Kalabox

• What is Kalabox?
• Brief story on history Kalabox
• Is there a plan to use the “official” Docker for mac backend instead of VirtualBox?
• Current update on state of Kalabox
• How does Kalabox compare with other local dev tools like Mamp, DrupalVM etc.?
  • Specifically: Speed, flexibility
• Is Kalabox, or will it be usable with server environments other than Pantheon? Ie: Acquia, VPS, PlatformSH

Use Cases

• Team standardization
• Fast local dev
• Automated repeatable tasks
• Github workflow?
• Composer based workflow?
• Our three month roadmap

Tandem

• You mentioned Tandem in the into, and you gave me a brief description before the show, but can you expand a little bit on what that is?

Z-Ray

• So, let’s start out with the basics. What exactly is Z-Ray?

  • So Z-Ray is a cool new tech that we introduced just a few months back which gives developers deep insight into all the PHP elements constructing their page, including Drupal-specific elements.
  • It’s basically a toolbar that’s displayed right in front of you in your browser. No code changes needed. You don’t have to configure anything. Just open your app in a browser and you’ll see Z-Ray at the bottom of the page!

• How does is work? Is there a module that you have to install on your site?

  • No. It’s not a module. Without going into too much detail: Z-Ray collects info while your app is being processed on the server side, and once the request is completed, Z-Ray’s JavaScript code is injected into the response with all the collected data.
  • There are other mechanisms at work, such as Ajax support, but as a whole that’s all there is to it. It’s also the limit of my technical understanding of how it works :-)

• So what info does Z-Ray display? What are it’s main features?
  Well. There’re so many features in Z-Ray, and I don’t think we have the time to go over them all, but to mention just a few.

  • Z-Ray gives you info on SQL queries. You’ll see a query’s bound value, the result of the query, how long the query took, and how many rows in your code are affected by the query.
    You can even see a backtrace of the query to get the larger picture on how your code was executed.
  • Z-Ray also gives you all the errors generated by PHP itself, or those created by its core functions. You can also see errors for silenced expressions. Exceptions are also displayed.
  • What do we have for Drupal devs? Z-Ray will give you a list of loaded Drupal modules with invoked actions and hooks, a list of called Drupal functions, a list of used Drupal forms on the page, and some general user info.
  • We’re especially excited about Z-Ray Live! Until now we’ve spoken about using Z-Ray in a browser, right? But what if you’re developing APIs or a mobile app? No browser there. So Z-Ray Live! is a new feature accessible via a dedicated page in the Zend Server UI, with an embedded Z-Ray.
    So as soon as this page is loaded, Z-Ray records and displays any request made to the web server, never mind where its coming from - whether from a browser, a mobile device or a web-service client.
  • One of the coolest things about Z-Ray is that you can plug in your own customized extension. Even people in Zend itself have begun developing their own extensions so its pretty viral.
    By the way, all the code for the Drupal extension is available on Github, so feel free to fork it and send us a pull request.
  • There’s integration with IDEs, session and cookie data, request info, and so much more to talk about.

• Is Z-Ray just for development? Or should it be used in production too?

  • Z-Ray was designed to be used both in dev and prod. While in development it works on every request, in production you can manually use Z-Ray using specially created access tokens. And it also periodically saves snapshots for important URLs - like the slowest requests on your web server, most time consuming requests, and so on. And again - with no changes to your code and no real implication on end-user experience or server performance.

• OK, if I want to give it a shot, what does the installation process look like?

  • Z-Ray’s bundled with Zend Server, so to use Z-Ray you would need to download and install Zend Server - a total no brainer. Just like installing any other PHP stack.

• So, how do you see Z-Ray helping Drupal developers?

  • At Zend we like to talk about left-shifting. This basically means that Z-Ray helps developers hit issues very early in the development cycle and way before going to staging and production.
  • We all know that getting clarity on all the Drupal elements working under the hood is extremely hard and takes loads of time. So at the end the day we believe that Z-Ray gives Drupal devs the visibility they need to properly profile their apps, identify bugs very early, and troubleshoot them.

