Author: Matthew Brabham

Categories
Drupal

OSU Drupal 7 Distribution Update

Drupalicon graphic

An update has been released to the development environment on Thursday, June 13th, 2019. Barring any security releases, this update will be applied to production on Tuesday June 18th, 2019. The following updates will be applied:

Major Version Upgrade

  • None

Drupal Core Bug Fix/Security Updates

  • None

Contributed Module Updates

  • None

OSU Module Updates

  • OSU Paragraphs
    • New Features:
      • The Paragraph Bundle, 1 column, now allows content authors to select the size of margins around the content.
      • The Menu Paragraph Bundle now has a better hover effect
    • Fixes:
      • Menu height grows with the length of the link title in mobile, there is a max height of twice what was set before.
      • There is now more padding at the top and bottom of the menu in mobile browsers.

OSU Theme Updates

  • None

If you have questions or concerns please contact us through our contact form.

Categories
Drupal

OSU Drupal Distribution Update

An update has been released to our development environment today, Tuesday, February 13, 2018. Barring any security releases, this update will be pushed to our production environment on Thursday, February 22nd. The following updates will be applied:

Major Version Upgrade

  • None

Drupal Core Bug Fix/Security Updates

  • None

New Modules Added

  • Menu Attributes
    • This simple module allows you to specify some additional attributes for menu items such as id, name, class, style, and rel.

Contributed Module Updates

  • CAS 7.x-1.7 – Fixed two bugs
    • Bad URL in reports page
    • cas_translated_menu_link_alter overrides destination query strings on menu items
  • Entity 7.x-1.9
    • Improve debug output of entity metadata wrapper exceptions.
    • Notice : Undefined property: stdClass::$nid in node_access()
    • Don’t flush Entity Cache tables that aren’t created yet
    • EntityDrupalWrapper::getIterator() throws PHP error: EntityMetadataWrapperIterator::__construct() must be an array
    • Rendered entity in views header accepting arguments from URL
  • File Entity 7.x-2.16
    • Token video thumbnail for metatag(open graph) module
    • Optionally Replace File Name During File Replacement
  • Honeypot 7.x-1.23
    • The first 7.x release in a while! This release brings with it a special new performance-enhancing feature, namely #2820400: Add possibility to use JS on cached pages.If you’d like to enable experimental JS support (so you can use Honeypot on forms on cached pages!), go to your site’s Honeypot Configuration page, and check the “Use Javascript protection for cacheable pages. (experimental)” option. That’s all you need to do! For users with JS disabled, they will still be able to submit the form, there will just be one more page load required.
  • Job Scheduler 7.x-2.0
    • First stable release based on the lack of issues in the queue
  • Media 7.x-2.16
    • One change since 2.15:
      • Breaks recognition of media tags
    • New since 7.x-2.14 –
      • Need to display [[ in code
      • Edit URI for remote files
      • CKEditor Strips out Picture Tags When Inserting Images of Picture Type
      • Support recursion into subdirectories for file import

OSU Module Updates

  • None

OSU Theme Updates

  • None

If you have questions or concerns please contact us through our contact form.

Categories
All the Other Stuff Drupal

OSU Drupal 7 Distribution Update

Drupalicon graphic

An update was released to our development environment on Thursday, September 14th, 2017. Barring any security releases, these updates will be pushed to our production environment on Thursday, September 21st. The following updates will be applied:

Major Version Upgrade

  • None

Drupal Core Bug Fix/Security Updates

  • None

New Modules Added

  • Administration Views 7.x-1.6
    • Replaces administrative overview/listing pages with actual views for superior usability.
      Note: This new module does not require any setup by the user.

Contributed Module Updates

  • None

OSU Module Updates

  • None

OSU Theme Updates

  • None

If you have questions or concerns please contact us through our contact form.

Categories
All the Other Stuff

Images on the Web – When to Use What

From the session “Images 101: File Types, Web Optimization, Retina Screens, oh my” (https://2016.badcamp.net/session/images-101-file-types-web-optimization-retina-screens-oh-my) by Jessica Tate (http://www.jessicatate.com/).

