Nowadays there are plenty of web hosting companies to choose from, all with different perks and different services available and more importantly, for different budgets. But which one best fits your need? How can you really know?
You need to pick a hosting company that fully supports your business needs and doesn’t hinder your way to success. There are many different factors involved such as bandwidth, your overall site speed, customer support and of course price. Here is a breakdown of the major types of hosting and some basic criteria to help you pick the perfect plan for your enterprise.
Most hosting plans fall into the following categories:
Individual plans
These are the most affordable hosting plans available these days. Most of these plans provide hosting support for only one single domain and limits on data storage, bandwidth and features apply. Individual plans are usually the best choice for webmasters who don’t expect a lot of traffic in their first year of business.
Dedicated servers
Individual plans are often called „shared hosting plans” because they share space on their hosting servers with different clients. Sometimes your business might outgrow the features and services offered by a limited individual plan – then you’ll need to upgrade to a web hosting plan that offers your very own server.
Dedicated server plans obviously cost a little bit more – Hostgator’s dedicated server plans will set you back $139 a month. If you expect you’ll need a dedicated server it’s best to pick a web hosting provider which offers both of these plans and allows transitions between them.
Reseller accounts
Reseller account plans are somewhere between individual plans and dedicated servers – these plans allow clients to set up multiple individual account plans within a single account. Most reseller account plans will set you back between $10 and $20 a month – these are best suited for companies with multiple smaller sites.
If you already decided on a hosting plan type, you need to consider certain aspects before signing up with a certain hosting provider:
If you already decided on a hosting plan type, you need to consider certain aspects before signing up with a certain hosting provider:
Your budget
While looking for more reasonable monthly rates you might come across free hosting services – you should avoid using these services as there considerable drawbacks such as unreliability and on site ads.
Customer reviews
Customer reviews are a great way to evaluate web hosting providers. These days it’s very easy to build a professional looking website full of bold promises so it’s a good idea to search for multiple customer reviews before signing up for a plan.
Customer support
Your host provider’s customer support team is crucial to building an online enterprise. Things often go wrong and you need to know they’re there for you 24/7. Not having a reliable customer support service can mean loss of income for you and your business so it’s a good idea to look for hosting companies that offer 24/7 email support, chat support and phone support before actually committing to a hosting plan.
Bandwidth and storage
Most decent hosting plans offer unlimited bandwidth and disk space, so it shouldn’t really be a concern. Although this is standard, you should be wary of any potential limitations your desired account might have.
Script support
One final thing you need to keep in mind is your hosting company’s support for web scripts. Let’s say you want to build a Word Press website – some web hosts offer built-in script packages that make the installation process a whole lot easier. Also check the number of MySQL databases your host supports – you’ll need more than one if you want to run Word Press and other programs on the same host.
Adrian Ababei / Apr 13'2016
A FTP Client is the software program you use to transfer files to and from your server or web host. Other more secure alternatives can include FTPS and SFTP.
What to look for in a FTP Client:
Having a GUI: This is a big plus when it comes to FTP clients. Some FTP clients offer a regular command-line interface but a graphical user interface is the norm nowadays – it’s also much easier to use and faster.
Supporting secure file transfer protocols: Plain FTP isn’t really secure – it doesn’t encrypt the data you’re transferring. As such, your data can become compromised en route to the server or web host. If that happens, just about anyone can read your username and password.
SFTP or SHH File Transfer Protocol is a more secure alternative to plain old FTP.
1. FileZilla
FileZilla is a free open source FTP client. FileZilla is fast and able to handle multi-threaded transfers or simultaneous transmissions. If security is your thing, FileZilla also supports FTPS and SFTP. This free FTP client is also available on all operating systems – Linux, Mac OS and Windows.
2. Cyberduck
Cyberduck can handle tons of simultaneous file transferring: Amazon S3, WebDav, SFTP and more. This FTP client features a minimalist UI, making it very easy to use. It’s available on Mac OS and Windows.
3. FireFTP
FireFTP is a Mozilla Firefox add-on with a strong SFTP/FTP client right in your browser. FireFTP is available on all platforms which run FireFox, including Linux, Mac OS and Windows.
