Dave:
A danger I am constantly battling is becoming too tied to my tools. By tools, I mean the things I use to get work done. It could be Photoshop, CSS, a CMS, pen, paper, anything I use to do my job. Why is this so dangerous? Aren’t tools there to make our lives easier? Well, they are, but we often lock in out toolset too early on projects and it ends up hurting our product in the long run.
Sharon:
Over the years I’ve watched my wireframes go from scribbles on the back of a napkin to architectural-looking blueprints complete with gradients and icons and detailed pagination mechanisms. And, truth be told, it saddens me. The spirit in which wireframes were intended, way back when we first realized that websites had to be planned out, was to get ideas for content down on paper before we started plodding away at development. They should inform, not dictate, the information architecture, content development, and visual design processes that follow.
Mike:
I’ve been building web applications for the government for more than 10 years, so I’m more than a little familiar with Section 508 and what it means to develop a web site the complies with it. But recently, my team and I have gained a much deeper understanding of accessibility by participating in an experiential learning session led by Catharine McNally. I’ve gained new levels of realization about what really makes content on the web accessible and usable for all individuals.
Tirdad:
Today, we issued the Alpha release of OpenPublish on Drupal 7. This is truly a "developer's release" focusing on core capabilities necessary for a news and publishing website. Unlike OpenPublish releases in the past, it comes with no flashy sub-themes, no bells and whistles. This is an early release of OpenPublish, meant for testing, use, and contribution by experienced developers in the Drupal community. You won't find a "website in a box" here, and we have good reasons why.
Nate:
Have you ever tried to run across a field of grass carrying an egg in a spoon held out in front of you? If you said no, well you haven’t really lived life fully yet and you probably didn’t grow up in my hometown in NC.
Shawn:
These days, it's hard for us to walk across a conference lobby or leave a meeting without someone saying "I have a great idea for an App for OpenPublic." A lot of people are thinking about ideas for Apps or translating an existing Feature into an App. For those of you thinking about creating an App, we want to lay out the internal process we use at Phase2 as a suggested starting point for your own App.
Tony:
Beyond creating one public-facing site, organizations large and small struggle with the question of how to create, manage, and maintain multiple program specific sub-sites in an efficient and cost-effective manner. Most of the time, the need for building program sub-sites are not one-off requests, so creating a single site for every instance becomes too cumbersome and time intensive, and can adversely affect organizational branding.
Dave:
In Drupal 7, the idea of "make everything a node" doesn't quite hold water as it did in the past since content types have been abstracted as a type of fieldable entity. Here are some basic litmus tests to use when deciding which entity type should be utilized for satisfying requirements.
Nalini :
One of the things I've enjoyed about working in an agile, open source environment, is the collaborative approach to tackling problems.
Joel:
I’ve always been told the project manager is an often overlooked component of a successful enterprise project.
