Agenda

Registration will start at 8am. We'll have a full continental breakfast including coffee, pastries, and fruit. 

Start the day with FLDC updates, thank yous, and announcements!

Managing dates and times is often complex: recurring events, timezones, daylight savings times, regional formatting conventions, and more. Add in additional presentation requirements like add-to-calendar links, registration links, and related content (like agendas, that change for each date instance) and the complexity can seem bewildering.

Fortunately Drupal offers a rich toolset for solving these challenges. In this session we'll explore the solutions, not only showing how they work, but also detailing the modules and the configuration needed.

During the session we'll take a fresh install of Drupal 11 and configure it to meet some advanced use cases, in real time. Along the way we'll use some readily available recipes and contrib modules that you can leverage in your own Drupal site.

Often when embarking on a new technology project, your first attempt feels good when you deliver it, but you look at it later and think, that could have been done better. Sometimes, that means it ends up being rebuilt from scratch.

It helps to know what resources you can pull together to get started--to get off on the right foot. This session is perfect for those who have been through a Drupal In-One-Day training or other beginner trainings and are looking to begin their journey to a production deployed Drupal website.

Whether spinning up your first or wanting to do it better next, this session should help you lay the ground work for a more successful Drupal project launch in your near future. 

We'll go over 

• project initiation concerns, 
• local and remote development environment options,
• available production hosting resources, 
• content structure theory, and 
• theme selection considerations.

We'll also introduce resources for non-developers who want to realize their project without custom theming and development. My hope is, you launch a nice looking, functional, and productive CMS to production when you apply the opinions and follow the steps laid out in this session.

Are you a front of the front end developer who focuses on CSS, semantic HTML, and presentational Javascript, and do you wonder if your skillset matters in the world of modern web development? Do you think about the best way to mark up an SVG to be as accessible as possible, and write Twig templates with (relative) ease? You’re not alone and your front of the front end development knowledge is still important today.

This session discusses why your front of the front end development skills are still relevant in today’s web development ecosystem, how to convince your team that a front of the front end developer is a valuable asset, and how front of the front and back of the front end developers can work together to develop powerful front end solutions in Drupal and beyond.

Let’s show the web development community that front of the front end developers contribute so much to a team!

The team that developed content moderation in Drupal 7 is back with collaborative editing for Drupal 10. Using open-source tools, the Edit Together module provides secure, real-time collaboration inside the Drupal editorial interface. Editors may update content simultaneously and leave threaded comments requesting clarifications or changes. And it all works with content moderation workflows!

Like content moderation, collaboration is a game-changing feature for Drupal as a Content Management System.

In this workshop, we'll cover the following elements:

• A quick demo of collaboration features
  • Editing
  • Commenting
  • Versioning
• Introducing the tools required for collaboration
  • Yjs as a stable dependency
  • ProseMirror and the need for end-to-end data integrity
  • WebRTC and signaling servers
• Current state of the Edit Together module
  • Installation requirements
  • Core workarounds for Edit module assumptions
  • Test scenarios and support
• Open question and answer

By the end, you’ll have an understanding of how EditTogether looks and feels, what sorts of configuration options it offers, and how you can use it to streamline your content workflows. EditTogether is built to serve the Drupal community, so bring your thoughts and let’s chat about them!

Altering thousands of Nodes, either by moving content from Node fields into separate Paragraphs, populating metatags on existing content or re-tagging everything can be a challenge.  It is hard to do these kinds of large operations reliably,  smoothly, and log it all at the same time. This session explores easier and more reliable ways to do large scale batch operations on big sites. See how the Department of Veterans Affairs and Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services contributed a module so everyone can make big changes more reliably, on the record and with less effort.

With Drupal CMS 1.0 released in January, we're now well into development of the next version. 

So it's a great opportunity to explain which processes we’ve followed so far, provide updates on how we are tracking and discuss what we have planned next on the roadmap.

Some topics that will be covered:

• Features and areas we're working on now

• Plans for future versions ongoing

• What we're looking for from contributors

• How we defined the strategy and scope

• Which role research played on the product definition

• Using the strategy to define the roadmap and what it looks like now

• How the community has come together to work toward the same goal

• Highlights from the initial work tracks and what we learned from them

Backdrop CMS has been around for ~10 years now and has understandably made an concerted effort to emphasize certain aspects of the project that can appeal greatly to Drupal 7 site owners: backwards compatibility with existing code, an upgrade path, the affordability of the Backdrop upgrade process compared to a migration to modern Drupal, Wordpress, or something else. Those backward-looking considerations are very important for site-owners that are coming from Drupal 7. But what about looking ahead? Are there reasons why you may do well to consider Backdrop for particular projects whether or not it's coming from Drupal 7?