4. Classic FTP
Classic FTP is free for non-commercial use. It features a very simple and intuitive interface, making it easy to use even for beginners. This file transfer client also features a “Compare Directories” feature which is quite useful – this feature helps you see any differences between your remote files and your local files. Classic FTP is available on Mac OS and Windows.
5. WinSCP
WinSCP is a very popular FTP client simply due to its long list of features. WinSCP can handle multiple file transfer protocols such as WebDav, FTP, SCP and SFTP. You can also make quick text edits with WinSCP’s built in text editor. Scripting support is available for power users on this Windows-only FTP client.
6. Transmit
Transmit is a very popular FTP client used by most developers on Mac OS. Although all of the FTP clients included in this list are free, Transit will set you back around $35 – it might not be the best choice for everyone but it does offer quite a few innovative features along with its user friendliness.
Adrian Ababei / Apr 12'2016
Up until now, finding open source code has been a real hassle for professional developers and beginners alike – Cocycles is here to fix that issue with a simple solution.
Cocycles launched its very own code search engine specifically built to help developers find open source code sorted by functionality. Open source code is being sorted and neatly organized according to functionality – all you need to do is describe what you want the code to do and Ocycles will find it for you.
The vast sea of open source code
GitHub reports that the amount of open source code being written doubles itself yearly, with over 31 million different repositories currently in existence. Unfortunately enough, 98% of the code written becomes obsolete within a year from being written.
Until now it was impossible to know exactly what open source code was already written and where to find it. Developers had the arduous task of searching for packages of code and then looking through libraries to find the bits and pieces they needed for their projects. But what happens when a developer just needs a single piece of code that does something – a simple JavaScript function that swaps two elements in an array? It was impossible to search through and sort the vast sea of open source code.
Searching for open source code made easy
Cocycles is a search engine specifically designed for code. Not only text or libraries but code. Users need to describe the desired functionality and with just a click of the button matching bits and pieces from open source code will appear like magic. The code itself is stored and organized by functionality, so the search engine understands what every piece of code does. NLP algorithms enable Cocycles to understand the developers’ natural language and translate these queries into code functionality. After that, the described functionality is matched to the code pieces’ from across the open source.
For example, if you search for code that swaps two elements in an array, you just need to search for „swap elements” and you’ll find different open source code bits that do precisely that.
Cocycles does not only provide interactive views of the full code implementation but it will also provide the original documents plus real usage examples and meta-data.
Cocycles is able to generate a snippet containing all functions and dependencies within one line of code – this allows devs to use it as it is.
Another feature of this code search engine includes „Cocycles Immediate” which is similar to Google’s „I’m feeling lucky” – it will instantly provide a view of the data related to your search.
Cocycles currently supports JavaScript but the developers are planning to enable it to support other languages as well.
Cocycles is and always be free or all developers. We hope it will have a good influence in the world of open source development.
Adrian Ababei / Apr 11'2016
When Swift was going open source, representatives for three major brands — Google, Facebook and Uber — were in London discussing the new language. Sources said that Google is considering making Swift a “first class” language for Android, while Facebook and Uber are also considering Swift. Google’s Android operating system now supports Java as its first-class language, and sources say Swift is not meant to replace Java, at least initially. While the ongoing litigation with Oracle is likely cause for concern, sources say Google considers Swift to have a broader “upside” than Java. Swift is open source, which means Google could adopt it for Android without changing its own open source mobile structure.
Could Google do it?
Born at Apple as a replacement to Objective C, Swift quickly found favor with developers as an easy-to-write language that shed much of the verbosity and clumsy parameters other languages have. Swift can’t be copy-pasted for any platform, though. Specifically, Android would need a runtime for Swift — and that’s just for starters. Google would also have to make its entire standard library Swift-ready, and support the language in APIs and SDKs. Some low-level Android APIs are C++, which Swift can not currently bridge to. Those would have to be re-written. Using Swift for Android is not impossible, though. Late last year, developer Romain Goyet toyed with Swift for Android — and had some success. While that project was completed well ahead of Swift being open source, it nonetheless proved that it can be done. That project used the Android NDK, which allows other languages to be loosely implemented into Android. With an open source Swift and support from Google, Android apps wouldn’t require that toolkit. All told, Google would have to effectively recreate its efforts with Java — for Swift.