New stuff in Drupal 8

• Twig autoescape
• Security improvements
• Cleanup around Entity
• kerneltestbaseng
• mink test base

DrupalUpgrade.info

• What’s the story behind DrupalUpgrade.info?
• What are the plans for drupalupgrade.info?
• How can people get involved with this?

Drupal Module Upgrader

• What is the Drupal Module Upgrader?
• How does it work?
• Is it perfect?

PatchADay

• What is #PatchADay?

Questions from Twitter

• Chris Weber asks:
  • What's your favorite way to get an autoloader working with Drupal 7?
  • Talk about Drupal 8 menu system.
  • Will it be possible to export/import content?

PHPStorm

• I’ve recently started using Sublime Text, how would you compare PHPStorm to other text editors?
• What is an “IDE”?
• What are some of stand out features of PHPStorm?
• Where can people find out more about how to use the features of PHPStorm?
• What is the pricing structure?

PHPStorm and Drupal
* What integrations does PHPStorm have with Drupal 7, right now?
* What will PhpStorm do for Drupal 8?

Questions from Twitter

• Marc Drummond
  Really enjoy using @phpstorm. Always interested in learning how to get more out of my use of it.

Kalabox

• What is Kalabox?
• How is it different from MAMP, Aquia Dev Desktop, etc.?
• What comes with Kalabox?
• How does it work?
• What if a shop already has a standard set of tools? How difficult is it to start using Kalabox?
• Some VMs get slow when you run more than one at a time, how does Kalabox scale/perform?
• How does it integrate with Pantheon?
  • Can you pull cone from dev and database from live?
  • Are you planning to integrate with other platforms?
  • Are you planning/willing to work directly with other providers like #AberdeenCloud to build their integration plugin?
• What’s different in the 2.0 version?

Kickstarter

• You’re running a kickstarter. Tell me about that.
• Support the kickstarter here

Drupal 8

• What’s the status of WSCCI, SCOTCH etc?
• What do you think will be held off until Drupal 8.1
• What else have you been working on since the last time we talked?
  • Getting off the island
  • FIG
• How have all of the initiatives influenced each other.
• Changes for developers?
  • OOP
  • Drupal 8 Acquia Webinar
• Changes for sitebuilders?

Questions from Twitter

• Marc Drummond
  Are you arguing with @eaton right now? How about now? What about this moment? Or the next?
• Marc Drummond
  Serious question. I'm trying but still struggle with learning OO concepts and patterns. Good resources?
• Marc Drummond
  I keep trying to get my head around concepts like Factory methods and things like that. Hurts my brain!
• MD
  D8 API documentation? You're D7 Module Development book was excellent in content and timing. Anything similar?
• Ted Bowman
  What new types of things will b possible n Contrib modules in #drupal8 that weren't possible previously
• M Parker
  There’s a new in-code documentation portal at api.drupal.org/api/drupal/8 and drupal.org/developing/api/8 has more
• Jesus Manuel Olivas
  Interesting contributed projects already on #drupal8 or that could be great to have as webprofiler, @stackphp?

#AberdeenCloud

• For those who missed the last time you were on the show, can you give us the run-down of what AberdeenCloud is?
• What’s the company philosophy.
• How long have you guys been around?
• What’s the pricing look like?
• In your original pricing structure you had a reseller plan kind of built in. Do you still have something available to resellers?
• What technology are you using?
• Why do you think #AC provides superior value?
• So, in your video you guys say that you are the most reliable Drupal platform ever built… What in the world does that mean?
• Command line tools
• Hosted repositories
• What kind of support is available?
• Why don’t you guys showcase your client sites?

Future Plans

• What’s in the future for AberdeenCloud?

