Project Browser Meeting for November 17, 2021 [#3250227]

1️⃣ There is a team at Acquia using some contrib time to work on Project Browser this week. If they have any updates or questions regarding what they're working on, please ask away here! I know that Ted Bowman is working on better integration with Automatic Updates and refactoring some of their stuff to be an API module. Ben Mullins has a workaround to at least allow us to get major Drupal version compatibility baked into the current prototype, so we can remove 95% of the "not compatible with this site" issues that we're seeing, for example, for D7 modules. Tim plunkett and some other folks have been working on streamlining the card view, and another team has been working on the categories. The current API provides no way to filter by multiple categories so we're working around that server side.

chrisfromredfin	Oh, should also mention that Adam got automated testing working for us this week also!
Rajab Natshah	Acquia’s Drupal Acceleration Team :kissing_heart::drupal-logo:Hopping to have more Acceleration Teams

2️⃣ as we find more and more limitations with the existing D7 API, I get increasing urgency that we need to get the D9 API Site up and running with JSON:API. @Rajab Natshah has some contrib time coming up as well, and he will be working on that. Let us know if you have anything to add there.

Rajab Natshah	@chrisfromredfin I'm open to the task.
Rajab Natshah	I have been playing with JSON:API under Drupal 9 for some time
Rajab Natshah	Today I worked onIssue #3238572: Fix phpcs --standard=Drupal and phpcs --standard=DrupalPractice for the Project Browser module
Rajab Natshah	Looking for other issues
chrisfromredfin	have you written migrations at all? there's a lot of setup that would need to take place (we need to get the source Drupal.org D7 database for example) but then we need to migrate releases into the D9 before we can advanced anything on the API there, so I think that's the next big blocked on that side.
chrisfromredfin	and that is this one -> #3249235: Migrate releases into Drupal 9 site
Rajab Natshah	Yes. I had a number of migration modules to migrate from D7 to D8
Rajab Natshah	D9 is mostly the same
chrisfromredfin	beautiful. I didn't hear from @grasmash about the d.o database, maybe @drumm can help us obtain a new sanitized one securely.
drumm	I don’t believe @grasmash is authorized to distribute the DB outside of Acquia. While the data should be sanitized of all personally identifying information, it’s important to still treat it as confidential in case we’ve missed something.
drumm	@Rajab Natshah have you signed a contributor agreement for this?
Rajab Natshah	:white_check_mark: Yes
Rajab Natshah	I have access to the site + Code
Rajab Natshah	But not the database.Did not try to get it yet.I was only looking at the system and the current API
chrisfromredfin	last I knew, Matt was only granting access to the Acquia site once the agreement had been signed. which is why I expected the database to be there at Acquia, but it wasn't.
drumm	I’m not sure how Matt set that up. We can get a fresh DB dump of the D7 site, if that’s what’s needed.
chrisfromredfin	Yeah, I think that's where we've landed, Neil - thanks.
chrisfromredfin	feel free to DM me for whatever you may need.

3️⃣ I forgot to bring this up yesterday. @burnASHburn has created artwork for the Project Browser Strategic Initiative page See the issue for the design and let us know what you think

Jillian Chueka	I just looked at this and the artwork is incredible! Well done @burnASHburn!!
leslieg	Agree, Nice job @burnASHburn My only comment was that the 3 individuals pictured appear to be all women at first glance. I would prefer that we have a more representative view of who the users of project browser are. What do others think? @Jillian Chueka? (edited)
Ron Northcutt	Thats a good point. Personally, I don’t mind if they all appear to be a diverse group of women. Its not like there is a huge need to show more men in the world. That being said, I would defer to the Site Builder group on that.
leslieg	My concern was the impression that site builders are primarily women
Jillian Chueka	I did not get that impression initially, but then I know Site Builders are composed of all varieties of people. Is it possible to make one of the figures more non-gendered (shorter hair even)? We could also socialize the image with non-site builders and ask their initial thoughts about it? It's a very cool piece of art, very modern looking.
Andrew Olson (andrewozone he/him)	Agree with all the comments here. Fabulous work! I added a comment though that the screenshot provided has 2 misspellings on it. Sorry/not sorry I can't unsee those things :see_no_evil:
Jillian Chueka	Thank you @Andrew Olson (andrewozone he/him)! Def appreciate the spell check. This design has been iterated on. Are you in the new Drupal file? https://www.figma.com/file/1Z8xrcP2zgnO6BXlu9ZeQ5/Project-browser?node-i...
Andrew Olson (andrewozone he/him)	Thanks @Jillian Chueka I was responding to the screenshot posted in this issue. Thanks for the link! I still see the Accessibility misspelled as the category on a few of these screens (hopefully that is easy to correct). That said, wow, I really like how this is coming together :heart_eyes: (edited)
Jillian Chueka	Good catch! I'll go fix it now!

