The document discusses best practices for developing Drupal modules, including determining requirements, mapping schemas to mockups, creating .info and .install files, building forms, using hooks, theming output, and releasing modules on Drupal.org. It provides an overview of the Drupal development process and resources available to module developers.

1. CMS + framework + Community

2. Getting Involved!

3. do (drupal_module_development) or die(a_noob); /* Btw.. That is the official title of this talk. */

4. Hooks

5. Drupal API http://api.drupal.org/

6. Seek the purpose You got to answer some questions. | a good starting point | What do I want to do?

8. end user

9. Lets say we want… This is how user profile page should look like to anybody visiting it. Block displaying currently logged in users “role length” details ** we also want the user to receive ‘n’ number of automated mail notifications as he is approaching a particular role expiry. User account page Member Since: 3weeks 2days Has role ‘lucky’: expires in 13 more days Has role ‘geek’: Never expires BLAH.. BLAH… <Username> Role ‘rookie’: expires in 14 days Role ‘content contributor’: expires in 100 days

11. Lets say we want…

12. Lets say we want…

15. No Luck!!

16. Time to get hands dirty !!  How?

17. Make sure to look inside related modules Related => Modules that do things which are only slightly different or slightly similar to the things that you wound want your module to do.

18. Indispensable development help

19. Indispensable development help Coder Schema Form Builder Devel

20. Determine the schema Requirement collection starts form the user . Development should start from the database . Map the schema to all/any mock ups you have prepared.

21. Schema mockup role_length rid int rlength int exprid int asg_mail text exp_mail text role_length_user_ roles rid tinyint uid int asg_time timestamp expmail_sent text

22. Map schema to everything else in the UI mockups just created

23. ** we also want the user to receive ‘n’ number of mail notifications as he is approaching a particular role expiry. Check if we have all the data that we need. * Avoid redundancy. There is a lot of data in tables not created by the module being developed. role_length rid int rlength int exprid int asg_mail text exp_mail text role_length_user_roles rid tinyint uid int asg_time timestamp expmail_sent text User account page Member Since: 3weeks 2days Has role ‘lucky’: expires in 13 more days Has role ‘geek’: Never expires BLAH.. BLAH… <Username> Role ‘rookie’: expires in 14 days Role ‘content contributor’: expires in 100 days

26. Best practices to structure $form Why are they called “best practices” ?

27. How to: dynamic forms and forms that “grow” what is the difference!!??

29. Changing forms asynchronously Initially requests for the form Build the form > Send out the rendered form > Save form state in the cache Acts upon the AHAH element “ AHAH callback” fetches form from the cache > build it using $_POST values > Add/Removes/Modifies elements > Set the cache > Output changes as JSON AHAH grabs the JSON response and does the magic.

32. Ain’t Drupal beautiful ?! To keep it that way don’t spit out your output, theme it.

33. Ta-Da!! ® Lets go to node/59

35. May the force be with you

36. ? Sumeet Pareek aka WikidKaka positivecharge (at) gmail (dot) com http://sumeetpareek.com http://drupal.org/user/301925