Development Seed Blog

Module Lets Users Search Content Based on Access Privileges

David Goode is a new addition to Development Seed and to the Drupal community. He'll be working with us this summer until he goes off to college in the fall. I think we'll be able to make him a full Drupal convert by then : )

One module that has frequently been put forward as a candidate for improvement in Drupal is the search module. Two reasons for this are its ranking system, which can be less than ideal, and its tendency to bog sites down and slow load times since it indexes and searches on the same SQL database that the site uses for all other operations. However, there is another option that's available to Drupal users: Solr. Running on its own Java daemon, Solr is a well-established, fast, and powerful indexing and search implementation accessed over HTTP. What it isn't is fully integrated with Drupal - yet.

There is a module - apachesolr - that's being actively developed that presently supports using Solr for searching Drupal sites. However, because Solr's search is independent of the usual SQL queries used by Drupal - and immune to the performance ramifications therein - the module doesn't currently support the node access permissions system, and therefore returns blurbs of what could be restricted content. This extends to organic groups, where all content is returned in the search results even if the user is not a member of the associated group.

Happily, we have just finished a module that implements basic group access privileges for Drupal search with Solr. Running as a secure filtering layer between the apachesolr module and the user, it instructs Solr to index and internally filter its returns by group. Users can either receive results from a single group to which they are subscribed, which is useful for specific searching within a larger site, or view returns from all their subscribed groups as well as non-grouped content.

RDF, China Recruits, Drupal, and Foosball

Last night more than 40 people came out on a rainy Monday night to meet other Drupal developers and talk shop. Needless to say, the energy in the room was incredible. Not only was the group big, but it was a great mix of Drupal ninjas, Drupal users, and people wanting to flex their coding muscles with the platform. This led to some great conversations that lasted well into the evening - and rolled over to some heated foosball matches. 

It's great to hear about some of the interesting projects the Washington, DC Drupal community is working on. Last night, Frank talked about the Open Calais module he's working on that integrates the RDF service into Drupal, Robert talked about the group workspace Green Media Toolshed is building to facilitate the sharing of resources and knowledge among nonprofit communications specialists, and Katherine talked about the Flickr image gallery she's working on for a client in a shared hosting environment. One thing I found very interesting was John Zhu's ChinaOSL initiative - he hopes to get 50 to 200 students in Bejing working with Drupal this summer and enhancing and contributing back basic modules. Not only is great to get more people developing with Drupal, but this could create a whole new and active local Drupal community. I'm excited to see where this goes.

Dry Off With Some Indoor Get Togethers

It's a soggy start to the week after a weekend of almost non-stop rain that's pouring into Monday. What better reason do you need to go out after work than a weekend spent cooped up inside? Here's a quick look at the tech events we're planning to attend this week.

Monday
7:00 - 9:00 pm

Drupal Meetup: Come out for a night of talking shop with Drupal developers and users and get to know who else is in this open source community over a few beers. This is a great event for hard core Drupal developers and newbies.

Tuesday
5:30 - 9:00 pm

Second Tuesdays New Media Salon: We had a blast at this last month. It's a great chance to do some networking with new media expert over a few cocktails.

Thursday
3:00 - 5:00 pm

Internet Advocacy Roundtable: Look into the future of emailing Congress by listening to one proposed solution on how to  deal with the onslaught of email received by Congress each day.

Friday
1:30 - 5:30 pm

Social Rockstar Workshop: No matter what your skill level, this workshop is designed to make you an superstar in leveraging new media, web 2.0, and online social networking for your organization. $15 fee.

Any day

Artomatic: Eight floors of local art absolutely free. I don't think we need to say anything else. Be sure to check out their website so you can plan your visit during live music performances and movie screenings.

Ballyhoo! Posters as Portraiture Exhibit: The National Portrait Gallery has an very interesting exhibit looking back at graphic design and advertising from the last 100 years - a must see for any designer. 

See you out this week!

Meet Drupal Developers and Users and Talk About Your Latest Projects

The next Drupal Meetup is right around the corner. This coming Monday, May 12, we'll be meeting at Stetson's Bar and Restaurant at 7:00 pm to get together and talk Drupal. We'll be in the room upstairs.

As usual we'll kick off the meeting with several five minute lightening round talks. This is your chance to share your latest project or module with the group. Since this meetup is for people of all levels of Drupal expertise - including experts, newbies, those interested in becoming newbies, and users - we do ask that you focus on the big picture needs and functions and keep out the Drupal jargon.

So far, we have these talks on the schedule.

• Showcase of Green Media Toolshed: A community-powered set of tools for communications experts that allows them to create and customize group workspaces - and control the branding and urls. This is done with new advances made the to context module.
• Announcement of ChinaOSL, a two month long code camp happening this summer in Bejing

If you want to talk, post your topic here or come prepared to take over the floor.