LocalGov Drupal is a Drupal distribution that combines Drupal, some configuration, and a collection of modules with the aim of making it easier for councils to create websites. The functionality provided includes content pages, news pages, bus timetables, and waste collection systems. What's more, it's maintained by a vibrant community of people.
The LocalGov Drupal Waste Collection module is a module that allows local bin collection schedules to be displayed to users. This uses a combination of an address lookup and collection data to show users the bins collection schedule for that address for the next few months.
A plugin interface is used to allow different banks of data to be used in the bank end of the module, with CSV and Whitespace API integration coming with the module. Whitespace is a company used across the UK to manage waste collection systems and the Whitespace plugin interfaces with a SOAP API to pull bin collection data into the site.
I've been using the Waste Collection module for a little while now with a few different projects. Whilst the information that the module provides is good, I needed to alter this data in a recent project with Central Bedfordshire. This required the use of a hook to alter the Whitespace plugin class and output more customised waste collection schedules.
In this article I will go through the issue I needed to correct, and how I altered the data coming out of the Whitespace API without creating a new plugin.
The Problem
When you set up Whitespace integration using this module it pulls a set of service names, which is essentially a list of the types of collections that can happen. This will be things like "Refuse (black bin)" or "Recycling" and shows residents what sort of bin they need to put out for collection on that day.
I've read recently about making SDCs dependent on Drupal Canvas because of needing to reference Canvas in the definition of your prop, so the right media widget is used inside Canvas:
image:
$ref: json-schema-definitions://canvas.module/image
type: object
title: Image
description: >
Image of the singer
examples:
- src: 'micro.webp'
alt: 'Nice picture of the singer'
width: 200
height: 300
That was the case during the alphas. But was fixed long ago, even before the 1.0.0 release. See canvas#3515074.
image:
type: object
title: Image
required: [src]
properties:
src:
type: string
format: uri-reference
contentMediaType: "image/*"
x-allowed-schemes: [http, https] # this is image-uri, itself a nested $ref
alt: { type: string }
width: { type: integer }
height: { type: integer }
description: >
Image of the singer
examples:
- src: 'micro.webp'
alt: 'Nice picture of the singer'
width: 200
height: 300
That's more verbose, but would make your SDC Canvas-independent and re-usable, and it's 100% equivalent.
If we missed updating some docs, please create an issue on the Canvas issue queue.
At Josefinas, every pair of shoes is handmade in Portugal after the order is placed. There is no warehouse full of finished stock: a customer buys, and an atelier starts working. For years, the bridge between "order paid" and "order shipped" was a shared spreadsheet. It listed what had to be produced, who was making it, and when it might be ready. It also lived completely outside the store: no link to the actual orders, no states, no history, and no way to know where time was being lost.
We replaced that spreadsheet with a Drupal module. It has now been running Josefinas' production for months, and today we are releasing it to the community: Commerce Make-to-Order is available on drupal.org, with a stable 1.0.0 release.
What it does
Commerce Make-to-Order adds a production layer to Drupal Commerce. Make-to-order (also written made-to-order, or build-to-order) means producing items only after a customer order is received, instead of keeping pre-made inventory. When an order reaches a state you configure (for example, paid), the module creates one MTO order per order item: a production order the team tracks from queue to completion.
Each MTO order runs a State Machine workflow designed for real ateliers: Draft, Queued, Waiting for Materials, In Production, Quality Check, Rework, Completed, Canceled. QC failures do not silently loop back into production: they move to a dedicated Rework state and back through Quality Check, so first-pass rate and rework are measurable instead of invisible.
Around that core there is everything a production team needs day to day:
Production order numbers via Commerce Number Pattern (MTO-2026-00042)
Assignment to team members, priorities, and due dates with overdue highlighting
Estimated completion dates, calculated automatically from a per-type setting
Internal notes, transition notes, and team notes with optional email notification
An activity log timeline and a full state history with per-state timing
A production analytics dashboard: bottlenecks, team performance, materials wait analysis, QC metrics, on-time delivery
Closing the loop with the store
The interesting part is what happens when production finishes. The module offers two integration modes with the parent Commerce order:
State sync: when all MTO orders of a Commerce order complete, the order transitions directly (for example, Processing to Shipped).
Shipment integration: with Commerce Shipping, MTO orders link to the checkout shipment, and when the last one completes the order is promoted to a "ready to ship" state. The shipping team adds tracking, splits shipments if needed, and ships.
