With the evolution of Headless Drupal, Drupal is moving towards on being a preferable content storage to serve the data. But how is Drupal when being used as a Front end consuming remote data instead of proving it?

In one our recent project we have to achieve the same. Drupal is being used to display the remote data which is being provided by RESTful APIs. The catch was the data that was being consumed should not be saved in the Drupal database. So it was purely used just to display the data. Not only that we need to use the consumed data in views, and panels.

There are a few ways of doing this. One being using drupal_http_request function to consume the data and use it. But that would require a lot of customizations and in the long run would be very difficult to maintain.

In comes Web Service Data module

According to its documentation:
“Web Service Data is a collection of modules allowing you to interact with web services using entities and fields in Drupal.”

It was a perfect match for our requirement. The module will consume the data from Web Services and display it without saving any of it in the database. Plus it have fields, views and panels integration. So it was a win win situation all together.

So I am going to discuss how to use the Web Service Data module to consume Web Services and use them just as normal fields.

Enable the following modules:

1. Web Service Data – Parent module to handle all the web services.
2. Web Service Data Configuration – It enables to add the web service configuration from where we will fetch the data.
3. Web Service Data Fields – Attach the power WSData module to fields.
4. Web Service Data Fields Views Handlers – View handler for fields which are powered by WSData module.
5. Web Service Fields Storage – Storage controller for fields to load the data.
6. WS Data Demo – A demonstration on how to the module in action.

Once enabled if you go to “admin/structure/wsconfig/type” you will see a configuration type being added by the demo module.

In the Web Service Configuration section we define the endpoint of the service.

Next we go to “admin/structure/wsconfig”. The demo module has added a configuration for the type prescribed above. The configuration defines what CRUD operations for the service along with the method for it.

The demo module have also added a content type “Linked Data” with a title field and body field. The body field is provided by Web Service Data Fields module. In “admin/config/services/wsfields_storage” you can see the field being declared and configured to fetch data from the web service configuration.

So, we create a content for Linked Data. In the form we just need to enter the title. Lets say we enter “Drupal”. Once the content is saved you will be taken to the node page where the body of the content will be filled up by the Drupal wikipedia page.

Now let's use this module to fetch some remote data and publish it on our Drupal site. For this lets say we have an endpoint called http://examplesite.com/api/article/{article_id} which gives us details about an article.

1. Go to “admin/structure/wsconfig_types” and add a Configuration type.
2. Next we add a web service configuration for the type. We select the EventCampus Articles configuration as our endpoint.
3. Add the required fields you want to fetch from the web services in “admin/config/services/wsfields_storage”. You can select what type of data you want to fetch and to which entity you want to attach the data. In the Web Service Remote Data Key you need to specify which field will hold the argument to the web service call. Like in our case title was the holder for the remote article_id argument.
4. Now when we create a content of type article we can see the data pulled from the remote web service and being displayed in the node page.

This data can be used like default node fields in Views or Panels without any problem.

Currently once a few types of fields can be handled using the WsData module. But you can easily create handler for other fields which are not there like email, links, etc...

Conclusion, it’s a great module when we want to display data fetched from web services with saving in Drupal database. It comes packed with a good API system which we can extend to use it even in custom entities.

We are happy to announce that we are running Drupal training sessions on Saturday, 21st Nov as part of the Global Training Days. The initiative is run by the Drupal Association to introduce newcomers to Drupal.

Come and join us to learn about what Drupal does and how it can help you. We will learn about Drupal and build our first website live.

What is a Drupal Global Training Day?

Drupal Global Training Days is a worldwide initiative to increase the adoption of Drupal. All across the world, people are teaching and learning Drupal, and sharing that open source love.

What is it? 

It's a full day introduction to Drupal. Attendees will leave having successfully built a Drupal site. Part of the Drupal Global Training Day initiative by the Drupal Association.

What we are going to do -

1. Install Drupal 8 using Acquia Cloud - https://www.acquia.com/drupal-8
2. Familiarize ourseleves with the new User Interface and options
3. Learn about how to create content
4. Experiment with the inbuilt views as well as image handling
5. Create new blocks and understand about regions
6. Manage users
7. QnA
8. Celebrate D8 release

Whose it for? 

• It's for those interested in taking up Drupal as a career path.
• Web developers/designers willing to get started with Drupal.
• Project managers managing or considering Drupal projects.
• Decision makers evaluating Drupal. 

Cost? It's FREE. Venue provided by Valuebound.

WHY IS THIS SESSION FREE?

Introducing Drupal among students and amateur designers free of cost is one of the many ways by which we thank this open source community.

Valuebound Interactive is solely dedicated in helping organizations and individuals to adopt Drupal in their operations in the most effective manner. At Valuebound, we believe in giving result oriented training sessions which will help you to build impeccable websites.

Limited availability to ensure personal guidance throughout the day.

