Last weekend I had the pleasure of presenting a talk on jQuery in Drupal at Drupal Camp Vancouver and I felt it would be worthwhile to follow it up with a blog post where I could re-iterate and elaborate on some of the most important points, as I feel this is an area where there's a lot of confusion in the Drupal world.

Update

As promised in my last post, I will present a CoCKTaiL-based code-generator, which accepts CoCKTaiL input and generates php suitable for importing into Drupal via the CCK Content-copy module.

DrupalCon Session

I have submitted a session proposal on Taming CCK configurations with CoCKTail for DrupalCon Boston. Please consider reviewing this and voting for it if you would be interested in seeing CoCKTaiL gain a wider following.

Code available via anonymous SVN

I have made code available via anonymous svn at Raincity's public SVN repository. I encourage anyone interested to have a look at this, take it for a spin, and contribute! But, be warned that this is still very experimental code.

Status

The current version of the code supplies a command-line validator, which checks CoCKTaiL code. The error reporting is extremely naive, still. Also, there is a template-based code generator, which will take CoCKTaiL as input, and generate php code suitable for import into a Drupal application. Both of these are specified as PHP Lemon input files, sharing a common grammar (and Lexer), of course.

Despite the breathy post title, Raincity staffers DID NOT pose for the cover of the newest tome from romance-centric publisher Harlequin, however the RCS team DID build the new eHarlequin Community.

Less than a week since launch, the fresh participatory marketing endeavor is already bustling with activity and humming along to enthusiastic reviews.

The details of the myriad new features and the tricky customizations crafted within a compressed time-line (along with the big strategic vision of the project) are summed up in the eHarlequin Portfolio entry.
However, what was most interesting from my vantage point was how quickly the participation started on the live site.

A few quick Badcamp annotations:

Kent Bye checks in with a library of social media he created at Badcamp. He makes a regular vidcast, recorded Badcamp sessions (including audio on Dmitri's presentation about themeing - or grab a whole audio listing at Drupal.org. While I'm here, Kent rocks the Flickr with screenshots too.

Halloween last, RCS Lead Drupalist Francis rousted up the local Drupal community for a successful de-bug fest. The momentum rolls on here with the newly-anointed "Drupal Day Thursdays." After a mighty Bar-b-q feast with our neighbors, we turned off client work and switched to community work.

Digression: Of course, this (shocking!) behaviour benefits our clients tremendously in the long run since the work is contributed back - in the case of a custom module, contributing back means the client's code will continually supported, maintained, and possibly improved.