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Automate the Little Things: ECA — Transcript

by Pacific Northwest Drupal Summit · 10,814 words · 1,839 segments · language en · Watch on YouTube

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0:00and welcome to the magical world of
0:03events, conditions, and actions.
0:06Yay!
0:07All right. Kermit arm flails.
0:10Um
0:11this is the title slide and really
0:13quickly I will say
0:15if you have not hugged a sponsor today,
0:17it's probably because that would be
0:19awkward, but you can mentally give them
0:22a hug by giving them your email address,
0:25visiting their website, patting someone
0:28on the back,
0:29etc.
0:31My name is Ryan Price and I go by
0:34Liberator with one vowel missing on just
0:38about everywhere that you see
0:40uh screen names as long as I can get it.
0:43I have been doing Drupal for a real real
0:45long time.
0:47I started building websites when I was
0:48in high school
0:50for like the school newspaper and the
0:53photography class and stuff like that.
0:56So, uh I've been doing this for a
0:58minute.
0:59Uh I currently work at a place called
1:01ICF. We do a lot of consulting primarily
1:05for government contracts,
1:07but uh obligatory
1:10thing is come look us up.
1:12We don't always hire a lot of Drupal
1:14people, but we have a hire a lot of
1:15technologists, project managers,
1:18you know, soil reclamation people,
1:21things that the government uh the
1:23federal government employs. Uh come
1:25check us out.
1:27I uh like a lot of things, but mostly
1:30it's uh working with people in the
1:32community
1:34and bubbles.
1:36Um that's more ICF.
1:39Uh I also sometimes do this thing called
1:41the Drupal Easy podcast with my friend
1:43Mike. I was on the most recent episode,
1:46which is where I talk about integrating
1:49with a back end that we did on a pretty
1:51big project that's a CRM, and there's
1:54lots of complicated things. You could
1:55check this out sometime if you would
1:57like.
1:58Um the Drupal Easy podcast, when I'm not
2:00on it, is
2:01just as good, so check them all out.
2:05Um
2:06I want to talk a little bit about
2:08methods of improvised structures, like
2:12lashings.
2:13Um this is a raft that somebody built
2:15out of sticks and rope and milk jugs.
2:19Right? You can achieve
2:22boat without being a master boat
2:24builder.
2:26You can achieve code without being an
2:28absolute expert in writing code for
2:31Drupal, which can be quite complex.
2:35Um
2:36the technical definition of latching is
2:38to secure items together in a somewhat
2:40rigid manner.
2:43It also means that you can take things
2:46apart. They are non-permanent.
2:48It's fairly utilitarian. It's not really
2:51built for,
2:52you know, usability. It's built for
2:54function. It is always improvised,
2:58and it takes advantage of reusable
3:01materials. The pieces I could use to
3:03build one lashing, I could take apart
3:04and I could build a completely different
3:06structure the next day.
3:08And there is a method to it. There's
3:09there's good ways and bad ways of doing
3:11it, and there's um
3:14sort of like, you know, best practices
3:16that can be learned when you're when
3:18you're doing this kind of improvised
3:20um structures,
3:22and you can,
3:24you know, gain that knowledge by talking
3:26to other people, inspecting what other
3:28people have built.
3:30On the other hand, there is other means
3:32of doing improvised construction like
3:34duct tape. These are the kinds of
3:36improvisations that we don't like
3:39because they create technical debt.
3:42At some point in the future, a person is
3:44going to have to come back and replace
3:46this
3:48fix.
3:49Um it's not going to last forever. It's
3:51going to leave sticky residue behind and
3:53it's going to cause problems even if it
3:55solves one today.
3:57It's not built in an in a
4:01a reversible way, right?
4:05Um duct tape, non-permanent, it's still
4:08utilitarian, it's still improvised, but
4:09it does not use reusable materials and
4:12it is not often methodical.
4:14Sometimes it can be methodical,
4:17but these things are more like novelties
4:19than an actual camera case that you
4:21would use every day.
4:23It's fun. It might get you a lot of
4:25comments at parties.
4:27Um
4:28but you're not going to mass produce
4:29these things either, right?
4:32Um ECA is the lashing
4:34and I would say um custom code is a
4:37little bit more like
4:39a manufactured product that does
4:41something pretty well.
4:43Um
4:44but it doesn't have those disassemblable
4:46pieces.
4:47Right?
4:48ECA is like this version of the tripod
4:52instead of this version of the tripod.
4:56Um we haven't really talked about what
4:57ECA is, but I feel like you must know a
4:58little bit about it if you're in this
5:00room.
5:01Um
5:02the idea of ECA is you are trying to
5:06describe the thing that you would like
5:08to happen rather than explicitly state
5:10it.
5:12Um so this is the building a sandwich
5:13argument. Um I shouldn't have to tell
5:15you all the steps on how to build a
5:17sandwich in order to just say, "Please
5:19give me a sandwich."
5:21It's a little bit more maintainable to
5:23have something like this because
5:27while it can take a little bit of time
5:28to learn how to create it and integrate
5:31it into your systems,
5:34if Drupal goes from Drupal 11 to Drupal
5:3712,
5:38if the uh you know, email module that
5:41you're using goes from version two to
5:42version three and something about that
5:44underlying API changes,
5:46your ECA models probably don't care that
5:50the underlying modules are getting
5:51upgraded
5:53as long as the model can still be
5:55imported into your site,
5:58it will continue to work. It is
6:01resilient to change
6:03in a way that normal code may not be.
6:07And there is something that I call the
6:09phone loophole, which is
6:11even if you are not the one who created
6:14one of these business logic rules, I
6:17might be able to
6:19walk you through fixing it on the
6:20telephone, but
6:23usually if you're trying to debug
6:24something in a code editor, and I can't
6:27see the editor, and I can't tell you
6:29line numbers, and I can't tell you
6:30exactly what function names and variable
6:33names there were,
6:35I I'm not able to talk you through
6:37fixing that over the phone, but in ECA,
6:40there's shapes, there's words, there's
6:43sort of self-documenting bits in there
6:46that would allow me, let's say that
6:48there's very quickly I've realized my
6:51email is getting sent to the wrong email
6:53address,
6:54and I'm on vacation with my family, but
6:58man, I really need you to fix that email
6:59address right now.
7:01I could probably talk you through
7:02changing the email address over the
7:04phone.
7:05Whereas inside of code, well, now we got
7:07to do a deployment, we got to run it
7:09through the linter, and we got to run it
7:11through the, you know, CI/CD system.
7:15That's not something that I can
7:17easily walk somebody through.
7:21And yeah, changing business logic
7:23without a deploy, you just get exactly
7:25the thing that you need, you hit the
7:27save button, and you move on with your
7:29life, and um
7:32you know, in order to get ECA to work in
7:34a production context, there's going to
7:37be some other tricks that we have to
7:38employ in order to make that a little
7:41bit easier, and we'll talk about those
7:42at the end.
7:45Uh
7:46I feel like I wrote this presentation,
7:49and now that I got here, I'm like, I
7:50feel like I've already made the case to
7:51you about why is EC ECA cool?
7:54But um I'll I'll say these things
7:56anyway.
7:57Drupal, the whole point of why are we
7:59using Drupal as a CMS
8:02instead of creating our own custom
8:03software is because we care about the
8:05functionality more than the purity of
8:08the code, right? There is lots
8:10underlying good things about the way
8:12that Drupal is architected, but if we
8:14could build it from scratch,
8:16would we include, you know, so many
8:19different ways to send an email? No, of
8:22course we wouldn't. That would be a lot
8:24of duplication of work. But because
8:25we're working with open source,
8:27um we're just going to focus on the
8:28features that we need for the project
8:30that's in front of us.
