Innovation

Visual Layout Suite for ambitious site builders

crzdev — Mon, 22 May 2023 21:14:05 +0000

Visual Layout Suite for ambitious site builders

Room

HS4 (Ground level)

crzdev Mon, 05/22/2023 - 23:14

Time Slot

Wed 3:00pm to 3:45pm (7/19/23)

Session length

Long session - 45min, including Q&A

Audience

Intermediate

Session Category

Innovation & The future

VLSuite travels far because it is standing on the shoulders of giants, leveraging Layout Builder and contrib modules to provide a content editing experience to ambitious site builders.

This session features the capabilities of VLSuite, a set of modules that allow to deliver maximum value in the shortest time possible when it comes to site and content building. But talk is cheap, so what does VLSuite really offer?

VLSuite is under heavy development but it already features:

Much more organic preview during the editing process, no need to save to see how it looks constantly, a WYSIWYG at the layout and content level.
Easy creation of new content components at the site building layer, for specific nodes or as a library components.
Integration with any type of entity that can use Layout Builder.
User experience greatly improved over what core provides.
Out of the box solutions to daily use case applications.
Optimization of development times, serving as launch pad for site builders, developers and clients.
No entity fields to customize component look and feel.

How is this achieved? Thanks to the following premises:

Core Layout Builder ecosystem based.
Flexibility is the most important decision criteria.
Aiming to facilitate the basis of any development through a reusable and extensible suite.
No dependency on any distribution, profile, theme or admin theme.
Optional dependencies to provide out of the box functionalities.
Compatible with other approaches: if it works with Layout Builder it should work with VLSuite.
Allows switching used CSS classes thanks to internal identifiers so you could switch from one theme to another specifying the matching utility classes of the new theme.
Maximum use and optimization of existing styles, both initial and customized, avoiding the need of adding new CSS constantly.
Totally Libre Software without any external dependencies or costs.

You can get more info the module's page along with some videos that features the power of the VLSuite.

Speaker(s)

Cristian Aliaga

Drupal senior developer (frontend specialized) at metadrop

Ricardo Sanz

CTO at Metadrop

Speaker biography

Cristian Aliaga (crzdev)

Senior frontend Drupal developer with a strong backend knowledge, Cristian loves Drupal and Tetris equally.

Ricardo Sanz Ante (tunic/sanzante)

Involved in the Drupal Community over 10 years ago when he came to a local event and was convinced to talk about jQuery at the next event, the Community has always been a home. Interested in JavaScript, the Form API, the Configuration System, testing and DevOps, it's always a good time to learn something more, or share knowledge with others.

Session Keywords

Drupal future

Innovation

Structured content within CKEditor 5. Do we still need paragraphs?

erik.erskine — Sun, 14 May 2023 08:11:27 +0000

Structured content within CKEditor 5. Do we still need paragraphs?

Room

HS13 (2nd floor)

erik.erskine Sun, 05/14/2023 - 10:11

Time Slot

Thu 3:00pm to 3:45pm (7/20/23)

Session length

Long session - 45min, including Q&A

Audience

Intermediate

Session Category

Innovation & The future

The Paragraphs module has become the de-facto approach to modelling a parent/child field structure within nodes. It's a tried and tested way of organising data and separating presentation from content.

This rigidity can be great, but the strictness is reflected in the authoring experience. Think of it as structure first. You need to know what paragraph type you want before you can produce any content.

Sometimes that's a barrier to content authoring. A lot of content is inherently more freeform. As an editor, you want to start with a blank page, write some rough content, and organise it into components later. You want an editing experience closer to Google Docs or Microsoft Office.

Drupal 10 and CKEditor 5 open up some more avenues in this space.

CKEditor 5 has an internal data model that's distinct from both the stored data and the resulting HTML. It's a document editor rather than an HTML editor. With that in mind, we can define our own document structure and plugins for things that we might previously implemented as paragraphs.

This talk will demonstrate this approach. We'll go though putting together a component that is editable within CKEditor, is stored in a semantic way and is themable with twig.

We'll also illustrate when this is not the right approach, and when multiple entities organised hierarchically make more sense.