TL;DR yes, there are.

In this session, we'll review how for certain types of projects, Backdrop makes an enormous amount of sense. We'll use some real world examples, and draw feature parallels and contrasts with modern Drupal. Some of the topics we'll cover include:

• flexibility, structure, and power: although simpler in many ways, Backdrop still provides Drupal's traditional power and flexibility. We'll go through a quick review of some of the similarities and differences between the two, including shared post-Drupal-7 features and Backdrop-specific improvements. A short comparison of Starshot/Drupal CMS as compared to Backdrop will be covered.
• complex projects: complex sites can be built quickly with Backdrop. I'll talk about some of the conversation at my agency around when a project is a good fit for Backdrop vs. Drupal or Wordpress. I'll review parts of a project I worked on with Penn State University's Undergraduate Education to show one example of how reusability can work in certain contexts (configuration, layouts, etc).
• simplicity: smaller projects, one-offs and DIY projects can benefit from the simplicity of developing with Backdrop to quickly spin up sites. Although Backdrop works well on large projects with complex workflows, the project also has a commitment to also stay friendly for site builders and simpler projects.
• future of Backdrop: how does the community, leadership and infrastructure resemble or differ from that of Drupal or other open source projects? How can we have confidence that the community (and project) will last into the future? Some thoughts about the future roadmap for Backdrop CMS. When to expect and what to expect from Backdrop 2.0?
• lower maintenance costs: if your project doesn't rely on them, pinning your site to the relatively fast-moving libraries that modern Drupal depends on can lock you into a series of non-trivial upgrades that can eat your budget more quickly than you'd like. Backdrop's stability and commitment to backwards compatibility can be seen in this context as a sort of LTS that reduces the total cost of ownership.

Git can be confusing, with plenty of sharp edges to cut yourself on, but it gets a lot easier once you understand How Git Works. Luckily, understanding Git is a lot less daunting than it sounds. Join us for a Git deep dive, while keeping our feet firmly planted on the floor. No jargon, no assumptions. We may even have some fun.

Break free from the grip of big tech and take charge of your digital world. This session explores self-hosting services like Nextcloud (Google Drive/Dropbox/Contacts/Calendar replacement), Immich (a Google Photos alternative), Jellyfin (media server), Security Cameras, or anything you can dream up, using tools like Docker, NixOS, and Tailscale. With self hosting you can even run Home Assistant to orchestrate all your smart home devices and even keep using voice control without your data ever leaving your house. Beyond reclaiming your data, self-hosting is also a great way to dip your toe into server management, build skills, and even breathe new life into an old computer or that Raspberry Pi collecting dust. Whether you’re motivated by privacy, curiosity, or career growth, this talk will show you how to get started.

It's no secret Drupal has been around for long enough to have a huge fanbase, tons of maturity, and more than one existential crisis. While Drupal is undergoing its marketing positioning with Drupal CMS, as easy to use for marketers and small businesses, Drupal  "the framework" is consistently proving its value with a mature ecosystem, the best open source community, and the most advanced feature set. There is only one problem, and it's not a new one.

Drupal has not been the pick for the younger generation of web developers, be it due to the steep learning curve with the theming system, or the move to modern JS frameworks, the fact is undeniable: frontend devs crave a modern stack, and it's not something Drupal can provide or has an opinion on.

Luckily, the Drupal community has been cooking solutions in contrib space for a while now. And one such opinionated stack will be the point of discussion here.

asgorobets will be joined by jmolivas to share their thoughts on best-in-class full-stack development workflow with Next.js and headless Drupal with GraphQL

We will discuss how to make Drupal shine at what it is best at, content management, but also deliver the content to your front end in the most efficient way, maybe even better than cloud-native SaaS solutions out there.

Be prepared for demos, this is going to be a show and tell session

We will explore problems such as:

• Modern preview and visual editing capabilities
• Type-safe data fetching with Typescript and GraphQL
• Component-based landing page building with layout support
• Incremental Static Revalidation (ISR) and API caching considerations

Lunch from world famous Gringos Locos! This is basically an awesome burrito bar, where you can also find vegetarian, vegan, and gluten free meal options. This lunch is included with your ticket!

Join us to hear the latest news on the Experience Builder initiative from the initiative leaders.

Experience Builder is set to revolutionize how websites are built with Drupal, making building Drupal sites faster and easier than ever before. Experience Builder will enable marketing teams without Drupal experience to easily theme and build their entire website using their browser, without the need to write code beyond basic HTML, CSS, and templating markup. It will also enable content creators to create and compose content on any part of the page without relying on developers.