Overview and JPEG

I found this session very helpful in understanding how to prepare images for web use. I learned that while JPEG images are ubiquitous they should only be used as the final image export. They can contain millions of different colors while maintaining a smaller footprint. What this means is you can keep the image tiny for websites but at the same time keep the colors looking great. The reason Jessica said that you should use JPEG as your main source is that every time you run a save command in a Photo Editor passes the JPEG through the image compressor and loses quality.

PNG

Jessica talked next about PNG next and how PNG has two common formats, PNG-8 and PNG-24. The difference between them is that PNG-8 holds 256 different colors where as PNG-24 is called true color where it holds as many colors as JPEG, but with a larger format. The reason she gave for using PNG as your source image and make your edits there is that they don’t lose quality when you export, but are often too large for the web. Jessica also went on to say when to use PNG-8 and PNG-24 and really the 8 format is perfect when you don’t need many colors or transparency. The resulting file size is tiny and great for icons.

GIF

The next image format she discussed was GIF (jif as the creator wanted it pronounced) and although it was a competitor to PNG it’s primary use is in animations. So if you need something to be animated, use a GIF.

SVG

The last image format Jessica talked about was SVG and although SVG is new in comparison to other image formats it differs completely in how the image is created. This format uses Vectors to create the image, this helps with Icons and other logos you wish to create but only have one copy of the file. SVG does not require you to export out different versions of the same image at different sizes as they scale and do not look pixelated. SVG also can be used in animations but it has not grown in popularity yet. A few fun things with SVG is you can use CSS and Javascript to alter the color and behavior of the image. SVG works across all browsers and there are many different free image creation tools out there that can create and work with SVG.

To wrap this up, use JPEG when you need lots of colors, but never use it as your RAW source. If you do not have access to RAW use PNG-24 for your images. GIF’s for animations or start playing with SVG’s for animations as well as Logos.

Categories
Maintenance and Updates WordPress

WordPress Plugin Updates Update

WordPress received a set of plugin updates today.  The Jetpack plugin was updated to version 2.5 resolving an issue of the Twitter widget not displaying tweets.  The issue had to deal with the Twitter widget ID not being saved properly in Jetpack’s Twitter widget.  A Twitter site owner needs to create a Twitter widget first in twitter.com as a pre-requisite to using this WordPress widget.  The widget works properly now.

You know there’s a however coming next, right?

However, certain browser add ons or extensions may prevent it from displaying properly.  In the event that you still do not see the Twitter timeline, then first clear the browser cache and settings (Google it if you don’t know how), and see if it works.  If that does not work, then disable your add ons and figure out which add-on was preventing it from being displayed by re-enabling the add-ons (Firefox) or extensions (Chrome) one at a time to figure out which one.

The other plugins that were updated were:  SI Captcha, WordPress SEO, and WP-PostRatings.  Please go to the respective plugin sites to look at what was updated for these.

In between terms, we will be looking to upgrade the WordPress version to the latest, as that change will be more involved and require a longer period of downtime.

As always, if you have any questions, feel free to contact us.

Categories
All the Other Stuff Development@CWS OSU Mobile

It is time to Connect

Another year, and we are ready for another round of Connect.  What is Connect?  Connect is the 4 days before fall term classes begin. It is a chance for new students to begin to “connect” to OSU. There are a range of activities that help to connect you to academic resources, discover all the ways to get involved, learn about traditions and meet other new students.  With this year’s connect we are launching version 2 of our OSU Connect App.

 

Connect Events Screen     This version, available for Android and iOS, will feature the OSU Scholar Symposium events, and the ability to “favorite” events, by dotting the O.  What you don’t see is all the work put in behind all of this to adapt to an upgrade in the framework we are using by Appcelerator.  The Alloy framework introduced MVC programming into Titanium, and with the help of staff and one of OSU’s very own computer science students, Seth Toda, we’re refactoring the code to make it more modular.  This will enable OSU to be able to launch our apps faster and add features faster as well.