Speaker(s)

Erik Erskine

Senior Developer at Annertech

Speaker biography

Erik Erskine

Erik is a web developer based in Stockholm, Sweden. He works for Annertech doing all things related to Drupal site building and backend development, with a particular focus on migration and data structures.

Session Keywords

Drupal Site-Building

Innovation

A Drupal inspired Render API for cloud and edge computing? An idea too crazy to fail.

pdureau — Tue, 09 May 2023 09:38:18 +0000

A Drupal inspired Render API for cloud and edge computing? An idea too crazy to fail.

Room

HS13 (2nd floor)

pdureau Tue, 05/09/2023 - 11:38

Time Slot

Thu 5:10pm to 5:40pm (7/20/23)

Session length

Short session - 25min, including Q&A

Audience

Advanced

Session Category

Innovation & The future

Design systems are hot and trendy right now because they are cost effective. By collecting documented UI artefacts (components, styles, themes, layouts…), they ease the collaboration between designers and developers, and they allow the reuse of the same design on several Web applications.

One of the issues challenging their adoption is their availability as universal corporate assets, agnostic about technical stacks. We solved this by packaging them as WebAssembly microservices, available on the edge, on the cloud and directly in browsers.

However, defining an API data format (high-level, declarative, serializable, safe, idempotent, stateless....) for those rendering services was not an easy task.

We are Drupal lovers. So, after evaluating other protocols (Protobuf, Graphql, RSC Wire…), we got a fresh look at the Render API and we fell in love again. This 15 year old API is a bit quirky and dusty, but also inspiring, standing the test of time, with clever ways of managing nesting, aggregation, alteration (preprocessing), data bubbling, caching…

So, our new API works like a charm, while being strongly and proudly inspired by 15 years of Drupal wisdom. We will show you what we kept, and also what we changed to make data structure flatter, 30% more compact, more consistent and predictable. With some ideas which could find their way to Drupal Core.

Speaker(s)

Pierre Dureau

Owner at Dilla

Speaker biography

Drupal professional since 2006. Fascinated about Drupal architecture (site building, business-agnostic coding, business modelling in config entities...), design systems methodology, and in a love-hate relationship with the Render API, Pierre leads the UI Suite initiative.

Session Keywords

Innovation

Drupal future

Generative AI and Drupal

Iztok — Wed, 03 May 2023 20:57:37 +0000

Generative AI and Drupal

Room

HS4 (Ground level)

Iztok Wed, 05/03/2023 - 22:57

Time Slot

Wed 4:15pm to 5:00pm (7/19/23)

Session length

Long session - 45min, including Q&A

Audience

Intermediate

Session Category

Innovation & The future

Generative AI will change how we create and consume content, and as a CMS, Drupal will need to adapt to the new paradigms. As of this writing, Chat GPT 4 can write complex and creative content that is indistinguishable from humans. With some help, it can explore the latest information online, conduct research, connect with other services, or retrieve proprietary data. This greatly affects the work of creators of content: Drupal's users. What about using the CMS to build and publish content? When I first started building websites, content editors needed to write HTML. Then they started building rich pages with the WYSIWYG editor, then using components (paragraphs in Drupal); now it’s expected that users have a drag-and-drop experience. With AI, even this may become obsolete. We now have a tool that understands what we want to achieve by simply describing the desirable outcome (e.g., "build me a product landing page"). What about the front-facing interface? Will we still need filters and facet searches? Again, AI can trigger a semantic search with precise filtering by understanding the context, knowing the data structure, and with simple questions. And, of course, coding. If you have ever tried using ChatGPT to assist with coding, you get shocked by how useful it can be. It enables people who are never coded to use natural language to describe a problem they want to solve. The AI returns with (mostly) working code in any language and framework desired. In this session, we will go through the following: 1. The current state of AI and Drupal What is available right now? What can you start using today? In the context of creating content and digital experiences, where can we find value in utilizing generative AI, semantic search, and other ML-supported utilities? 2. Experiments with AI and Drupal: We will start with the obvious examples of AI generating content, metatags, and tagging our content. But the best example of harnessing AI capabilities is introducing augmented context/prompts and giving AI access to execute actions. 3. Integrations with other AI systems: Hooking up AutoGPT/BabyAGI with Drupal and integrating Drupal into ChatGPT with Plugins (note: I assume plugins will be publicly available by June 2023). 4. Running an AI model locally Drupal culture is about owning the code stat stores and processes our data. In the last couple of months, this has become a reality. Numerous open-source Gen-AI models are available, and we will try to connect one with Drupal. My experiences with AI come from first-hand experiences using OpenAI API to build two products and AI to help me along the way (i.e., using Copilot to code in PHP).

