Drupal Integration with Swift and Ushahidi
zzolo
I am new to Ushadidi and Swift, though had heard about Ushadidi for a
while. I am hoping to help out with creating Drupal integration with
these services. I have already been pointed to some resources by
Juliana and am still wading through it all. If anyone can offer me
some more specifics, or if there are efforts of Drupal integration
that I am not aware of, let me know.
Thanks in advance and for all the hard work that everyone does.
--
Alan Palazzolo
http://zzolo.org
Chris Blow
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zzolo
here and copy what has been discussed so far.
- Hide quoted text -
On Tue, Mar 30, 2010 at 9:56 PM, Alan Palazzolo <al...@zzolo.org>
wrote:
> Well, I just installed Swift and Ushahidi today for the first time, so
> my understanding is very limited. I am still not sure the best way to
> integrate the two.
>
> Here are just some of my initial ideas:
>
> * Basic pulling data from a Swift or Ushahidi install. Though I would
> imagine there are RSS feeds coming of out both, which makes this
> trivial and not really require an actual module.
> * Basic pushing data to either Swift or Ushahidi. Again, it is fairly
> easy to have content in Drupal put into an RSS feed that can be feed
> into either system, so I wonder about the benefit of using an API.
> * There are always room for widgets, but this is probably that is not
> something is Drupal specific, but a contrib module could be pretty
> useful here.
> * A Swift processor in Drupal. This is the most exciting, but I am
> not sure about how the different parts of Swift are setup and if they
> can be taken out and used on other content streams, like nodes in
> Drupal. Basically, it would be really cool to be able to leverage the
> Swift algorithm and structure to filter Drupal content on a site. I
> am concerned about at what point would Drupal end and Swift begin,
> meaning at one point it would be just putting Swift completely in
> Drupal which seems kind of pointless.
>
> Again, this is coming from a very limited understanding of Ushahidi
> and Swift at the moment, and I would welcome other ideas.
>
> --
> Alan Palazzolo
> al...@zzolo.org
- Hide quoted text -
On Tue, Mar 30, 2010 at 10:09 PM, Jon <j...@ushahidi.com> wrote:
> Alan,
>
> Have you seen this video? http://vimeo.com/10496532 That should explain how
> Swift integrates a bit more.
>
> But to expand, Swift and Ushahidi can be used together or alone. When using
> swift with Ushahidi, there would be no direct submissions to Ushahidi,
> rather all content would pass through Swift first.
>
> The first three are all either redundant or unnecessary (anyone can hook an
> RSS feed), but you've hit the nail on the head with the last. Our plans are
> to write modules for applications like Wordpress and Drupal that add Swift
> functionality to those platforms. Here's the ideas we've explored so far:
>
> 1) a 'Rating System' that rates content similar to how it's rated in
> Swift. Rather than voting on the item, you're voting on wherever that item
> came from (the Twitter user, the email address, the phone number etc.)
>
> 2) A plugin built around our auto-tagging hosted API service SiLCC,
> literally all it would do is process incoming feeds and tag them
>
> 3) A plug in built around our location extraction, hosted API service
> SuLSA. All this would do is parse incoming content to attach coordinates
> (lat+lon)
>
> 4) RiverID a plug in that integrates our distributed trust system
>
> 5) a package install, where SwiftPal or SwiftPress. Where we literally
> write a Swift interface for Drupal and Wordpress that uses those systems as
> the backbone but a Swift-like interface upfront. (this could make use of
> any of the aforementioned plugins)
>
> #5 answers your point about Drupal. We actually don't care where Swift ends
> and Drupal begins. Our system is completely distributed, there will people
> who want to run Drupal with Swift modules, there will be people who want to
> do the same in Wordpress and there will be people more interested in running
> the actual app. The more distributed the better for us. However, I think
> all these things should be plugins for maximum compatibility and user
> modification.
>
>
> --
> Jon Gosier
> +256.773806071
> Director of Swift River
>
> url - http://swift.ushahidi.com/
> skype - j.gosier
> twitter - jongos
On Tue, Mar 30, 2010 at 10:55 PM, Alan Palazzolo <al...@zzolo.org>
wrote:
> Hey Jon,
>
> This all makes much more sense as far as Swift being a hosted service,
> separate libraries, etc. I think my view up until now had been that
> it was simply a website-package.
>
> I am still curious about the API; I was not able to find
> documentation? I am also curious about the different parts like the
> SiLCC, SuLSA, Rating System, etc being standalone libraries; are they?
> Are they/can they be released individually? And what about this
> hosted service?
>
> Fleshing out some of these ideas and just thinking off the top of my
> head on the basics of Drupal integration.
>
> 1) This would be pretty straight-foward to implement, at least on a
> basic level. A mechanism to rate a node in Drupal is easy and could
> possibly leverage the VotingAPI module to store some of this. We
> would then want to integrate with Views so that display content based
> on the rating is supported.
>
> 2) This would be really cool and probably pretty easy. On saving a
> node, we pass it through the service and use Drupal's taxonomy system.
>
> 3) This would also be pretty straight-forward except how to store the
> lat/lon in Druapl is not something that is really agreed upon at the
> moment.
