Blog

Last week we released 'group chats' in Drupal distribution OpenLucius, a social productivity platform. At first sight it maybe looks like a small module. But it took quite some effort to get to this release. Also because I wanted to release it open source: no concessions in (code) quality and maintainability.

Keep reading...

Communication, work and documentation gets fragmented easily - very frustrating. Nowadays every organization needs/has some kind of group chat, like Slack or Microsoft Teams. But those chats are often detached from your other team activity like: project management, social posts, files and folders.
Often group chat is just another island with lots of distractions.It doesn't have to be like that: our brand new and integrated group chats cause none of the above, but they áre:

Keep reading...

Notebooks are essential for every organization, project or team. They provide a central place for consistent documentation, so we implemented them in the latest update of OpenLucius.You can think of notebooks as simple text documents. Which facilitate a central, consistent place for all your documentation needed in your organization, department, project or team.You can also use them for example for:

Keep reading...

As stories became very popular on major social platforms, they are now also available in OpenLucius. By easily sharing stories, you can keep your members engaged, connected and build culture within your organization.You can also use them for example for:daily check-ins / stand-ups;sharing casual content / images underway;provide status updates for your projects.Current version is a starting point for stories, further features will be done based on user feedback.

Keep reading...

So we wanted to implement the great Bootstrap Toasts feature in our social productivity Drupal distro OpenLucius. HTML framework Bootstrap provides Toasts out of the box. After some trial and error, the end result seems fairly easy to use for everybody. So here is how:

Keep reading...

Last months we had more than 300 people testing the alpha-3 version of OpenLucius: a social productivity platform -build into a Drupal distro. We interviewed them and soon came to the conclusion that the base layouts needed big improvements. It was received as 'mhew..', we agreed. So we went to work and released alpha-4 today. We implemented a complete new base theme from scratch: clean, lean, fast and Bootstrap 4 based. Goal is to leave all the room for custom branding and other design needs.

Keep reading...

Nowadays I use Paragraphs in almost every Drupal project: it's very flexible, has a professional ecosystem, and content managers love it. Also, I never ran into a brick wall when it came to new user stories from product owners. To choose a background -and text color per paragraph (or row/section/block/component) is something áll Drupal content managers want. So here is an explanation on how I implement that. This works in Drupal 8 and 9.

Keep reading...

Last blog post I shared how to implement rich text in a custom Drupal 9 form, I faced similar issue with files in OpenLucius: couldn't find native, clean and complete working example for multiple files upload. So I figured it out, here is the example code:

Keep reading...

I needed to implement a rich text editor in a custom form (for the Drupal intranet distribution OpenLucius). I couldn't find a complete working solution right away, but I figured it out. So, for anybody who needs rich text editing: here is some example code.

Keep reading...

Last month we implemented a user story for our Drupal distro OpenLucius: we needed to send clean html from Drupal 9 modules. This should also be scalable, as in: different modules should be able to mail different content in a consistent template. After some time of coding and trying different modules and options within those modules, we finally got it together in a nice, clean and scalable way.

Keep reading...

As a Drupal developer / consultant I think it is important to stay up-to-date on module releases, so that I don't code unnecessarily and manage projects as efficient as possible. So here's my batch of this month -all Drupal 9 compatible!1. Super LoginEnhances Drupal's login features, with things like:

Keep reading...

During the development of Lucius I build quite a lot of features, that are embedded in the product (an open source Drupal distribution). But we figured some of these might come in handy for other Drupal site owners to use, outside of the OpenLucius Drupal install profile.So this is the first release I did: Simple Like Button, a very simple like button Drupal module that works in two steps:

Keep reading...

​I collected user feedback from which new functions were built, we also improved existing features and did a design update. The highlights:Group typesThe generic term 'group' turned out to be too abstract, we have now divided this into:Company wideTeamsProjects

Keep reading...

Last weeks we again collected user feedback from which new functions were built, we also improved existing features and design. The 4 highlights:1. Social network postsYou can now use Lucius as a social network, instantly: let everybody place Posts and create interaction with inline comments and likes.Build community and culture out-of-the-box:

Keep reading...

For our Drupal distribution we needed to redirect all anonymous users to the login page, as for now it's implemented as a closed platform for social collaboration. The Drupal 8 way didn't work anymore; we fixed it for Drupal 9 and published a working module.So if you're building a Drupal social intranet, collaboration tool or community this might help you to direct them the right way -so they don't get an unfriendly 'access denied'.

Keep reading...

While building this Drupal 9 site a few months ago we needed to handle the contact form. Normally we would use the Drupal Webform module, but that wasn't Drupal 9 ready enough at the time. So we decided to build the form ourself, AJAX based to make it as user friendly as possible and learn a few things. We published the complete code in a working, installable Drupal module. A small explanation:So you the Drupal example module contains:

Keep reading...

I would like to stay up to date on all available open source / 'contrib' Drupal modules. 'There is a module for that', this applies to many use cases within Drupal; a deadly sin to build something that already exists, or is partially available. We keep track of the latest module releases every month, including what we noticed about module updates in the past month:

Keep reading...

I recently listened to an NPR podcast, in which Patagonia founder Yvon Chouinard speaks for a fascinating half hour about the highs and lows of his entrepreneurial life. In it he has some very strong one-liners, for example: after Patagonia recovered from growing too fast he threw out "Grow strong, not fat". Very recognizable:

Keep reading...

Last week the website of Body Worlds London was launched. This happened simultaneously with the press launch of this 'life-changing exhibition'.Lucius produced the current (Drupal based) platform in one sprint (4 weeks), in the coming period we will work on expansions in new sprints. Among other things, an e-commerce ticket system will be integrated, in addition to a number of smaller expansions and optimisations.

Keep reading...

As a digital agency, we develop many platforms and websites for different clients. In the past years, we often encountered the following problem: a developer produces something on his laptop that does not work instantaneously on the laptop of another developer. We had to look for the difference in laptop software and settings. This took time, is frustrating and a complete waste of energy, because this misery can be avoided if all systems are 'containerized' through Docker.A notorious statement is:It worked on my machine

Keep reading...