In this session you'll:

• Understand the vision behind Experience Builder
• Gain practical knowledge on using Experience Builder and learn the key features and capabilities
• Identify use cases and benefits
• Explore upcoming opportunities for involvement

Did you know that around 1 in 68 people are diagnosed with an autism spectrum disorder? People with autism and Asperger's are becoming a growing part of civilization, and a growing part of the tech workforce, yet in spite of their high intelligence and remarkable creativity and passion, they often go unemployed and underemployed within our society.

This presentation will attempt to debunk myths around autism and present autistic strengths and challenges, while also sharing why we believe it is important for Drupal firms and other employers to start considering accommodating potential employees with autism spectrum disorders.

The presentation will cover the following topics/issues:

1. Debunking the Myths surrounding the Autism diagnosis, which would include providing information about this diagnosis and how it might present in the workplace or in general, which would include providing statistics as to the percentage of autistic individuals who are in the tech field and what tech employers, including Microsoft, are offering them.

2. Covering the challenges and strengths of an individual on the spectrum and how his or her participation in the tech workforce could be a very good fit for this individual and the tech employer.

3. How does the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) impact the tech employer when it is considering employing an individual who is on the Autism Spectrum.

What are some examples of reasonable accommodations that an employer should legally offer an employee or potential employee with autism under the ADA?

What are potential modifications to the workplace that the individual with autism wants an employer to offer even if the employer is not legally required to do so under the ADA.

Presenters:

Lynne Knox, JD. As a retired Administrative Law Judge who headed the Employment Security Division of the Connecticut Labor Department, Attorney Knox specialized in labor law, including the Americans with Disabilities Act. She is also the mother of her co-presenter, Morgan Giosa, who has been diagnosed with Asperger’s Syndrome and is a Drupal web developer.

Morgan Giosa. Morgan has studied extensively with Dr. Mark A. Friedman, who is a Drupal specialist who taught at both Trinity College and Central Connecticut State University. Morgan has also been employed as subcontractor for Redfin Solutions and has developed websites independently for his clients, including Andres Forero, who is currently drumming in the Broadway musical, Hamilton. He is also an accomplished blues guitarist and visual artist.

Speakers

Lynne Knox
Connecticut Department of Labor (Retired)
Retired Administrative Law Judge

Morgan Giosa
Tempera Solutions (www.temperasolutions.com)

Morgan Giosa has studied Drupal web development and computer science extensively with Dr. Mark A. Friedman, a Drupal specialist who taught at both Trinity College and Central Connecticut State University. Morgan has also been employed as subcontractor for Redfin Solutions and has developed websites independently for his clients using both Drupal and WordPress, including Andres Forero, who is currently drumming in the Broadway musical, Hamilton. He is also an accomplished blues guitarist and visual artist, who has recorded and released multiple albums of original music, his latest of which, “Feelin’ Fine Today”, has received airplay on college radio stations throughout New England including WESU 88.1 FM and WCNI 90.9 FM, and has performed at blues clubs throughout New England, including the prestigious Black-Eyed Sally’s in downtown Hartford, CT. He also produced and created an autobiographical documentary film, "Outside the Box", which has been screened in New Haven International Film Festival and Mystic Film Festival in 2019, and has exhibited his paintings and photographs in galleries throughout Connecticut.

For more information on Morgan or to see his work, please visit the following websites:

temperasolutions.com (partial Drupal/WordPress portfolio)

morgangiosa.com (visual art/music website)

Web Components are native browser implementations of of custom HTML elements that were first introduced in 2011, and are currently supported by all current major browsers.  They're a popular approach when there's a need for a micro component that can enhance usability, without having to resort to a heavy-handed framework like React.

Web Components are not without their gotchas, mainly surrounding the use of the Shadow DOM.  If not done correctly, you can create a Web Component that functions, but:

• Cannot be styled effectively for the look and feel of the site in which it's implemented
• Isn't SEO friendly
• Introduces Accessibiity issues into your site

In this session we'll discuss the architectural premises of Web Components, and include some tips on effectively leveraging the power of the Shadow DOM to encapsulate functionality without compromising SEO or Accessibility, and driving your Front End developers insane.

Picture this: It's February 2025, and while Drupal 7 was supposed to be having its final farewell tour, it's somehow still crowd-surfing through thousands of websites. Like the tech world's most persistent party guest, it just won't take "time to go home" for an answer, and honestly, that might be a good thing.