Speaker(s)

Iztok Smolic

Managing director at Agiledrop

Speaker biography

Hello, my name is Iztok Smolič, pronounced as "Eestok Smoleech." I'm based in Ljubljana, the beautiful capital of Slovenia. I'm a proud husband and father of two wonderful children, who are at the heart of everything I do. My professional journey began as a designer with a passion for creativity and technology. I started designing print and web projects in high school, which helped me develop a strong foundation in visual communication. In 2007, I transitioned into professional web development, working in trenches on over 50 web development projects and honing my skills. As I gained experience, I became increasingly involved in the global web development and open-source community, attending and speaking at events worldwide. This involvement allowed me to share my expertise with others and exposed me to a network of talented professionals and cutting-edge ideas. In 2013, I founded Agiledrop, leveraging my technical skills and industry insights to build a successful web development company. I took on various roles as the company grew, but mostly focused on driving business growth and fostering strong client relationships. Today, as the CEO and Managing Director at Agiledrop, I lead a talented team of developers, helping agencies and in-house teams create amazing online experiences. I aim to leverage my skills and expertise to help businesses thrive in the digital world. I'm always open to new opportunities and collaborations, so let's connect and explore how we can work together to bring your ideas to life!

Session Keywords

Innovation

Navigating the Future of Work

lukasfischer — Sun, 23 Apr 2023 11:12:11 +0000

Navigating the Future of Work

Room

HS1 (Ground level)

lukasfischer Sun, 04/23/2023 - 13:12

Time Slot

Thu 10:45am to 11:30am (7/20/23)

Session length

Long session - 45min, including Q&A

Audience

All Attendees

Session Category

Project Management & Business

We at NETNODE, a small swiss Drupal agency have successfully adopted and blended principles from Holacracy, Sociocracy, and Reinventing Organizations since late 2019. In this session, I will explore the fascinating world of decentralized leadership and share our experience in creating a thriving work environment without a CEO or job titles.

Key Takeaways:

Gain an understanding of Holacracy, Sociocracy, and Reinventing Organizations, and learn how these models can create a more adaptive and empowered work culture.
Discover how NETNODE successfully transitioned from a more traditional organisation model to a flexible, self-managing organization, while continuing to excel as a Drupal agency.
Learn from our experiences, challenges, and successes in adopting these new organizational models and creating a supportive, collaborative, and innovative environment for our team members.
Gain insights into the practical steps and tools that can be used to implement and scale these models in your own organization.

Session Format:

This interactive session will feature a mix of theory and practice, with the first half dedicated to explaining the core concepts and ideas behind Holacracy, Sociocracy, and Reinventing Organizations. The second half will focus on the journey of NETNODE, sharing our experiences in adopting these models, the challenges we faced, and the positive (and negative) outcomes we achieved. There will be ample opportunity for Q&A and group discussion to facilitate knowledge sharing and networking among attendees.

Join me in this session to discover how you can break away from traditional organizational structures and create a more resilient, innovative, and efficient workplace through the power of decentralized leadership models.

Speaker(s)

Lukas Fischer

Space Holder at NETNODE, many roles at NETNODE AG

Speaker biography

Lukas Fischer is the founder of NETNODE AG, a leading Swiss Drupal agency. With over 20 years of experience in the digital industry, Lukas is a coder at heart, digital strategist by design and has dedicated his career to pushing the boundaries of technology and innovation. As a curious explorer and forward thinker, he has been instrumental in helping organisations stay ahead of the curve in the ever-evolving digital landscape.

