In this tutorial, you will learn how to get a Drupalize.Me tutorial demo site up and running using Pantheon. You'll learn about the various components that make up the Drupalize.Me demo site downloads and how each part should be imported. By the end of this lesson, you'll know how to create a Drupalize.Me demo site on a free Pantheon Dev instance so that you can follow along with the trainer in the Drupalize.Me video tutorial.
Additional resources
In this tutorial, you will learn how to use Acquia Dev Desktop 2 to get a Drupalize.Me tutorial demo site up and running. You will learn how to import a Drupal codebase and database containing a finished site for an individual tutorial on Drupalize.Me. This will enable you to walk through the lesson and see what was accomplished on the site during the lesson.
Additional resources
Pausing Our Podcast
Blog postThis week, instead of publishing a regular podcast episode, we recorded a short update about the podcast itself. We're not producing any more episodes for the rest of 2015, but you can look forward to a new, better podcast in 2016.
Release Day: Object-Oriented PHP Part 2
Blog postWe've recently switched from weekly releases to working towards releasing an entire series all on the same day. The Object-Oriented PHP Part 2 series is the first one we're doing with this. You get access to the complete series today! This second part of three on object-oriented PHP, provided by KnpUniversity, continues on from our Introduction to Object-Oriented PHP series.
Most written text has a lot of functional words, like "a", "the", or "is" which are important to the person reading the content as they help it flow in a cohesive manner, but aren't necessary as important to someone searching the content of your site. In this tutorial we'll look at ways to ignore those words in our search index.
Drupalize.Me Update, July 2015
Blog postIt's that time again! Here's an overview of what we've been working on recently at Drupalize.Me.
React.js, CouchDB, Node.js, de-coupling Drupal; if any of that sounds cool to you, then this is the podcast for you.
This week we'll be continuing our Using MailChimp with Drupal 7 series. And like last week, all the tutorials are free. Last week we looked at creating, and collecting contacts for, a MailChimp mailing list. This week we'll look at all the different ways we can send email to our lists.
Tutorial: Panels as Blocks
Blog postIn this tutorial, you will learn how to place panels in any region of your theme using Drupal's Blocks UI and a module packaged within the Panels project: Mini Panels. This tutorial is based on a free video in our library, Placing Panels in Blocks with Mini Panels
This week we're kicking off our new, and completely free, Using MailChimp with Drupal 7 series. This series will teach you everything you need to know about integrating Drupal with the MailChimp email marketing service.
Load Testing your Site with Siege
Blog postSiege is a useful load testing tool to add to your performance testing tool kit. From the website: "Siege is an HTTP load testing and benchmarking utility. It was designed to let web developers measure their code under duress, to see how it will stand up to load on the internet. Siege supports basic authentication, cookies, HTTP, HTTPS and FTP protocols. It lets its user hit a server with a configurable number of simulated clients. Those clients place the server 'under siege.'"
Load testing is useful for testing the performance of your site, and the infrastructure that it runs on. There’s nothing worse than having one of your blog posts end up on Hacker News and then having your site crumble under the load. Siege can simulate activity on your site, and you can then use your site from your browser as you normally would, while your siege is running and really get a feel for how your site responds under load.
This blog post will cover installing Siege on OS X and Linux, and running a basic load test with Siege.
Why is SEO important to site owners? What tools and strategies can be used to gather and analyze site visitor data?
This week we are wrapping up our Introduction to Project Management series. We've talked with the Lullabot sales and project management teams about many aspects of working with people, and setting your project up for success. As we wind things down we're going to discuss dealing with problems and and red flags that may be taking the project off course, along with different ways of adding quality assurance. We'll then get to talk about demoing your work and conducting retrospectives to review your processes. Finally, we get to tips for a successful launch and the importance of celebration!
In this lesson you will learn about different approaches to Quality Assurance (QA), the importance of doing QA throughout the project, and how QA can be used as a basis for documentation and help for the client.
Additional resources
Testing the front end with CasperJS
Automate Your Life with Phing
CSS Regression Testing with Resemble.js
Write A Hello World Test for Drupal 7 with SimpleTest
Automated Testing in Drupal 7 with SimpleTest
Quality Assurance with Selenium
Careful with that Debug Syntax
In this lesson, you’ll learn about demoing your progress to the client and the team, along with some things to consider in a prototyping process. We'll also talk about retrospectives, when the team takes time to review not just the work produced but the process behind it as well.
In this lesson, you’ll learn strategies for identifying and dealing with problems, risks, and red flags on a project. You’ll also learn tips for being a proactive and diplomatic communicator, ensuring that progress and velocity is up to speed, and the importance of minding the boundaries of your relationship with the client and how to effectively advocate for the project, without forgetting the people who can ultimately make the project successful.
Additional resources
In this lesson, you’ll learn some tips for ensuring a successful launch and the importance of celebrating the accomplishments of the team.
PHP Classes and Objects
Blog postObject-oriented programming (OOP) is way of organizing your code to be more efficient, and it takes advantage of some really nice features in modern versions of PHP. One of the basic concepts of OOP is, not surprisingly, an object. Directly related to working with objects is understanding PHP classes. Drupal 8 is taking big steps to move to an OOP architecture, and so you will get very familiar with both of these as you start to jump into Drupal 8 development.
This tutorial, based on the video Create a Basic PHP Class, will explain what a class is, show you how to set up a class, and look at a PHP object. By the end of this tutorial, you will be able to create a class, an object, add a property to your object, and set the value of the property inside the class.
Learning Drupal 8 from Boilerplate Code
Blog postOne of the hardest things about a project is finding the right balance when working with your client. This week in our Introduction to Project Management series we take a look at client relations. Lullabot's project and account management teams discuss client communication, managing expectations before and throughout the project, and getting the project started off right from the kick-off meeting.