Drupal from an iOS developer’s point of view.

1. IOS DRUPAL
Fotis Dimanidis
@axaios
iOS Devs Gr
Drupal from an iOS developer’s point of view

2. MY BACKGROUND
• Familiar with CMS philosophy
• Really liked it
• CMS as a (mobile) backend?
• Familiar tool in a new role?

3. WHY CMS?
• Backend and website (/web app) in a single package
• Ease of use
• Tons of modules
• No coding necessary (in most cases)
• Own the data

4. SO WHY DRUPAL?
• Mature CMS
• Secure & Scalable (cloud ready)
• Flexible (postgreSQL, mongoDB etc.)
• API ready (Services, RESTWS, RESTful)
• Push notifications module
• Several other modules (Authentication, Rules, etc.)

5. DON’T WANTTO REST?
• D7
• Drupal iOS SDK
• D8
• Drupal iOS SDK
• Drupal 8 iOS SDK
• DrupalRESTKit

6. D7 IOS SDK EXAMPLE
• Install Drupal
• Create a new sample content type (w/ custom fields
etc.)
• Install Services (w/ dependencies: Ctools, Libraries)
• Enable Services & Rest server
• Create an Endpoint

7. CREATING ENDPOINTS

9. THE CODE

10. OBJC: GET NODETITLE
NSMutableDictionary *nodeData =
[NSMutableDictionary new];
[nodeData setObject:@"12" forKey:@"nid"];
[DIOSNode nodeGet:nodeData success: ^(AFHTTPRequestOperation
*operation, id responseObject) {
//Get the title
_titleTextField.text =
[responseObject objectForKey:@"title"];
} failure:^(AFHTTPRequestOperation *operation, NSError *error) {
//We failed to get the node
}];

11. NODE BODY JSON
"body": {
"und": [
{
"value":“Hello world.",
"summary": "",
"format": "filtered_html",
"safe_value": "<p>Hello world.</p>n",
"safe_summary": ""
}
]
},
How do I get that???

12. OBJC: GET CUSTOM FIELD
VALUE
//Needs the "field_" prefix
NSDictionary *languageDict =
[responseObject objectForKey:@“field_address"];
NSArray *bodyValues =
[languageDict objectForKey:@“und”];
NSDictionary *descDict =
[bodyValues objectAtIndex:0];
_addressTextField.text =
[descDict objectForKey:@"value"];

13. GITHUB EXAMPLES
• Human Alert w/ Drupal iOS SDK demo
• OpenDatasets iOS
• Demonstrates the use of Drupal 7 iOS SDK

14. D7VS D8?
• Stay with D7 for now
• D8 still in beta
• No upgrade path between betas
• Modules (Rules, Push Notifications,…) not D8
ready

15. TIPS N’TRICKS
• Modules to use
• Geofield
• Rules
• ServiceTools (Services versioning!)
• Push Notifications
• Services Entity API
• Content API
• ServicesViews (?)
• Use entities instead of nodes (ECK module)
• MongoDB module
• Node.js module (?!)

16. VS
Services RESTWS RESTful
SDK available Querying filters Querying filters
Select specific fields
(Content API)
Return specific fields List all entities
Versioning (ServiceTools)
Resource documentation
(json)
Versioning
Many Services specific
modules
Autocomplete call
Bloated JSON Requires plugin coding
“field_” prefix
Attention: Non conclusive list!

17. WHY NOT DRUPAL
• Performance overhead (PHP, mySQL, Drupal
Framework)
• Maturity of iOS SDK (vs popular backend SDKs
[e.g. Parse])
• Learning curve (Drupal API for custom modules)
• Invest on an expiring version (D7)

18. THANKYOU
Fotis Dimanidis
@axaios