Valuebound celebrated 69th Pre-Independence Day Celebration cum Ethnic day with lots of fun wearing traditional dresses,decorating office in the spirit of Independence Day with tri colour balloons & Indian flag, followed by some group activity & Pizza party.
 
It was real fun seeing the amount of participation & Enthusiasm in office.

Proud to be Indian!

I am running my machine with nginx & php 5.6, First make sure that you have already installed Xdebug. We can check this with php version command

$ php -v

If you see ‘Xdebug v’ that means XDebug installed. If you do not see then install XDebug using PECL

$ pecl install xdebug

If the extension is added to your php.ini file automatically, remove the following line:

zend_extension_ts="xdebug.so"

And replace it with:

zend_extension="/usr/local/php/lib/php/extensions/no-debug-zts-20131226/xdebug.so"

Restart your nginx and confirm XDebug is installed by checking php version OR you can also check with phpinfo in the browser.

Note =: to find php.ini or xdeboug.so use $ locate or check phpinfo for php.ini location.

How to configure XDebug for PhpStorm ?

Open PhpStorm -> File -> Default Settings -> In the search box search with ‘debug’

Change ‘Debug port’ to 9001, apply and ok.

Open File -> Default Settings -> Search for ‘IDE Key’

Set IDE key as ‘PHPSTORM’, Apply & OK

Now we need to add following XDebug values in php.ini, restart nginx & php-fpm

xdebug.remote_port=9001
xdebug.remote_enable=1
xdebug.idekey=PHPSTORM

How to Configure Xdebug for Google Chrome ?

Enable google chrome extension Xdebug helper

Once you have enabled extension then you need to add Debugger bookmarklets for chrome. Go to https://www.jetbrains.com/phpstorm/marklets/ page & Generate XDebugger bookmarks

Note : IDE key should be PHPSTORM, as we set in PhpStorm settings.

Now Drag & drop - Start debugger & Stop debugger to chrome bookmarks Bar. You should see the screen like below

Test debugging with Breakpoints for drupal 7

Now it’s time to debug our drupal 7 site with phpstorm & chrome

Open PhpStorm with drupal 7 project & click ‘Start listen for PHP Debug connections’ (These option are at Top Right corner)

Now open google chrome browser & click on ‘Start debugger’ in the bookmark toolbar.

Now add breakpoint in index.php file in PhpStorm.

Then again visit chrome and load any page of these project (localhost/drupal7). For the first time phpstorm will ask for confirmation dialogue box to accept connection from google chrome. Once you accept it, you will see debug information like below.

Now you can debug by putting multiple breakpoints on your code.

Valuebound conducted ‘Drupal in a Day’ workshop at Brindavan College of Engineering on August 11, 2015. 

The one day workshop comprised of one hour awareness sessions and four hours  of hands on learning about installing and configuring Drupal, an open source content management system. The response from students and faculties were encouraging throughout the session

Brindavan College of Engineering’s Management extended their full support to our one day workshop. The workshop witnessed an attendance of more than 160 pupils from B Tech and MCA Final Year. The session has reportedly impressed professors and students in Computer Science faculty, as they openly expressed their desire to take up Internship project on Drupal CMS. 

After the completion of workshops, many lecturers and students asked about a possible internship and project which can be given by on various Drupal companies.

Bangalore Drupal User Group in collaboration with Valuebound & TIME Inc India will be conducting a free Drupal training on Global Drupal Training Day, Sat, 29th Aug.

What is it?

It's a full day introduction to Drupal. Attendees will leave having successfully built a Drupal site. Part of the Drupal Global Training Day initiative by the Drupal Association.

Whose it for? 

It's for those interested in taking up Drupal as a career path. Hobbyist or entrepreneurs who wants to learn site building on your own.

Cost? It's FREE. Venue and lunch provided by TIME Inc India.

Venue

Time Inc.
RMZ ECOWORLD, PLOT C1, CAMPUS 8A, 5TH FLOOR OUTER RING ROAD BENGALURU, INDIA - 560103
Phone: +91 80 7105 7100

I have been working on Drupal 7 for almost two years now. During these two years I have worked on many hooks but hook_menu_alter() hook is the one of the mostly used one. Today i going to explain my experience with this hook.

Change theme of particular page/menu:

I have discussed this one of earlier post in detail. There we have used hook_custom_theme() hook to change theme on particular page. Instead of this we can also use hook_menu_alter() as another way to achieve same feature.

/*
 * Implements hook_menu_alter().
 */
function custom_module_menu_alter(&$items){
  // Change 'node/add/page' page to admin theme (Assume by default node/add page uses default theme)
  $items ['node/add/page']['theme callback'] = variable_get('admin_theme');
}

Change title of page/menu:

Menu provides page titles. If we are in ‘node/add/page’ then we see page title as ‘Create Basic page’ but what if we need custom title like ‘Add page’. We can achive this using below custom module.