8:32Um you know, Dries is famous for saying
8:35that uh Drupal is about using the
8:36internet to eliminate the middle man.
8:39And that's I think something that uh
8:41custom business logic that is written
8:43without code can help you get there.
8:46Um the programmer is like one of those
8:48middle men.
8:49And um you know, not knowing how to code
8:52can be as bad as just having a really uh
8:55gatekeepery developer who doesn't want
8:58to allow you to make changes to things.
9:00So, I believe it is possible
9:02um for clients to demand, you know,
9:05low-code and no-code solutions to some
9:08of their problems, maybe not all.
9:10Or it is possible for programmers to go
9:13to their clients and say, you will
9:15reduce your maintenance burden
9:18by having me
9:19spend this time working on business
9:23logic in ECA versus business logic
9:26that's baked into a code that we must
9:27deploy in order to change.
9:31That's the
9:32theory part. This is the more practical
9:35part.
9:36So, uh we're going to go through a
9:37couple steps with ECA models. We're
9:38going to take one apart. We're going to
9:40modify one. We're going to build a new
9:42one.
9:42We're going to take something that folds
9:45several ECA actions together. And then
9:48we're going to talk about also fun ways
9:50that you can trigger models
9:52inside of your site.
9:54So, the deconstruct step. What do I mean
9:57by deconstruct? It's not to actually
9:59take down the Rube Goldberg machine into
10:01its principal parts, but
10:04instead to talk about what the principal
10:06parts are good for and try to be able to
10:08recognize that there's a tube structure
10:11followed by a tube structure followed by
10:13a tube structure followed by some
10:15dominoes followed by a can that's going
10:16to hit the next piece that's falling
10:18down the table, right?
10:21So, how do we do that with an ECA model?
10:23This is a
10:25medium complexity ECA model
10:27and it
10:29has some distinct parts.
10:32You can see on the far left side over
10:35there.
10:36Those little circles are what we call
10:38the events. And it's sort of if you were
10:41going to read this in English, you could
10:43say when this event happens
10:45and then you see number two, if this
10:47condition is met
10:48then number three, do one of these
10:50things.
10:52Um
10:53in this particular case, the the events
10:56are what if a node gets inserted or a
10:58node gets updated.
11:00After we do that, we have to do a little
11:02bit of setup.
11:03But then on step two there, you see
11:06there's some question marks inside of
11:09this little box. And so that means
11:12I'm going to try to make a decision at
11:14this point and I'm either going to go in
11:16one direction or I'm going to go in the
11:17other direction and then I'm going to do
11:18some some activities.
11:20Um
11:23All of the things you see in ECA, these
11:24little shapes kind of do have a meaning.
11:28Um the one that you will only use at
11:30very certain special times is this
11:32little diamond. It's really kind of like
11:34a connector between other pieces, but it
11:36doesn't have any functionality in and of
11:38itself.
11:40Um the most The thing you'll be using
11:42the most is these circles and these
11:43squares, and these are events and these
11:44are actions.
11:46And all all the context that starts on
11:49one side
11:50moves down the chain, and everything
11:52that this event knew about, this action
11:55can act on, and this action can act on,
11:57and this action can act on.
11:59And they all pass their properties along
12:02the further to the right you go. And
12:06we kind of organize left to right
12:08partially because we're left to right
12:09language speakers,
12:10but you could do top to bottom, you
12:12could do other sorts of um
12:15workflows here. It's not really set in
12:17stone like that.
12:19So, uh some other examples, if you're
12:21asking about event, what's an event?
12:22Before I leave for work, condition is if
12:25there are dark clouds in the sky, the
12:27action would be bring the umbrella from
12:28the hall.
12:30Right?
12:31And then another event could be after I
12:33leave for work, if today is not Friday,
12:36and if the time is before 8:45, get out
12:39my credit card and purchase coffee.
12:42Right?
12:43These could be a way of thinking about
12:46things that you have to do. So, my my
12:49recommendation before you just start
12:51diving into ECA is
12:53think about some of the steps and some
12:55of the information you're going to have
12:57to collect before you ever start
13:00clicking on mouse buttons. Um if you're
13:02just learning, you know, have fun, play
13:05around,
13:06dive into the sandbox, but when you
13:08start doing this in a more real way, if
13:11you don't know all the pieces and parts
13:13you're going to need,
13:14it could lead to frustration.
13:17Um here's an example of an ECA model
13:19that says, "After 20 minutes of
13:21inactivity, remind the user that their
13:23shopping cart is empty." And so, the
13:27event in this case is an order update
13:30event, and that event can get fired by
13:34basically a cron job.
13:36And then, the cron job can say, "All
13:38right, I now am going to be acting on a
13:40particular order.
13:42I'm going to then look inside of the
13:45order items, which in this case is the
13:48name of a Drupal field,
13:50and I'm going to load all the
13:52information from that order items into a
13:55variable,
13:56and then, um where did I get that field?
13:59The field was a field on this commerce
14:03order entity.
14:05So, you'll see these kind of screens and
14:07sidebars all over ECA,
14:09and learning how to read their
14:11structure,
14:12um sometimes, in order to make the thing
14:14at the top make sense, you have to go
14:16all the way to the bottom of the form to
14:17fill out some field, and then kind of
14:19come back at the top.
14:20Um this is not a wizard. It's not asking
14:24you like for all the steps that you're
14:25going to need in between.
14:28But, um there usually pretty decent
14:30documentation about what each field is
14:32supposed to do.
14:34So, um it's it's not super hard to
14:38uh figure out. Once you Once you've
14:40built a handful of models, these things
14:42start making a lot more sense. So, it's
14:45one reason why I think coming to a
14:46session can can help you
14:48learn something like this.
14:50Um other things we can do is we can
14:52actually modify an existing
14:54ECA
14:56model, and
14:58um you might see
15:00a when I'm building a user profile form,
15:02a whole bunch of conditions.
15:05Well, I'm not really sure what is all
15:06going on here, but I know that the
15:08message is wrong. I know I need to
15:10modify this message. This is what I was
15:11saying. This is something I could talk
15:12you through over the phone. Not creating
15:14a brand new ECA model from scratch, but
15:16just click on that thing that says
15:18display message, type some different
15:20text in the text box, make sure you
15:22leave all the things inside of square
15:23brackets where they were and then hit
15:25save.
15:26You have now officially saved a change
15:29to an ECA model.
15:32Um so, let's show you what one actually
15:34looks like. I'm going to get out of
15:36this.
15:38And we're going to go over here. So,
15:39this is our ECA
15:41um administration screen.
15:43Um
15:44you can see at the top we have the
15:46ability to add a new model. So, when you
15:48very first load this up,
15:50you know, there are no models by default
15:52in ECA unless you've already imported
15:54them using like a recipe or another
15:56module or something like that.
15:58Um
16:00then you can see your models and you can
16:01see a list of events which this model
16:04reacts to.
16:06So, this one says here views bulk
16:09operations. We'll talk about that in a
16:10minute. This one says when someone
16:12inserts a new entity.
16:14This is when somebody logs in.
16:17And this is when somebody updates an
16:18entity. And then these are a thing that
16:20are called custom event and we'll again
16:22talk about those in a little bit.
