DEV Community: innoraft12

10 Google chrome extensions for web developers

innoraft12 — Thu, 27 Jun 2019 11:32:41 +0000

Read at: https://innoraft.weebly.com/blog/google-chrome-extensions-for-web-developers

Content migration in Drupal from XML Source

innoraft12 — Tue, 18 Jun 2019 06:25:56 +0000

One of our recent posts talks about migration API in Drupal 8, the basics of migration and migrating data for various field types from a CSV source. Some frameworks and CMS such as Wordpress, etc allow the data to be exported in XML format (or JSON format if certain extensions are available). And more often than not, we find another agency providing us with the XML data of the site which needs to be migrated to Drupal. In this post, we see how content can be migrated to Drupal from an XML source.

Note: It is not a pre-requisite but basic knowledge of XPath selectors can be very helpful.

The major requirements/dependencies that need to be fulfilled are as follows:

Custom module - It contains scripts that will be imported when the module is installed and must have these dependencies: Migrate, Migrate Plus, Migrate Tools.
The main objective for creating a custom module is that when content is successfully migrated and requires no further updates, removing the custom module will remove the migration scripts that were imported without affecting any other workflow on the site.
Source XML file - This file can be external (must be accessible over HTTP) or locally stored (in private file directory).

Article from Innoraft: Read more

Popups in Drupal 8? No problem!

innoraft12 — Tue, 11 Jun 2019 06:37:55 +0000

Drupal 8 is here and everyone is excited about it. There are too many features and add-ons to explore. However, this one focusses only on overlay / popup i.e. provide a simple and easy implementation. With this blog, I aim to explain the basic implementation of how to create a popup of your own.

Before learning to implement popup, let us briefly go through the drupal 8 routing system.

If you already know about the routing system, you can skip this section and if you don't I assume you still know at least the basics of Drupal 8. I have a page which has a table display of some data. On top of this page, I'll provide a link which will open a form in popup.

Now, let's start with the steps.

At first, we create a routing link where we show a table with some content.

hollywood.view_movie:

path: '/movies-list'

defaults:

_title: 'Movie List'

_controller: '\Drupal\hollywood\Controller\MovieList::overview'

requirements:

_permission: 'movies list'

Webservices Simplified - Layman Understanding, And How To Use Webservices

innoraft12 — Tue, 04 Jun 2019 10:04:29 +0000

I had always known about webservices and a few of the hundred thousand acronyms associated with the webservices ecosystem, but I had never really written code to use them. I avoided working with them because, I don’t know why, I always thought of them what any protester thinks of a Government. Ok, I just said I don’t know why I thought that way so you are free to assume your reasons, and most of them, I fear, would be right. But it was just a matter of time before I could not avoid working with webservices any longer and was about to get to know them for real. They are far from anything as boring and clunky as Governments across our planet. On the contrary, they are a easy and powerful and even quite fun. And now that I dont hate and avoid webservices anymore, I must share what good things I know about them.

I am a sucker for simplifying all things, especially stuff related to technology, except when I am in mood for some geekism :-) So dont be surprised if the answers and information you find here sounds different (read:layman-ish) from what you are used to find most other places.

What is a webservice?
A webservice is any piece of software, that provides some functionality, is available over the internet, and talks using standardized XML.

The ‘standardized’ part in the answer above makes webservices seemingly boring, but that is so only when you have got a wrong perspective of things. Standardization here has immense benefits and is what makes webservices such a neat idea. Let me show you how -

Let ‘you’ = you OR any application OR just a piece of code OR something else. Now..
You can talk to a webservice over the network via HTTP, SMTP, FTP, BEEP and many other protocols.
When you talk to a webservice, the ‘talk’ part is done using XML in a standardized fashion. The current standardized fashion being XML-RPC and SOAP.
All stuff that a webservice would do for you (functionality provided) and all things it would need from you to do so (expected input) is described in XML in a standardized way called WSDL.
Webservices live in registries in a way such that the right one for the job can be very easily found. This is made possible by another standardized XML way called UDDI.
XML is the music which makes webservices dance
All these pointers above are the real fundamental ideas associated with webservices, but of course I would encourage you to learn more things and in detail -

