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Drupal Association blog: Reflecting on Our Journey: HeroDevs in the Drupal World

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The Drupal Association has published this guest blog on behalf of HeroDevs.

As the end-of-life (EOL) for Drupal 7 approaches on 5 January 2025, HeroDevs has embraced the challenge of stepping into the Drupal community and providing vital support for this well-loved but aging platform. Since onboarding our first customer in September, we’ve had the unique opportunity to assist organizations relying on Drupal 7. It’s been a year of learning, adapting, and preparing—a journey filled with both rewarding and challenging moments.

Engaging with the Drupal Community

Our journey into the Drupal world has been enriched by our participation in various community events. Over the past year, we’ve attended gatherings like DrupalCon Portland, GovCon, DrupalCamp Asheville, and BadCamp, where we’ve had the privilege of connecting with other Drupal professionals and sharing our insights. We’ve also taken to the stage at events like Drupal GovCon and EvolveDrupal in Atlanta to share our expertise and discuss strategies for navigating Drupal 7’s EOL.

These events have not only deepened our understanding of the community but also allowed us to build meaningful relationships with fellow developers, site owners, and contributors. The collective knowledge and passion within the Drupal ecosystem have been invaluable as we continue to refine our solutions and expand our support.

Our First User Case Study

One of our earliest adopters came to us with a critical need: ensuring the continued functionality of their mission-critical Drupal 7 site. They required consistent updates and security patches to maintain stability and compliance. By addressing these needs, we were able to keep their site secure and operational without disruption. This successful partnership laid the foundation for our approach to supporting Drupal 7 users and solidified our commitment to meeting their unique challenges.

Challenges We’ve Encountered

Entering the Drupal world has been an eye-opening experience. One of the most notable challenges has been understanding the diverse needs of Drupal 7 users. Each organization has its own use cases, custom modules, and integrations. Our initial onboarding revealed just how varied these needs could be, pushing us to adapt our processes and broaden our expertise.

Another significant hurdle was navigating the intricacies of Drupal 7’s ecosystem while ensuring that our solutions met the community’s high standards. For example, we discovered that certain modules had been neglected for years, with no clear documentation or consistent coding practices.

Adjustments We’ve Made

One of the most critical adjustments we’ve made has been streamlining our onboarding process. Early on, we faced minor issues like a typo in the curl script used to integrate our services. While the fix was straightforward, it highlighted the importance of rigorous testing and documentation. Today, our onboarding process is smooth, and all our early adopters have transitioned seamlessly to our solutions.

We’ve also refined our support model to include guidance for custom and legacy modules. While these aren’t covered under our standard SLA, providing tailored advice has helped our clients maintain compatibility and functionality across their tech stacks. This extra layer of support has strengthened our relationships with customers and reinforced their confidence in our solutions.

Preparing for the EOL

With the EOL for Drupal 7 fast approaching, our focus has been on ensuring a seamless transition for our clients. We’ve prioritized:

  • Proactive Module Maintenance: We’ve forked and maintained unsupported modules, addressing vulnerabilities and ensuring compatibility with evolving web standards.

  • Customer-Centric Support: By collaborating closely with our clients, we’ve been able to anticipate their needs and deliver solutions tailored to their unique requirements.

  • Comprehensive Testing: Every solution we implement undergoes rigorous testing to prevent issues and ensure long-term stability.

Looking Ahead

As we reflect on the past year, it’s clear that stepping into the Drupal world has been both a challenge and a privilege. We’ve learned to navigate an intricate ecosystem, adapt to the needs of a diverse user base, and provide robust support during a pivotal time for Drupal 7 users. Our commitment to keeping sites secure, functional, and future-ready has positioned us as a trusted partner in the community.

We’re excited to continue supporting our clients through the EOL transition and beyond. Whether it’s maintaining unsupported modules, addressing compatibility challenges, or providing expert guidance, HeroDevs is here to ensure that Drupal 7 users can move forward with confidence. Together, we’re proving that even as official support wanes, the Drupal community can thrive.

Happy new alpha!

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This Week in F-Droid

TWIF curated on Thursday, 02 Jan 2025, Week 1

F-Droid core

We wish you a Happy New Year! and we bring the new F-Droid and F-Droid Basic 1.22.0-alpha0, which marks the start of another dev testing cycle.