4️⃣ Chris and I will be leading a BoF on Friday at NEDCamp around “PROJECT BROWSER INITIATIVE - RETHINKING THE DRUPAL.ORG PROJECT PAGES”. If you would like to join in, you will need to register for the camp to get the zoom link and password, however it’s free unless you want to make a donation. nedcamp.org (registration link in the left nav)

johnpicozzi	Could be a good time to talk over 5️⃣ below!! :smile:
Ron Northcutt	FWIW - I think the plugin piece is fairly straightforward, but the future of D.O project pages is a huge topic with lots of implications. So, I’d suggest focusing on that. But - its not my BoF :smile:
leslieg	My take is to leave the BoF with the D.O project pages topic as that is what we published for the camp. I also submitted a BoF for DrupalCon on the same topic as more exposure and input will be helpful. Will update the group if it’s accepted.

5️⃣ Project Browser Plugin : We have discussed the goal of being able to extend PB to surface projects from different sources - like a curated list fro Github or your organization’s preferred list of modules. I’m hoping we can get some dev volunteers to share ideas and possibly set up a call to discuss implemnetation.

Ron Northcutt	@timplunkett (he/him) suggested that the “collections” that @Jillian Chueka has outlined may be a candidate for this - ie. we could create “Collections” with plugins that have different filtering rules or even a different source
Ron Northcutt	I have thought that this would use plugins. In a perfect world, we could get by with a yml plugin to make it super easy, but I’m pretty sure we will need a heavier code based plugin to transform the source into the proper output for the PB interface
chrisfromredfin	The only thing currently even remotely mentioned in the code is here https://git.drupalcode.org/project/project_browser/-/blob/1.0.x/src/Cont... - which is to fire an event AFTER receiving projects from Drupal.org to allow altering them (removing some, adding some). That may be adequate in the code, and you write your own controller to grab from a completely different source. But like you mention above, not sure if there's a right place for this in the UI, or if it's just per implementation of the project browser.
chrisfromredfin	I'm not sure straight yml would be adequate, but it would be nice if there were a wrapper plugin for like "github organization" and it could be just configured (maybe with yaml or even just through the UI) and you can say "allow projects in the following org's repos" or something like that.
Rajab Natshah	Yes .. yaml or own JSON:API server
Ron Northcutt	@Rajab Natshah @phenaproxima @gaurav.kapoor @johnpicozzi @grasmash (all current committers to the codebase for viz)
phenaproxima	I am not a committer of this
Ron Northcutt	well, you have a commit to the project :smile:
phenaproxima	Oh, I thought you meant “person with commit access”
Ron Northcutt	but feel free to ignore if you have no opinions
Rajab Natshah	I'm working on WebAppsHave Web Apps support for Drupal 9 and extend the Project Browser module.
Rajab Natshah	And WebshipsWebships of custom apps gallery server site manager. Which the WebApps get the list of apps to be listed in any Webship Drupal site.Needs an external JSON:API system with list of custom Web Apps. To be used with the Project Browser engine.
Rajab Natshah	This is my testing and work to extend Project Browser Plugina yaml will do too and it's needed for selected client projects
Ron Northcutt	@Rajab Natshah - yes, so we need a generic way to extend PB to allow us to the use the same UI to browse any potential list of projects
Ron Northcutt	My concern with a yml plugin is that we will probably need to transform or modify the source input to match the expected API output for PB UI
Rajab Natshah	Yes. the ready widget ones
Rajab Natshah	I'm with integrating custom JSON:API server in a Project Browser Plugin
Rajab Natshah	with a custom "Tab" and custom sorting criteria
Ron Northcutt	But we may also want to support a different API source format or even something like a GH Gist with a JSON list of prjects.
tim	For this feature to list a subset of modules, what features would we like it to have?Ie What if lets say a university would make use of this. College of arts and sciences will have a different list than college of technology for example.Since they are both the same university just different sections of it would we make a way to show a different list?
Rajab Natshah	Noted; I'm open for that
Ron Northcutt	@tim Perfect example. I would think that each college would have a different module to house their specific plugin.
Ron Northcutt	Then, you enable the module/plugin you want, and that will create a new tab for you
Ron Northcutt	you could also enable both if you like
chrisfromredfin	It was definitely written with the intent that you would implement an Interface provided by Project Browser, but then you could write another module to transcribe for format A to ProjectBrowserInterface
Ron Northcutt	each tab will show the same PB UI, but the source for the UI is different
chrisfromredfin	so I could see there being a contrib module like "pb_gist_list" or something
chrisfromredfin	I like the idea that there are tabs (or some similar mechanism), and maybe even a way to disable the main tab. That gives orgs the ability they want.
Ron Northcutt	Absolutely ^^
chrisfromredfin	some might want the ability to shop from a collection where use of that collection is required but others where it's optional
Ron Northcutt	They may want to restrict the list for security reasons or to make it less overwhelming for their users