Facebook and Uber
Facebook’s interest in Swift appears to be completely founded in technological advancement. A benefit of Swift is that it can serve as both a forward-facing language as well as a server-side one. For a product like Facebook, that’s beneficial; apps and servers can speak to one another seamlessly, and it potentially gives the company a wider scope to write APIs for services. And work may have already begun. A Github pull request in the Swift repository named ‘Port to Android’ was made by a Facebook employee. It’s not clear if his work was official Facebook business or not, though we have confirmed Facebook is already working with Swift internally — it’s just not known how thoroughly. Uber’s road to Swift is probably a bit cleaner than either Google or Facebook.
When could a move to Swift happen?
We think that this won’t happen anytime soon, mainly because of Android. But Swift is quickly finding its way. Several studies suggest it’s one of the fastest growing languages around, and has blown up since going open source (GitHubtells The Next Web the language is currently its 11th most popular). Demand for developers who know Swift is also exploding, which could be all the indication these three companies need to at least explore using Swift more thoroughly. Google’s onboarding for Swift would be long; it essentially has to rewrite every Android service, app and API. Google would also have to spearhead Swift support for Android — which is still only being poked and prodded at by clever developers in the Swift community. In a way, Google has already begun moving away from bits of Oracle-flavored Java. It’s now using the Open JDK for Android rather than the proprietary Java API, and may be considering a post-Java life altogether. Talks in London were said to be exploratory; Google is not yet pushing to move on from Java. While it would be a big undertaking, Swift is meant for speed and safety, and Swift’s roadmap suggests it won’t be quite as difficult to use it for other platforms in the future, specifically when it comes to C++. Facebook and Uber face similarly daunting tasks when it comes to using Swift throughout, but can –and should — wait for Google to shoulder the load with Android. If the use of Swift is going to be as deep as our sources indicate (that is, all companies want to be using it for server side and forward-facing use cases), Android support is integral. Moving to Swift for any of the companies also makes little sense unless it’s a thorough re-do, but it’s probably not quite as hard as it sounds. Services like Perfectprove that server-side Swift is ready, and it’s worth considering that Facebook’s engineers (perhaps from the Parse team) may already be working on this. IBM is also working to make Swift ready for server-side functions. But don’t expect Google, Facebook or Uber to announce Swift-y plans anytime soon. Facebook and Google both have developer conferences on the horizon, and there’s no indication that Swift will play a major part at either.
Source: http://thenextweb.com
Adrian Ababei / Apr 08'2016
I’m not a fan of color theory. But the theory has always eluded me, and, truthfully, I’ve never found it useful when trying to use color in my projects. Somewhat ironically, I’ve been finding that the better I get at choosing and using color, the better I become in the theory behind it. Of course, that doesn’t really help when you’re just starting out, does it? That’s why, in this article, you won’t see a single color wheel. Instead I’m going to show you a simple color workflow that you can use in your next web project. You will, of course, subconsciously be learning the theory along the way. So, I recommend coming back in a few months time and giving the theory another go.
Choosing A Base Color
We can see something like 10 million colors at any given time, that’s a huge amount of colors. And out of those, we need to choose one — just one color — to be the base of our website, for our brand. Everything will stem from this one color, so it’s kind of important.
How to choose a starting color
Now, picking a color out of the blue (pun intentional) would be quite easy, but we’re not going to do that. For any project in which you’re having contact with clients, you should try to justify as many of your choices as you can. If you don’t, it’ll be a case of your favorite color versus their favorite color. They’re the client. They’re paying you. They will win. Don’t think too much about it. Just make sure you have some kind of reasoning behind your color choice (and every choice, for that matter). It’ll make you look good.
