Submitted by tyler.frankenstein on
Two years ago today, the first lines of code were committed for DrupalGap. At the time it was less than 100 lines of code. Now two years later, and after 680 commits, the project is approaching 10,000 lines of code and 500 site installations.
DrupalGap has come a very long way since its start. If you are receiving this newsletter, it means you are among the first 150 people to register an account with www.drupalgap.org (excluding the spam accounts that have been deleted). Thank you very much for your interest in this project, I very much apreciate it!
New Release Available
Today, a new version of the DrupalGap module and mobile app dev kit were released. It is highly recommended to update to the latest versions of each.
Here are some of the latest improvements:
- PhoneGap 3.3.0 Support
- Asynchronous Entity Loading (Nodes, Users, etc)
- Local Storage Caching
- Image Field Support
- Many Bug Fixes
With these improvements came many architectural changes to DrupalGap core. Most of the changes will be transparent to developers like yourself, however there are a few key changes that will need to be made with your code:
default.settings.js
Make a backup copy of your settings.js file, then replace it with the new default.settings.js file, and then migrate your custom settings back into the new settings.js file.
node_load(), user_load(), etc
Whenever loading (saving or deleting) an entity, the call is now asynchronous, which means you need to provide a "success" callback function to handle the call. This feature has drastically improved performance for our app's users. Read more
Content Type Display Mode
DrupalGap now comes with a Display mode so you can configure which labels and fields show up when viewing entities (nodes, users, etc). After upgrading the Drupal module on your site, visit the "Manage display" page for each of your content types to set the labels and fields to be shown in the app, for example:
Admin -> Structure -> Content types -> [my content type] -> Manage display -> DrupalGap
Welcome jDrupal to the Party
Since DrupalGap started, it had its own JavaScript to handle entity C.R.U.D. (create, retrieve, update, delete) operations. However, this functionality could be useful to any JavaScript based application for Drupal websites. When I realized this, I decided to start jDrupal. DrupalGap now comes packaged with jDrupal.
Thank You
I'd like to thank the following folks for their contributions of code, documentation, testing and general discussion about DrupalGap:
- amitsedai
- cschaub
- jnross
- khayong
- opinno
- sDaniel
- uniquename
- The users in the #drupal-drupalgap channel on IRC
- And everyone else who has reported bugs or tried DrupalGap
DrupalGap Association
Today the DrupalGap Association was started. Please consider purchasing an annual membership for $30.00 if DrupalGap has helped you build a mobile app(s). All proceeds go to the continued development and support of DrupalGap, plus your name will appear on the association's list! :)
Looking to the Future
In May of 2013, I was able to leave my full time job to pursue DrupalGap development and services full time. I very much hope to continue with this career path and have found it very rewarding on a personal level.
DrupalGap will continue to improve and looks forward to Drupal 8 and beyond. Be on the lookout for the DrupalGap proposed session for DrupalCon Austin, hopefully it will be chosen to present this year.
If you run into any problems upgrading, check out the support page. Or if you are interested in developing for DrupalGap core, please stop by the Developer's Guide to get started.
Thanks again to you all for being a part of DrupalGap!