16:24Um but you can get a real quick overview
16:26here of
16:28what these models are all intended to
16:29do. You can give them version numbers.
16:32This matters if you
16:34are going to be tracking these things
16:36over time. That can probably help. Um
16:39just like you would do, let's say, with
16:40the revision log message on your nodes,
16:43you might want to update the version
16:45number to give yourself a clue of like,
16:47"Okay, well, on, you know, the the
16:49French site we're on version 1.1 and on
16:52the English site we're on version 1.2.
16:54So, there's clearly something different
16:56before I go modify one of these things."
16:58And then you can enable and disable
17:00them.
17:01And um
17:02some other really cool bits in here of
17:03like, you can clone something, so you
17:05can make a copy and then you can modify
17:07the copy, play around with that a little
17:09bit,
17:10and either make a brand new model or
17:12disable the old one to keep it around
17:15while you're playing around with the new
17:16one.
17:17Um export them. They're very very easy
17:19to export from one site to another.
17:21And
17:22if you are into building recipes, if you
17:24went to the other sessions about
17:26building recipes, they're really really
17:28easy to integrate into recipes. This
17:31button I think is probably still
17:33not like 100% of what one might wish
17:36when they see a thing that says export
17:38as recipe, but
17:40it The difference between export and
17:42export as recipe right now, as of today,
17:44is pretty similar
17:47as far as what's the end product, what
17:49you get. But it it is a a bundle, a
17:51little tar file that contains
17:55all of the XML and all of the YAML that
17:58is needed in order to
18:00create this model on some other site or
18:03check it into your code repository if
18:05that's what you need to do.
18:07And delete. So, that's a little tour of
18:10the admin screen, but let's go ahead and
18:12I'm going to talk a little bit about
18:14what this site is, my demo site here.
18:17This is
18:19a Pacific Northwest Drupal Meetup
18:21directory site. And so, we have
18:25some groups in here. Where are my
18:27groups?
18:28Groups.
18:30These are my groups. I have a group for
18:31Seattle, a group for Portland, and a
18:33group for Vancouver.
18:35If you don't know groups,
18:36users can become a member of a group
18:39and by becoming a member of a group, you
18:41can get permissions over some of the
18:44content and activities that are related
18:46to that group if you're a member versus
18:47not being a member. It's going to be
18:49important in a second.
18:51And then finally,
18:53for an individual group, you can also
18:55attach pieces of content. So, I might
18:58look under Seattle and look at nodes,
19:01and I should see at least one node.
19:04Seattle meetups are both virtual and in
19:06person. There's my article that's about
19:08that.
19:10If I look at this
19:12node here and I edit it,
19:15um, I have also set up a group field so
19:18that I can see that this belongs to a
19:20group and, um, just to get started I'm
19:22going to go ahead and I'm going to
19:23remove this from the Seattle group so I
19:26can show off
19:27a model that I made.
19:30Um,
19:32we'll come right back to this in a
19:33second.
19:35So, I'm going to go to my content
19:39screen.
19:41I have made a special view on my site
19:44that shows me all my content and then
19:47whether or not it belongs to a group.
19:49Oh, that's funny. I feel like this one
19:51should say Vancouver, but maybe I've
19:52already deleted it from Vancouver.
19:54Let's check.
19:58Okay, this is not currently in any
19:59groups. Okay, so currently no content is
20:01in a group because this meetup field is
20:04blank. So, I'll show you really quick. I
20:06want to be able to add this content to
20:08Vancouver.
20:10And this looks exactly like regular
20:12views bulk operations, but this is
20:13actually special ECA only views bulk
20:16operations. Um, this is something that I
20:19hope will get fixed at some point in the
20:20future is that the ECA version of views
20:23bulk operations will be compatible with
20:26the regular one. Right now,
20:28if you want to do this, you kind of have
20:29to have two separate screens.
20:31Um, but this was a a case that I
20:33actually came across in a real client
20:35project was
20:37there was no action inside of the little
20:40drop down to say add to group, remove
20:43from group,
20:44um,
20:45for for the groups module. And rather
20:48than sit down and write custom code, I
20:50said, "Well, I would love to learn more
20:52about ECA.
20:54I'm going to check this out." So, you
20:56can make, uh, these little special
20:57actions and I can hit apply
21:00and then it asks you, "Are you sure?"
21:02Just like a regular VBO. And then now it
21:05says, "Your content belongs to
21:07Vancouver, right? And same thing with
21:10Seattle.
21:11You hit apply. You say that's okay.
21:14And you're now your content belongs to
21:15Seattle, but the problem on my side is
21:18I don't have one for Portland.
21:20Is this big enough? Can we make it
21:22bigger?
21:23Bigger would be good. Okay.
21:30Better?
21:31Yeah. Okay. Only two options.
21:33Seattle, Vancouver, so we're going to
21:35We're going to fix that.
21:39Um I'm going to go to, sorry, workflow.
21:43Under configuration workflow ECA.
21:46And to start, I'm going to
21:49clone my Seattle model.
21:52And then I'm going to edit the clone.
21:54And the first thing we're going to do is
21:55go up to this sidebar under the general
21:57tab. And we don't have anything
21:59selected, right? As soon as I select
22:01something, this sidebar is contextual.
22:03It'll show whatever I've just clicked
22:05But to start, I want to give this thing
22:07a meaningful name. And I don't want it
22:09to be called add to Seattle clone. I
22:11want it to be called
22:13add to Portland.
22:18Um these little ID fields, they all get
22:21random uh letters and numbers and
22:23characters in them.
22:26If you watch Jürgen, who's the creator
22:28of ECA, um do his screencasts,
22:31you will see him typing meaningful names
22:33into these.
22:35I think this is a personal preference
22:36thing.
22:37I have done it, and it actually, in my
22:39opinion, makes
22:40these things easier to use, particularly
22:43once you get them out of Drupal into the
22:45XML files.
22:47Um so, my recommendation is
22:51if you are the kind of person who likes
22:53to wipe down your shower after you take
22:56a shower,
22:58use this field. If you're the kind of
23:00person who leaves your towels on the
23:01floor,
23:02just hit save.
23:04Right?
23:06Um
23:08this I can give this a version number if
23:10I would like. I can say this is an
23:11active and executable. And I can
23:13actually add extra documentation like
23:16created for PMW
23:19summit
23:20presentation, right?
23:23Whatever we're going to say here.
23:25Um a lot of times down here you see this
23:27thing extension properties.
23:29I have not used this a lot.
23:31This tool is actually a tool that's
23:34called BPMN or business process modeling
23:37notation.
23:39And as far as I understand it was
23:40originally created to map out activities
23:44that would be carried out in fact
23:46factories or like supply chain
23:48activities
23:49to show how goods and services move
23:52through a process.
23:54But you can just as easily use it to
23:56have data and objects move through a
24:00process
24:01as long as you trigger them correctly.
24:03Um and the the language itself comes out
24:07as XML.
24:09And that XML is portable to other kinds
24:11of languages, but because this is very
24:15very Drupal-y,
24:16you can't just go interpret them
24:18somewhere else. You could edit them in
24:19other places, but you'd be missing some
24:21of the Drupal stuff like the token
24:24browser.
24:25Right?
24:26If you've seen this before, you know
24:28what it is.
24:29Um
24:30so having this
24:32editor inside your Drupal site, it's
24:34completely free. It It while it is
24:36branded, this does not require you to
24:39have a membership or an API key or
24:41anything. You can do 100% of this inside
24:43your Drupal site.