Tips on choosing a starting color
• Use what you have. If the client has a logo with an established color, that will usually be your starting color. • Eliminate your competitors’ colors. If one of your main competitors has a strong brand color, don’t copy it if you can help it. Find your competitors’ colors to eliminate them from your own color schemes. • Think about your target audience. The colors of a website for a pizza shop would sure be very different from the colors for a kids club. Think about who will be using the website and how you want them to feel (excited, serious, taken care of, etc.). • But don’t default to stereotypes. If you’re designing a website for young girls, you don’t have to use pink. Avoid clichés to gain credibility. • Play a word game. If you’re struggling, write down any words that you associate with the client’s business. This list should give you some ideas for colors. If you’re really struggling, hop on any website about color meanings and see which fits best. You should now have a base color in mind for the design. It should be something simple like red, green, blue, yellow or pink. We’ll get to the exact shade next. Let’s say you choose blue.
Choosing A (Nice) Base Color
Instead of messing about with Photoshop’s color-picker to find a nice shade of blue, we’re going to steal like an artist and use other people’s design choices to help us out. First, go to Dribbble.com and Designspiration.com and click on the “Colors” link in both. You can use this as the next step to find the right shade of blue. For a fresh and energetic brand, go for one of the lighter, brighter blues (one of the top five options). For something a bit more corporate and serious, the bottom five should be a better fit. Choose a shade from each website to see actual designs that use that color. You can then use any of CSS-Tricks’ color-picking techniques to grab the exact colors right in the browser. Not only will you see different versions of your base color, but you will easily see colors that match.
Creating A Strong Color Palette
All right, you should now have a HEX value for your color. Now we’re going to make a palette out of that color. And it’s easier than you think. The problem with this kind of color palette is that applying it to a real design isn’t very practical. Most palettes have way more colors than you’d ever need, especially considering that we need to add an average of three neutral colors to every scheme: • white, • dark gray, • light gray (optional). If you tried to add five or six colors to the neutrals, it would be a mess. All you really need are two colors: • a base color, • an accent color (we’ll get to this in a jiffy). If you can create a website using only these five colors, you’ll get a much better result than if you were to go overboard with complementaries, split-complementaries, triads and the rest.
Finding your accent
Your accent color will be used in very small amounts on your website, usually as a call to action. So, it needs to stand out. Your next step is to go to Paletton.com and type your HEX code into the color box. From here, you can find your accent in two ways. First, you could click the “Add Complementary”! That yellow there? That’s your accent. Alternatively, if you don’t like the color it has generated, you can click around the icons at the top to find something more suitable. Personally, I quite like the red that comes up under the triad icon, so I’m going to use that for our scheme. There is, of course, science and stuff behind what Paletton is doing; but, for now, let’s put a pin on it. You’ll learn the theory a bit later, and all will become clear. So, below is our color scheme as it is now. We’ve got a nice base color and a shot of an accent. Let’s add white to the mix, because white is always good. All that’s missing now are some grays.
Adding the gray
For most of my web projects, I find having two shades of gray to be infinitely useful — one dark, one light. You’ll use them a lot. The dark is usually used for text, and the light for when you need subtle differentiation against all that white (usually for backgrounds). You can choose your grays in one of two ways: • You could use Dribbble.com and Designspiration.com again to find a nice gray from your previous results that matches your base color. But usually it’s easier to type blue website in the search bar, which will show more grays in the results. • If you have Photoshop or the like, you could use Erica Schoonmaker’s technique to harmonize your grays with the base color.
Creating harmonious grays
To get our shiny new harmonious grays using Erica’s method, we’ll start by picking two default grays out of a hat. Then, follow these steps: 1. Create two shapes and fill them with #4b4b4b and #f5f5f5. 2. Insert a color fill layer above your two shapes. 3. Change that fill to your base color. 4. Set the blending mode to overlay, and bring the opacity right down to between 5 and 40% (in the example below, it’s set at 40%). 5. Use the color picker and copy your new values. I should point out that this method works exceptionally well when your overlay color is blue. For any other color, you will want to either bring the opacity right down to 5 to 10% or stick with your original grays. Our color scheme is complete.