Best FAQ I could find on webservices - http://www.webservicex.net/WS/faq.aspx
A blessing of an article demystifying acronyms associated with webservices and more -http://www.xml.com/lpt/a/888
Getting started with webservices - a hands on
Say we are in need of fetching stock quotes of a publicly traded company and use the data in some in our application. We could serach for webservices that allow us to do just that on public webservice repositories such as http://www.service-repository.com/ andhttp://www.webservicex.net/WS/wscatlist.aspx. Or you could request access to use paid webservices, for example Reuters has a very comprehensive paid webservice that provides all imaginable functionality related to stock and financial markets.

Lets use the ‘stock quote’ webservice here - http://www.webservicex.net/WS/WSDetails.aspx?WSID=9&CATID=2 that is present in the later public repository. And lets get this task done using the popular HTTP::Request module for perl (this and more ways of working with webservices are covered later in this post)

Docker @ Innoraft

innoraft12 — Tue, 04 Jun 2019 07:10:52 +0000

Why we chose Docker

Below are some of the reasons why Docker is the right choice for you:

1.Whenever we deploy on our dev servers, most of the time we used to scream, “What just happened? It was working perfectly fine on my local. Why isn't it working on Dev?”.

2.Our local environment and our dev, stage environments usually have different configurations in terms of server, for e.g., if I am using a machine, which is 3 years old, so there is a good chance that I have some old version of PHP, apache2 etc. More often than not we end up in a situation of different versions of different services in different environments which is not healthy for deployments.

3.Difficulty in the deployment of server related changes.

4.We were failing in updating the projects i.e. my local has 4 different projects and all support say php 5.3.3 version, now client asked us to update the php version of two of the projects. It was very very difficult to maintain different versions of the same service on same machine i.e. on local.

5.We were not able to experiments with different services of the same type.

Original Source: Docker @ Innoraft

How I started Docker

innoraft12 — Tue, 04 Jun 2019 07:00:52 +0000

This is a story basically about my first encounter with Docker. How I started playing with docker with just one motivation and how I fell in love with the technology soon after.

So, I was coming back from office as usual. I had heard a lot about Docker in the past, but never had the motivation to get started assuming it would be complex and therefore, need a lot of time. Then on the night, one of my colleagues (also our co-founder) tweeted that “we are starting to experiment with Docker and that one of my another colleague will lead it". I was very happy, finally this could lead to my first encounter with Docker. I reached home at around 7 PM and I thought “wait, why not start today itself". At around 8pm, I started browsing blogs, going through their official documentation, etc. Very soon (like it happens with love at first sight) I was falling in love with Docker. From there on, I knew that tonight it has to be only the 2 of us.

Original Source: Read more

Docker Related : DOCKER @ INNORAFT

TB mega menu implementation with a demonstration (Part 2)

innoraft12 — Mon, 03 Jun 2019 07:06:44 +0000

In the first part of this blog, we had completed the installation and had also created blocks for custom block types. In this part, we will see how to configure the TB mega menu so that we can get the structure of the menu ready as per our design.

Configuring the TB mega menu and placing the TB mega menu block in a region are two separate things.

The TB mega menu can be configured for an existing menu. So, you need to ensure that you have a complete hierarchy of menu ready before you begin the configuration. However, you can modify the links later on from the TB mega menu configuration page.

Defining a menu structure

If you already have a menu that you want to use then you are already a step ahead! If not, then go to /admin/structure/menu and click on the Add menu. Create the menu as you normally would.

