work that was already done there. We were very excited about the benefits offered by an entity-based registration system, namely the ability to add custom fields of any type to a registration, along with hooking into the various entity APIs. We launched an early version of the tool on Manhattan Kayak Company's new website and started a conversation with the Signup team about possible collaboration. While productive and receptive, things were moving a bit slowly, so we started up a new Entity Registrations project on Drupal.org and have recently pushed the code to a point where we want to share and discuss it with the community.

Tags:

Drupal

modules

Drupal Planet

OpenLayers Love for Drupal 7

Mapping has become a significant component of many of ThinkShout's projects over the last couple years, included on sites such as Save Our Gulf, James River Association, and the Lower Columbia River Estuary Partnership . The tools we use are constantly evolving. For example, we recently launched a bacteria monitoring site for Blue Water Baltimore (note, staging site) using Cloudmade's Leaflet and an accompanying Drupal module of the same name. But the OpenLayers map scripting library and Drupal module have been sophisticated mainstays. During that time, we've contributed a few of our own add-ons to meet our client's needs, namely OpenLayers Field, OpenLayers KML Layer, and OpenLayers Taxonomy. The first is a new module for Drupal 7's field system and the latter 2 were originally built for D6 and just ported to D7. We worked with the esteemed Alan Palazzolo, current maintainer of flagship OpenLayers's module, on all 3 projects, which now have beta releases.

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Staying Sharp, Releasing Helper Modules

The Footer Message Module as a Case Study

In the world of Drupal rockstar engineers, I'm, well, a groupie wearing a worn-out DrupalCon t-shirt. I consider myself a darn good Drupal technologist. I can build sites like nobody's business, using Features-based development practices to codify configuration management, as well as installation profiles for test-driven development. I contribute small bug fix patches to the community. And when the stars align, I occasionally release a Drupal module or two that helps with small tasks that make site building more enjoyable.

Tags:

Drupal

Drupal Planet

modules

MailChimp 2.0: Anatomy of a Drupal module rewrite

I first wrote the MailChimp module for a side project I was working on (MomHub) towards the end of 2007. It was my first standalone module, and the first one I posted on drupal.org. That module, and every update since, has basically offered the ability to synchronize a site's users with more one or more MailChimp lists based on role, in addition to standalone subscription forms. Over the years, the module has grown in popularity along with the MailChimp service itself, and there are now nearly 4000 reported installs. Still modest, but a sizable base which needs to be taken into consideration when releasing updates.