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If you're upgrading your site from Drupal 5 to Drupal 6 and were previously using the event module, you have probably realized that a lot of the supporting modules that made the event module functional (such as Event Views) have fallen by the wayside. Well, as luck would have it, much (if not all) of the functionality that the event module provides can be re-created using CCK date fields, views and the calendar module. So the only task that remains is to get your existing event content migrated over into usable CCK fields, and then configure your views to display them into a calendar display.

While there are undoubtedly other approaches to achieve this end, this is a relatively quick and painless path to get the features you want up and running.

Identify the content type or types currently on your site which are used by events. The process differs slightly depending on whether the resulting CCK date fields will be located in only one content type, or shared between multiple types.

Through the CCK interface, create new date fields in your existing event content type. These are the fields into which the old event information will be migrated . For the purposes of this document, I'll call them "eventstart" and "eventend".

If you have only one content type for events, your new fields will be created in the mysql table corresponding to that type. For example, if your content type was called wine_tastings, a table called content_type_wine_tastings will exist in your database, and the fields field_eventstart_value and field_eventend_value will exist in this table.

If you're sharing the eventstart and eventend fields between multiple content types, new tables will be created to house this data. In this example, the tables would be called content_field_eventstart and content_field_eventend.

Now with a little php and mysql magic, we can populate the new field data from the event_start and event_end fields from the original event table. Because the date information is stored in slightly different formats, a little bit of transformation is required. Create a php script like the example below, and execute from the command line. This example was constructed using shared date fields across multiple content types.

Remember to ALWAYS back up your database before performing any operations like this!

<?php
// You backed up your database, right?
// Set up the mysql connection
// Drupal's bootstrap function may be substituted here
// require_once '/path/to/drupal/includes/bootstrap.inc';
// drupal_bootstrap(DRUPAL_BOOTSTRAP_FULL);
$con = mysql_connect('localhost', 'yourdbusername', 'yourdbpassword');
mysql_select_db('yourdbname', $con);
// Cycle through all the records in the event table 
$q = 'select * from event';
$r = mysql_query($q);
while ($row = mysql_fetch_assoc($r)){
// Transform the date information
// CCK date format: 2008-12-10T00:00:00
// event date format: 2006-11-13 15:00:00
  $startdate = preg_replace ("/ /", 'T', $row['event_start']);
// Populate the new field for eventstart
  $q2 = 'update content_field_eventstart set field_eventstart_value="'. $startdate . '" WHERE nid="'. $row['nid'] . '"';
  if (!$r2 = mysql_query($q2)){
// Don't continue if anything goes south
    exit ($q2 ." failed!\n");
  }
// Perform the same transformation and data population for the end date
  $enddate = preg_replace("/ /", 'T', $row['event_end']);
  $q3 = 'update content_field_eventend set field_eventend_value="'. $enddate .'" WHERE nid="'. $row['nid'] .'"';

// Once again, terminate the operation if the query fails if (!$r3 = mysql_query($q3)){ exit($q3 ." failed!\n"); } } ?>

Once you've got these fields populated, you should check an existing node to verify that the information has been correctly populated. Navigate to one of your event nodes, and select edit. You should see both the legacy event date information and the new CCK fields populated with the start and end dates.

If this all checks out, browse to the modules page and disable the events module. You are now free to uninstall the event module and purge any vestigial tables.

Congratulations! You have converted your event nodes to a more flexible CCK/Date setup. These fields are now available for use in views using the calendar module!

The fields in core sprint is happening, and you can follow it in the Fields in Core group. Check out the emerging Field API specification at http://docs.google.com/View?docid=dcz939... and the latest public discussion on storage at http://groups.drupal.org/node/17576, table per field or table per type. The functionality of fields is huge for Drupal and future versions of core. Follow along in the fields in core group and participate because it's not something to be taken lightly.

DrupalCon DC is a few months away, but as you know time flies with Drupal, so now is the time to vote for what you want the next DrupalCon to be. With almost 200 sessions proposed you have a lot to choose from!

If any of these sessions interests you, please vote for them on DC2009.DrupalCon.org!

DrupalCon DC is looking to be the best DrupalCon yet! What are you looking forward to?

It happened several weeks ago, and the official announcement went out ~~yesterday~~ Wednesday, so I figured it's time to blog it: pingVision is an Acquia Platinum Partner, offering IA/TA, web design, development, deployment, performance tuning and consulting services for sites built using Acquia Drupal^*.

Acquia truly escalated the Drupal world when it came out with its commercially supported distribution of Drupal. Nothing is lost. It's all gain. Because Acquia Drupal is still Drupal, still free, still licensed under the GPL. And it's co-founded by Drupal creator Dries Buytaert, meaning it's not at all likely to go off on its own fork. (Dries not only wouldn't want to, it wouldn't make business sense in the open source ecosystem.)

A new support resource

The Acquia Network of support offers some new reassurance to website owners and operators who might be a bit leery of venturing into the deep end of the open source pool.

Acquia also has a tech support team available via web, email and telephone, depending upon subscription level.

We're delighted to offer Acquia Drupal services. It's been a real pleasure working with the Acquia team these past few weeks. We look forward to many years working together to help spread Drupal around the world.

From the press release

'Tis the season, and we've almost arrived at the second Wednesday of the month, meaning that this month's Drupal Meetup will be a sort of casual, impromptu holiday affair.
Druplicon Santa

What that means is that we'll have some eggnog and perhaps other celebratory fare to complement the usual pizza and Drupal enthusiasm.

We don't know if you've been naughty or nice, but Drupliclaus does! (Heh.) So come share in some Drupal karma. We promise we won't sing any carols.

Last month marked our 2-year anniversary in our current office — or, rather, one of our current office suites.

Now we're looking at some possible new office spaces where we will make our home next, and that has me looking back at the life lived inside these walls. In a way, it's hard to believe we've been here two years already. Yet it also feels like where we were two years ago was more like a million years ago. Times change.

Before getting into this building, we were doing the bulk of our work out of a home office, and used a virtual office for meetings, etc. We knew then that getting into a "real" office would constitute a huge improvement in our productivity.

In hindsight, I think we underestimated just how much of an improvement that would in fact make.

When we first moved into the building starting on the Monday after Thanksgiving 2006, we had just Suite 1, a 4-room (plus full bathroom) space on a split-level. It was not all that big, especially during our meet-ups....But we did our best to spruce it up and make it a comfy place to work.

As we grew and suites opened up in our building, we started taking them over, spreading out ... until we reached the point where we are now, with 5 out of the 6 suites and over 5,000 square feet of space....

Having a bricks-and-mortar presence has really helped us as a company. We start off every day with our morning huddle. We confer on things as they come up. We meet with clients in-person -- which in itself is more valuable than most people imagine. And we learn from each other.

While there apparently are companies considering going virtual — and there's no doubt many companies are doing well as virtual shops — that is something we will not do, not if we can at all avoid it. The benefits for us from being in the same space to date have far outweighed the savings in lease and commuting costs.

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A new support resource

From the press release