24:44But there are other editors that will
24:47edit BPMN for you if you need them for
24:49some reason.
24:51Um and so the way that this works is as
24:55I click on one of these things, I can
24:57move it around
24:58and the arrows will follow me.
25:01If I don't want those arrows anymore,
25:03I can hit the little trash can and they
25:05go away.
25:07If I want to bring them back, I can hit
25:09the arrow and I can click on something.
25:11If you are clicked on a box and you just
25:14click on another box,
25:16it assumes that you want those to to be
25:18connected already.
25:20So, um it's pretty useful like that.
25:23And then um some other things you can do
25:25is if you click on one of these things,
25:26there's this little dash line.
25:29This is just for a little bit of
25:30documentation
25:31to say,
25:32you know, um my
25:35first
25:37model. And you can just leave yourself
25:40some documentation inside of of these
25:42models to let you know what's going on.
25:46Uh
25:46that's pretty much a good tour. So,
25:48let's talk about what this model
25:49specifically does.
25:51Um you saw the end product, which was a
25:54creates a drop-down inside of a Views
25:56Bulk Operation. In order to get there, I
25:59need to have an event.
26:01So, what event is that going to be?
26:05We're going to use a template. And right
26:07now what I'm going to do, I'm going to
26:08unlink the template. And I'm probably
26:09going to just open up
26:11my um other model in a separate tab
26:15so we can refer back to it.
26:17So, we'll we'll pretend we're going to
26:19um
26:20edit this again. So, this this model
26:22here, I'm going to get rid of you. Thank
26:24you.
26:25Thank you for your service. Okay.
26:27Um
26:29what what event do I want to use? I
26:31always need to go to this template well.
26:34This is the the workflow of ECA as it
26:38stands right now is
26:40I know I need an event and actually I
26:41can, if I want,
26:44put all of the circles and boxes and
26:46diamonds that I need and all the arrows
26:48that I need without ever having to dive
26:51into the sidebar, right? I can visually
26:54map it out as I've sketched it on paper,
26:56I can sketch it in this tool to make
26:59sure the workflow is what I need it to
27:00be,
27:02and reason about it while it's here on
27:04the screen before I ever really start
27:07configuring stuff.
27:09And uh
27:10I do, again,
27:12this may be a personality dependent.
27:15I would recommend that you do this. I
27:17realize that certain brain types might
27:20want to work in a different way. They
27:22might want to work from right to left.
27:23They might want to
27:25get the leftmost one and the rightmost
27:26one and leave a bunch of question marks
27:28in the middle. You know, there's not
27:29really a wrong way to eat a Reese's in
27:31this case.
27:34So, um again, clicking on the event
27:37and then we're going to pull up the
27:38template. This dialogue here
27:40contains a lot of things.
27:43It also will contain new things as you
27:45add new capabilities to ECA.
27:48So, um
27:50this is one reason why I say getting
27:52your getting your thoughts organized
27:53before you dive in here,
27:55um you could very easily,
27:58you know, uh pick something that sounds
27:59good and it's not the one that you need.
28:01So, doing a little bit of homework
28:03on um the ECA guide, we'll show in a
28:05minute,
28:06is probably going to get you pretty far.
28:08So, in this case, I know that this is
28:11VBO
28:12and I know that this is execute a views
28:15bulk operation, but then you see here
28:17there's two different ones. One of them
28:19says multiple at once and one of them
28:21says one by one.
28:23In my experience, one by one is the one
28:25you want.
28:27But now, it's going to ask me some more
28:29questions. It's going to say, "Hey,
28:32uh what is what is your VBO called?"
28:35This is kind of particular to the action
28:37that I'm in right now, but
28:38when we were looking at the
28:41I'm also going to pull up my screen
28:42really quick. Give me a second here.
28:44Come to.
28:45All right. When I was looking at this
28:47screen,
28:49this box down here contains some words,
28:53and we have add content to Vancouver,
28:55add content to Seattle. So, in this case
28:57then I'm going to say
29:00add content to Portland.
29:03Right?
29:08And then, do you want to have this show
29:11up only on a certain view or a certain
29:13view display? You can restrict that in
29:14this case, but
29:16I don't need that.
29:17Um I'm going to connect that to the
29:20action,
29:21which I have named add content to
29:23Seattle.
29:24And again, uh we can remove this link,
29:27and then we'll add it right back again.
29:29So,
29:31whenever this action whenever this event
29:33fires, the following action will do
29:34something.
29:35Add content to Seattle. What am I going
29:37to do with it?
29:38I'm going to group,
29:41and then it is uh group add content
29:45node.
29:46And then it's going to ask you a bunch
29:48of questions.
29:50Which type of group content is this? Is
29:52it articles? Is it basic pages? Or is it
29:55any kind of content?
29:57What's the group ID?
30:00This is currently in this exact case
30:04one of the sticky parts, but in this
30:06case I just have to know
30:08that the Portland group is got a certain
30:11ID, which I have to go find.
30:14Um
30:15Where's that little GR thing?
30:18Hello group. Where are you? Portland.
30:21Portland is number two.
30:23So, we're going to type two in this box.
30:25That's all I need to do
30:27um pretty much is
30:29that is group ID number two. What is the
30:31ID of the entity that I would like to
30:33add
30:35to the group?
30:36I'm going to get that from my context.
30:38So, where's my context? Back here
30:40on my event.
30:42If you look under
30:44the template right here, after you click
30:47this button to to apply the template,
30:50now it's going to give you a little bit
30:51of a description.
30:53And almost always it's going to name
30:55some tokens in this list. So, it says
30:57here, event, the event, session user,
31:00the user that dispatched the event,
31:03entity, the entity of the event,
31:06and then entity type is the entity of
31:09the event.
31:11An entity of the event under the name of
31:13its entity type.
31:15We might be able to work on this
31:16documentation.
31:18Um but you see there's a bunch of
31:20different tokens that are available and
31:22they all have these little square
31:23brackets.
31:24The one that I'm looking for here is
31:26this thing, entity.
31:28Okay, so I'm going to grab that and then
31:30come back
31:31to my action and I'm going to say, what
31:33is the entity ID? That's not what I was
31:36trying to do.
31:41All right, I just know that's a square
31:42bracket entity. That's not very hard.
31:47Okay.
31:48This This is the entity that I want and
31:50just real quick I'm going to go check my
31:52example to make sure I did this the
31:53right way.
31:55Oh, I did this the wrong way. It's got
31:56to be down here.
31:58All right, excuse me.
32:00Um
32:02I don't know why this one versus this
32:04one, but it's different.
32:10How did I get here? Trial and error.
32:13Um That's not the same token.
32:16I think you're on the wrong path. Did it
32:17have more things?
32:19Event. Oh, event entity? In this case,
32:22event entity and entity are equivalent.
32:24Okay.
32:26But good eye. Thank you. Only from
32:29troubleshooting all my EC2 instances and
32:31going like, wait, I still don't have it.
32:32Yeah.
32:33Um there's this little box down here
32:35that says replace tokens.
32:37Nine times out of 10, do not check this
32:39box.
32:40If you're sending an email, you may need
32:42to check this box in my experience,
32:45but start with this box off.
32:48If it doesn't work,
32:49try it on.
32:51That's That's what I say.
32:53Um and then there's this last thing here
32:56which says um group content value. So, I
32:58think we do have to put something in
32:59there.
33:01Uh in this case, no, we don't.
33:04That's in a different box. Okay.
