Building a new site in Drupal is always a learning experience. Whether it’s your first Drupal site, or maybe you’re a seasoned pro but now need to build out a site with some new functionality you haven’t tackled before – just about every Drupal project takes time and some careful decision making along the way. I still have lots to learn, but here are three tips from what I’ve learned so far.
Drupal Tip #1: Preparation : Implementation. Use the full 80 in the 80:20 Rule
I spent the better part of my day working on a Drupal site, and it was incredibly productive. Not every day leading up to today was like this, though. I spent many hours reading, researching, googling, chatting with others to find the information I needed to know to help move my project along. With the right background knowledge, though, the rest has come like a breeze.
It’s the classic 80:20 rule – you’ll spend 80% of your time doing the research and prep work, and then hopefully 20% is all it will take to execute.
Background research, homework, due diligence, call it what you will, but make sure you take the time to understand the details of what you are trying to produce, what the full range of options are, where the priorities of the project are, and what capabilities and limitations exist with the different Drupal modules out in the wild. If you do this well, the next steps with implementation will move a lot more smoothly.
Drupal Tip #2: Searching for Help with a Module in Drupal.org? Check the Date.
There is a pretty impressive collection of modules that add all sorts of functionality to Drupal, but a big challenge with many of them is figuring out how to get them to do what you want them to do.
When searching for help, Google is one of the best friends of just about any web developer. As a repository of knowledge, it’s hard to beat, especially once you figure out how to find what you’re looking for with the right keywords. One of the gotcha’s when you’re googling for help with open source projects, though, is that there is a lot of information out there that is out-dated. I’ve found this is especially true for Drupal-related content (likely due to www.drupal.org’s amazingly strong rankings for just about any search term that includes the word “drupal”).
If you ever stumble upon a discussion thread that looks like it has the info you need, quickly check the date of the original comment as well as the last comment before you go too far. It’s surprisingly easy to get caught up in the discussion thread – and it can be very insightful to learn about the history of a module (which I would recommend doing when you have the time as it’s a great way to learn about the nuances and best practices of the community) – but in many cases you might find out that the original issue that was flagged, was actually first posted two years ago and there’s already an upgraded version of the module – and guess what, you’ve probably already downloaded it!
If this is the case, it probably means one of two things: either the functionality you’re looking for already exists and you just need to figure out how to set it up, or you need to go look elsewhere for a different module.
Drupal Tip #3: Learn from the Pros
On the subject of selecting modules, you could literally spend forever looking through Drupal modules, figuring out how they work, and deciding whether a specific module will achieve the kind of functionality you’re looking for. I’d still advocate for taking the time to learn the details and nuances of the varied Drupal modules (as per Drupal Tips #1 & 2 above), but I would also highly recommend checking out (and keeping an eye on) the modules that other successful developers are using. Here are a two easy ways to do this:
When you stumble upon a website that has the functionality you’re looking for, and you know it’s using Drupal, do a quick view-source and check out which modules the site is using. Just look for “/sites/modules/” and you’ll often see the modules used in the site.
Have any other tips?
I’m hoping to write more “tips from the trenches” on Drupal and other areas of web production, but in the meantime, I’d love to hear of any other tips you might have. Let me know!
3 Drupal Tips from the Trenches
Building a new site in Drupal is always a learning experience. Whether it’s your first Drupal site, or maybe you’re a seasoned pro but now need to build out a site with some new functionality you haven’t tackled before – just about every Drupal project takes time and some careful decision making along the way. I still have lots to learn, but here are three tips from what I’ve learned so far.
Drupal Tip #1: Preparation : Implementation. Use the full 80 in the 80:20 Rule
I spent the better part of my day working on a Drupal site, and it was incredibly productive. Not every day leading up to today was like this, though. I spent many hours reading, researching, googling, chatting with others to find the information I needed to know to help move my project along. With the right background knowledge, though, the rest has come like a breeze.
It’s the classic 80:20 rule – you’ll spend 80% of your time doing the research and prep work, and then hopefully 20% is all it will take to execute.
Background research, homework, due diligence, call it what you will, but make sure you take the time to understand the details of what you are trying to produce, what the full range of options are, where the priorities of the project are, and what capabilities and limitations exist with the different Drupal modules out in the wild. If you do this well, the next steps with implementation will move a lot more smoothly.
Drupal Tip #2: Searching for Help with a Module in Drupal.org? Check the Date.
There is a pretty impressive collection of modules that add all sorts of functionality to Drupal, but a big challenge with many of them is figuring out how to get them to do what you want them to do.
When searching for help, Google is one of the best friends of just about any web developer. As a repository of knowledge, it’s hard to beat, especially once you figure out how to find what you’re looking for with the right keywords. One of the gotcha’s when you’re googling for help with open source projects, though, is that there is a lot of information out there that is out-dated. I’ve found this is especially true for Drupal-related content (likely due to www.drupal.org’s amazingly strong rankings for just about any search term that includes the word “drupal”).
If you ever stumble upon a discussion thread that looks like it has the info you need, quickly check the date of the original comment as well as the last comment before you go too far. It’s surprisingly easy to get caught up in the discussion thread – and it can be very insightful to learn about the history of a module (which I would recommend doing when you have the time as it’s a great way to learn about the nuances and best practices of the community) – but in many cases you might find out that the original issue that was flagged, was actually first posted two years ago and there’s already an upgraded version of the module – and guess what, you’ve probably already downloaded it!
If this is the case, it probably means one of two things: either the functionality you’re looking for already exists and you just need to figure out how to set it up, or you need to go look elsewhere for a different module.
Drupal Tip #3: Learn from the Pros
On the subject of selecting modules, you could literally spend forever looking through Drupal modules, figuring out how they work, and deciding whether a specific module will achieve the kind of functionality you’re looking for. I’d still advocate for taking the time to learn the details and nuances of the varied Drupal modules (as per Drupal Tips #1 & 2 above), but I would also highly recommend checking out (and keeping an eye on) the modules that other successful developers are using. Here are a two easy ways to do this:
Have any other tips?
I’m hoping to write more “tips from the trenches” on Drupal and other areas of web production, but in the meantime, I’d love to hear of any other tips you might have. Let me know!