Rick Hood is an organizer of the NERD Summit. TDT interviewed Richard Hood to also look into what the NERD Summit 2023 is all about. This is the first interview prior to the NERD Summit 2023.

By dividing applications into small, manageable parts, microservices can make development and deployment faster and more flexible. Now we’ll describe how to build microsites in Drupal based on our project for YMCA of the North.

Working in the front end of Drupal can be difficult and, at times, confusing. Template files, stylesheets, scripts, assets, and business logic are often scattered throughout big code bases. On top of that, Drupal requires you to know about several drupalisms, like attaching libraries to put CSS and JS on a page. For front-end developers to succeed in a system like this, they need to understand many of Drupal's internals and its render pipeline.

Let’s Roll: How to Use Video to Engage and Inform Your Audience amanda Mon, 03/06/2023 - 21:19

Whether you’re scrolling through your social media feed or researching the latest marketing techniques, video content is ubiquitous. And for good reason. Video is an effective way to capture your attention and keep you coming back for more — all while entertaining and educating you in the process. 

But do you know how to effectively incorporate video on your organization’s website?

Video is undoubtedly an invaluable tool that distinguishes your brand. But there’s a difference between producing valuable content that cuts through the noise and simply adding to an already cluttered digital landscape. 

To provide a positive experience for your users and achieve your strategic objectives, you need to understand why using video is important and learn how to do it well. Let’s break it down.

Video Offers a Powerful User Experience

As users read less content word for word, video steps in as a tell-all tool. Through visuals, users can quickly digest content without having to slog through (or completely skip) long walls of text.

Video gets straight to the point — and to the heart — of the message you’re trying to get across. An incredible storytelling tool, video connects you to your audience. It evokes and underscores moods, ideas, and information in compelling and authentic ways through visuals, sounds, and imagery.

More than that, video is an essential way to offer accessibility-friendly content. Through closed captions and transcripts, you can offer a quality experience your entire audience can enjoy. 

Users can also search for answers to their questions via video. How many times have you searched YouTube (or even TikTok) to learn something new? People absorb information in different ways and need multiple avenues to promote learning — your users included.

Finally, video conveys the feeling and culture of your brand in a matter of seconds. It can show off a collective spirit or attitude without saying a word. And that means if you want your audience to feel the ethos of your brand, using video is a powerful way to convey that. 

Using Video Can Drive Traffic to Your Website 

Perhaps you’ve already created a video (or an entire library of them), but you find they’re not getting views and you’re not sure how to promote them effectively. How can you make sure users actually see your videos and come to your website as a result? 

Most brands choose to host their videos on a third party (such as YouTube, Vimeo, or Wisteria) for two reasons. 

1. Video takes up space on your site. Hosting your videos on another site means ​​you're not saving all those video files on your server. This keeps your website running quickly and optimally.
    
2. SEO benefits. As long as the video is linked back to the website, your video can be a great way to drive traffic to your site. Using a third-party site like YouTube (which is the second-largest search engine behind Google) also gives your brand more visibility and another way to be discovered.  

As you look for ways to get eyes on your content, don’t forget to use your own social channels. Right now that means TikTok and Instagram. Share your videos on the sites your target audience is likely to be on, and encourage users to share them.

Think strategically about how you can repurpose or reuse your content, like breaking videos down into teaser snippets to capture attention.

Two Video Formats to Incorporate Into Your Marketing Website

For marketing purposes, there are two main types of videos you can use to enhance your users’ experience: ambient and long form. It’s wise to use both different types of videos on your site based on the message you want to communicate and the goal you're trying to achieve.

Ambient videos are shorter and set the tone or feeling of a brand. They lay the groundwork for the story you’re trying to tell. For example, ambient video could be drone footage of a university campus or footage of people in a meeting to reflect their company’s culture. In other words, ambient video gives users a feel for what your brand is all about — sans dialogue.

Long-form videos tend to be more informative and provide more value. They often serve a specific purpose, such as showing users how to complete a complex task. This is especially helpful for visual learners. How-to videos can be extremely effective in reducing customer support inquiries and increasing conversions.

Use different types of videos on your site to complement the message you want to communicate and the goal you're trying to achieve.Dos and Don’ts of Using Marketing Videos on Your Website

Simply adding video content to your marketing plans isn’t enough. You need to be strategic and think through what you want your videos to achieve. Furthermore, there are plenty of best practices and nuances to consider that should inform your strategy. Here are a few recommendations.  

 

Do: Relax and go slow. Think about what’s achievable. You don’t need to hit the ground running with high-quality videos at every touchpoint. If you lack time, good content, or the budget to produce the robust video library you want, it’s okay. You have options. What matters most is that you build content to support the story that you're sharing. 

 

For example, you can use a static image that you can later swap out for an ambient video. Or, consider producing smaller snippets that you can use on social media to drive traffic to your channel until you build your content library.

