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Setting Up Drupal 7's Private File System

Submitted by mgifford on

I just updated the docs on drupal.org and discovered that D7 will take care of the permissions.

A screenshot of Drupal 7's file system config pageI was working on my first Drupal 5 to 7 migration earlier today and ran into an issue with the file system I hadn't needed to define previously. Drupal 7 has both a public and private file system path that you can define. This is great for security as you can easily divide what files you want available to the anonymous public and which they should be denied access. Drupal can be used to control delivery to users with appropriate permissions.

This is great, but there aren't enough active descriptions out there of how to do this yet. The DrupalHandbook of the Drupal 7 File System is pretty clear, "Files in the private directory are not accessible directly through the web server; when private files are listed, the links are Drupal path requests," is pretty clear, but doesn't provide a practical example.

I posed the question on Twitter, "if a Drupal 7's root is /home/drupal & the public files are in /home/drupal/sites/example.com/files where should the Private file system path be?" Following up by stating that from purely a backup perspective it would be nice if all client files were just in /home/drupal/sites/example.com/private and Apache is used to exclude access.

Accessibility Enhancements for Drupal 6 Themes - Admin Side

Submitted by mgifford on

The last in the series of Drupal 6 accessibility enhancements that we're publishing will focus on improving the admin side. There is a good guide to developing theme overrides on Drupal.org. This post provides examples of modified functions that are improvements over what is in Drupal 6, mind you there are several elements fixed in Drupal 7 which can't easily be back-ported.

Now the distinction of admin side vs user facing is a bit outdated in most modern CMS's. In most cases, the same HTML tools that are required to administer a site may also be used to make a nice interactive site. Usually it's a matter of making sure that any forms are presented in an accessible manner.

Accessibility Enhancements for Drupal 6 Themes - Public Pages

Submitted by mgifford on

Following my previous post with examples about using invisible elements, this post includes further examples of how to use the template.php file to overwrite Drupal 6's default functions for greater accessibility. More details on how to use these functions are available from Drupal's documentation.

With many sites, the only forms that they have available is the search function. This is a more accessible rewrite of template_preprocess_search_result()

 function EXAMPLE_preprocess_search_result(&$variables) { $result = $variables['result']; $variables['url'] = check_url($result['link']); $variables['title'] = check_plain($result['title']); $info = array(); if (!empty($result['date'])) { $info['date'] = format_date($result['date'], 'small'); } if (isset($result['extra']) && is_array($result['extra'])) { $info = array_merge($info, $result['extra']); } // Check for existence. User search does not include snippets. $variables['snippet'] = isset($result['snippet']) ? $result['snippet'] : ''; // Provide separated and grouped meta information.. $variables['info_split'] = $info; $variables['info'] = implode(' - ', $info); // Provide alternate search result template. $variables['template_files'][] = 'search-result-'. $variables['type']; }

Accessibility Enhancements for Drupal 6 Themes - Invisible Elements

Submitted by mgifford on

Now that Drupal 7 is almost out the door, it's a good time to look through the known accessibility issues and document what are the best practices that have been implemented that can be brought into Drupal 6 themes.

The first bit is perhaps the easiest. Bring over the code to handle hidden, invisible & visible on focus elements:

Quick and Dirty Drupal Content Updates

Submitted by ethan on

It's fairly common to have a development site and a live site running at the same time - whether it's a Drupal 5 to Drupal 6 migration, or simply a development environment for test features before running them on the live site. In any case, one of the issues that comes up here is that the content on the development site can quickly become out of date. This is an issue if your development site will eventually become the live site, as in the case of a D5->D6 migration process.

Introducting Projekto, our new PM tool

Submitted by ethan on

OpenConcept has used a number of solutions for time tracking and project management over the years; Basecamp, along with a couple of iterations of a Drupal 5-based system based on the Worktracker module. OpenConcept has grown considerably in the last couple of years, and with additional staff, bigger projects, and the historical accumulation of information each system began verging on unworkable as we transitioned to the next.

Projekto's Header

 

Accessibility

We can help you make your website more accessible for everyone! OpenConcept has spearheaded accessibility initiatives within the Drupal Community and our team has considerable experience making Web 2.0 sites with inclusive design.

If you've got a Drupal site and want to make it sure it complies with standards like WCAG & ATAG we can help! Drupal is complicated, accessibility is complicated, let us help make implementation easier for you!

We can help you migrate your site to Drupal 7 or help backport some of the enhancements we have helped bring into Drupal 7 into your existing Drupal 6 site. We can help you set up best practices for your themes, modules & as well as build systems to help your content editors produce better content. 

Promoting Open Source Procurement in Government

Submitted by mgifford on

The following article was prepared by OpenConcept for Summit Magazine, Canada's magazine for public service procurement. The full article is available within the PDF copy of the magazine.

After publication I was sent this PDF about open source procurement in the Netherlands that was worth sharing.

How Can Government Responsibly Procure Free Software?

Free software is “free” in two senses: it is distributed free of charge, and can be freely used and shared because it is unencumbered by onerous and restrictive licenses. This software model has been refined over the past twenty-five years, and its use has become mainstream.

Final Stretch: Help Needed for Drupal 7 Accessibility

Submitted by Everett Zufelt on

Yesterday was the third Drupal 7 accessibility taskforce meeting, and the final meeting before code freeze. With September 1 just around the corner the Drupal accessibility community would like to reach out the the broader community for some additional help during this busy time to get as many accessibility improvements into Drupal 7 core as possible.

Update to the State of Drupal 7 Accessibility

Submitted by Everett Zufelt on

Introduction

I have been encouraged by the increased participation in the Drupal 7 accessibility issue queue in the past few weeks. There are still a number of outstanding issues that are fundamental to improving the accessibility of Drupal 7. Some of these issues can be dealt with after code freeze, others need to be dealt with before.

I believe that Drupal accessibility has to be adopted and fostered at the grassroots level.  Hopefully after code freeze some additional accessibility documentation can be added to Drupal.org and the documentation that is currently on the site can be reordered to make it more useful.  I believe that clear and thorough documentation will lower the barrier for entry into the Drupal accessibility arena, making it easier for community members to get involved who currently don't know where to start.

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