There is just so much to say about Drupal 7 and advantages to upgrading. There is so much excitement around this new platform and I'm very happy that we've been able to play a small part in getting this application to where it is now. I've already talked at length about accessibility issues with this release, but it's time to focus a bit more on some of the other great aspects.
Usability
There's been so much work that has gone into usability. There are two new themes which have been added, Bartik and Seven. Bartik provides a fresh new public look for default sites as the old Garland theme...
Drupal Development
By Mike Gifford
on 04/03/2011
OpenConcept Consulting takes a step into the future of the web with HTML5. Witness the power of lightning fast and super stable in-page video with the stunning effects of jQuery. Accessible, mobile friendly, sleek and flexible: HTML5 is where our heart is.
We are early adopters of many new technologies so that we can test/evaluate them before implementing them for our clients. We pushed forward with an early Drupal 7 install so that we could dedicate some time to working out the remaining kinks that are holding back implementation of this great new version. We've been using social media to...
We are early adopters of many new technologies so that we can test/evaluate them before implementing them for our clients. We pushed forward with an early Drupal 7 install so that we could dedicate some time to working out the remaining kinks that are holding back implementation of this great new version. We've been using social media to...
By Mike Gifford
on 28/02/2011
I don't know where the time's gone, but next week at this time I'm going to be at DrupalCon with thousands of other users & developers. I've really enjoyed Boston, DC & San Francisco, and expect that Chicago will be just as exciting. It's interesting to reflect that it was in 2008 at the Boston Keynote that Dries set the course for Drupal 7 challenged the community to embrace RDFa. This was long before we became involved in making Drupal 7 more accessible, but making sites more machine readable will do a lot to making them more accessible to people too.
William Lawrence gave the...
William Lawrence gave the...
By Mike Gifford
on 26/02/2011
We've used CVS, SVN over the years and are now using Git. If you've not a programmer you probably wouldn't be familiar with tools like Concurrent Versions System or Subversion which allow for precise sharing & collaboration between thousands of people but with over 150,000 lines of code in Drupal Core, you really need to have a way to manage these details to ensure that you've got the highest quality control possible. Git is the latest in social coding and because if it's distributed framework it should allow many more people to evaluate, experiment & collaborate with the Drupal...
By Mike Gifford
on 28/01/2011
We've been very busy working on Drupal 7 enhancements for the last two years. It's gotten really hectic around our office in the last few months so we're not able to devote the time we wanted to launch a flashy new design. We've got a new design in the works to replace the one we set up back in early 2007 when Drupal 5 came out, but we've been prioritizing our efforts on getting to our clients sites rather than finishing up ours.
Given that we're not going to be able to launch the new design in January, I've decided that we'll workshop this process and document our process &...
Given that we're not going to be able to launch the new design in January, I've decided that we'll workshop this process and document our process &...
By Mike Gifford
on 22/12/2010
I just updated the docs on drupal.org and discovered that D7 will take care of the permissions.
I was working on my first Drupal 5 to 7 migration earlier today and ran into an issue with the file system I hadn't needed to define previously. Drupal 7 has both a public and private file system path that you can define. This is great for security as you can easily divide what files you want available to the anonymous public and which they should be denied access. Drupal can be used to control delivery to users with appropriate permissions.
This is great, but there aren't enough active...
I was working on my first Drupal 5 to 7 migration earlier today and ran into an issue with the file system I hadn't needed to define previously. Drupal 7 has both a public and private file system path that you can define. This is great for security as you can easily divide what files you want available to the anonymous public and which they should be denied access. Drupal can be used to control delivery to users with appropriate permissions.
This is great, but there aren't enough active...
By Mike Gifford
on 25/10/2010
In preparing for my live streamed HD session at Drupal Camp Montreal 2010, I was prompted by someone's tweet or blog post from DrupalCon Copenhagen to try a different approach with this presentation. I'd much rather be facilitating than presenting, but I do have a message I want to spread to the community, so I had to take this seriously.
Now the quality of the notes from DrupalCon's are definitely getting getting better. Here's examples from San Francisco & Copenhagen (links removed). There's stuff here that should be borrowed by many other conferences.
A few folks I respect have also...
Now the quality of the notes from DrupalCon's are definitely getting getting better. Here's examples from San Francisco & Copenhagen (links removed). There's stuff here that should be borrowed by many other conferences.
A few folks I respect have also...
By Mike Gifford
on 10/09/2010
The list of issues here I'll try to keep updated to reflect the changes in accessibility issues in Drupal 7 prior to release.
It's really amazing to see the improvements for accessibility in Drupal 7 over the last two years. There have been some really impressive improvements that are making this an even more inclusive framework for any web development project.
I just took a look at the number of issues that have already been fixed & are part of Drupal 7 already and there are 67 (as of Sept 16). That amounts to hundreds of hours of discussion & dialogue about how to make Drupal...
It's really amazing to see the improvements for accessibility in Drupal 7 over the last two years. There have been some really impressive improvements that are making this an even more inclusive framework for any web development project.
I just took a look at the number of issues that have already been fixed & are part of Drupal 7 already and there are 67 (as of Sept 16). That amounts to hundreds of hours of discussion & dialogue about how to make Drupal...
By Mike Gifford
on 04/08/2010
This article was republished in GovFresh.
I was really happy to have Patrick Lajeunesse present about Agriculture Canada's experience using Drupal as a prototyping tool. As you can see from his presentation, with a small team of communications staff they were able to set up both a Drupal and WordPress prototype to explore their needed functionality.
I wanted to focus a bit more on why this makes so much sense for so many organizations, but especially government agencies. The implementation of web tools has improved significantly over the last decade and it is no longer something that needs to...
I was really happy to have Patrick Lajeunesse present about Agriculture Canada's experience using Drupal as a prototyping tool. As you can see from his presentation, with a small team of communications staff they were able to set up both a Drupal and WordPress prototype to explore their needed functionality.
I wanted to focus a bit more on why this makes so much sense for so many organizations, but especially government agencies. The implementation of web tools has improved significantly over the last decade and it is no longer something that needs to...
By Mike Gifford
on 18/06/2010
The Drupal Showcase that we organized on June 15th was a great success. This event was organized & sponsored by OpenConcept and we were able to bring together over 75 people to learn about how and why public servants are using Drupal effectively to communicate.
We had representatives from 15 government departments including: Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada (AAFC), Citizenship and Immigration Canada (CIC), The Canada Border Services Agency (CBSA), Canadian Transportation Agency (CTA), Human Resources and Skills Development Canada (HRSDC), Immigration and Refugee Board of Canada (IRB),...
We had representatives from 15 government departments including: Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada (AAFC), Citizenship and Immigration Canada (CIC), The Canada Border Services Agency (CBSA), Canadian Transportation Agency (CTA), Human Resources and Skills Development Canada (HRSDC), Immigration and Refugee Board of Canada (IRB),...