Automation has one important limit, learned in production: hold states. Some order states represent a deliberate human decision, like a customer asking not to ship yet. You can configure which states automatic promotion must never override; the module logs a note on the order instead and lets a person decide.
Battle-tested, then released
This is not a v1 built in the abstract. The module has managed hundreds of real production orders at Josefinas before its first public release. Publishing it meant generalizing what was site-specific (hold states became per-type configuration, integrations became optional), adding its own test coverage against Drupal Commerce's core workflows, and cleaning everything to drupal.org standards.
It also plays well with the rest of our contrib work: with Commerce Order Amend, amending a placed order keeps production orders in sync with the changed items.
Requires Drupal 10 or 11, Commerce 2.x or 3.x, and State Machine. Commerce Shipping is optional, for the shipment integration mode.
If you run a store where things are made after they are sold (furniture, fashion, print on demand, anything artisanal) we would love to hear how it fits your workflow. The issue queue is open.
This blog post is about incremental improvements by W3C's IT/Systems Operations Team to how W3C member representatives use the W3C website to nominate, change, and remove the people who participate in W3C groups on behalf of their organization.
In this blog post we celebrate International Women in Engineering Day by interviewing Carine Bournez, W3C Principal and Team Contact who specializes in WebRTC, Web Performance, SVG and Data Shapes.
On January 14, 2006, John Resig introduced a JavaScript library called jQuery at BarCamp in New York City. Now, 20 years later, the jQuery team is happy to announce the final release of jQuery 4.0.0. After a long development cycle and several pre-releases, jQuery 4.0.0 brings many improvements and modernizations. It is the first major … Continue reading →
It's here! Almost. jQuery 4.0.0-rc.1 is now available. It's our way of saying, "we think this is ready; now poke it with many sticks". If nothing is found that requires a second release candidate, jQuery 4.0.0 final will follow. Please try out this release and let us know if you encounter any issues. A 4.0 … Continue reading →
Last February, we released the first beta of jQuery 4.0.0. We're now ready to release a second, and we expect a release candidate to come soon™. This release comes with a major rewrite to jQuery's testing infrastructure, which removed all deprecated or under-supported dependencies. But the main change that warranted a second beta was a … Continue reading →
When it comes to crafting an article, the headline is crucial for grabbing the reader's attention and enticing them to read further. In this post, I'll explore the 7 types of article headlines and provide examples for each using the subjects of product management, user experience design, and search engine optimization. 1. The Know-it-All The […]
Product management is one of the most exciting and rewarding careers in the tech world. But it's also one of the most misunderstood and misrepresented. There are many myths and misconceptions that cloud the reality of what product managers do, how they do it, and what skills they need to succeed. In this blog post, […]
The role of a product manager is crucial to the success of any product. They are responsible for managing the entire product life cycle, from conceptualization to launch and beyond. A product manager must possess a unique blend of skills and qualities to be effective in their role. Strong strategic thinking A product manager must […]
Last week I helped the folks at ezSystems debug some APC problems they were having. The problems ended up being a 64bit architecture problem (they have uber-fast Opterons) and the bug is now fixed in 2.0.3.
Today I received Python & XML from them (off my Amazon wishlist). Thanks guys!
On a side note, my wishlist seems borked. The list I get when I search on my email address or name is not the same one I can edit when I log into the site.
1st of April 2004 get's to it's end and I guess it's time, to summarize the recent April fools a bit. Not that I think anyone in the world believes in them, but some were quite funny:
1. Changes to case sensitivity in PHP.
Alan Knowles announced that PHP will change to the studlyCase API and therefor will get everything broken by changing established functions.
2. IBM takes over Zend.
Myself hacked a little article about IBM taking over Zend to make PHP a compete of Java.
4. PHP has been overtaken by Micro$oft.
Mhhh... a little bit unreliable, if they had been taken over by IBM this morning... Maybe one should first look, what others wrote...
5. And finally, PHP4 and 5 showed their real faces...
Take a look at a phpinfo() output!
I guess I missed some, so feel free to comment on this entry, if you found another!
Symantec have a report of the virus here. I've yet to see any of the PHP news sites picking up on it but, using a virtual host account, managed to deliberately expose some PHP scripts to it. From examining the infected scripts, what's disturbing is once infected, every tim...