Applying Your Color Scheme
Now that we’ve got our color scheme, it’s time to apply it. This is a whole other article unto itself. Tip: If you struggle with color, a good trick is to create your website layout in grayscale first. Figure out the hierarchy, and then experiment with the color later. Our accent, red, stands out beautifully against the base color. This is used in very small areas, for buttons and in the icons. The less you use this color, the more it will stand out. The dark gray is used for the text, logo and icon outlines. (Don’t skip putting the colors in your icons. It’s a small detail but makes a big difference.) The white and light gray form the background. The light gray doesn’t have to be here at all, but I find it is another small detail that really makes a website look polished.
Conclusion
As you can see, we really don’t need much more than the palette we’ve created today. But that doesn’t mean you are limited to these colors! As you’re designing, you might decide it’s appropriate to introduce some more colors to your palette. That’s totally fine! As long as you’re attentive, you can use the steps above to find more colors that work with your scheme. The beauty of this is that the more you do it, the better you’ll become at choosing colors. You’ll get to know what works together and what doesn’t. Sometimes, the method above will yield results that are less than desirable, so feel free to tweak things. Play around and have fun learning color theory, without the theory!
Source: https://www.smashingmagazine.com
Adrian Ababei / Apr 07'2016
User interface, also known simply as UI is one of the most important considerations when designing any product. Graphic designers as well as industrial designers use and implement UI design principles but user interface design is becoming more and more important in the digital world.
By following user interface design principles, web developers can make their websites or apps easier and more pleasurable to use. Nowadays the internet is flooded with engaging websites and apps – competition is very high so if you want to make the best out of your user interface and create satisfying user experience.
For user interface design companies and web developers good UI design means starting with basic elements such as fonts and colours, and ultimately to every component present on the web page or in the app. Here is a list of UI design principles which will help you along the way to create attractive and most of all effective UI design for your projects.
Following UI Design Principles
The idea behind UI design is simple: it should be centred around the future user. Every UI designer’s number one priority is to understand the intended user and his or her expectations.
That being said, it’s a good idea to begin with an analysis of potential users and their expectation. You can begin with either informal or formal research plus a lot of brainstorming. Defining your goals for the user interface itself is paramount to your project’s success in the long run.
Here is a list of questions you should take into consideration before beginning to work on the user interface design:
What does the user want from it?
Is your user comfortable with technology?
How does the user engage with the user interface?
Once the research part of the task is done, the UI designer can begin building it – afterwards real user testing is needed in order to measure results and make alterations.
UI Design Principles Prioritize Clarity
Very clear and specific features are the backbone of creating good UI design. Humans and users tend to ignore things they don’t understand – this allowed us to prioritize on things we consider important instead of wasting time on things we don’t understand.
When it comes to user interface design, the principles are the same – most users will simply ignore certain elements such as icons which they don’t immediately understand. Features without a clear purpose are also ignored. UI designers and user interface design companies need to focus on what the user wants or what the user needs from a website.
One great example of UI design clarity is Google’s decision to collapse the Gmail menu under a general grid icon. Visually speaking, it looks clean and quite appealing but this small change created many problems for certain users – they couldn’t find the features they needed and some of them didn’t even notice the new icon. When clarity is lost, user experience takes a dive!
UI Design Principles Imply Intuitive Layouts
Users need to be able to find the information they need without looking or thinking too hard. Every UI designer needs to create layouts that tells the user how to use the site’s features and how to navigate through it – by doing this you’re creating a better user experience and it also enables users to focus on getting what they need from the web page or app.
UI design companies need to consider the real life end users when building websites or apps. Sidebars, menus and other navigation tools should be easy to use and clear.
User interface design consistency is also important when building intuitive layouts – all elements and features need to be consistent in terms of use, colour, shape, font, etc. This way, users will be able to use them properly time and time again.
Instant Feedback is Important for UI design
Instant-feedback messages can boost your user experience. These messages are essential to keeping your users informed about their actions or what the website is doing – error messages, loading messages or icons, instant updates are essential to providing your users with feedback. Good UI design includes instant feedback for any of the user’s actions.