33:06So, in this case, the the top line of
33:08this is very very simple.
33:09Get an action, give it a a name, and
33:12you'll learn in a second this name is
33:13actually very important.
33:15And then um figure out what I want to
33:18act on, which group do I want to act on,
33:21and then this is basically just pass
33:23through.
33:24There's nothing really to to do in this
33:26case.
33:27Um so, this is this is the action
33:30itself,
33:31but the problem with Drupal is
33:35What happened?
33:36Oh, I'm in Okay, this this place.
33:39The problem with Drupal is Drupal has
33:41permissions.
33:43So, just because I've stated I would
33:46like this action to appear,
33:48because it's Views Bulk Operations,
33:50Views Bulk Operations has to have an
33:51access check.
33:53I'm going to walk through this a little
33:53bit faster, but there is a particular
33:57event that you can do that says Views
33:59Bulk Operations access check. You have
34:01to do this in certain cases with with
34:03ECAs of
34:05There's one one event that feeds another
34:07event. There's one event that decorates
34:09another event. There's one event that
34:12chains onto another event.
34:14Um
34:15So, this is special thing called uh VBO
34:18access.
34:19And um
34:21in order to make this work, I have to
34:22have the exact same name here. So, right
34:24now it says Seattle, I need it to say
34:25Portland.
34:29Come back.
34:30Can't see you.
34:33Okay, great.
34:34That's super fun. All right, add count
34:36to Portland. These those two need to be
34:38exactly the same or it won't work.
34:40After that, I'm going to do an action
34:42called get current user. You don't
34:43always have to do this,
34:45but I think just in my debugging state,
34:48I had this in here and I didn't take it
34:50away.
34:51So, current user is
34:54can be either the user who clicked the
34:56button or the user who's logged in right
34:58now, or you can define some other user
35:00if you need to. Um the user who is the
35:02author of the node that you care about
35:04for some reason, right?
35:06So,
35:07there's a good There's a good
35:08distinction, right?
35:10Am I trying to get
35:12the permission based on the author of
35:14the node, or am I trying to get the
35:15permission based on the user who's
35:17logged in right now? In this case,
35:19the user I care about is the user who's
35:21looking at this view. So, I mean the
35:23user who's logged in.
35:25But, deciding which user you want inside
35:27of an ECA can be
35:29part of the battle here, right?
35:33Um get the current user. Now, I'm going
35:36to load the groups from that user.
35:38And again, this is something that is a
35:39little bit sticky because
35:41when I get this group relationship, I
35:43need to say that it's a group
35:44relationship, and
35:47I need to very specifically say
35:50I need it to be a group relationship of
35:52the type meetup,
35:54and I need to say for you people that
35:57are part of group number two.
36:00If I don't have this in here, it will
36:02not appear. So,
36:03um this particular one, if you have more
36:05than three or four or five groups on
36:07your site,
36:09this is going to get
36:11exponentially harder as you add more
36:13groups if you let people create as many
36:15groups as possible. If you only have
36:16five groups on your site and you have,
36:18you know, the library group, the finance
36:21group, and the uh math group,
36:24just adding a couple of things like this
36:26is not going to be that hard.
36:28Um but but the way this is right now, it
36:31probably would be better as a custom
36:32module because I have to keep plugging
36:33these ID numbers in.
36:36Hard kind of hard coding them, right?
36:39Um
36:40the last step is
36:42grant access. When you do this grant
36:44access, you just have to say yes.
36:46Um in the middle here,
36:49there's one more thing we have to do,
36:51but I'm going to go ahead and save just
36:52to show you what I'm talking about
36:55because I feel like I've been talking a
36:56lot
36:57without showing you that
37:00I think I'm going to flush the cache.
37:04Come back.
37:13In my experience with with the views
37:14based one, I had to flush the cache.
37:20And did I forget to save at the top? I
37:22noticed the box at the top still says
37:24channel. Is that maybe
37:30Uh this part this one here this doesn't
37:32really matter.
37:34But um
37:36It still has that same activity ID that
37:39you made to the VBO ad sale.
37:45Which one? This one? Yeah. Yeah. So is
37:48that because you customized it in your
37:49other one and so now it's not working?
37:51Yeah. I don't I again I don't think this
37:54is matters in this case.
37:56Um but yes, this was one I was playing
37:58around with seeing if the names would
38:00actually conflict with each other.
38:02I don't think they conflict with each
38:03other. I think this is name spaced
38:05inside of the individual model. I don't
38:07think they reach to other models.
38:09So I can really call this anything I
38:11want.
38:14But in this case this this um this
38:17circle here has to have the exact same
38:19string
38:21as this circle here
38:23or they will not talk to each other. And
38:25save.
38:26Go back over here.
38:28Let's flush our cache one more time.
38:32And then we're going to reload. We're
38:34going to hope that it works.
38:37Okay, there's one other thing that's
38:37possible, which is
38:39I could not be a member of the Portland
38:41group, but as there's only one user on
38:43my site, I don't think that's the case.
38:46We're going to check.
38:49Portland
38:51We're going to go to members.
38:56Yeah, I mean, I'm I'm a member, right?
38:57There's only me. So,
38:59should work.
39:03I did this with Vancouver and Seattle
39:05already.
39:08Well,
39:09this is awesome.
39:11Live demos. I can't add it to Portland.
39:14I can't add it to Portland. I've done
39:15all the right steps.
39:17There's probably something small
39:20that we're missing out.
39:23All right, anyway, the last little bit
39:24of this
39:26after I loaded the user and I say yes, I
39:27want to grant
39:29there's one condition that I had to do,
39:30which was
39:32um
39:34when I loaded this, I loaded my my group
39:38relationship, which is like a special
39:40kind of a database record
39:42into a variable and I called it group
39:43rel.
39:45And then when I got to here, I just said
39:49does this actually have a value, right?
39:51In in the PHP code, I would put the you
39:54know,
39:55bang empty
39:56or um exists, right? If this has a
40:00value, I'm going to proceed. If it does
40:02not have a value,
40:04I'm just going to stop executing, right?
40:06There is no sort of like fail condition
40:08in this case.
40:10But if I did put a fail condition, maybe
40:11it would tell me why it's not showing up
40:13on the screen.
40:15I know with VPL and regular actions, you
40:17have to define them. Oh, you know what
40:18else? You You might be saying the right
40:21thing right now.
40:22Uh you have to go to structure.
40:26Where did you go structure? I'm going to
40:28check my view.
40:30And I'm going to go look at group. I
40:31might have to turn it on
40:34in order to make it work.
40:39Look at that.
40:40Okay.
40:42So, inside of views here, this
40:45um little thing. This is like I said,
40:47this is right now this is a special ECA
40:49bulk operation
40:51and it doesn't smoosh in well with the
40:53regular VBOs.
40:56But,
40:58now I can go back to content.
41:01Go back to groups.
41:04And it should be there.
41:06Yay! All right.
41:08Teamwork.
41:11Um so, yeah. Now I can officially take
41:13this and one click add something to
41:16Portland
41:18from the screen. And I could obviously,
41:20if I had a thousand nodes on my site, I
41:22could do it that many more times.
41:25Um you've been seeing some of these uh
41:28things here that say mail has been sent.
41:31That's That's another model that I have
41:33set up here
41:34which is
41:38um
41:40uh send email to users of a given role.
41:45I have node unpublish. I think this is
41:47what I'm thinking about, node unpublish.
41:50All right?