What’s new? More polishing, bug fixing and pain points addressed:

  • use “gentle update” API so apps don’t get killed while in use
  • experimental support for un-archiving apps on Android 15
  • separate share link and share file actions in app details (so you can share the link to the app page or the installed APK)
  • clean internal caches more often to free up space (Thanks DerGenaue!)
  • don’t update repos if they already have been updated in last 15sec
  • re-order donation badges to match website (Thanks Leo!)
  • show toast when APK has more permissions than expected (if your Android distro injects extra permissions, you’ll know)
  • add settings toggle to prefer foreign mirrors
  • verify hash of downloaded image resources and reject invalid ones
  • don’t show apps with “bad” anti-features in category view
  • don’t show error dialog for (un)installs when user actively aborted
  • don’t update repos twice on fresh/clean app start
  • auto fallback to other installer if priv-ext doesn’t have permissions
  • reduce DB size by checkpointing more frequently (Thanks DerGenaue!)
  • fix a crash when a repo removed

As usual we ask brave users to test this release and offer feedback as soon as possible. For example, “use ‘gentle update’ API so apps don’t get killed while in use” needs some attention, keep an eye on interactions with apps that keep a foreground service active, say like your email client or your messaging app, do they autoupdate as expected?

How to install this new alpha? In F-Droid Client, on its own page, either scroll down, expand Versions and install the latest, or in the upper right menu choose “Allow Beta updates”.

Community News

@codedoctor is a bit late here but wanted us to know that Linwood Butterfly 2.2.3 was released. It sounds like a small release but it’s one of the biggest quality of life updates.

Highlights:

🎨 More interface customization
💾 Save button indicator for autosave
🖊️ Laser tool improvements
📝 Template dialog improvements
🎨 Color wheel
🖼️ Render resolution

Full blog entry here.

Tailscale was updated to 1.78.1-t8903926f7-gfdc1e9ca4 after more than 2 months, as version 1.72.0 had some issues that we mentioned in TWIF 2024 week 43. Another good news is that the app might be swichable to build reproducible soon, if upstream agrees.

Newly Added Apps

3 apps were newly added
  • Al-Azkar: Imam Al-Hafiz Yahya bin Sharafah Al-Din Al-Nawawi
  • Flip 2 DND: Toggle Do Not Disturb mode by flipping your phone face down
  • SimbaDroid: A simple SMB file server (needs root)

Updated Apps

94 more apps were updated

(expand for the full list)

Thank you for reading this week’s TWIF 🙂

Please subscribe to the RSS feed in your favourite RSS application to be updated of new TWIFs when they come up.

You are welcome to join the TWIF forum thread. If you have any news from the community, post it there, maybe it will be featured next week 😉

To help support F-Droid, please check out the donation page and contribute what you can.

Windows 2: Final Fantasy of operating systems

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It is common knowledge that Final Fantasy could have been the last game in the series. It is far less known that Windows 2, released around the same time, could too have been the last. If anything, things were more certain: even Microsoft believed that Windows 2 would be the last. The miracle of overwhelming commercial success brought incredible attention to Windows. The retro community and computer historians generally seem to be interested in the legendary origins of the system (how it all began) or in its turnabout Windows 3.0 release (what did they do right?). This story instead will be about the underdog of Windows, version 2. To understand where it all went wrong, we must start looking at events that happened even before Microsoft was founded. By necessity, I will talk a lot about the origins of Windows, too. Instead of following interpersonal/corporate drama, I will try to focus on the technical aspects of Windows and its competitors, as well as the technological limitations of the computers around the time. Some details are so convoluted and obscure that even multiple Microsoft sources, including Raymond Chen, are wrong about essential technical details. It is going to be quite a journey, and it might seem a bit random, but I promise that eventually, it all will start making sense. ↫ Nina Kalinina I’m not going to waste your previous time with my stupid babbling when you could instead spend it reading this amazingly detailed, lovingly crafted, beautifully illustrated, and deeply in-depth article by Nina Kalinina about the history, development, and importance of Windows 2. She’s delivered something special here, and it’s a joy to read and stare at the screenshots from beginning to end. Don’t forget to click on the little expander triangles for a ton of in-depth technical stuff and even more background information.

Si certains d’entre vous peuvent reflechir plus souvent ca pourrait être top

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Pour parler de la vidéo avec des gens passionnés tech : / discord

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Pablo Escobar’s private jet opens as Bristol AirBNB

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An abandoned Boeing 727 plane once owned by Pablo Escobar has been transformed into the world’s coolest Airbnb – and makes guests feel like billionaires.

The private jet resides on an industrial estate in Bristol – and comes with a hot tub and sauna and can cost up to £850 per night.

Originally built in 1968 and fitted out as a private jet in 1981, the aircraft was still flying up until 2012 – when it made its final journey to Filton Airfield.

Businessman Johnny Palmer, 41, secured consent from Bristol City Council for his project.

He now offers guests the chance to live like a billionaires at 32-feet.