UI Design Defaults Should be Productive
A lot of users don’t even bother to change default features or settings on their interfaces. The iPhone default ringtone is a great example of this – the default setting is neutral. Auto-fill forms can save your users plenty of time by filling in information on their behalf.
Guided Actions
Instead of simply leaving users to guess on how they should use a feature why not remove all the guesswork by showing them how to complete certain actions? Good UI design always leads users towards a satisfying and productive experience. Features can be emphasized through size, colour, text or even extra buttons.
UI Design & Basic Design Elements
Many user interface designers think basic design elements can’t be innovative or fresh. This is false – good UI design implies using as many basic design elements as possible – these elements have a huge impact on your user experience. Here is a list of basic design elements which you need to keep in perspective:
Text size – Text weight has a great impact on shaping your user interface. For example, static text may require your users to zoom in, which can lead to a frustrating user experience.
Screen resolution – Good UI design works with varying resolutions. Poor resolution choices can have a negative impact on usability and readability.
Distortion – User interface designers need to avoid any disruption or distortion of visuals as it can impede your user from engaging with the user interface properly.
Contrast – Contrast makes all elements easy to engage and read. UI design should be accessible for users suffering for colour blindness for example. Keep in mind that low-contrast visuals can cause people with minor vision loss to struggle before finally leaving your website.
Conclusions on UI Design Principles
We are all becoming more and more engaged in the online experience so UI design is becoming more important for our daily activities. By following these simple UI design principles, UI designers can make a positive impact on most aspects of our lives.
Adrian Ababei / Apr 06'2016
Although many icon font sets are readily available for UI design use, sometimes you might want to get a bit creative and design your own custom icon font. Here’s how you can do it for free.
If you already have some icons designed and you want to turn them into an icon font set or you want to combine icons from different icon font sets just check out our list of 6 free icon font generators:
1. Fontello
Fontello is a really easy to use platform which you can use to generate icon font sets. To create an icon font, all you need to do is drag your SVG files onto the „Custom Icons” area. The best thing about Fontello is that you can also incorporate other icons from free sets with the click of a button.
2. IcoMoon App
The IcoMoon App offers thousands of already designed icons which you can edit, incorporate or build sets with. You’re also able to import your own icons into the app before generating a new set.
3. Icon Vault
In order to generate an icon font with Icon Vault you need to download their template package. Afterwards you can just follow the template’s instructions and when you’re done you can upload your work back to Icon Vault – Simple, easy and fun!
4. Pictonic Fontbuilder
Pictonic Fontbuilder allows you to generate your icon font set from over 2700 free and paid icons available. Around 300 of these icons are free for use but the rest are not very expensive. If you want to try Pictonic Fontbuilder you need to know that an account is required before using the platform.
5. Glypher
Glypher is one of our favourite icon font builders. The UI features an “icon shelf” on the right side of the screen where you can search for free icons to use. This platform also features a drag and drop system which makes building your set a whole lot easier. You can also upload your own SVG icons by simply clicking an empty icon box. Each icon font on Glypher can have up to 88 icons – if you premium accounts allow more than 88 icons in one font.
6. Fontastic
Generating an icon font with Fontastic is easy – simply select your desired icons from the available free icons sets or upload your own SVG icons. Once you’re done, click on the “Publish” tab and you’ll be able to either download your icon font or host it on Fontastic’s Icon Cloud. You’ll first need to sign up for an account with Fontastic before you can use their platform.
Adrian Ababei / Apr 05'2016
PHP has been the fourth most popular coding language in the world for seven years straight. More than 200 million websites and around 82% of public websites are powered by PHP.
PHP 7 Released
PHP took a huge leap forward with the release of the first major update since 2004. PHP 7 boasts massively improved performance – up to three times better performance than PHP 5.6 when running WordPress.
PHP 7 boasts other changes as well - return type declarations, reduced memory usage, the spaceship operator and many more.
PHP also features some breaking changes such as the removal of magic quotes and the PHP safe mode as well as a number of new reserved keywords.