41:51Whenever I
41:52edit a node,
41:54check to see if that node is unpublish,
41:57load up its comments, and try to send an
41:59email to everybody that left a comment
42:01on that node.
42:02Right? Um so, my other examples, I'm
42:05going to go back to the slideshow here.
42:08And we'll see
42:10a couple of other things. Oh, yeah,
42:11there's my thing. If I unpublish a node,
42:13it would notify all the commenters. When
42:14I save a node, if it's unpublished, send
42:17a message to all the commenters. But,
42:19what does that sending a message to each
42:21commenter actually mean? It means I got
42:22to load a list of all the comments, get
42:24one item off of the list, and send an
42:26email to that author.
42:29So, in this case,
42:31this is the
42:33sort of before of the before and after
42:35model.
42:36You can see whenever I save a node, the
42:38template that I have used is
42:41update content entity.
42:43I'm going to do a condition. If you see
42:45a um
42:47If you see a little uh
42:50text above an arrow,
42:53usually that means we're checking for
42:55something, right?
42:57And oh, this one it got removed.
43:00Um
43:02I think it's something like
43:04uh
43:06value, check for a value, right? Compare
43:09two values, compare field value,
43:12field value changed.
43:14I think it's going to be something like
43:15that. Field value change. Then we have
43:17to figure out which field are we dealing
43:20with? We're dealing with the status,
43:21right? So, we're going to have to put
43:23something in here that says the status.
43:25Well, how do I find that out? I'm going
43:27to go to the token browser.
43:29In my token browser, I can find things
43:31about content.
43:33Uh is it content types or No, it's
43:36content, right? No, it's
43:39This is one of those times when they use
43:40the word node where everybody else in
43:41Drupal uses content.
43:44Inside of node, something something
43:46something,
43:47published status, right?
43:51This should be what I should be putting
43:53in.
43:54This thing really does not want to copy
43:56and paste today.
44:00Okay, great.
44:02While I'm doing a demo is when you
44:03decide to do this. Published
44:06status.
44:07Okay?
44:10So, that's in there and then I can
44:12choose
44:13do I want to check this that it's true
44:15or check this that it's false, right?
44:17Um and I think all I really want to say
44:19is has this value changed?
44:22And then I might have to check again
44:23later like
44:24is the current value the value that I
44:26care about, right? I might have to do
44:28this two times
44:30in order to really get all the logic
44:31that I need in here. Compare a condition
44:34just for published?
44:35It might There might be.
44:38Cuz I don't think you have that.
44:40Just look.
44:43Status. Yeah.
44:45It could be status, right?
44:50Yeah, sometimes when you're doing these
44:51comparisons, you really just have to do
44:53like compare.
44:55Or is accessible is new. You can do is
44:57new.
44:58Original field has value.
45:03So,
45:04a lot of the things that you want are in
45:06here.
45:07It is possible to extend ECA too if you
45:09find something's just not working the
45:10way you really want it to.
45:12These are fairly easy to create. Um
45:14we're not planning on going into that
45:16today.
45:17But um
45:19yeah, something like compare fields,
45:20right?
45:22Um a cool thing you can do here, when I
45:24say here I I said load comments,
45:26it's because this is going to actually
45:29load up
45:31all of the comments, no matter how many
45:32there are.
45:34My next action, what I'm going to do is
45:35I'm just going to get
45:37one item from the list. So, uh the
45:42uh load a single entity. Where did it
45:44go? Sorry.
45:45Load a single entity.
45:48My comments CID. Where did it Where did
45:50the thing go that I'm talking about?
45:58Right place. In the right place.
46:02All right. Well, this is the advanced
46:04example.
46:06I thought this was what I was thinking
46:08of.
46:13My comment CID. So, where's my comment
46:15coming from? My comment is coming from
46:17over here.
46:20I feel like this is broken. I There's no
46:22names in here. I think this is not what
46:23I want.
46:25I apologize, everyone.
46:27I confused myself.
46:32Great.
46:33This is what you want.
46:37I bet you this is going to have the
46:38thing that I want. Look at that. Okay.
46:40Comparing values, is the status equal to
46:42unpublished?
46:45That was the thing I was looking for
46:46load comments. Okay, here we go. Get the
46:48first comment.
46:50Uh yep. Okay.
46:56Pardon me. Unprepared presenter over
46:58here.
46:59Um
47:01Let's go back to the beginning.
47:03If the node is saved, if it is
47:05unpublished, load all of the comments.
47:08With this action, I can get an item off
47:09of a list.
47:12Which item do I want to get off of the
47:13list? Which list am I acting on? I'm
47:15acting on the comments list.
47:18And what am I going to do? I'm going to
47:19take the first item. I'm going to take
47:20the last item. I'm going to get a
47:22specific index key.
47:24I'm going to get some other value or
47:27going to get something that was defined
47:28by a token. This case, I'm just going to
47:30take the first thing off the list. Let's
47:31do with the first thing off the list.
47:33And I can load up the contents of that
47:35comment, and I can decide to send an
47:36email to that author.
47:38If I know I'm only going to have a few
47:40of these, I could really just repeat
47:41this again, right? Get another comment.
47:44Load that comment and email the author.
47:46Get a third comment, load that comment
47:48and email the author. But obviously,
47:49this is not sustainable. This is not how
47:52we do things, right?
47:55So, we can take all of these
47:58and say, "We don't need you."
48:01We can instead, where it says here, get
48:03first comment,
48:05grab all of these and scootch them over
48:07a little bit.
48:09And now we get to hit
48:12this magical other button here.
48:16And this is what is called a gateway.
48:19The gateway exists
48:21for when you need to point to some bit
48:24of the code or you need to create a
48:27branch at some arbitrary point.
48:30The gateways themselves don't really do
48:32anything. They can't accept the
48:33templates.
48:34But,
48:36if I want the next action after email
48:38author
48:39to be
48:41go back to this point,
48:43the gateway is the way that I
48:47grab
48:49that thing.
48:51See if we can do this.
48:53Like that.
48:55Right?
48:57So, now when I'm finished with this
48:59action, I'm going to go back to this
49:00point and then instead of get the first
49:02comment, it's going to be
49:03get the next comment, right?
49:09Does that make sense?
49:11All right.
49:12Somewhere in my slideshow I have a good
49:13screenshot of what this really looks
49:15like.
49:17Here we go. We're going to name the
49:18model.
49:19We're grabbing events.
49:21We're giving them templates.
49:24Make sure you name things correctly.
49:26Check out your templates.
49:31And then keep keep moving on, right?
49:34This is kind of a recap of what we were
49:36just talking about. Email the author.
49:40And I I made a whole bunch of
49:42transitions, y'all. This looks really
49:44nice.
49:47Um so so this was the Willie Wonka
49:49moment. I pressed all the buttons except
49:51for one,
49:52and that was the gateway.
49:54So, in this case, now
49:57I drop my gateway down here.
49:59And when you get to that load comment,
50:02since it can only grab one,
50:04you just tell it go to the gateway
50:06and go back to the beginning.
50:10And don't forget to hit the save button.
50:13If you don't hit the save button, it
50:14doesn't get applied, and you can spend a
50:16lot of time going through your site, and
50:19nothing happens. Don't forget to add it
50:21to your view if you're doing the bulk
50:22views bulk operation, right?
50:25Um these are the things that can really
50:26get you.
50:27Right? Yep.
