It was an amazing experience to be in a room with 3000 people listening to Dries Buytaert give his
bi-annual State of Drupal address. It was also live streamed for those in Europe who couldn’t make it due to the volcanic ash cloud drifitng over Europe. Only 100 critical bugs left to be fixed in Drupal 7 before it can be released. Volunteers worked hard and the number of critical bugs was down to 90 before the week ended. The earliest expected release date for Drupal 7 is June 2010 and the latest is September 2010.
Improvements to Drupal 7’s admin interface will help increase usability for everyone making Drupal more attractive to low end users. Drupal 7 runs slower than Drupal 6 but it is much more scalable meaning it can be used to make much larger websites and Enterprise level companies are now much more interested in using Drupal.
The sessions were informative and plentiful. So many interesting topics it was difficult to make choices. All the sessions were videotaped and were uploaded for public viewing within 24 hours. View the Conference Schedule (
http://sf2010.drupal.org/conference/schedule) and you will see the videos of the sessions embedded into each Session page.
My top 3 favourite sessions:
1. Views Examples: Using Arguments and Relationships
Michelle Laurer did a fabulous job of teaching us step by step how to set up views using Arguments and Relationships. With screenshots of the settings for each page, we learned how to set up a Glossary with a Alphabetical Menu. See the video here:
http://sf2010.drupal.org/conference/sessions/views-examples-using-arguments-and-relationships
2. Grok Drupal (7) Theming
Laura Scott taught us about how to create a Drupal theme. New stuff for Drupal 7 themes include new files like html.tpl.php and some new preprocess and process functions. Note: Grok is a geek term that means to know a subject so well so as to be seen as an expert. View the video here:
http://sf2010.drupal.org/conference/sessions/grok-drupal-7-theming
3. PHP for Non-programmers
Diana gave an entertaining presentation on the basics of PHP programming. Using Star Trek trivia and football stats, Diana instructed us on the fundamentals of PHP including variables, logic and simple PHP scripts. See the video here:
http://sf2010.drupal.org/conference/sessions/php-nonprogrammers
