Drool (Drupal Tool):
Site Management
and Rapid Theme Design
Presented by: Dr Nick Blundell
and Matthew Shepherd
nick@illuminateict.org.uk, matt@illuminateict.org.uk
info@illuminateict.org.uk | www.illuminateict.org.uk

Overview
Introduction
Motivation
Drool
What is it? What does it do? Status?
Demonstration (by Sir Matthew)
Summary
Questions?
info@illuminateict.org.uk | www.illuminateict.org.uk

Introduction: Who are illuminate iCT?
We are a smal l team of ICT
professionals wor king closely with
voluntary and communi ty organisations
in the UK.
We conduct research and devel opment
of innovative systems (especi ally open
source) to better fit the sector' s needs
info@illuminateict.org.uk | www.illuminateict.org.uk

Motivation
The sector was badly in need of some high-quality low
cost dynamic websi tes to let the world know of their
good work
We quickly identified Drupal as an excellent means to do
that
To keep costs down, we had to make the process of
developing and managing multiple Drupal websit es as
efficient as possible
info@illuminateict.org.uk | www.illuminateict.org.uk

Drool: What is it?
A command-l ine tool for creating and
managing Drupal websites
Basically, in a simple fashion, it
coordinates:
Apache
MySQL
Multiple Drupal Installations
info@illuminateict.org.uk | www.illuminateict.org.uk

Drool: what does it do?
With a simple one-l ine command:
Creates new Drupal sit es (i.e. loads tables)
Clone whole sites (i.e. data and f iles)
Very useful for establishing template sites
Installs correct versions of modules/t hemes
directly from Drupal.org
info@illuminateict.org.uk | www.illuminateict.org.uk

Drool: what does it do?
Supports mul tiple Drupal installations
(e.g. 4.7, 5.x, 6.x)
Allows sites' data and fil es to be packed
up into a single fil e and stored or
unpacked onto another server
Dumps and l oads databases from si tes:
hand for backup
info@illuminateict.org.uk | www.illuminateict.org.uk

Drool: what does it do?
Oooooh: my favourite bit !
Allows specified regions of the theme to be
skinned with single images, which are
automatically sliced into css div backgrounds.
(e.g. page, blocks, header, footer, primary link
buttons)
More time can be spent on the graphic al design
than on faffing with slicing and css/html tinkering
info@illuminateict.org.uk | www.illuminateict.org.uk

Drool: status
We have been using drool for over a year will
little modific ation and on c onsider it to be
stable
We plan t o release t his as a open source
project after this conference if there is
interest, this will help; if there is funding, this
will also help
If you are int erested in trying this out, please
get in touch.
info@illuminateict.org.uk | www.illuminateict.org.uk

Demonstration: Sir Matthew
Skin the page
Skin the blocks
Skin block titles
Skin specific block titles
Package/Unpack (i.e. clone)
Install module direct ly from drupal. org
View a list of sites on server
Note: at the conference, the demo was in real time. This is a representation of what we did.
info@illuminateict.org.uk | www.illuminateict.org.uk

Create a new,
blank drupal
website, based
on a drool
template site.
info@illuminateict.org.uk | www.illuminateict.org.uk

Prepare a page
design.
This was rapidly
drawn in
inkscape, an
excellent open
source drawing
package.
info@illuminateict.org.uk | www.illuminateict.org.uk

With a single
command, the
page image has
been applied to
the site.
drool skin barca2007.illuminateweb.org.uk page page.png
info@illuminateict.org.uk | www.illuminateict.org.uk

Prepare a ser ies
of images to use
as 'skins' for the
blocks and block
title regions.
info@illuminateict.org.uk | www.illuminateict.org.uk

With a single
command, the
block image has
been applied to
the block regions
of the site.
drool skin barca2007.illuminateweb.org.uk block block3.png
info@illuminateict.org.uk | www.illuminateict.org.uk

With a single command,
the generic block title image
has been applied to each
block title region.
drool skin barca2007.illuminateweb.org.uk blocktitle
blockheader-generic.png
With a series of commands, the calendar
and user login blocks are skinned with
specific images.
drool skin barca2007.illuminateweb.org.uk
blocktitle blockheader-calendar.png
--skinPrefix=#block-event-0
drool skin barca2007.illuminateweb.org.uk
blocktitle blockheader-talk.png
--skinPrefix=#block-user-0
info@illuminateict.org.uk | www.illuminateict.org.uk

The drool theme
reacts to changes in
text size based on
it's accessibility
features. Reacting to
browser based text
size changes is a
planned feat ure.
The site layout
drops from 3
columns to 2
columns.
Skinned regions are
able to stretch to
accommodat e larger
text sizes
info@illuminateict.org.uk | www.illuminateict.org.uk

Other drool functions
Drool can be used to pack up a websi te:
drool pack barca2007.illuminateweb.org.uk
This produces a file named as follows: DROOLPACK-20070921-140550-barca2007.illuminateweb.org.uk
which can then be used to duplicate or recreate the site on another server:
drool unpack clone-demo.illuminateweb.org.uk >>>
DROOLPACK-20070921-140550-barca2007.illuminateweb.org.uk
The barca2007 site can be used as a template and cloned with a single command:
drool clone barca2007.illuminateweb.org.uk www.mynewfabsite.org.uk
Drool is also used to install modules directly from drupal.org
drool module clone-demo.illuminateweb.org.uk ecommerce
And to get status information from all hosted sites:
drool list
info@illuminateict.org.uk | www.illuminateict.org.uk

Summary
We told you who we ar e
We told you about our need to develop
and manage Drupal websi tes efficiently
We described and demonstrated drool
info@illuminateict.org.uk | www.illuminateict.org.uk

Questions?
info@illuminateict.org.uk | www.illuminateict.org.uk

References
http://www.ill uminateict.org.uk
http://projects.nickblundel l.org.uk
info@illuminateict.org.uk | www.illuminateict.org.uk