/*
 * Implements hook_menu_alter().
 */
function custom_module_menu_alter(&$items){
  // Change 'node/add/page' title to 'Add page'
  $items ['node/add/page']['title'] = 'Add Page';
}

Customize accessing a page/menu:

For many pages/menus we restrict access to different users or on conditions. Let’s say we want restrict ‘user/register’ page in particular times.. I mean no registration will be done in 12AM - 06AM.

/*
 * Implements hook_menu_alter().
 */
function custom_module_menu_alter(&$items){
  // Restrict 'user/register' page in 12AM-05AM
  $items ['user/register']['access callback'] = '_MY_MODULE_time_access';
}

/*
 * Access callback function to restrict user registration in particular timings
 */
function custom_module_time_access(){
  // Get current time hour like 0,1,2,3....23
  $current_time_hour = date('G');
  
  // if current time is between 0 & 5 then return false
  if($current_time_hour >= 0 && $current_time_hour <= 5 ){
    return false;
  }
  return TRUE;
}

Create duplicate page/menu:

We can also use hook_menu_alter() hook if we want to create a duplicate page, a page with same functionality but with different url. Let’s say we want a url ‘add/page’ which acts same as of ‘node/add/page’.

/*
 * Implements hook_menu_alter().
 */
function custom_module_menu_alter(&$items){
  // Copy ‘node/add/page’ page to ‘add/page’
  $items ['add/page'] = $items ['node/add/page'];
}

In drupal 7 whenever admin selects to cancel user/s account, it provides multiple cancellation options like

• Disable the account and keep its content.
• Disable the account and unpublish its content.
• Delete the account and make its content belong to the Anonymous user.
• Delete the account and its content.

In this post I am going to explain how to create a create custom method like ‘Disable the account and make its content belong to the admin user.’

There are two user API hooks available to achieve this - hook_user_cancel_methods_alter() & hook_user_cancel(). Before we start implementing lets discuss about these hooks.

hook_user_cancel_methods_alter()

This hook is used to modify account cancellation methods and can be used to add, customize, or remove account cancellation methods. After we invoke this hook all defined methods are converted as radio button form elements by user_cancel_methods() We can define following 3 properties -

• title: The title of method (radio button's title).
• description: (optional) A description to display on the confirmation form if the user is not allowed to select the account cancellation method. The description is NOT used for the radio button, but instead should provide additional explanation to the user seeking to cancel their account.
• access: (optional) A boolean value indicating whether the user can access a method. If #access is defined, the method cannot be configured as default method.

In our case we are defining new method called ‘my_module_assign_to_admin’

hook_user_cancel()

These hook will be called on user account cancellations. Depending on the account cancellation method, the module should either do nothing, unpublish content, or anonymize content. In this case also following 3 properties can be defined -

• $edit: The array of form values submitted by the user.
• $account: The user object on which the operation is being performed.
• $method: The account cancellation method.

In our case we are defining functionality for our method ‘my_module_assign_to_admin’

Let’s create module called my_module, using following code

/*
 * Implements hook_user_cancel_methods_alter().
 */
function my_module_user_cancel_methods_alter(&$methods) {
  // Add a custom method.
  $methods['my_module_assign_to_admin'] = array(
    'title' => t('Disable the account and make its content belong to the admin user.'),
    'description' => t('All contents will be assigned to admin user.'),
    // access should be used for administrative methods only.
    'access' => user_access('Administer permissions'),
  );
}

/*
 * Implements hook_user_cancel().
 */
function my_module_user_cancel($edit, $account, $method) {
  switch ($method) {
    case 'my_module_assign_to_admin':
      // Assign nodes to admin user.
      module_load_include('inc', 'node', 'node.admin');
      $nodes = db_select('node', 'n')
        ->fields('n', array('nid'))
        ->condition('uid', $account->uid)
        ->execute()
        ->fetchCol();
      node_mass_update($nodes, array('uid' => 1));
      break;
  }
}

Just enable this module on your module list page, you should see additional option for user cancellation -

• Disable the account and make its content belong to the admin user

Referrence
https://api.drupal.org/api/drupal/modules!user!user.api.php/function/hook_user_cancel/7
https://api.drupal.org/api/drupal/modules!user!user.api.php/function/hook_user_cancel_methods_alter/7

One of the great feature in drupal is tokens system. Tokens are reusable text that can be placed into documents via simple placeholders, like %site-name or [user]. In Drupal there are many default tokens are made available thru’ token module e.g. nodes, users, taxonomy as well as other site related tokens. For example to display site name we have [site:name] token, to display node author we have [node:author]. All these tokens are properties of entities. And if we add new field in node then these field will be available as token. For example [node:body] is the token where it will display body field.