Outside the world of technology, Lukas is a devoted father, an avid gardener, and an enthusiast of permaculture, reflecting his deep connection with nature and commitment to sustainable living. This multifaceted approach to life fuels his creativity and ability to think outside the box, ensuring that he continues to make a significant impact on the industry and the world at large.

Lukas' unique blend of technical expertise and personal interests make him a sought-after thought leader in the digital space, inspiring both clients and colleagues to embrace innovation and strive for excellence in their own pursuits.

Session Keywords

Why we moved the database drivers to their own modules

daffie — Sat, 22 Apr 2023 09:51:10 +0000

Why we moved the database drivers to their own modules

Room

HS13 (2nd floor)

daffie Sat, 04/22/2023 - 11:51

Time Slot

Fri 11:45am to 12:15pm (7/21/23)

Session length

Short session - 25min, including Q&A

Audience

Intermediate

Session Category

Innovation & The future

In Drupal 9.4 the database drivers for MySQL, MariaDB, PostgreSQL and SQLite were moved to their own modules. This session is about why we did that and what we want to do next.

We had a number of problems with the old situation:

1. Having contributed modules with a database driver copy their driver files to the directory drupal_root/drivers is not very composer friendly.

2. The database driver classes are unfortunately not enough to make Drupal work for a specific database. All database drivers need to override things like (views and other) plugins and entity storage classes. Those overrides need to live in a module

3. Tests are not always the same for every database driver. Those overrides also need to live in a module.

4. The by Drupal core supported database drivers are the example for contributed database drivers. Just like the Drupal core module and themes are the example for the contributed module and themes.

5. Database drivers should be able to extend another database driver. Just like modules can do.

Having the by Drupal core supported database drivers in their own modules makes it possible to do:

A. Create a new database driver for MySQL that allows queries to be run asynchronously. For instance with multiple blocks on a page, the block data can be loaded in parallel from the database instead of synchronously. PHP 8.1 has added the Fibers functionality and that allows I/O and database queries to run asynchronously. The database driver for MySQLi allows Drupal to use asynchronous queries.

B. Store content entity data in a document format. Content entity data is now stored in multiple tables and with a high number of entities, getting entity data out of the database will become slow. When used in combination with authenticated users and a lot of content, will result in Drupal becoming slow. Storing content entity data in a document format will make it fast again. The only database that a the moment has enough functionality to make it work with Drupal is MongoDB.
Using caching is great, but has it limitations. If we make hard Drupal calls a lot faster, we can use Drupal without any caching or with a lot less. PHP is fast enough for this. Databases are fast too. Only storing data following the relational database rules makes will result in complicated queries for getting the data out of the database. Complicated queries with large amounts of data will result in a performance nightmare. That is why we are using so much caching with Drupal sites. For anonymous users this is not a problem, only with authenticated users is caching a lot of times not possible. The solution is to store content entity data in a document format. In that way we almost always can get the data out of the database with a simple query (and therefor a fast query). When all queries are simple queries, the resulting Drupal page call will be fast.

I have already build a database driver for MongoDB. The driver is in the form of a Drupal module and the project can be found here: https://gitlab.com/daffie/mongodb867. It is based on Drupal 8.6.7 it hacks Drupal core with a >1.5 MB patch file. This is totally not maintainable. To fix that problem I have started to work on Drupal core to make the MongoDB database driver module work without patching/hacking Drupal core.

I would like to end with a group discussion about what we want to do next. What does the group think. Do they have other/new ideas. Hopefully get other people involved in what is next. This can also happen after the official session.

Speaker(s)

David Bekker

Drupal developer at Finalist

Speaker biography

David Bekker

I am the main contributor in having the database drivers moved to their own modules, I am also the subsystem maintainer for the Database API and I have over 500 Drupal core commit credits.

