Generating embeddable Help widgets from a Drupal 8 site

by kitti / 9 June, 2016

When a problem arises in today’s attention deprived world, we can’t expect our customers to go search for a solution in the documentation. Documentation sites can be complex, they often store the documentation for multiple products and each of the products might have many features. In the best case you will frustrate your customer, in the worst case they might simply give up before finding the information they need.

That is why we developed the Walkhub Help Widget to help site owners guide their visitors to the right documentation content - right inside an application or web site. The simplest way to try out WalkHub Help Widgets is embedthedocs.com, but you can also set up your own widget creation interface easily if you have basic knowledge of web development. In this blogpost... Read more

Brightcove Video Connect for Drupal 8 - Part 4: Including Videos & Playlists in Drupal content

by laci / 7 June, 2016

Part 1: Architecture summary
Part 2: Installation & Configuration
Part 3: Video & Playlist Management
Part 4: Including Videos & Playlists in Drupal content

In this multi-part blog post, we are covering the various aspects of the new Brightcove Video Connect module for Drupal 8. The first part consisted of an architecture summary and discussed the technical approach used during the development of the module. The second part detailed the installation & configuration steps required to get the module up and running properly. The third part illustrated the management of videos & playlists and discussed some of the changes compared to the Drupal 7 version of the module. This fourth part demonstrates how to add Brightcove videos & playlists... Read more

Brightcove Video Connect for Drupal 8 - Part 3: Video & Playlist Management

by jan.mashat / 27 May, 2016

Part 1: Architecture summary
Part 2: Installation & Configuration
Part 3: Video & Playlist Management
Part 4: Including Videos & Playlists in Drupal content

In this multi-part blog series, we are covering the various aspects of the new Brightcove Video Connect module for Drupal 8. Part 1 consisted of an Architecture summary and discussed the Technical approach used during the development of the module. Part 2 detailed the Installation & Configuration steps required to get the module up and running properly. This third part illustrates the management of Videos & Playlists and discusses some of the changes compared to the Drupal 7 version of the module.

Video listing

Once videos have been “imported” from Brightcove or uploaded... Read more

Brightcove Video Connect for Drupal 8 - Part 2: Installation & Configuration

by jan.mashat / 19 May, 2016

Part 1: Architecture summary
Part 2: Installation & Configuration
Part 3: Video & Playlist Management
Part 4: Including Videos & Playlists in Drupal content


In this multi-part blog series, we are covering the various aspects of the new Brightcove Video Connect module for Drupal 8. Part 1 consisted of an Architecture summary and discussed the Technical approach used during the development of the module. This second part details the Installation & Configuration steps required to get the module up and running properly.

The only element in common between the 8.x-1.x version and the previous 7.x-6.x version of the Brightcove module is the PHP-API-Wrapper library used to assist in the communication between Drupal and the Brightcove API.... Read more

Brightcove Video Connect for Drupal 8 - Part 1: Architecture summary and Technical approach for development

by laszlo.csecsy / 8 May, 2016

In this multi-part blog series, we will be covering the various aspects of the new Brightcove Video Connect module for Drupal 8. This first part consists of an Architecture summary and the Technical details surrounding the config and content entities.

Part 1: Architecture summary
Part 2: Installation & Configuration
Part 3: Video & Playlist Management
Part 4: Including Videos & Playlists in Drupal content

Architecture summary

The Drupal 8 version of the Brightcove Video Connect module was rewritten from scratch in order to take advantage of the architectural changes in Drupal 8, especially the new Entity Data Model. Drupal 8 core and its contrib modules handle many of the functions that had to be custom-written for the Drupal 7 module.... Read more

Documenting APIs mini-conference: Video recordings available!

by kvantomme / 21 April, 2016

The video recordings of the lectures held on the Documenting APIs mini-conference are now available on our dedicated event page.

On March 4, 2016 we helped organise a special whole-day meetup in London on the Write The Docs conference, in which the community discussed the tools and processes used to document APIs.

We recorded the sessions, mashed them up with tweets and summaries and published them.

On the page you will find the following content:

James Stewart, Director of Technical Architecture at GDS: Intro and welcome to GDS Rosalie Marshall, Tech Author at GDS: Understanding the needs of API documentation users Ellis Pratt, Technical Communicator and director at Cherryleaf: Aye, Aye, API - What makes Technical Communicators uneasy about API... Read more

How to recognise accessible PDFs - PDF in Drupal part 3

by steve / 18 April, 2016

While in the past accessibility was often only perceived as a nice extra, it is quickly becoming the norm: in most countries legislation dealing with accessibility currently only affects web pages, but PDF documents might follow soon. With good cause: worldwide approximately 285 million people are visually impaired and have difficulties to read online documents without assistive technologies.

As an addition to our PDF in Drupal series (PDF in Drupal part 1 and part 2), we researched the subject of accessible PDFs: how can writers create content in a way that it becomes accessible to users with disabilities? We’ll highlight checking mechanisms and tools and end with listing three types of the available assistive technologies that make content accessible.

What is an... Read more

Drupal 8 as a help center: embed documentation with the WalkHub Help Widget

by kitti / 15 April, 2016

Even though it has become much easier to create embedded help experiences, many software products still do very little to integrate their help content into their application. In this post we will explain why embedded help leads to better experiences, why we built our Help Widget, and give you an overview of its architecture.

Why you should embed your help content

Printed documentation manuals are a thing of the past, or are they?
Very few projects take full advantage of the new capabilities that a connected world is offering. Most documentation efforts for web applications follow the paradigms developed in a time when documentation was a stand-alone printed deliverable, prepared as a reference source that customers would use to solve their problems.

If your... Read more

Building Landing Pages faster

by kathleen / 6 April, 2016

The paragraphs module makes it easy to arrange content on your site, but it limits your creative freedom. First, we’ll explain how we use the module and then why creative constraints are actually a good thing, because they make you more productive, and paradoxically help you be more creative...

What is the Paragraphs Module ?

Previously, we listed some tips on targeted web content. Here, we want to share what we’ve learned building landing pages using the paragraphs module in Drupal.

“The Paragraphs module comes with a new "paragraphs" field type that works like Entity Reference’s. Simply add a new paragraphs field on any Content Type you want and choose which Paragraph Types should be available to end-users. They can then add as many Paragraph items as you allowed them... Read more

Two-way sync between Drupal and Google Contacts using PieSync

by kvantomme / 17 March, 2016

Most SaaS integration services that synchronise user accounts, do a one-way sync that copies over to new accounts. PieSync, from Ghent, Belgium, has developed a two-way sync platform, with various sync settings, so you can sync contact information between your favorite cloud apps. Unlike many other sync account companies, PieSync:

offers full sync in both (or multiple) apps weeds out duplicates brings all existing information together, also the data that existed before you started using PieSync automatically reflects changes and updates that occur in one app, in the other(s).

Concrete: By using PieSync, you can integrate all or part of your Google Contacts data in Mailchimp and the other way round. When you make a change in one of these apps, the other app will be updated... Read more