 

Don’t: Neglect accessibility standards. Avoid elements like autoplay, modals, or overlays. because they take ‌control away from the user. And when it comes to upholding accessibility standards, taking control away is exactly what you want to avoid. 

 

A modal is a window that appears in the middle of the video and displays a specific message or image. An overlay is a transparent layer of branding or an interactive element that appears on the video. These features are easy enough to interact with for a user with a mouse or trackpad but are inaccessible to those who rely on their keyboard or other assistive technology.

 

Do: Know when to refresh content or keep it evergreen. Keeping videos relevant and accurately reflecting your message should always be top of mind. But you may not have to swap out videos as often as you think. The key is to look at your audience and think about what’s likely to compel them to convert. If you have a high number of returning visitors to your website, you should consider updating your content to keep things fresh. By contrast, if you get new visitors on a more cyclical, spread-out basis,‌ your video content can last longer. 

 

Don’t: Forget to measure the value of your video content. First, consider your video in the overall user journey. For example, if there’s a video touting a particular program deep within your site, you could measure success by looking at the number of conversions you receive on the corresponding call to action. For more straightforward feedback, incorporate surveys onto your site. Ask if the video achieved your objective for the user. This way you can learn what worked and what needs work. 

Consider best practices to guide how you approach your strategy.Make the Most Out of Your Website Experience With Video

Video is one of the most powerful marketing tools available. It increases engagement with your users and connects your brand to a larger audience. No wonder it’s everywhere. 

 

As you seek ways to set yourself apart, embrace video and all its strategic and creative possibilities. After all, you have a great story to tell — it’s time to tell it. 

/sites/default/files/styles/original/public/2023-03/sirisvisual-IcwAKUhNGXs-unsplash_0.jpg.webp?itok=gi2-qGlK Feature as an event Off Service Category Strategy Content Strategy Storytelling Digital Marketing IsGated 0 IsDownloadable 0

Today we are talking about Headless and if it’s really all it’s cracked up to be with Martin Anderson-Clutz.

For show notes visit: www.talkingDrupal.com/389

Topics

• What is headless
• What started you writing the blog post
• Where does headless make sense
• Does headless perform better than Drupal
• Are APIs always important
• How does progressive decoupling work
• Where does headless not make sense
• Are people putting too much faith in headless
• What is the future of CMSs

Resources

• Coveo search
• A Quick Take on Headless and Performance
• How to decouple Drupal in 2019
• Core Web Vitals Show
• Escaping The Website Relaunch
• Bounteous Blog On Progressive Decoupling
• Gartner Research

Guests

Martin Anderson-Clutz - @mandclu

Hosts

Nic Laflin - www.nLighteneddevelopment.com @nicxvan John Picozzi - www.epam.com @johnpicozzi Jacob Rockowitz - www.jrockowitz.com @jrockowitz

MOTW Correspondent

Martin Anderson-Clutz - @mandclu JSON:API Search API Allows your headless Drupal site to also provide a search service.

If you are a good swimmer, you would remember, in the beginning, how difficult it was to practice bubbling: the art of releasing air bubbles little by little and prolonging the time underwater without surfacing like a bloated balloon and not letting water in your nostrils, picking up a coin or a ring from the bottom of the pool in one quick motion. 

At least a few times, water would have gotten into your nasal channel, and you felt that chill in your head. And then suddenly, the trainer would say to float, holding your breath without bubbling, start kicking while holding your head down and hands straight, start exhaling while kicking, and turn your head to take a breath, then fashion your arms to have maximum thrust. Some cardio exercises might be recommended so that your lung capacity increases. 

These are all exercises to make you a natural swimmer, utilizing buoyancy and minimal friction against the current. But now, when you swim, you swim. You don't particularly remember bubbling, turning your head to inhale, or keeping your upper body motionless while utilizing your legs alone to push and hands to pull. 

The above is true about each thing that we master. It is the baby steps that matter. And once you are thorough, it comes naturally to you. To reach that level need patience and practice. 

DrupalCamp NJ and NERD Summit are around the corner. Local DUGs have announced several meetups. Drupal organizations have started training sessions. Now is the right time to get to practice, to immerse oneself in the pool of Drupal. 

The best story we published last week was the interview with DrupalCamp NJ speaker John Jameson. He speaks in detail about digital accessibility. 

Drupal Netherlands has announced DrupalJam 2023: Connected on June 01, 2023, at De Fabrique in Utrecht. 

DrupalCamp Asheville has called for training sessions, and you have time until March 28 to submit the topics for the July 7 event. With their neurodiversity initiative, you have multiple options to present your sessions. DrupalCamp Asheville has also requested help to organize the camp remotely. The DrupalCamp NJ schedule is live now. The DrupalSouth paper submission deadline was today and might have ended already. 