Session Keywords

Godot <3 Drupal

rteijeiro — Sat, 08 Apr 2023 17:48:16 +0000

Godot <3 Drupal

Room

HS13 (2nd floor)

rteijeiro Sat, 04/08/2023 - 19:48

Time Slot

Fri 4:15pm to 5:00pm (7/21/23)

Session length

Short session - 25min, including Q&A

Audience

All Attendees

Session Category

Innovation & The future

This presentation will introduce different scenarios where a game development engine like Godot can easily be integrated with a content management system to provide diverse digital experiences. You will learn how to create simple solutions like a video game scoreboard to complex elements like an inventory for your games. You will be able to improve your digital storytelling adding dynamic dialogs or player avatars. Build the next-generation e-learning or e-commerce experience thanks to Extended Reality.

Speaker(s)

Ruben Teijeiro

Drupal Hero at Lulu Game Studio

Speaker biography

Ruben Teijeiro

Active contributor of the Drupal Community with more than 12 years experience working in different Drupal projects for the public and private sector. Speaker in more than 25 countries, organiser of Drupal events in 5 countries and volunteer in more than 30 events. Co-founder of Youpal Group, an ICT consultancy company from Sweden and Lulu Game Studio, a game development company from Spain.

Session Keywords

ECA, the no-code solution that empowers you to orchestrate your Drupal sites

jurgenhaas — Wed, 15 Mar 2023 08:58:33 +0000

ECA, the no-code solution that empowers you to orchestrate your Drupal sites

Room

HS1 (Ground level)

jurgenhaas Wed, 03/15/2023 - 09:58

Time Slot

Thu 2:00pm to 2:45pm (7/20/23)

Session length

Long session - 45min, including Q&A

Audience

All Attendees

Session Category

Innovation & The future

This session explores all aspects of the fast-growing ECA ecosystem:

demonstration of simple installation and building some basic ECA models
highlight the feature rich ECA module with hundreds of events, conditions and actions with zero dependencies
explain how ECA models are managed as Drupal config entities
provide overview of integrations with contribution modules on drupal.org
introduction of support tools like comprehensive documentation, tutorials, videos and an engaging ECA community

The history of ECA will also be outlined, as well as the architecture of the module and why it is here to stay. There have been significant design decisions in ECA's 12-month initial development cycle that keep it maintainable for decades to come, while still being heavily extensible and having decoupled and therefore replaceable UIs.

Your take-away from this session will be to understand that ECA is a default tool for every Drupal site and how it helps you and your users to orchestrate Drupal on all levels of complexity, from all the little tweaks up to the most complex workflow requirements.

Speaker(s)

Jürgen Haas

Co-founder at LakeDrops

Speaker biography

Speaker1

Drupal enthusiast since 4.6 and an expert in backend development and process automation.

Session Keywords

Drupal Site-Building

Innovation

Contribution

Other way of Workshop - Lego Serious Play

MichiMauch — Tue, 14 Mar 2023 07:34:18 +0000

Other way of Workshop - Lego Serious Play

Room

Room 9 (2nd floor)

MichiMauch Tue, 03/14/2023 - 08:34

Time Slot

Wed 2:00pm to 2:45pm (7/19/23)

Session length

Long session - 45min, including Q&A

Audience

All Attendees

Session Category

Project Management & Business

Communication and collaboration in teams and organizations is THE challenge. Right?

Imagine that you can suddenly talk about these topics very easily - using LEGO models.

Imagine that working out complex topics like strategy, values, product, processes can be done seriously and yet with fun.

And not only do you manage to get your point across more clearly, but you also better understand the other perspectives of your team colleagues.

It's easier for you to develop a common understanding and negotiate what the next steps should be, based on this acquired knowledge.

That's the magic of LEGO Serious Play.

In the workshop you will receive a Lego Serious Play Exploration Set to start building models right away.

Speaker(s)

Michael Mauch

(CEO) & Digital Consultant at NETNODE

Speaker biography

On the road in digital transformation since 1999. For more than 7 years at the Swiss Drupal agency NETNODE as Digital Consultant, Project Manager and CEO. Always interested in new methods and strategies. Since 2020 we are organized holocratically at NETNODE and since 2022 we also work with the Lego Serious Play method.

Session Keywords

Digital Transformation

Education