chrisfromredfin	the thing that confuses me about "collections" the way I think @Jillian Chueka thought of it is that it's conflated a bit with things like "top downloaded" or our "recommended" set. I think our "recommended" set of "Top Modules" or whatever is just actually a default set of filters.
tim	What about changing the background to a different color whenever you are in this mode?I think it would be good to differentiate between normal mode and this subset! What if you were in it accidentally, something big to remind you. Also could make different colors for different departments maybe.Doesn't haveto to background - could be be a header background....
chrisfromredfin	maybe each collection has to provide a title and an optional logo? There's also the tab color differentiation if we use tabs, to show which tab you're on.
Ron Northcutt	Sounds like a potential config setting in the plugin- Tab title, Page title, Header HTML, page class?
chrisfromredfin	(This is all really good starter discussion I'm glad we'll have it documented; I wonder if we should still schedule a Zoom to then review and iterate on this stuff)
Ron Northcutt	WRT the collections - does it matter if a collection is a set of filters or a plugin to a different source? It may be a simple way to help Site Builders grok the concept?
tim	What if that college wanted to limit you to this subset. That way it would be easier for them to support. Things don't get accidentally installed.
Ron Northcutt	“I have the project browser, and then there are collections I can use - top modules, all of D.O, College of Fine arts collection,etc”
Ron Northcutt	@chrisfromredfin What if we start a shared doc (with linking issue) to outline use cases. We can work on it async, and then maybe set up a zoom the first week of Dec?
Ron Northcutt	As we talk through it, I think we would also want @leslieg and the Site builders to validate or add use cases as well. Then we know what problems to solve for
Ron Northcutt	@Le'Rhone Walker for added visibility
chrisfromredfin	absolutely. I think that's a good idea (re: the gdoc brainstorm to capture + issue)
chrisfromredfin	and also re wanting leslie's team to review.
timplunkett (he/him)	Didn't read every word of the above yet, but 100% agree that collections should be plugins
leslieg	The interviews we have had so far all have agreement that use cases would be a great add-on. We were thinking things like: Publishing, Event Registration, Storefront, etc. That may be best outside of a collection concept though. We’ll continue to discuss in SBS
Rajab Natshah	I will follow with the standards for Plugins. And Test drive this in my custom app gallery
Rajab Natshah	and if needed to change the plugin service description
chrisfromredfin	Good point. That is another possible offering here. Some people have talked about "recipes" like "I want to put locations on a map" and there's like a "collection" of 5 modules there - we also mentioned possibly being able to repurpose D.O "case studies" to do this, possibly. But then there's also the idea of the larger collections, like "approved by Harvard IT" or something. Then there's the idea of "use case" which is like "what is this module good for" and we've discussed either adding a "use case" taxonomy: {Publishing, Commerce, Events, etc}.
Rajab Natshah	@chrisfromredfin @Ron Northcutt we may need a clear list of the standards for this in an issue or a sheetRon Northcutt [5:33 PM]Sounds like a potential config setting in the plugin- Tab title, Page title, Header HTML, page class?
Rajab Natshah	It is as I said before "Multi filter system"
chrisfromredfin	Yeah, I think we're just not there yet. We can iterate on this in the doc/issue that @Ron Northcutt will create :wink:
Rajab Natshah	When I looked at the new design last week WOW .. what was that?The filtering UI looks so nice :slightly_smiling_face:
Le'Rhone Walker	Catching up a bit, but these are great ideas. Love the thoughts behind collections. Is there a spot where we’re outlining documentation/specs or are we still brainstorming :slightly_smiling_face:.
chrisfromredfin	Yeah I do like it, I'm just concerned people won't know to click that to get the advanced set. It's real gmail/material design and I'm not convinced it's obviious.
chrisfromredfin	@Le'Rhone Walker right now still brainstorming, but we canc/should collect all these thoughts in a document. At minimum this chat will be in the meeting issue
gaurav.kapoor	@chrisfromredfin would you also be adding a new issue for this feature?
chrisfromredfin	I keep trying to intimate that @Ron Northcutt was going to :wink:
leslieg	@chrisfromredfin The advanced filter within the search bar is not obvious to the folks interviewed so far. We can discuss after we interview a larger set of folks.
chrisfromredfin	:point_up: excellent feedback from these interviews!
Ron Northcutt	I’ll create the issue and shared doc
gaurav.kapoor	Another point, I am noticing we are pushing everything to current dev branch 1.0.x. Shouldn't we first aim for a stable release with some features, then push the new features in different major releases? Like this feature can go in different major release. Thoughts?
leslieg	6️⃣ Other items of interest from the SBS - 1. Andrew Olson continues with work on identifying the top 100 modules for us to focus on in terms of adding logos, short descriptions, cleaned up categories. 2. We started interviews using @Jillian Chueka template for questions and also shared the current prototype for feedback. The interview responses are linked off the Meta issue

Participants:

chrisfromredfin, Rajab Natshah, drumm, Jillian Chueka, leslieg, Ron Northcutt, Andrew Olson (andrewozone he/him), johnpicozzi, phenaproxima, tim, timplunkett (he/him), Le'Rhone Walker, gaurav.kapoor