Meanwhile, Drupal Brisbane's March 02 event got canceled, although Melbourne Drupal Meetup scheduled for March 08 is on track. DrupalCon Pittsburgh Trivia Night was seeking sponsors. DrupalCon Lille has called for volunteers. 

Last Thursday, AmyJune Hineline presented a workshop, "Beyond 99 Red Balloons: A Guide to Alternative Text," at Women Who Code's Connect Empower event. On March 15, 12 pm ET, she will present a webinar for Design4Drupal Boston about Accessible Presentations. 

Drupal Bangalore will hold a Meetup on March 18, 2023. Drupal Pune had a meetup on March 3, 2023. Central NJ Web Developers are holding a meetup on March 10, 2023. 

We did a sneak peek into Axelerant's guide on accessibility compliance acts and standards. Another blog post we went through was a bit dated by Hounder.co about the need to migrate Drupal 7 sites to the newest version. Acquia Digital Freedom Tour is coming to New York as part of Acquia Engage on March 21, 2023. On March 23, they will promote Aquia DAM (Widen) in Los Angeles. Evolving Web has announced training for developers on Drupal Development Workflows from April 03 to April 05, 2023. A11yTalks will discuss the next generation of automated testing tomorrow (March 7). 

That is for this week. Thank you. 

Sebin A. Jacob
Editor-In-Chief

Load-testing is an essential exercise to methodically test a Drupal site to ensure it can handle a high volume of traffic without encountering performance issues. In a previous post, we discussed how Locust can be used to simulate concurrent user requests and measure site performance.  This is a review of some additional load-testing solutions.  

Overview  Digital Aotearoa Collective’s  challenge The Digital Aotearoa Collective (formerly GovZero Aotearoa) wanted to use Rules as Code (RaC) to code NZ’s Social Security Act. This was an important project for the collective, which aims to address injustice and improve wellbeing in Aotearoa New Zealand. Digital Aotearoa Collective’s transformation Salsa donated NZ$20,000 and three team members (for a total of 24 hours a week for 11 months) to help build the first iteration of BenefitMe . Working with other key members, we started with rules analysis, before splitting into two teams: one focused on service design and building the frontend, and one focused on the OpenFisca rules coding.  In the last 6 weeks of the project, Salsa also contributed additional Drupal resources.

The Drupal community never rests on Drupal expertise, learning, and training. Check out this weeks events.

Use Playwright visual regression testing on a large sample of content to test a migration between two editorial solutions.

clemens-tolboom opened an issue in Zireael07/FreeRoamRoguelikeRacerPrototype · March 6, 2023 08:10 Better rename `master` into `3.x` **and** rename `4.x` into `main` #9

Something like 3.x git checkout master git checkout -b 3.x git push --set-upstream origin 3.x 4.x aka new main git checkout 4.x git checkout -b ma…

clemens-tolboom created a branch in clemens-tolboom/FreeRoamRoguelikeRacerPrototype · March 6, 2023 08:09 main in clemens-tolboom/FreeRoamRoguelikeRacerPrototype

Updated Mar 6

In the world of Drupal, the words updates, upgrades, and migrations often cause confusion. This article tries to explain what these words mean and the difference between them in the context of maintaining a Drupal website. By clearly understanding these terms, you can take appropriate actions and ensure that your Drupal site is always up-to-date and secure.

Our Interview with DrupalCamp NJ Speaker John Jameson, who is a Digital Accessibility Developer at Princeton University will be published tomorrow.

"Like all the best positions, it is something we invented to fit a need." Says Digital Accessibility Developer at Princeton University, John Jameson in our recent interview with him. This is out First Interview for DrupalCamp NJ 2023.

Did you know that CKEditor, the default editor offers you yet another leap forward that’s really easy to take? Since its beta release in September 2022, the CKEditor 5 Premium Features module has allowed users to quickly integrate collaboration and productivity features into their projects.

Now that it’s production ready, this blog post dives into all the exciting features that the stable version of the CKEditor 5 Premium Features module has to offer. Discover the power of comments, suggestions, real-time collaboration, and export plugins in Drupal 10!

It was high time we said goodbye to Bartik. Having been Drupal’s default front-end theme for over a decade (from Drupal 7 to 9.4,) Bartik was quite the veteran. And although it served users well for many years, the theme didn’t get any major updates after 2011. Its age began to show: aside from an increasingly dated look, Bartik didn’t evolve to work well with new functionality such as Layout Builder.

Bartik got its figurative cannon salute in 2022. It was retired and replaced with Olivero: a modern and accessible theme for the future. 