Welcome to the real world of post-EOL Drupal 7, where thousands of sites are doing the digital equivalent of running with scissors. But before you panic-migrate your way into next Tuesday, let's talk about how to turn this potential disaster into your next success story.

In this session, we'll cover:

• Why your Drupal 7 site is like that one friend who's still using a Hotmail address (functional but concerning)
• How to transform your "technical debt" into "technical dividends" (yes, we're making that a thing)
• The art of keeping your site secure when official support has left the building
• Why HeroDevs is basically your site's designated driver through the afterparty

Perfect for: digital strategists putting off difficult conversations, developers tired of explaining why "just migrate it" isn't always the answer, managers wondering why their weekend plans keep involving security patches, and anyone who's ever had to make legacy software work well past its expiration date.

Leave knowing not just why your Drupal 7 site can survive, but how to make it thrive. Because sometimes the best parties happen after the lights are supposed to go out.

Warning: This talk may contain excessive metaphors, actual solutions, and at least one reference to how supporting Drupal 7 is like keeping a Tamagotchi alive in 2025—surprisingly possible and weirdly satisfying.

This session offers an in-depth guide to installing configuring, and mastering the Gutenberg editor within Drupal. Gutenberg, a modern block-based editor, revolutionizes the content creation experience compared to Drupal’s traditional editing interface. You will learn the essentials of setting up Gutenberg, customizing its interface, and creating custom blocks tailored to your site’s needs.

You’ll gain a comprehensive understanding of the pros and cons of using Gutenberg in Drupal.  This session details both the improved flexibility for content creators and the technical considerations for developers. You’ll see coding workflows for building custom Gutenberg blocks, showcasing how they can extend Drupal’s content architecture. By the end of the session, you’ll have the practical knowledge to implement and customize Gutenberg in your own Drupal projects, whether as a supplement or a replacement for Drupal’s default editor.

Learn to install, configure, and customize the Gutenberg editor in Drupal. We will explore the pros and cons of using Gutenberg, compare it to traditional Drupal editing, and demonstrate coding techniques for creating custom blocks.

If you or someone you work with has ever asked you these types of questions:

• Why do we work to make things accessible?
• What's the point of making this change only to be accessible?
• Why can't I just make that accessibility fix later?

...or anything similar, this talk is right for you.

What is "the why" you may ask? It's knowing how and why our accessibility improvements make the web better for users with disabilities. It's always a good thing to understand why we do what we do to make things accessible. Let's explore how we can build empathy into our teams by showing them "the why". 

I'll do this with demos! We'll look at various Assistive Technologies (AT)  and Adaptive Strategies to explore what it's like for users with disabilities to navigate and experience the web. Not everyone has experienced a screen reader, screen magnifier, switch device, text-to-speech, TTY (phone communication), etc., and that's our challenge. Challenge accepted!

To be successful at creating things, we have to be able to solve the problems we introduce along the way. Let’s learn to troubleshoot and debug issues!

We'll organize our approach to a problem by analyzing it, simplifying it, splitting it into its component parts, and finding what part has the problem.

After dividing the problem, we'll use classic debugging techniques to pinpoint the error and find a solution:

• Use a debugger like XDebug paired with PhpStorm or VS Code to step over and through key sections.
• Set breakpoints where we suspect the problem may lie or where we can inspect variables and data.
• Inspect the contents of the database to see what is happening there.
• Use old-school techniques like printf-debugging and calling die() to find where problems happen.

For extra credit, we'll take a look at how to use git bisect to determine when a bug got introduced. We will talk about using tools and techniques, like version control and database snapshots, to assist in the problem-solving task. ChatGPT is bound to make a cameo as well.

I recently found myself returning to traditional Drupal theming after multiple years working primarily in decoupled front ends. While I was admittedly nervous about losing access to some of my go-to tools, I was excited to put Single Directory Components (SDCs) through their paces to understand what impact they would have on my theming workflow.

Spoiler alert: SDCs are pretty great. In many ways they exceeded my expectations, providing a sturdy bridge to the techniques I learned in my time away from Twig. But at the same time, they still face some of the constraints I bumped up against in past Drupal themes.

In this session I will walk through the workflow I used to build a custom Drupal theme that relies heavily on Single Directory Components. Together we’ll look at the good and the bad, and also pick up some tips and tricks along the way, including:

• SDC friendly approaches to prototyping outside of Drupal.
• Mapping concepts from JavaScript components to Single Directory Components.
• Leveraging SDCs to simplify your build process.
• Mapping SDCs to Paragraphs and other Drupal entities.
• Indispensable SDC related tools from the contrib ecosystem.
• Where SDCs fall short and my dreams for the future of SDCs and Drupal theming.