For demonstration purposes, we will be using the below menu structure. Let the name of this menu be Example menu:

Parent 1

-Child (1)

    -Child (1) content

-Child (2)

    -Child (2) content

    -Sub child (1)

        -Sub child (1) content (This content will be displayed over the child (2) content)

    -Sub child (2)

        -Sub child (2) content (This content will be displayed over the child (2) content)

-Child (3)

-Child (4)

Parent 2

-Child (1)

-Child (2)

    -Sub child (1)

        -Sub child (1) content (This content will be displayed over the child (2) content)

    -Sub child (2)

        -Sub child (2) content (This content will be displayed over the child (2) content)

-Child (3)

Parent 3

-Child (1)

-Child (2)

-Child (3)

Source Original: Click Here!

Part 1 Link: https://www.innoraft.com/blogs/tb-megamenu-implementation-bean-module-part-1

TB Megamenu Implementation with Bean Module (Part 1)

innoraft12 — Mon, 03 Jun 2019 06:48:11 +0000

The world before TB mega menu

The world as we know it did not always come with the TB mega menu for Drupal 7. Traditional menu implementations included writing the entire HTML and designing it as per the needs or using default drupal menu parallelly with other contrib modules to support different requirements This would often take days or even weeks to implement. Even after completion, the client may ask you to make changes and things may go haywire. Changing every HTML element is a daunting task! Another approach may be to use certain modules offered by Drupal to create a menu. The problem with this approach is that, though the menu might look simple, it would be a daunting task to make it completely configurable within a small time frame.

This is where TB mega menu comes in to save the world!

“TB Mega Menu allows you to create a mega menu with an innovative back-end user interface and synchronized with Drupal core menu.” - drupal.org

The TB mega menu gives the user an option for a completely configurable approach in terms of building a menu from scratch. Today we are going to discuss this implementation over Drupal 7. It allows the user to create a mega menu with images, text, video, using a block.

There is one dependency though that these things can be inserted via a block.

The installation and implementation are pretty straight forward but there are certain hairpins that can be the cause of a car crash if not carefully configured.

Original Source: Click Here!

Part 2 Link: https://www.innoraft.com/blogs/tb-mega-menu-implementation-demonstration-part-2

Looking for automated transfer of content to Drupal? Say hello to Migrations.

innoraft12 — Fri, 31 May 2019 06:35:25 +0000

Drupal 8 provides an easy solution to this by providing built-in features for migration. Let's take a look at how. I will try and elaborate as much as possible so that this article can become your full guide to migrating content in Drupal 8.

Before we get into the how, let me create a glossary of some terms that I will use throughout.

Migration API is the key to move content from any source to Drupal 8. Migrations are basically ETL processes. ETL is the abbreviation for Extract, Transform Load processes.

Read more

Why should Drupal be your first choice of open source CMS?

innoraft12 — Thu, 30 May 2019 12:45:09 +0000

But what is all the buzz about? Drupal is an open source platform for building digital experiences. We already know of the many benefits and boons that open source comes with.

Here are a few reasons why you should prioritize security and make Drupal your first choice:
1.OWASP
2.The Security Team:
3.Community
4.Encryption of Database
5.Trusted by large enterprises

Read more!

Composerizing a non-composerized Drupal site to a Composerized Drupal site

innoraft12 — Mon, 29 Apr 2019 07:11:38 +0000

“Composer is a dependency manager tool for PHP.” This means that we can easily manage php libraries and their dependencies using Composer.
In terms of Drupal, we can download and manage Drupal core, contributed profiles, modules, themes and libraries using Composer. In fact, the entire project can also be managed using Composer.
Using Composer is the modern way to work in PHP as modern frameworks utilize Composer to manage their dependencies, and it is nice that we can do the same in Drupal.
Composer also gives us the ability to autoload PHP classes thus making code easier to read and write.

How do we shift from Non-Composer managed website to Composer managed website?

How to Revamp Website successfully?

innoraft12 — Tue, 16 Apr 2019 07:36:49 +0000

They are not wrong when they say “First Impression is the Last Impression”. An average user decides in the first 8 seconds if they want to explore the website further.

Follow these steps to Revamp Website successfully 2019:

Always begin with the “Why”
Content will always be the King, but the presentation is the Queen
Have wire frames in Place.
Get every thing right before going Live?
Always Keeping improving UI!