>
> 4) I'll have to get more information on this.
>
> 5) Overall, I would be reluctant to put the whole Swift system into
> Drupal. Having worked with CiviCRM and Drupal a number of times, it
> gets messy really quickly. These are two very distinctly different
> architectures and I just don't see that much benefit from trying to
> force both wholes together, but my perspective is limited.
>
> Some more.
>
> 6) Instead of trying to embed Swift in Drupal (or the other way),
> exposing Swift data from an install of Swift into Drupal Views could
> be beneficial for displaying and possibly mashing up data.
>
> The first couple are lower hanging fruit that I can get started on
> once I have a better grasp of the Swift API. Is this something that
> should be a part of the Swift repo or a module on Drupal.org? I would
> lean towards Drupal.org in order to keep the Swift repo more focused,
> and Drupal.org is the place people look for Drupal modules, and I
> could do this very easily, though Drupal.org does not usually allow
> third-party code in the repo, meaning that we could not include the
> libraries.
>
> --
> Alan Palazzolo
> al...@zzolo.org
zzolo
That is a fun fact. I miss Portland a lot; It would be fun to hear
more when we have a more personal chat.
I am not sure if my post came through to the list about Jon and I's
conversation so far, but I think you received it.
It would be great to hear about your ideas of how integration could
happen as I am still just looking around at the moment and don't have
a concrete direction yet. It sounds like you would want to be able to
run Drupal content through Swift River services and utilize the sub-
libraries. I think this a good first step of integration with Drupal.
What I would like to do in the next few days is try to find some
details on the API and start a project on Drupal.org that has just
some basic layout of how the module will function.
Some of the my larger questions for Swift and how to use it are the
following:
* There is talk of a hosted service? Is there more information on
this?
* Are the sub-libraries like SiLCC, SuLSA, Rating System, etc
currently actual sub-libraries that can be dropped in and taken out?
Are there plans to release just them?
* What are the APIs that are exposed from an instance of a Swift site?
I will be looking at documentation and code further in the next few
days to start to answer these questions myself.
--
Alan Palazzolo
On Mar 31, 6:37 am, Chris Blow <unthinkin...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Hey Alan,
>
> Just catching up to your post last week. I would be interested in
> talking in more detail about your plans for integrating Swift with
> Drupal. At my nonprofit Meedan, we are interesting in using Swift in a
> Drupal environment as well. Our projects are different than most of
> the disaster-related contexts that Ushahidi and Swift are usually
> considered -- we are providing social news aggregation and discussion
> with an emphasis on translation (and less emphasis on veracity
> scoring). Swift will serve a community of editors, using tags to parse
> a gigantic feed of feeds from the Arabic web. We have been looking
> into using Managing News as an underlying Drupal-based aggregator,
> which we would combine with the standalone Swift enrichment services.
> I would to geek out with you in more detail about it.
>
> also ... FUN FACT: you and I have both lived in North Carolina and
> Portland Oregon! -- I was just enjoying your website and found your
> about pagehttp://zzolo.org/about
>
> seems we should definitely be working together. :)
>
> c
>
> Chris Blow
> Director of Miscellany
> cgblow on skypehttp://news.meedan.net
Ka-Ping Yee
— Ping
Technical Lead, Google Person Finder
Alan Palazzolo
discussions here. Thank you!
--
Alan Palazzolo
al...@zzolo.org
zzolo
http://drupal.org/project/swiftriver
Depending on who wants to get involved, we could move development to
GitHub. But I think it's important to keep the project on Drupal.org
as this is THE place for Drupal modules. If anyone already has a
Drupal CVS account, I would happy to make them a co-maintainer.
The module does not do anything at the moment, I just started to make
file structures and basic functions.
I looked into SuLSA (http://swift.ushahidi.com/extend/sulsa/) and
SiLCC (http://swift.ushahidi.com/extend/silcc) services, but it
appears that all the links of those pages don't go anywhere so I
figure its still being worked on.
I will start to look into the code more to see if there are libraries
that can be extracted and then integrated with Drupal services.
--
Alan Palazzolo
On Apr 2, 9:36 pm, Alan Palazzolo <alan.palazz...@gmail.com> wrote:
> I won't be able to make it, can someone make sure to post anyDrupal
> discussions here. Thank you!
>
> --
> Alan Palazzolo
>
> On Fri, Apr 2, 2010 at 9:22 PM, Ka-Ping Yee <k...@google.com> wrote:
> > Hi,
> > I'm planning to come to the Hackathon this evening, and would love to talk
> > about integration ideas with you folks.
>
> > — Ping
> > Technical Lead, Google Person Finder
>
> > On Fri, Apr 2, 2010 at 12:13, zzolo <alan.palazz...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> >> Hey Chris,
>
> >> That is a fun fact. I miss Portland a lot; It would be fun to hear
> >> more when we have a more personal chat.
>
> >> I am not sure if my post came through to the list about Jon and I's
> >> conversation so far, but I think you received it.
>
> >> It would be great to hear about your ideas of how integration could
> >> happen as I am still just looking around at the moment and don't have
> >> a concrete direction yet. It sounds like you would want to be able to
> >> runDrupalcontent through Swift River services and utilize the sub-
> >> libraries. I think this a good first step of integration withDrupal.
