Drupal (core)

Bing 410 Gone Microsoft recently killed their search engine's public API responsible for accepting sitemap ping requests (those where you let search engines know your XML sitemap's content has changed). They did so completely unannounced leading to ... [More] logs filling up and users unsurprisingly assuming their sitemap submitting code was somehow at fault. It wasn't. It became apparent that this was a step for Microsoft towards switching to the IndexNow protocol instead. IndexNow supplements XML sitemaps With IndexNow you now can quickly notify all participating search engines (Bing, Yandex) about a change that happened on your page eliminating the need to wait for them to come and scan your sitemap. The benefits of this approach are Instant submission of changes including creating, deleting and updating of content An alleged greener approach to indexing content as sitemap scanning requests get deprioritized Only one search engine needs to be notified and it will notify the others for you Still, this new approach is more of a supplement than a revolution: Can I submit all URLs for my site? Use IndexNow to submit only URLs having changed (added, updated, or deleted) recently, including all URLs if all URLs have been changed recently. Use sitemaps to inform search engines about all your URLs. Search engines will visit sitemaps every few days. [Less]

Everything you need to know about Website Accessibility Subramanyam 15 Feb, 2022 Every user who visits your website should have the right to a ... [More] comprehensible user experience, no matter their abilities or the lack of it. This isn’t just our opinion, but in some countries it’s the law. But that isn’t the only reason to make sure your website meets accessibility standards. According to a report on disabilities, 1 billion people live with a disability, which is equivalent to 15% of the world's population. People with physical, visual, cognitive, neurological, motor and hearing disabilities will be using your website. While it feels off-putting to use the numbers as a reason, that’s a significant amount of potential visitors. Making your website usable for everyone is worth the effort. The gap between accessible websites and those that aren’t usually happens in the budget. Making your website inclusive simply takes more effort during development and more effort means more money. But, when done strategically and with a CMS like Drupal, it doesn’t have to be a significant bump in effort. Drupal core supports design and development of websites that comply with WCAG 2.0 and ATAG 2.0 standards. In fact, there is a whole community (the Drupal Accessibility community) dedicated to improving and keeping up-to-date with the accessibility standards. You could even say accessibility is a core strength of Drupal. That’s all great if you’re about to rebuild your website, but what if you’re working with your existing one? Let’s dig into web accessibility and how to know if your website is accessible or not. What is Web Accessibility? Web accessibility is a very important aspect in web development. In layman’s terms, web accessibility is ensuring your website can be accessed by everyone regardless of their disabilities. Although it’s often assumed, accessibility isn’t just about people with disabilities. As an able-bodied person, there are circumstances that you may find yourself in – situational or temporary - which can affect how you access the website. Why is Web Accessibility Important Another misconception is that web accessibility is mostly used to create a positive brand image. But there are a lot more tangible benefits to having an accessible website than many think. Increase your audience reach Avoid legal issues (remember the lawsuit against Beyoncé back in 2019 when her website wasn’t compliant with ADA (Americans with Disabilities Act)) Improving user experience for accessibility also means you are improving your overall UX score Improve your website rank on search engines That said, the recent growth and popularity of purpose-led brands does indicate that being inclusive can be a key brand differentiator. Conformance and the Levels The World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) developed and released a set of guidelines - the WCAG (Web Content Accessibility Guidelines) that govern the standards of web accessibility. The success criteria of these standards (WCAG 2.0, WCAG 2.1 and WCAG 2.2) have three levels of conformance: Level A Level AA Level AAA Level A - This is the minimum level of accessibility which covers the most basic requirements of accessibility features. Level AA - This level requires everything in Level A plus a few additional requirements. When a website conforms to this level, it is a big deal because many of the biggest accessibility barriers are cleared. Level AAA - The AAA level requires everything in Levels A and AA plus a few additional requirements. This level is hard to be achieved by most websites and it is the highest level of accessibility under the WCAG standards. How do you know if your website is accessible? WCAG has set 4 principles and 13 Guidelines for Web Accessibility. Failing to comply with any one of these four principles will make your website inaccessible to users with disabilities. These principles are known as POUR principles Perceivable Operable Understandable Robust Perceivable - All of the guidelines grouped under perceivable revolve around making sure that people are able to find your content. Operable - You need to make sure your website is operable. People must be able to use your website. Understandable - People must be able to understand your website. Robust - Your website should be compatible with all browsers, operating systems and devices. Accessibility Guidelines Now each principle has its own set of guidelines that we are going to discuss about here: Perceivable Guidelines 1.1) Text Alternatives - The first Perceivable guideline, perceivable 1.1 requires that all non-text content has a text alternative. This means images need to have meaningful alternative text. Alternative text should describe what is going on in the image. 1.2) Time Based Media - Perceivable 1.2 requires that there are alternative options for time-based media. Add closed captions on video for the people who are hearing impaired. Close captions can help give them context.   1.3) Adaptable - Perceivable 1.3 requires that content can be presented in different ways without losing the context. 1.4) Distinguishable - The last guideline for perceivable, is Perceivable 1.4, and it requires that the content can be separated from its background visually. This means there should be sufficient contrast between text and background color. The text needs to have a minimum contrast ratio of 4.5. Operable Guidelines 2.1) Keyboard Accessible - The first Operable guideline 2.1 requires that all parts of the website can be accessed using only the keyboard. 2.2) Enough Time - Operable 2.2 requires that people are given enough time to use the content on your website. You have to give the user time to finish the task without feeling rushed. You also need to consider that different people have different abilities, and some may be a little slower in getting things done. 2.3) Seizures and Physical Reactions - Operable 2.3 requires that the content is not designed in a way that will cause seizures. Animations and videos should not flash more than 3 times per second. 2.4) Navigable - Operable 2.4 requires that people can navigate the website and understand where they are in the website. All links, inputs and buttons on the page should have a focused state to indicate where a person is on the screen for when users are navigating using tabs. 2.5) Input Modalities - The last guideline for Operable, is Operable 2.5 and it requires that all parts of the website can be accessed using other input devices besides a keyboard. Basically, you’ll want to make sure that your website works with a mouse, touch screen devices and speech to text. Understandable Guidelines 3.1) Readable - Understandable 3.1 requires that content is readable and easy to understand. Use simple language and try to avoid jargon. 3.2) Predictable - Understandable 3.2 requires that web pages are predictable in how they appear and operate. The content is going to be different on each page, but the main structure of the page should remain the same. Navigation, order of links and search should always be in the same place on the page. 3.3) Input Assistance - Understandable 3.3 requires that it is easy for people to correct and avoid mistakes.  Robust Guidelines 4.1) Compatible - There is only one guideline under robust , and that is 4.1. This requires that the website should be compatible with all browsers, operating systems and devices. This is achievable by writing valid, semantic HTML. If for some reason the website still needs some accessibility help, add some ARIA attributes. How to Test Accessibility? Lastly, you want to incorporate accessibility testing into your website management process. For example, you can tab through the pages to test for keyboard accessibility. Luckily, there are many tools available on internet for automating your testing: Wave Lighthouse Reference Sites Refer the below W3C sites for the standards and guidelines. https://www.w3.org/ https://www.w3.org/WAI/ https://www.w3.org/WAI/standards-guidelines/wcag/ https://www.w3.org/WAI/WCAG21/quickref/ Everybody deserves equal access to information. When your website complies with the standards laid out by W3C, you are not only widening the reach of your audience but also ensuring that you offer an inclusive experience. To learn more about how we at Specbee ensure web accessibility powered by Drupal, get in touch with us today. We’d love to talk.  Drupal Development Drupal Drupal Planet Leave us a Comment   Recent Blogs Image Everything you need to know about Website Accessibility Image Getting Started with Lando and Drupal 9 Image Top Drupal 9 Modules You Absolutely Need For your Drupal Project Want to extract the maximum out of Drupal? TALK TO US Featured Success Stories Upgrading the web presence of IEEE Information Theory Society, the most trusted voice for advanced technology Great Southern Homes, one of the fastest growing home builders in the United States, sees greater results with Drupal 9 Upgrading and consolidating multiple web properties to offer a coherent digital experience for Physicians Insurance View all Case Studies [Less]

The pandemic has accelerated digital disruption in every sector, and possibly none more so than higher education. Faced with expectations to pivot on a moments notice with websites that need to do more heavy lifting than ever before, colleges and ... [More] universities are taking a closer look at the possibilities and the pitfalls of their current sites.  New inquiries are serving to sharpen the focus on what works and how to ensure that this vital resource is fueling current strategies and positioning colleges and universities for what’s next.  [Less]

Boost your Drupal SEO rankings by adopting a question and answer format for your content and utilising FAQPage markup.

Today we are talking about Leading a Drupal Team in Government with Abigail Bowman and Laura Larrimore. www.talkingDrupal.com/334 Topics John - Kids listening to show – Alexa and silly songs – Lando pantheon recipe Abby - Paper room craft – GOTW ... [More] Pokemon Arceus Laura - Olympics Nic - Storybook FL Drupal Camp Abby’s Game of the Week Getting involved in management Current projects uspto.gov developer.uspto.gov atf.gov Uniqueness of government Building and maintaining a strong team Flexibility Onboarding Training Buy in from executives Managing changing expectations Resources Patent and Trademark Office API The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms & Explosives (pre-show) Edison AC/DC Movie: “The Current War” Paper craft kit Pokemon Legends: Arceus Menu patches More on Drupal in Gov with Abby: Episode216 Basics of government contracting USA Jobs Resume video Guests Laura Larrimore Hosts Nic Laflin - www.nLighteneddevelopment.com @nicxvan John Picozzi - www.epam.com @johnpicozzi Abby Bowman - www.linkedin.com/in/arbowman @abowmanr MOTW Menu breadcrumb This module allows you to use the menu the current page belongs to for the breadcrumb, generating breadcrumbs from the titles of parent menus. [Less]

An examination of the humble "list" and how content can be modelled in Drupal to be flexible, simple and editor friendly.

Fields in Drupal 9 can be defined in code, or they can be defined in configuration. Both techniques have their uses and advantages. Typically code fields apply to all bundles of the entity type, as so-called base fields, while config fields apply only to a single bundle.

Thank you so much to everyone who participated in the second annual Gift of Open Source event hosted by Pantheon! In December we asked for the #Drupal community to be part of something bigger by contributing to open source. The event’s ultimate goal ... [More] was to provide resources to engage contributors to give back to the open source community and mentorship to encourage first-time contributors to participate. During the event, which occurred from 1 December to 31 December, there were 185 total registrations. Participants from 23 countries submitted 102 contributions, which led to a $1,500 donation from Pantheon to both the Drupal Association and WordPress Foundation! Those who contributed helped make the web a more inclusive, efficient, and impactful experience for all. Thank you to the following contributors: Abhisek Mazumdar Erin Fogel Marius Scurtescu AmyJune Hineline Esaya Jokonya Max Bronsema Anna Mykhailova Evaldas PopArt Studio Avi Schwab Gale Wallace Rick Williams Bram Drieson Gaurav Kapoor Ryan Marks Brian Lewis Hansa Pandit Shelane French Carly Gerard Ivan Trokhanenko Simon Lindsay Cindy Williams Jan Sumit Kumar Clayton Dewey Katie Richards Surabhi Gokte David Nattriss Kevin Porras Tanisha Kalia Doug Schaapveld Kurt Trowbridge Tyler Shuster We cannot thank you enough for participating in the 2021 Gift of Open Source! Your contributions truly helped make a difference, and we look forward to participating in the event again in 2022. [Less]

With logical grouping, appropriate field formats, and polished workflows, we can make the entry process for even the longest forms manageable and intuitive.   

A blog is the part of a website where authors publish posts on a specific topic. It may be a separate part of a web page or actually cover the entire content of a particular site. Both private and corporate ... [More] portals often have blogs. Due to their popularity, we've prepared a simple way to place your blog in Droopler, our Drupal distribution. Blog in Drupal There is a Blog module in Drupal that allows authorized users to run a blog. Blog posts may be public or private, depending on which roles have access to them. It's worth noting that the Blog module has been removed from the core of Drupal 8 and is now a contrib module. It used to be included in the core of Drupal 7 and earlier versions. The Blog module adds to the main navigation menu the link that takes the visitor to the page that displays the latest blog posts by all users on the site. There is the Create content link – available to authorized persons – in the navigation menu, which takes the user to the page with the link to the post creation form, as well as the My blog link that displays the given user's posts. The Blog module also creates a block with recent posts, while Drupal provides an RSS feed for each post. How to create a blog in Droopler Droopler is a Drupal-based website builder where a blog is available as an optional add-on. It may be enabled during or after the installation by turning on the d_blog module. To add a new post, go to the /node/add/blog_post page where you'll see this form:   The form includes the following fields: Title The title of the article. Language The language of the article (only for multilanguage pages). Blog teaser The short introduction that'll be displayed in the post listing view. Blog main image The main image that'll appear at the top of the article and on the post listing page. Blog sections The main content of a post created with the use of Drupal paragraphs (that is – different sections). Blog category The list of tags. The created post will appear on the /blog page. Droopler uses the Pathauto module. For this reason, all posts have this simple path: /blog/{post_title} This is what the blog page looks like without sections:   Customization A keen eye will definitely notice the "+" symbol in the screenshot above. This is the Geysir module's feature that makes adding and organising paragraphs easier than usual. To add a new section, just click on the "+" and then select any paragraph you want.   The list of paragraphs is long, which translates into many available options for creating content on your blog. The full demo of all paragraphs, along with all the possible configurations, is available in Droopler documentation. A post may contain, for example, the following sections: Blog text – the main text part. Blog image – the images between text sections. Text page - the section containing text and CTA (call to action). Form – the section with a form. Using only the paragraphs above, we've managed to create the following page:   As you can see, the potential is quite considerable. By dedicating some time, you can create a variety of posts, the layout of which may be adapted to the individual preferences of the author or to the post itself. A simple way to create a blog A blog is a must-have for many website. Running a company or personal blog brings many benefits and increases recognition. It also allows you to share insights and news in a way that is accessible to readers. Droopler minimizes the effort required to create a blog that works well. In addition, it provides many options for personalizing the content so as to adapt it to the individual preferences of the author or to the company requirements. The extensive documentation makes it much easier to familiarize yourself with the many possibilities offered by paragraphs. The Geysir module fits perfectly into other elements that make up the blog and definitely makes it easier to create posts. [Less]