I’ve written a drush make file that will setup Drupal complete with Git checkouts of the big three Earl Miles modules: Chaos Tool Suite, Views and Panels. There is nothing particularly unique about this, but if it helps people provide patches for Views or Panels, then that’s a good thing! The make file is currently hosted on Github.

I haven’t done a lot of module development lately, and so when I want to roll a patch for something I am often in the wrong headspace to do it quickly. This is frustrating when you are doing a site build and there is an opportunity to submit a quick patch (and where the emphasis is on “quick”).

Now that Drupal.org is using Git, a huge barrier (ie. CVS) has been dropped. I spent some time today becoming acquainted with the new processes and revisiting what I know about Drush and Drush Make. I’m looking forward to being able to jump in and help with patches on my favourite projects from time to time.

You’ll need Drush and Drush Make running in your development environment, and of course Apache/PHP/MySQL or equivalents.

From the empty webroot where Drupal will live. (Note the full-stop on the end.)

# drush make https://github.com/simesy/drush-make/raw/master/earl-7.make .

Next use Drush to install Drupal. The database doesn’t need to exist yet.

# drush site-install minimal --db-url=mysql://dbuser:dbpass@localhost/earl-7

And finally install the modules you want to install.

# drush en panels views

I’ll be thinking of other development environments for popular modules. It is a no-brainer to extend make files with libraries and installation profiles of course. Suggestions and forks on my repository are welcome. (I’ll be moving code to Drupal.org once I get confident with the new mode.)

Finally, thanks to Tanc for letting me blog on his site!