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Kraftwagen

• On the kraftwagen.org it says that Kraftwagen is “Drupal for large (distributed) development teams and staged deployments.” Can you elaborate on what exactly that means?
  • (Rolf) pain of configuration in DB. Everything in code is essential. Standardized workflow
• What do you mean when you say “Drupal for developers”?
• It states that everything is in code. Does that include info from the database, like configuration?
• How does this compare to the configuration management initiative in Drupal 8?
• How does it integrate with multiple deployment targets like local, staging and live environments?
• It mentions skeletons, what are those?
  • (Rolf) start points. mention scaffolding
• So, how does this all work? What are the components of Kraftwagen?
  • (Rolf) kraftwagen (drush extension) and 2 important modules (kw-manifests and kw-itemnames). explain the workflow of Kraftwagen (setup, build, init db, update)
• On the site is says something about Environment awareness, and mentions that the Devel module shouldn’t be enabled on a live server, but should on a development environment. I get around this by using a global git ignore file on my local machine that ignores the devel module. So, when I spin up a new site on my local machine, part of that process is to install the Devel module, but my system prevents it from ever being pushed anywhere automatically. How does Kraftwagen deal with that?
  • (Rolf) builds are not environment aware, but dependencies and manifests are.

Use Cases

• Are you familiar with Aegir? How would you compare the two?

Simplytest.me

• What is simplytest.me?
  • “simplytest.me is a website where you can quickly test out a drupal.org project online without messing around locally.
    There are about 20.000 projects and some of them fit better to your needs than others do, and simplytest.me helps to find the right one.”
• Who is behind the project? Is it just you, or a team?
  • “Most of the initial development was done by myself, but I got much support from my colleagues and also Stuart Clark helped me cleaning up some messes recently.
    The project itself is opensource and I’m generally happy about any feedback I get.
    Everyone reporting bugs or making suggestions is part of the team for me.“
• Is this just for modules? Or can you tryout themes as well?
  • “It’s pretty much for any type of project hosted on drupal.org.
    It works for drupal core itself since version 6, for modules, themes, and even installation profiles, or distributions as we call them now.”
• What’s the basic interface like? How do you test out a project?
  • “I tried to keep the interface as simple as possible. All you need to do is basically start typing the name of a project hosted on d.o, then some autocomplete suggestions will appear,
    which you can select the project from. You can alternatively directly type in the project shortname or even the number of a sandbox module.
    After you selected a project simplytest.me shows you the available and supported versions which you can select. Then just click on ‘Launch Sandbox’ and it mostly takes about five
    seconds and if everything worked out you will be redirected to your personal sandbox and you’ll have 30 minutes to figure out whether a project does what you need or not.”
• What if 30 minutes are not enough, can I get more time?
  • “For most modules 30 minutes should be enough but if you need more time, for example to check out commerce kickstart, you just need to register on simplytest.me and your
    sandboxes will automatically last one hour. If you still need more you can contact me and I’ll see what I can do.”
• What happens if there are dependencies?
  • “Resolving dependencies turned out to be to most annoying problem while creating simplytest.me.
    In good cases all dependencies are described in the .info file of a project and they can be resolved recursively without problems. But things get complicated when dependencies have
    other names than the projects shortname.
    For example if a project has ‘content’ as dependency, there’s pretty much no good way for a machine to figure out that it needs to download ‘cck’”
• What about third party libraries?
  • “Third party libraries that need to be manually downloaded are even worse than dependencies.
    I simply have to rely on the developers here to reference all necessary libraries in a proper .make file.”
• Is there more planned for the future?
  • “Yes! The most frequently requested feature is to be able to apply patches on the selected project. I also want to add some kind of statistics page. There are many other suggestions
    too, but I still want to keep the user interface as simple as possible.”
• Where is funding coming from?
  • “I was very happy that my companies CEO didn’t hesitate a second to sponsor some of my working time and even the first server for the project.
    After simplytest.me got a bit popular I soon got a mail from RealityLoop and they also wanted to sponsor a server.
    I’m really grateful for their support, especially because they really showed that they were interested in the project and it’s potential for the Drupal Community rather than getting
    customers on their website.”

Use Cases

• What are some use cases for Simplytest.me?
  • “The intended usecase for simplytest.me was to be able to quickly spin up a testing site and figure out whether a module has the functionality you need.
    But it’s really cool to see that people are using it as on-demand demo sites for their modules and themes, or even for their client presentations.”
  • Demo content (maybe install devel?)
• What kind of feedback have you received from people using the site?

Questions from Twitter

• Blue-Bag - @ModsUnraveled simplytest.me interview @patrickd_drupal great service! Any plans to allow >1 module selection?
  • "Yes! That feature was also requested very often. It’s definitely planned, though it’s not very easy to implement, so it will take some time."