The idea for Olivero was conceived in a hotel lobby at DrupalCon Seattle, 2019. It grew into the Drupal 9 theme initiative, with considerable support from Dries and key contributors. Over several years, the Olivero Team worked to build a cutting-edge theme based on five design principles:

• Simple: a clutter-free environment that’s easy to navigate and use
• Modern: support for the latest browser features and interaction modes
• Flexible: gives multiple options to Drupal front-end developers
• Focused: includes eye-catching, meaningful design elements
• Accessible: WCAG Level AA compliant from the ground up

Olivero was initially introduced as an experiment in Drupal 9.1. It’s now the default front-end theme in Drupal 9 and Drupal 10. (Bartik is deprecated in Drupal 9.5 and unavailable in Drupal 10.)

[Quote]

"It looks amazing, and it’s also by far the most accessible theme that we’ve ever shipped in the history of Drupal."

– Dries Buytaert, DrupalCon Portland 2022’s Driesnote

Drupal 10’s default theme is clean, modern, and accessible. 

Rachel Olivero’s Legacy of Championing Accessibility 

The Olivero theme was named in memory of Rachel Olivero, who passed away in 2019. Rachel was an accessibility advocate and a valued member of the Drupal community. As a person who was blind, transgender, and a lesbian, Rachel had a deep understanding of the importance of inclusivity and a passion for making technology better for everyone. 

"We chose the name Olivero not just because we have made accessibility a top priority, but also because we aspire to develop this new theme in our community in a manner that is consistent with the qualities that Rachel Olivero embodied, including patience, generosity, and inclusivity."

– The Olivero Team

A Rundown of the Olivero Theme’s Best Features Modern Colour Palette 

Olivero uses a vivid blue as its base colour for a bright, professional look that gives a subtle nod to Drupal’s branding. Neutral grays provide visual balance. The palette provides both dark and light shades, as well as secondary colours, to enable an accessible, high-contrast design. 

A clean, accessible colour palette gives Drupal 10’s default theme a modern look and feel. 

Simple Forms and Buttons

Content editors will be delighted with the simple elegance of text fields, checkboxes, radio buttons, and submit buttons in Drupal 10’s default theme. 

Web accessibility is clearly at the forefront of the design. Forms are simple for users to fill out thanks to their uniform look and clear labels. Buttons are high-contrast and have easily-perceivable focus modes that work well for keyboard users. 

Forms are clear and clutter-free in Olivero. 

Accessible Typography

Olivero makes content more readable and scannable thanks to a base font-size of 18px for body copy. Other text elements are scaled accordingly and typography is adjusted for mobile devices. The Olivero team gave particular focus to maintaining consistency throughout line-height and spacing. 

Olivero also perfectly displays right-to-left languages including Urdu, Arabic, and Hebrew. This is critical for supporting Drupal’s multilingual capabilities. 

Typography is scaled to provide a responsive, accessible, and consistent experience for users. 

Intuitive Headers and Menus

The header in Olivero can collapse into a hamburger menu as the user scrolls down the page. This means users have easy access to the navigation links regardless of where they are on the page. Olivero also supports secondary dropdown menus in Drupal – something that wasn’t possible with Bartik.

There are multiple versions of the header to choose from. All of them are designed to seamlessly incorporate any type of logo. 

An animated, sticky hamburger menu makes navigation easier for users. 

Eye-Catching Messages 

Olivero uses brightly coloured icons to convey the purpose of different types of messages. Error, alert, and success messages are displayed in boxes with plenty of padding to ensure they’re noticeable and easily readable. 

Olivero has an eye-catching design for messages.

Useful Sidebar 

Olivero features a sidebar that floats next to the primary content. This is a great place to display things like related content and social buttons. 

Improvements for Developers

Taking a lead from Claro, the new default admin UI, Olivero has implemented PostCSS to reduce maintenance overhead. It uses CSS Grid to help developers build complex layouts more easily. And for added flexibility, Olivero uses CSS custom properties to enable front-end developers to customize the theme on a block-by-block basis.

 

Planning to migrate to Drupal 10?

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+ more awesome articles by Evolving Web

Introduction

Customer experiences are more than touchpoints. Instead, it’s about enhancing relationships and delivering value across the customer journey. A Digital Experience Platform (DXP) provides the architectural foundation and modular service that makes this possible. It enables organizations to deliver consistent, meaningful, and relevant experiences across all intersections.

Introduction

This article captures how one can start their journey with Mautic—through a personal story.

What’s in the CivicTheme 1.4 release? The recent CivicTheme 1.4 release includes a major review of all components and over 100 bug fixes. Some of the bigger changes include: New Event content type  Standardisation across all CivicTheme cards New support for external links  Updates to filters for automated lists Automatically generated component pages for visual regression testing New documentation The release of CivicTheme on drupal.org New Event content type The new Event content type provides event-specific fields. For example, time and date, and location (with the ability to embed a map URL or add in an address). Event cards can then link to this content.  Standardisation across all CivicTheme cards CivicTheme boasts an extensive range of different cards.