50:28So,
50:29do I
50:30understand correctly that this would
50:31actually send
50:33the number of emails that get sent would
50:34be the number of comments
50:35The number of emails that get sent is
50:36the number of comments. So, a good
50:38example of something like this, uh I
50:40worked on an intranet site, and we were
50:42doing task tracking, right? Uh customer
50:45support request comes in over the phone,
50:47somebody fills out a little uh piece of
50:50content somewhere, and says, you know,
50:53"Customer would like 30 chairs delivered
50:55to room 235 on this date."
50:58Somebody, please leave a comment to say
50:59that you acknowledge this request.
51:01Somebody comes by, and they leave a
51:02comment.
51:04But, if at a some later date, somebody
51:06comes by and updates what the request
51:08says,
51:10everybody who's left a comment needs to
51:12get notified.
51:14Right? That's a use case for I need to
51:17email all the commenters.
51:20Especially if it gets removed. Right?
51:22That's That's the unpublished version
51:24here. Yeah. Follow up from that. Did
51:26anything have to change in the the
51:28little action for loading the comment to
51:31indicate that you're loading some
51:33specific index, or just that gateway
51:35automatically handles that? When you do
51:37that load next uh load an item off of
51:39the list action, one of the choices was
51:42remove the item from the list
51:44and load one.
51:45So, it's modifying the list as every
51:49time. And when it gets to there are no
51:51more items in the list, it will just
51:52stop executing.
51:56So, some of the things are weirdly
51:57implicit about how ECA
52:00um handles
52:01the especially things like lists.
52:07Uh so, yeah, I was saying we got to
52:08check some more things about the node
52:09being unpublished, but I think I kind of
52:11did show that. Okay.
52:13Um
52:14other things that you can do, uh this is
52:17a game that my 6-year-old likes to play
52:19sometimes. It's called LightBot, and
52:21it's about getting a robot to move
52:24along a track, and he can only do five
52:28things, but with these five things you
52:29can be very expressive.
52:31Um
52:33and so, if a 6-year-old can understand
52:35how to do a repeated procedure and store
52:38that inside of a register somewhere,
52:41I bet your clients could figure it out
52:42as well, right?
52:45Um
52:46and basically what this person is saying
52:48is whenever you drop this procedure into
52:50this thing,
52:52I can do that action again and again and
52:54again.
52:55Um
52:56and that was that was sort of where the
52:58loop
52:59entered into our last example there.
53:05Um
53:07Another thing that you can do
53:10inside of ECA, and you will see this in
53:12a lot of the examples, is
53:14you can abstract out
53:17whatever thing that you want to do at
53:19the end of your loop
53:21and put it
53:22in another part of your canvas.
53:25And now this might have its own chain
53:27that you want to follow, but if you try
53:29to insert this into your normal
53:31flowchart, it would just get completely
53:34unyieldy, and you wouldn't be able to
53:36follow what's happening.
53:37So, just like the little robot here,
53:42think about
53:44um
53:44basically, you know, creating functions
53:48inside of your models and breaking out
53:51bits of functionality to make them
53:53easier to to follow the the path
53:55visually.
53:59It's like inception. Okay.
54:01Um some other examples that I saw that
54:04were really cool. This was from
54:05DrupalCon Portland. Um John, who is not
54:08in this room, but is at the conference
54:10today somewhere,
54:11um showed this off and he talked about
54:16uh basically when he wanted to
54:20uh look at these
54:23work slips, like, you know, work
54:24activities that needed to be done, he
54:27wanted to make sure that two of them
54:28were not happening at the same time.
54:31And so, at the top here,
54:33you've got
54:34load the slip
54:36and then load the start date and the end
54:39date into each their own variable, and
54:42then try to figure out how they have
54:44conflicts. But how are we going to try
54:45to figure out how they have conflicts?
54:47There's a There's an action in ECA which
54:49says, "Load all of the contents of a
54:51view." But what are the arguments to
54:53that view? It's these two variables.
54:56Right? So, I can say um you know, node
55:00contextual argument number one, start
55:02date, contextual argument number two,
55:04start date. If that returns anything,
55:08I'm going to check, does it have at
55:09least one value? If it has at least one
55:11value, I'm going to do something, which
55:14I think in this case is invalidate the
55:16form.
55:18I'm going to do it another thing in
55:19tandem with that, which is
55:22I would also like to get Unix timestamps
55:24for those dates, and then I would like
55:27to make sure that
55:28this event is not longer than 3 days by
55:31doing some simple math.
55:36So, again, uh that's what we just did. I
55:38was pointing at it instead of using the
55:40red boxes, but there you go.
55:45Um another person who's here at the
55:47conference let me use this action.
55:50And this is an activity
55:53that basically has to check and see if
55:56a certain amount of fields have changed.
55:59So, whenever I get new content, I want
56:02to send an email, but also
56:05we're going to group all of the things
56:06that have to do with this content type
56:08sort of into one model.
56:10So, this this actually in some people's
56:12sites could be a totally separate model.
56:14In this case, they've kept them together
56:15because if you want to export this and
56:19version it
56:20and uh you know, install it on your dev
56:22site, install it on your stage site, you
56:24can keep all of the things related to
56:26this one model in one
56:28zip file, right?
56:31So, this is now totally separate um
56:33model, basically. And it says, "If one
56:36of the ABCs changes, I would like to
56:38send an email
56:39and show a message on the screen. If one
56:41of these DEF fields changes, I want to
56:44show a different message on the screen
56:45and I want to send an email to a
56:46different kind of user."
56:48And so on, right? These can get really
56:51complicated and really big.
56:53Um
56:55but
56:56if you're able to figure out how to
56:58break them down visually,
57:00it at least lets you start figuring out
57:03where is the place where I need to go
57:04make the change or where is the place
57:05where I need to add some new activities.
57:09And then um we talked about those custom
57:10events, those little named functions.
57:12You can do those in here as well, right?
57:16Um what are some of the cool ways you
57:17can trigger ECA? These local operations
57:19we talked about quite a bit.
57:21Um that's what it looks like.
57:23Um inside of Drupal Commerce, there's
57:25lots and lots of events that get fired
57:27off. User added item to cart. User, you
57:30know, uh
57:32changed the cart from
57:34this status to that status. An item is
57:37getting ready to be shipped. There's so
57:38many things you can do. User used the
57:40coupon.
57:41Right?
57:42Um inside of web forms
57:45a reason why you might want to have an
57:46ECA is uh
57:49to to modify a web form. If it's already
57:52been submitted, maybe I don't want the
57:55the attendees to be able to fill out
57:57certain fields, and I don't want the
57:59judges of the contest to be able to fill
58:01out other fields. So, I can actually use
58:03ECA
58:05uh form actions to enable and disable
58:08fields based on your user role.
58:10Right?
58:12Um some other really cool things that
58:13exist is this Drupal remote dashboard.
58:15This basically lets one Drupal site send
58:18a web hook to another Drupal site
58:19saying, "Hey,
58:21this module has a security update and
58:23needs to be updated.
58:25I want to notify you, sort of mothership
58:27site, security updates are available."
58:33All right. Um
58:35things that are coming down the road,
58:36recipes are out there. Being able to
58:38stick ECA models inside of recipes along
58:41with all of the content types and all of
58:43the fields and all of the permissions
58:44that you would need and even some sample
58:46content to be able to demonstrate it
58:49is
58:50uh right around the corner.
58:53And then
58:55uh there are some really good examples
58:56showing artificial intelligence being
58:58used inside of ECA.