Web apps such as WordPress needed a few touches in order to be able to support PHP 7 but now it’s fully compatible with the new programming language.
While PHP 7 has been released very recently, it may take a few years until it’s widely adopted by the majority of websites. Most applications tend to take a few years to adapt to upgrades but we hope that the increased performance will make these upgrades come sooner.
PHP 7 comes with a new and improved version of the Zend Engine, featuring numerous perks such as:
General performance: The new PHP 7 is up to three times as fast as the older version
Zero cost asserts
Anonymous Classes
Return and Scalar Type Declaration
The null coalescing operator
Removal of old and unsupported SAPIs and extensions
Secure random number generator
Many fatal errors converted to Exceptions
Improved Exception hierarchy
Consistent 64 bit support
Abstract Syntax Tree
Memory usage is significantly reduced
Adrian Ababei / Apr 05'2016
Drupal recently released a new set of foundational modules which can improve Drupal development and Drupal’s workflow. The modules range from full-site preview, user experience improvements, auditability, multi site content staging, content staging and more. Here’s a few tips and examples on improving your overall drupal development workflow:
When to use these drupal modules
Here’s when and why you should use these modules for your drupal development projects.
Coss site content staging – You may want to synchronize content from one site to another. The first website can be a staging site where your content editors make certain changes and the second one can be the live production site. Content changes can be previewed on the stage site and then published on the second website.
Content branching – If you want to launch a new product you might want to create a new version of your site with a section dedicated to featuring your new product. With this new section you can introduce new menu items, upgrade pages and introduce new pages.
Previewing your website – When building a new section on your site, you’ll want to preview it before going live with it – this is content staging on a single site.
Offline browse and publish – Sites should be functional even in offline mode and record any forms or changes – when the connection is restored everything can be syncronized.
Content recovery – People often delete things they really didn’t want to delete, you should give users the ability to recover any content that has been deleted.
Audit logs – Certain companies or organisations may want to have all content revisions to be logged in order to be reviewed. Certain revisions or actions can be linked to specific users, thus making employees accountable for their actions within the content management system.
Drupal development technical details
The cases above have some similar traits:
Content needs to be synchronized between two spaces – from site to site or from backend to frontend
Revision history is kept for all changes
Content revision conflicts are tracked
These features started off as a single module called Deploy. Nowadays Drupal development makes use of a large number of different modules:
Deploy
Multiversion
Replication
Workspace
RELAXed Web Services
Trash
Multiversion for Drupal development
The Multiversion module keeps track of any conflicts in the revision tree, introduces the concept of parent revisions and adds revision support for all content entities built in Drupal, not just block content and nodes.
Replication module for drupal development
The replication module is built on top of the multiversion module – it will help users with revision informations in order to determine which revisions are missing for a certain location. This model also allows drupal developer to replicate content between a source and a target location.
Workspace for drupal development
This light module allows full site previews and single site content staging. The user interface allows your average drupal developer to create special workspaces and to switch between them as needed.
RELAXed Web Services
The RELAXed Web Services module allows cross-website content staging. This is a more extensive REST API for Drupal development with full support for UUIDs, parent revisions, file attachments and translations. These features are essential for content staging.
Deploy module for Drupal development
Before the release of Drupal 8, the Deploy module took care of everything related to content staging – top to bottom. After Drupal 8’s release, Deploy was rewritten to provide a user interface on top of the Workspace and Replication modules. This user interface allows your average drupal developer to manage content deployments between different workspaces on a single website or across multiple websites.
Trash module
The Trash module is used to restore content related entities marked as deleted. It basically works like a recycle bin, displaying all entities from all supported content types where the default revision is flagged as deleted.
Synchronizing your websites with an API
If a Drupal website has RELAXed Web Services installed and enabled, it will behave and look like the REST API from CouchDB. This allows a drupal developer to use CouchDB tools such as PouchDB.
Conclusions
All of these great improvements that can boost your drupal development workflow, effectively allowing you to create better products faster. Check them out!
Adrian Ababei / Apr 04'2016