>
> >> What I would like to do in the next few days is try to find some
> >> details on the API and start a project onDrupal.org that has just
> >> some basic layout of how the module will function.
>
> >> Some of the my larger questions for Swift and how to use it are the
> >> following:
>
> >> * There is talk of a hosted service? Is there more information on
> >> this?
> >> * Are the sub-libraries like SiLCC, SuLSA, Rating System, etc
> >> currently actual sub-libraries that can be dropped in and taken out?
> >> Are there plans to release just them?
> >> * What are the APIs that are exposed from an instance of a Swift site?
>
> >> I will be looking at documentation and code further in the next few
> >> days to start to answer these questions myself.
>
> >> --
> >> Alan Palazzolo
>
> >> On Mar 31, 6:37 am, Chris Blow <unthinkin...@gmail.com> wrote:
> >> > Hey Alan,
>
> >> > Just catching up to your post last week. I would be interested in
> >> > talking in more detail about your plans for integrating Swift with
> >> >Drupal. At my nonprofit Meedan, we are interesting in using Swift in a
> >> >Drupalenvironment as well. Our projects are different than most of
> >> > the disaster-related contexts that Ushahidi and Swift are usually
> >> > considered -- we are providing social news aggregation and discussion
> >> > with an emphasis on translation (and less emphasis on veracity
> >> > scoring). Swift will serve a community of editors, using tags to parse
> >> > a gigantic feed of feeds from the Arabic web. We have been looking
> >> > into using Managing News as an underlyingDrupal-based aggregator,
> >> > which we would combine with the standalone Swift enrichment services.
> >> > I would to geek out with you in more detail about it.
>
> >> > also ... FUN FACT: you and I have both lived in North Carolina and
> >> > Portland Oregon! -- I was just enjoying your website and found your
> >> > about pagehttp://zzolo.org/about
>
> >> > seems we should definitely be working together. :)
>
> >> > c
>
> >> > Chris Blow
> >> > Director of Miscellany
> >> > cgblow on skypehttp://news.meedan.net
>
> >> > On Mar 26, 2010, at 5:55 PM, zzolo wrote:
>
> >> > > Hello All,
>
> >> > > I am new to Ushadidi and Swift, though had heard about Ushadidi for a
> >> > > while. I am hoping to help out with creatingDrupalintegration with
Victor Miclovich
Jon Gosier
To complete this module you're going to need to be pretty familiar
with the API calls to the new Core which we plan to release with Apala
at the end of the month. You can find that at
http://github.com/mrmatthewgriffiths/ushahidi_swift
Also please email us at j...@ushahidi.com or ma...@appfrica.org for with
any specific questions about the new Core.
Jon
--
Jonathan D. Gosier
Appfrica International
P.O. Box 1420 Kampala, Uganda
http://appfrica.net - African Technology and News Blog
http://appfrica.org - East African Venture Capital and Incubation
UG +256.773806071
USA +1.415 830 3781
UK +20.32398156
Skype j.gosier
Twitter appfrica
zzolo
So, last weekend I expanded on the Drupal module and got more things
in place, mostly focusing on SLUSa. I did apply for an API key, but
have not heard back. I am not in a rush, but is there any way I can
follow up on this? Thanks and as always, great work.
--
Alan
On Apr 4, 5:09 pm, Jon Gosier <j...@ushahidi.com> wrote:
> Great work Alan,
>
> To complete this module you're going to need to be pretty familiar
> with the API calls to the new Core which we plan to release with Apala
>
> Also please email us at j...@ushahidi.com or m...@appfrica.org for with
>
> Jon
>
>
>
>
>
> > I have just made a project onDrupal.org for SwiftRiver:
>
> > Depending on who wants to get involved, we could move development to
> > GitHub. But I think it's important to keep the project onDrupal.org
> >DrupalCVS account, I would happy to make them a co-maintainer.
> --
> Jonathan D. Gosier
> Appfrica International
Jon
Secondly, careful relying too heavily upon SULSa, in about two months we're going to do some major updates and move it over to the SwiftWebServices stack over at Rackspace Cloud.
Jon Gosier
+256.773806071
CEO Appfrica Labs
url - http://appfrica.org
skype - j.gosier
twitter - @appfrica
zzolo
Many thanks. I'd be happy to document stuff, though things are still
pretty basic and fuzzy, so not too much to document quite yet.
Don't worry, I am building the module so that switching out the
interface for SULSa and SiLCC should be pretty minimal work. Ideally,
I would like to support using a compiled version of the libraries as
well as the hosted version, but I am focusing on the hosted stuff
right now. Also, it will still be in alpha as long as SwiftRiver
is. :)
--
Alan
> >> UG +256.773806071
> >> USA +1.415 830 3781
> >> UK +20.32398156
> >> Skype j.gosier
> >> Twitter appfrica
>
> --
> Jon Gosier
> +256.773806071
> CEO Appfrica Labs
>
> skype - j.gosier
> twitter - @appfrica <http://twitter.com/appfrica>
> --
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