Drupal Best Practices

DRUPAL BEST PRACTICES

We are going to cover...

Drupal Best practices for

Development Environment

Module Development

Theme Development

Other stuff

Installation

Always use the latest CVS code

Not necessarily the HEAD version

Geting Drupal from CVS

$ cvs -d:pserver:anonymous:anonymous@cvs.drupal.org:/cvs/drupal checkout -r DRUPAL-5 -d mysite drupal

http://drupal.org/node/93966

Getting contibuted modules

$ cd mysite

$ cvs checkout -d modules/views -r DRUPAL-5 contributions/modules/views

$ cvs checkout -d modules/cck -r DRUPAL-5 contributions/modules/cck

http://drupal.org/node/93966

Now updates are a snap

$ cvs update -dP

This gets any updates to the core and the modules for the installed version

Updating to new Drupal version

Be sure that contibuted modules have been ported to the new version

$ cvs update -r DRUPAL-5-2 -dP

Revision Control you project

Subversion users

$ cd mysite

$ svn import /path/to/svn/repository

Bazaar users

$ cd mysite

$ bzr init

YOU CANNOT USE CVS HERE

Best Practices so far

Get the latest version from CVS

Check for updates before going further

Get the needed contributed modules from CVS

Have your own revision control system in place

You do not own Drupal CVS repository

Update(CVS) periodically to get latest fixes

Don't even try using CVS

Module Development

UNDERSTANT

ALL

PREQUISITES

VERY

THOUROUGHLY

Make sure you understand

Drupal's database schema

Just to give you a glimpse

Understand hooks

Drupal has hooks for every thing

CRUD operations

Modiying into user data at runtime

Modifying almost everything at runtime

Path definitions (rails is a bit late here)

And much much more

And obiviously

You should know

PHP

SQL

Good programming style

Ask questions

Is the functionality already available in any contributed module?

Is there a contributed module that does something similar that I need?

Can I adapt some existing module to do what I need to do?

`

Code you own modules when needed

DO NOT FORCE

A DONKEY

RUN A DERBY

NEITHER FORCE

A STALLION

TO PULL A CART

If it is a Node Module

Try to use

Content

Construction

Kit

if possible...

With CCK

Use

VIEWS

Views module provides creating custom views of the node related data and other data as well.

While writing module

You will be

Creating Forms

Recieving input

Doing SQL stuff

Oupting Stings

containing Text, HTML and other content

Use the Form API

Form API has benifits

Define forms in php syntax

Drupal will generate the HTML for you

Dupal takes care proper html

Makes form alterable at the runtime by other modules

Makes programatic submission possible

Convention over Configuration

Use Form API conventions

<?php

function module_form(){

//form definitions

}

?>

Validate

<?php

function module_form_validate ($form_id, $form_values) {

// do the validation

// set the errors

}

function module_form_submit ($form_id, $form_values) {

// perform submit

}

?>

Input validation

Make sure you check all text only fields with

check_plain()

It checks for malicious contents in like clever scripts, specially HTML etc.

Othe use full functions

filter_xss()

check_markup()

check_url

valid_url()

valid_email()

Drupal has a very powerfull input filter syetem

LEARN IT

USE IT

No Excuses

SQL

CONSTRUCT

GOOD

QUERIES

BAD SQL...

$result = db_query(”SELECT *

FROM {node}

WHERE

uid = $uid”);

Good SQL

$result = db_query(”SELECT *

FROM {node}

WHERE

uid = %d”, $uid);

printf style convervsion specs

%d = integer

$f = float

'%s' = sting

%b = binary data

%% = percent sign

Avoid queries in loop

<?php

while (some condition) {

$res = db_query(”SELECT * FROM

{table} WHERE

something = something”);

}

?>

Bewre of QUERY HELL

In some-page.tpl.php

$someone = user_load(array('uid' => $uid));

call_some_function($uid = $user->uid);

function call_some_function($uid){

$someone = user_load(array('uid'=>$uid));

}

Reloading user again

Modules and HTML

MODULE != HTML

Never output html directly from module functions BUT DON'T MAKE IT A RELIGION

Example of Module + HTML

blog_user_page()

Generates HTML directly Learn from it

One tip

Never

Never

Never

use print statement from inside functions

Themes

You MUST be strong in

HTML

CSS

JavaScript

jQuery

Theme engines

Available theme engines

PHPTemplate

Zengine psedo theme theme engine pased on PHPTemplate

Smarty

PHPTAL

Xtemplate DEPRECATED

Pure PHP themes

PHPTemplate

The default theme engine since v4.7

Simple to learn and use

Built for Drupal

Uses PHP for templating

No new language to learn

DIE SMARTY DIE

Powerfull, but sometimes dangerous

TPL Magic

page.tpl.php

node.tpl.php

comment.tpl.php

block.tpl.php

box.tpl.php

etc etc

Learn the variables available to tpl page.tpl.php node.tpl.php $head $styles $scripts $head_title $is_front $footer ... ... $node $links $posted $$page ... ... ...

Override anything themeable theme_pager() phptemplate_pager()

Rule of Thumb is

theme('pager');

theme-name_pager();

theme-engine_pager();

theme_pager();

Blocks/Regions are good

Blocks are places where chunks of UI GO

Called ” regions” in developer language

Called ” blocks” user language

defining regions

function mytheme_regions() {

return array(

'left' => t('left sidebar'),

'right' => t('right sidebar'),

'content_top' => t('content top'),

'content_bottom' => t('content bottom'),

'header' => t('header'),

'footer' => t('footer')

);

}

What we did not cover

Upgrade and Maintenance

Localization and Internationalization

Deployment practices

But you know where to go

www.drupal.org

http://groups.drupal.org

http://lists.drupal.org

and off course

www.Google.com

Thank You for your time

?

Mir Nazim Xensoft Labs www.xensoftlabs.com [email_address]

Drupal Best Practices

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