 

So look for the apps and app updates in the iTunes Store and Google Play store, and don’t forget to keep your apps up to date.  To the new students arriving at OSU, it is time to Connect.

Categories
Blogs Maintenance and Updates WordPress

Don’t Smiley At Me: A Jetpack Tip

smiley face at a bottom of a page pictureIf you have turned on Jetpack on your site, and are collecting stats, at the very bottom of your site you might notice a little smiley face.  If you are like me, you will find this just a little bit annoying.  How did it get there?  Is this a bug?  Is there something wrong with one of my posts?  The answer is no.  It goes back to using Jetpack and collecting stats. Since you are using the power of the WordPress cloud at wordpress.com when you connect Jetpack, WordPress inserts this to indicate stats are being collected.  Well and good, but if you are not in a smiley frame of mind, it’s very easy to fix.

jetpack-stats

To take the smiley off your page, go to the Jetpack dashboard, and click on the Configure.  In the configuration options you will see a checkbox to “Hide the stats smiley face image.”  Just check that and save and you are smiley free, and free to smile.

configuring jetpack smiley on or off images

 

Categories
Blogs Maintenance and Updates WordPress

Takeoff! with Jetpack by WordPress

With this next update of WordPress, we have updated WordPress core as well as plugins, and have introduced a new plugin called Jetpack.

What is Jetpack?  From the makers of Jetpack, they say “Jetpack supercharges your self‑hosted WordPress site with the awesome cloud power of WordPress.com.” 

From our standpoint it is a number of WordPress modules that will add some benefit to your site, including site subscriptions, posting a blog post via email and more.  But to use Jetpack you have to understand the peculiarities and actually see if some of the features will work with the theme that is being used.  In a nutshell, the theme has to be able to support Jetpack.

Jetpack Modules

We are outlining some of the steps and peculiarities that we have encountered in our testing with the OSU Responsive theme which is the primary theme we are testing against at this time.  All other themes are unsupported for Jetpack at this time.

Steps to use Jetpack

1.  First you will need to connect to wordpress.com, which means you need a wordpress.com account.

Best practice for departments and organizations.  Create a wordpress.com with a generic account.  That way it can stay with the organization rather than with an individual.

Why do you need a wordpress.com account?  The plugin itself uses wordpress.com’s cloud infrastructure to do some of the processing, and where we can offload some of this is a good thing.

2.  Then connect to Jetpack from the Jetpack Dashboard.  Once you connect to a wordpress.com account, you will see the Connected in your Jetpack screen navigated to from your Dashboard.

 

 

 

3.  Next is to look at the variety of options and activate the ones you would like to use.  Please note that not all of these might work with the theme that is being used.  For OSU Responsive, WordPress.com Stats, Subscriptions, Carousel, Like, Post by Email, Sharing, Contact have all been tested in our limited testing capabilities.

Please note the Contacts feature of Jetpack is not compatible with the Sociable plugin.

You can disable Sociable under Plugins menu located on the left in your administrative menu.

So you get all that done and you decide you don’t want to use one of the features any more.  But where to turn it off?  It wasn’t intuitive when I first went looking for it, that was certain, but a quick Google search found the answer.

Jetpack Configure Button for Deactivating

Once a Jetpack feature is activated, there might be a configure button there.  If it is clicked, it will expand the area, and it is in that expanded area that the Deactivate button will be.  Why there?  I don’t know but after using it a few times, I was able to manage remembering where it was the next time around.

Overall it looks like some good pieces are there.  As you are using this, remember to keep in mind everyone.  There are accessibility policies to keep in mind, as well as just a general sense of if you really will be using  a a feature that is activated.  As we get more information we will put up, but the best thing right now is to visit the Jetpack site for more information.  We’ll be writing more as we use the features ourselves.  As always we would love to hear your feedback, so try out the contact form that we’ve just put in as part of the Jetpack feature set and send us some feedback about your experience with Jetpack.

