Sharing Our Thoughts on All Things Digital

Having trained thousands of people how to use Drupal since 2011, I've learned a lot about what makes students tick. Most of our classes have been in-person, since it's easier to teach effectively when I can instill enthusiasm by jumping up to the whiteboard, or rush over to help someone who's stuck. In wake of COVID-19 and the rapid transition to online learning, I'm reflecting how to make virtual training as engaging as it can be. I'd like to share four key factors for effective learning that go deeper than which video-conference or chat platform to use.

Should you use Paragraphs or Layout Builder to design flexible pages for your Drupal site? Let's compare Layout Builder vs. Paragraphs from a content perspective.

Today, we'd like to honour Princeton mathematician John Conway, who passed away from COVID-19 at 82 years old. He made impressive contributions in various areas of mathematics but is most widely known for his invention of Conway's Game of Life, a cellular automaton in which simple rules give rise to surprisingly complex behaviours.

This is Part 2 of our article on how to tweak BLT so that it can work with Pantheon. If you want more information about BLT, Pantheon, and our setup, go to Part 1. In this part of the article, we'll go into the details of setting up the CI/CD system in a Drupal project with BLT and GitLab CI.  

This article will help you make tweaks so that BLT can work with Pantheon. In Part 1, we'll give you an overview of Acquia BLT, Pantheon, CI/CD pipelines and the other parts that make up the system and explain why they're important. We'll introduce a simple use case and set the groundwork for the implementation of the setup in Part 2.

Last year, I created a presentation for DrupalCamp Atlanta called "Growing the Drupal Community". Since then, it's been my hallway track conversation of choice, and everyone I talk to seems onboard with the goal of growing Drupal. As part of my role on the Drupal Association board, I'm chairing the Community & Governance Committee. We've been having lots of conversations about facilitating community growth, and I wanted to share some of what I've been thinking.

In today's hyper-connected world, offering mobile apps for your business or services have become an expectation. At Evolving Web, we have been actively researching and experimenting with cross-platform technologies. Here's an overview of the pros and cons of React Native and Flutter, two top mobile development frameworks for 2020.

Now that the year is nearing its end, I have the chance to reflect on what I learned about UX design this year, and want to share some highlights from a conference I attended last month.
 

Good ideas and innovation come from a variety of sources, and we're proud to have built a multinational team and an open culture where ideas are freely shared. Aside from Canada, our employees come from countries as diverse as Vietnam, India, Brazil, Colombia, Germany, and the Netherlands. We're happy to be working with talented people who bring their unique experiences and skill sets to our growing agency every day. Here are the stories of two developers, Robert and Jigar.

Evolving Web attended Acquia Engage in New Orleans last week, an exciting and informative three-day conference where we learned a lot about how different companies are thriving in an evolving digital landscape. We were also sponsors of the event and presented a session on how to create more effective personalization by combining UX research and a strong content strategy. Aside from the fact that New Orleans has great food, music, and people, here are other takeaways from our time in the Big Easy.

There’s never been a better time to be a Drupal user in Canada.

Since I started using Drupal in 2008, I’ve seen anecdotal evidence that Drupal is popular in Canada. Since 2006, and probably earlier, there have been active users groups in Toronto, Vancouver, and Montreal, that organize regular conferences and meetups. These local groups are key to the Drupal community’s culture of open source and knowledge sharing. So I wasn’t surprised to learn that Canada is fourth in the world in terms of active users on Drupal.org (behind the US, Great Britain, and India).

The Layout Builder is one of the most exciting new features in Drupal 8. It's a site building tool that makes it easier to configure how your content is displayed in Drupal. You can use a drag-and-drop interface to combine fields, nodes, and other content, and actually control the layout used to contain that content.

This year's edition of Drupal North has come to an end and what a great experience it has been. We got to connect with so many people in the community, share our experiences, and learn from others. Here are some of the highlights and key takeaways from the last 3 days:

Another successful day at Drupal North is now complete! This day was packed with sessions from all kinds of speakers, including our very own Jigar Mehta and Robert Ngo. Some great discussions were had amongst the Drupal community which was out in full force. Here are some of the ideas that we saw repeated throughout the day: