Drupal login does nothing for free#

Event has a node reference field called 'Attendees' (field_attendees) that references Attendee types. If you write documentation, coming into this project fresh, it's probably going to end up something more like this:īackReference module maintains one-to-one relationships between node reference fields.įor example, let's say you have two content types: Attendee and Event.

This means that given a field instance of field_reference1, if you add a reference to NodeBeta to NodeAlpha's field_reference1 and NodeBeta has an instance of field_reference1, then NodeAlpha will be added to NodeBeta's instance of field_reference1. If the module developer writes documentation, it's probably going to end up something like this:īackreference Module provides a nodeapi interface to maintain 1-1 relationships between all shared instances of a nodereference field. Perfect! You are at exactly the right spot in your learning curve to write and fix documentation! Why? Because you know what someone in your shoes finds confusing! It's win-win-win! 'But I don't know what I'm doing yet!' )Īnd often, module maintainers are willing to bend over backwards to help you if you're willing to help with documentation. And If karma isn't a powerful enough incentive, remember that the next person might be you again, six months from now. You have to figure it out anyway, so why not? By writing it down for others, you both cement the knowledge in your head since you have to 'teach' it, and you also do your Drupal karma good deed to help the next person not have to struggle as much as you did. Write the documentation that's missing yourself, as you figure it out.

This is bad, especially in a project with as much 'tribal knowledge' as Drupal. You're likely to end up with a frowny face against you karma-wise which makes people far less willing to help you in the future.

Realize that from the module developer's standpoint, you're yelling at them about code that you just got for free and that they spent an enormous amount of their own personal (and in most cases unpaid) time on.

This doesn't tend to go over well at all. Make sure they know how totally unacceptable the state of their documentation is and demand that they fix the situation. Take your aforementioned cursing and spitting about the lack of documentation to an irate blog post or the developer's issue queue. The community's collective hours spent on face-smashing tends to grow exponentially the more popular and less documented a project is. But it does nothing to improve the situation for the next poor schmuck who comes along and has to repeat the process. Curse and spit at Drupal, at the module maintainer, at the world! Fix your problem, then move on with your life. Spend the next several hours smashing your face into a wall figuring out how the darn thing works. And, because Drupal is a largely volunteer-driven open source community, you might find that documentation to be. This usually is some combination of playing around and, when that fails, reading the documentation. Whatever the challenge, you're going to have to dive in and figure out how some module or feature works. These are all challenges I've run across in my day job and needed to figure out. Or possibly you've been tasked with adding recurring billing to an Ubercart store. Maybe it's trying to figure out how the heck to CCK works internally. Perhaps it's adding Views integration for a contributed module. Drupal is an ever-changing landscape, so it happens fairly often that you come upon a challenge you've never had to do before.

Drupal login does nothing for free#