But quite a few times we come across situation when default tokens available in Drupal is not enough for project. Today we are going to discuss about how to create custom tokens using our custom module. In our example we will create a token Trimmed body field. This will display 20 characters of body field in a node wherever we will use this token.

To achieve these we will be using hook_token_info() and hook_tokens() hooks Create a new module MY_MODULE and implement these two hooks. But before start implementing this let’s discuss about hook_token_info() and hook_tokens() hooks.

hook_token_info()

These hook provides information about available placeholder tokens and token types. Tokens are placeholders that can be put into text by using the syntax [type:token], where type is the machine-readable name of a token type, and token is the machine-readable name of a token within this group.

Return value properties:

These function will return associative array of available tokens and token types.

types

• name: Name of the token type.
• description: Description of the token type.
• needs-data: The type of data that must be provided to token_replace() in the $data argument (i.e., the key name in $data) in order for tokens of this type to be used in the $text being processed.

tokens

• name: Name of the token.
• description: Description of the token.
• type (optional): A 'needs-data' data type supplied by this token, which should match a 'needs-data' value from another token type. For example, the node author token provides a user object, which can then be used for token replacement data in token_replace() without having to supply a separate user object.

hook_tokens()

These hook provides replacement values for placeholder tokens. This hook is invoked when someone calls token_replace(). That function first scans the text for [type:token] patterns, and splits the needed tokens into groups by type.

Return value properties :

$type: The machine-readable name of the type (group) of token being replaced, such as 'node', 'user', or another type defined by a hook_token_info() implementation.

$tokens: An array of tokens to be replaced. The keys are the machine-readable token names, and the values are the raw [type:token] strings that appeared in the original text.

$data: (optional) An associative array of data objects to be used when generating replacement values, as supplied in the $data parameter to token_replace().

$options: (optional) An associative array of options for token replacement; see token_replace() for possible values.

Create MY_MODULE module & create file MY_MODULE.tokens.inc and implement following code.

/**
 * Implements hook_token_info().
 */
  function custom_title_token_info() {

    // Define token value, body_trim is the token will be used as [node:body_trim]
    $node_trim['body_trim'] =  array(
      'name' => t("Trimmed body field"),
      'description' => t("Trim body field to 20 characters "),
    );

    // Return associative array of tokens & token types
    return array(
      'tokens' => array(
        'node' => $node_trim,
      ),
    );
}

/**
 * Implements hook_tokens().
 */
function custom_title_tokens($type, $tokens, array $data = array(), array $options = array()) {
  $replacements = array();

  // Check if token type is node
  if($type == 'node'){
    foreach ($tokens as $name => $original) {
      switch ($name) {
        // Check token is body_trim
        case 'body_trim':
          $body = $data['node']->body[LANGUAGE_NONE][0]['value'];
          // Trim 20 characters and return
          $replacements[$original] = substr($body,0,20) . ' ...';
          break;
      }
    }
  }
  return $replacements;
}

Note : We have not defined any custom token type as we needed node related token.

Reference:
function hook_token_info
function hook_tokens

In drupal 7 we have options to set default theme & admin theme. There are limitations, Admin theme will be available for roles which has access permission for admin theme. But in case if we have conditions to set specific theme for specific page based on user roles or specifying theme for particular node types, drupal core will not provide options to do these. We do have module available for this purpose - ThemeKey. But we can achieve by using drupal hooks also.

In this post I am going to explain how we can change particular theme for different pages based on various conditions. Let’s take following scenarios.

1. Set admin theme for node edit pages for manager role users
2. Set default theme for node/add/article pages for manager role users

Note : By default manager role is not set admin theme.

Drupal 7 provides hook_custom_theme() hook to do these functionality. Let’s create module called dynamic_theme. Check implementation of hook_custom_theme() for above scenarios.

Scenario 1 : Set admin theme for node edit pages for manager role users

/**
 * Implements hook_custom_theme().
 */
function dynamic_theme_custom_theme() {

  // Load current user
  global $user;

  // Check current page is 'node/%nid%/nid'
  if(current_path() == 'node/%node/edit'){
    // Check current user role is 'manager'
    $roles = $user->roles;
    if(in_array('manager',$roles)){
      // return admin theme for these page
      return variable_get('admin_theme');
    }
  }
  
}

Scenario 2 : Set default theme for node/add/article pages for manager role users

/**
 * Implements hook_custom_theme().
 */
function dynamic_theme_custom_theme() {

  // Load current user
  global $user;

  // Check current page is 'node/%nid%/nid'
  if(current_path() == 'node/add/article'){
    // Check current user role is 'manager'
    $roles = $user->roles;
    if(in_array('manager',$roles)){
      // return default theme for these page
      return variable_get('theme_default');
    }
  }
}

In case if we have multiple themes then return theme name in these function.

Note : The theme you want to activate must be enabled.