59:00So, if you can uh if you're in the world
59:03where you're trying to get artificial
59:04intelligence to do something, let's say
59:07um provide alt text on images.
59:10Well, I could then create a view that
59:12says, "Load up every image that does not
59:16contain alt text."
59:18Now,
59:19use ECA to load one image, determine if
59:23that image is owned by any nodes,
59:26load the title of that node.
59:29Load that into the context for the AI.
59:31Load the image into the context for the
59:33AI and try to generate a meaningful alt
59:36text for this image
59:38inside of my ECA.
59:40It is possible to do this kind of stuff.
59:43Um also integrating with outside APIs,
59:46um like we said, webhooks. If you need
59:48to send or receive something, um it's
59:50pretty easy to do those kinds of things
59:52inside of ECA if you're so motivated.
59:55Um
59:56and also if you have a backend API that
59:59you need to access,
1:00:01um there's there's I believe ways that
1:00:04you can go and fetch things with like a
1:00:06curl request and stuff that's already
1:00:08exists. You don't have to write custom
1:00:10code to do that kind of thing.
1:00:11So go fetch something from this API,
1:00:14uh parse the JSON data, look at one of
1:00:16the values, decide if I need to make
1:00:18some action, maybe on a cron job, maybe
1:00:20when somebody hits a button on my site.
1:00:23Um
1:00:24one thing I
1:00:27started specifying with ECA and the
1:00:30client decided they were going to take
1:00:32their money overseas,
1:00:34um was for a game engine.
1:00:37So
1:00:38uh
1:00:39I kind of got the idea originally
1:00:40because if you've ever looked at any
1:00:43game engines, they all use these visual
1:00:45editors to begin with.
1:00:46And the client started telling me,
1:00:48"Well, they have an online game.
1:00:50And let's say that there's a series of
1:00:53four of these online games. If you play
1:00:55all four games,
1:00:57I would like to give you a badge."
1:00:59Well, how do I know that you've done
1:01:01that?
1:01:02Right? I'm going to have to store some
1:01:04information about that you have played
1:01:06the game
1:01:07in an activity table somewhere.
1:01:10And I'm going to have to store your
1:01:11user,
1:01:13you know, the entity ID of the game, and
1:01:16the date that you played it, right?
1:01:19How How am I going to find that
1:01:21information? I could use ECA, load up a
1:01:25a view for all of the games that this
1:01:27user has ever played, and now compare it
1:01:29to a list of
1:01:31you know, games that I care about in
1:01:33order to make this badge.
1:01:35But,
1:01:36they didn't just have four games. They
1:01:38had
1:01:3950 or 60 games. And they didn't want to
1:01:42just do one kind of promo. They wanted
1:01:44to do
1:01:45essentially an infinite number of
1:01:46different kinds of promos. And I said,
1:01:49"You're going to be on the phone with
1:01:50your programmer every single day. You're
1:01:52going to be deploying new code every
1:01:55single day. Or
1:01:56I can teach you how to make ECA rules,
1:02:00and you can create the business logic
1:02:02yourself."
1:02:04Uh and so, this was a thing we were
1:02:07planning on
1:02:08building out this whole system for them.
1:02:10And like I say,
1:02:12they took their money elsewhere, but I'm
1:02:13pretty sure they still did something
1:02:15very similar to that after we designed
1:02:17it for them.
1:02:20Um
1:02:21Places to go to learn about ECA.
1:02:24The ECA guide, especially the library
1:02:26page. There are some really good
1:02:28examples. Um Anytime that I want to, you
1:02:32know, create a model for something, I go
1:02:34look here first.
1:02:36Um
1:02:38Also, pretty much everything on the
1:02:40library has a video attached to it, a
1:02:42YouTube video
1:02:44of Jürgen or one of the other
1:02:45contributors building out the model. So,
1:02:48you can kind of watch it be constructed
1:02:50in real time.
1:02:52Um If you do have people updating ECA in
1:02:56production, you have to have a way to
1:02:57get those changes out of production and
1:03:00back into your site. But, if a deploy
1:03:02happens before you're able to hit the
1:03:03button,
1:03:05you've now actually reverted your
1:03:06configuration. So, you might need to get
1:03:08something like the config ignore module
1:03:10or the config read only module
1:03:13to allow you to say,
1:03:15"You know what? All of the
1:03:17configurations that belong to ECA
1:03:20actually don't
1:03:22overwrite those whenever I do a config
1:03:24import. Leave them alone. I've also done
1:03:27this with web forms before. If I wanted
1:03:30the client to be able to edit web forms,
1:03:31I could go and say,
1:03:33"Please import all of my config except
1:03:35web forms by using a tool like this."
1:03:38And then we're able to set everything
1:03:39else into read-only mode so that even if
1:03:41they try to go to the site information
1:03:43screen and try to change the name of the
1:03:45site, it will say, "No, you're not
1:03:47allowed to change configuration. Sorry."
1:03:51Um how do I run ECA on cron? There's
1:03:54some good examples in the library
1:03:57um to talk about how to do schedule
1:03:58publishing.
1:04:00Um Views bulk operations is a separate
1:04:02project, but it is
1:04:04an official separate project, just not
1:04:05part of the ECA core.
1:04:07Um
1:04:09you saw some of those little status
1:04:10messages I was showing to sort of debug
1:04:13my my email sending, that's the mail log
1:04:16module.
1:04:18Um we talked about commerce just a
1:04:20little bit, but um that's a separate
1:04:22download.
1:04:24Uh Web forms one is a separate download,
1:04:26but can be very useful like I was
1:04:28saying.
1:04:30And the the events they provide are
1:04:31things like if a form's being validated,
1:04:34um when it's getting saved, um you can
1:04:37display custom messages, you can
1:04:38validate fields, and you don't have to
1:04:41mess around with form API in web form,
1:04:43which everybody knows is just no fun.
1:04:46Um being able to do the resource
1:04:47conflicts
1:04:49um that one I said that John did at uh
1:04:51DrupalCon Portland, highly recommend
1:04:53that talk, it's a good one.
1:04:55Uh workflow allows you to modify and
1:04:59react to changes in workflow states.
1:05:01Cache, uh
1:05:03this is where it gets really deep and
1:05:04you can do crazy stuff with cache. Like
1:05:06I want to flush the cache whenever
1:05:08somebody, you know, saves a certain page
1:05:10or updates some field. Um
1:05:13being able to do things with users and
1:05:15logins, redirect them after they've
1:05:16logged in. If you log in and you're this
1:05:18status, I want to take you to that
1:05:19screen. If you log in and you're this
1:05:22role, I want to take you to another
1:05:23screen.
1:05:25Um organic groups we showed in my
1:05:27example today.
1:05:29And then um there's a whole other thing
1:05:32called context, which lets you actually
1:05:35like show blocks,
1:05:37um block visibility rules, or you know,
1:05:40enable enable disable menu items,
1:05:43um play around with taxonomy terms based
1:05:46on what's available at the time. So,
1:05:49there's a lot a lot a lot to cover in
1:05:51here, and I was trying to just give you
1:05:53a nugget to get me started.
1:05:56Um so,
1:05:58get to lashing everybody.
1:06:00Let's build bridges.
1:06:03That was my thing, and I do have a copy
1:06:05of these slides, and if somebody wants
1:06:06to see
1:06:07um specifics
1:06:09of something that I did, I'll be up here
1:06:12for a little bit. And then I'm going
1:06:13back to Portland.
1:06:14So, thanks everybody. Thanks.

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