Learn how to propel your website's growth by implementing proven scaling strategies used by Fortune 500 companies right from the outset. This presentation will cover:

    •    Infrastructure choices for scalable architecture
    •    Techniques for robust performance optimization
    •    Do's and Don'ts with examples from Fortune 500 companies that use Drupal
    •    Best practices for load handling and traffic management
    •    Insights into industry leaders' scaling frameworks
    •    Steps to future-proof your website from day one

Discover how to lay a strong foundation for your site by adopting these tactics, ensuring your web presence is engineered for long-term success.

Are your Drupal updates a source of stress? Drawing from nearly a decade of experience as a Technical Account Manager, this session transforms the often-dreaded update process into a reliable, repeatable workflow that any team can implement. Through a combination of best practices, live demonstrations, and practical tools, attendees will learn how to confidently manage their Drupal updates, including how to prepare their custom code for version changes and avoid common API pitfalls.

Learning Objectives

This session will introduce attendees to:

• A structured approach for planning and executing Drupal updates
• Best practices for maintaining composer.json files
• Effective use of configuration management during updates
• Methods for tracking custom code dependencies and API usage
• Strategies for monitoring API changes that affect custom modules
• Practical use of the Upgrade Status module
• Real-world testing and deployment workflows

Many of us in the Drupal community enjoy coffee, and the Drupal Coffee Exchange is a way to celebrate the magic elixir that many of us use to fuel our days.

Our quarterly coffee exchanges and periodic BoFs at Drupal events are a way for community members to stay caffeinated and share their favorite coffees between enthusiasts. It’s unique, it’s fun, and it’s become a creative and complementary way to participate in our community....a reminder our community goes well beyond the commits.

This session includes a quick intro to recipes and insights on improving the out-of-the-box experience on new themes. Rather than figure out how a site architecture fits together on our own we can reverse engineer a complete example.

In other words, the WordPress theming experience in Drupal.

We will follow the YAGNI (You Aren’t Gonna Need It) principle to improve our feedback loop and allow others to get started quickly.

Be ready for an interactive session, rich in examples and prompts that encourage attendees to wonder and think about the wide array of possibilities this might enable.

Setting up a design system can help create consistency and guardrails for authors, designers, strategists, developers, and all involved in creating and maintaining websites or applications.

But what happens when that design system needs to expand to support numerous applications and websites, each with a different purpose and audience?

In this session, we’ll share some challenges we’ve encountered when working with large design systems that need to scale. We’ll discuss the following challenges:

- scaling and maintaining design patterns
- naming systems at scale
- maintaining a “system of systems.”
- governance and adoption at scale
- component content flexibility and guidance at scale

This session is for those already familiar with design systems but unsure how to scale them to multiple websites and applications.

Neurodiversity encompasses a range of differences in thinking, learning, and interacting with the world. This presentation will explore the lived experience of being neurodivergent and its implications for community engagement, universal design, and workplace inclusion. Drawing on personal stories and evidence-based insights, the session highlights practical strategies to foster environments where neurodiverse individuals can thrive. Attendees will leave with actionable tools to better understand neurodivergent perspectives and implement thoughtful accommodations, benefiting all.

Learning Objectives:

1. Define neurodiversity and understand its importance in fostering inclusive environments.
2. Identify common challenges faced by neurodivergent individuals in personal and professional settings.
3. Implement universal design principles to create accessible and welcoming spaces for neurodiverse people.

Target Audience:

• Community organizers
• Educators and trainers
• Workplace leaders and HR professionals
• Developers and UX designers interested in accessibility

Key Highlights from the Session:

1. Personal Narratives: Sharing impactful moments from the speaker’s journey as a neurodivergent individual.
2. Understanding Neurodivergence: Exploring conditions such as autism, ADHD, and dyslexia through real-life examples.
3. Universal Design in Practice: Practical advice, such as leveraging low-light environments or strategies to address time blindness and sensory sensitivities.
4. Call to Action: Encouraging empathy, patience, and kindness in professional and community spaces.

If you are maintaining a Drupal module or theme on drupal.org, did you know that you can get automated previews of any Merge Request? In this talk, we will walk through adding a Tugboat config.yml to a contrib module or theme. We should also have time to help a lucky member of the audience with their module or theme!

Lightning Talks are short (5min-ish) impromptu sessions on anything you want. Do you have something you’re proud of? Do you have a new technique that’s saving you time? Have you learned about something cool? Get up and share!