This isn’t something I’ve had a chance to try yet, but after seeing Shawn’s presentation at Drupal Summit, I’m certainly very interested and would like to try setting up a similar CI/automated test framework.

Running tests in the browser is time consuming. In this post we’ll look at ways to automate the testing process. By the time you’re finished reading, you’ll know how to receive notifications with test results for your custom code each time you make a commit to your remote version control repository. And you’ll also know how to configure daily test runs that cover all available tests including core and contrib.

via A Guide to Simplified Automated Drupal Testing | Affinity Bridge | Vancouver Drupal Developers.

Donor Rally is another Drupal distribution that I’m quite intrigued by. I hope we have an opportunity to give it a look on a project sometime.

Open source software grows up so fast these days. This entry marks this release of Donor Rally Alpha 1, which offers a host of improvements, a winsome new theme, and a few feature enhancements that will help nonprofit organizations use the devotion of their supporters to expand the reach of their fundraising operations.

via Meet Donor Rally Alpha | OpenSourcery – Technology for Good.

I saw the render and hide functionality demoed at PNW Drupal Summit. I think these functions are going to find their way into my workflow very quickly.

For Drupal module developers, hooks get all the glory, and for good reason. Hooks make our lives much easier when it comes to figuring out how to implement a client’s complex business requirement.

But the unsung heroes in Drupal’s API are its rich suite of utility functions. With each iteration of Drupal, developer feedback and community effort have added to that list functions that increase our efficiency and help make Drupal a better CMS framework.

via New API Functions That Rock in Drupal 7 | www.britesparkz.com.

We continue to get closer to that Drupal 7.0 release. We aren’t yet looking at using it for any critical projects, but I have begun taking a look at it for some pet projects. If you haven’t taken a look at what’s new in Drupal 7, you should install it and give it a try; better yet, come to the Lethbridge Drupal Meet-up on Thursday to see it demonstrated live.

Following three beta releases, and with tons of bugs fixed and user interface improvements added, we are proud to present to you the first release candidate of Drupal 7.0. Although there are still a few known issues that we are working on fixing, we are confident that our code is stable enough for wider testing by the community.

via Drupal 7.0 RC 1 Released | drupal.org.

A quick and practical example of EntityFieldQuery in Drupal 7. If you want a more in-depth look at EntityFieldQuery, check out Marc Ingram’s presentation from Drupal Camp Alberta 2010.

Enter EntityFieldQuery. This piece of hotness tucked into Drupal 7’s entity.inc lets you query data objects based on their entity type, bundle, entity properties, field values, and more. When executed it can return the actual objects themselves or a count of how many it found. It’s a piece of genius that has already saved us once in the development of Drupal Commerce.

via Checking out EntityFieldQuery | Commerce Guys.

I think I finally understand why so many more themes exist for WordPress than Drupal.

However, consider that artistic web designers, those that actually figure out how the page should look; If they know anything about implementation are going to know HTML and some CSS. They’re regular readers of A List Apart, which is all about the new hotness in HTML and CSS. For them, the way Drupal treats HTML as simply a means and not an ends is like nails on a chalkboard. They respond just as violently to it as Drupal’s PHP developers do to, say, WordPress’s "just dump everything into the template file, even if that means SQL" design. (Note: I’m sure WordPress developers will defend their architectural decisions; I am just noting that Drupal developers are horribly turned off by it, much as HTML designers are horribly turned off by Drupal’s template design.)

via Drupal’s audience priorities | GarfieldTech.