In the intervening time between our blog posts, we still have some work to do to fix the Responsive menu structure.  More than one level deep in a menu and it isn’t too useful and on the mobile side, the mobile menu has a bug we know about that does not expand it beyond a certain length, making part of the menu not visible.  That fix is in the works.

At this point, however, we want to give you the ability to take off with Jetpack.

Categories
All the Other Stuff Drupal

Let’s Talk Drupal 7

So let’s talk Drupal 7, and some bits and bytes about Drupal in general.  Central Web Services maintains a central Drupal installation.  Like any piece of software, it has multiple versions.  Drupal 5, 6, 7, and 8 which is in development.  The CWS stable version is Drupal 6.  Drupal 5 is no longer supported.  Right now we are getting numerous requests for Drupal 7.

We want to let you all know that we are actively working to get Drupal 7 tested, documented, and functional for the needs of OSU.  Well, why can’t I just get it now, it’s just a download, you ask?  The answer is, while if you were hosting on your own ISP this would be the case, the OSU infrastructure is such that we have to ensure security, reliability as well as integrations with other solutions, such as authentication, themes and modules in use by OSU CWS Drupal sites.  We have a number of concurrent activities happening to make progress toward rolling this out for the University, including actively working on the theme necessary for Drupal 7 (yes we have to rewrite the theme to work for new Drupal versions).  This is in partnership with the rock-star team over in Web Communications.

Now more importantly, what we are trying to do with Drupal 7 is reduce our site footprint and number of individual sites.  Can you believe we have over 400 sites?  That becomes a maintenance and support headache.  With Drupal 7, there will be a new feature called Organic Groups.  This will allow us to have a smaller subset of sites, and areas and departments within the same site but still allow the finer grained control that some of you desire.  With Organic Groups, you will be able to take control of the portion of the site that is your relevant content, and have control so others cannot access that portion of the site as a Drupal administrator to modify something in error.  This is where we want to go and what makes sense for Oregon State University.

So when will this be done?  With Organic Groups, we are in the pilot stage with Information Services, and then we are going to ensure we have it done right by piloting the College of Liberal Arts.  Doing this we will ensure we understand the technology well enough to teach, document, and support it going forward so people are not left out on their own to figure things out.

Individual main colleges in working with Web Communications can look at Drupal 7 with the Doug Fir Theme (the theme that we have available for Drupal 7), and then incorporate changes for Organic Groups as we roll that out.  Science and Liberal Arts main college sites are already in Drupal 7.

Departments however, we will not be rolling out with Drupal 7 at this time, as they are to be incorporated into Organic Groups, working with your colleges, once we roll out Organic Groups.

For those sites that are in Drupal 6 and want to look like the main college sites that are using Drupal 7 Doug Fir, we are working on a version of Doug Fir for Drupal 6.

What is Doug Fir?  So besides being an evergreen confier species, Doug Fir is an OSU responsive Drupal theme.  This means that the site resizes depending on the device that you are on.  Liberal Arts is a good site to see using this theme.

For us it is imperative that we do this right and do not add to the overhead and support it would take to enable OSU.  This is why you might hear us say that we are not providing Drupal 7 to individual sites at this time.

Our rough timeline as of now is:

  • Spring and Summer to test and roll out Organic Groups.
  • Winter:  Migrate Drupal 6 sites to Drupal 7
  • 2014 Drupal 6 moves to maintenance fixes only
  • 2015 End of Life (EOL) Drupal 6

With all of this we are re-architecting the infrastructure, and then we will have Drupal 8 on the Horizon.

We hope this information helps you to be aware of the progress we are making.

Categories
All the Other Stuff Development@CWS

A New Media Space Release

On Monday, February 18th, if you hadn’t seen information about or attended the training sessions, Central Web Services and Media Services released a new version of Kaltura’s MediaSpace.  This is version 4 of MediaSpace.

The new version of MediaSpace, OSU’s open source and cloud-based media solution, integrates many requested features and some important new functionality, including privacy / access control, captioning, HTML5 support, and improved layout.

One of the best ways to understand the new features is to watch the video in MediaSpace about the new version.