Agenda

Are you new to Drupal? Then the Absolute Beginner's Guide to Drupal is the class for you.

In this full-day training, you'll learn all of the key concepts you need to understand, navigate and use a Drupal site. You'll learn how to build a Drupal 11 site, from content and user organization, to working with modules and themes. You'll also receive our "Site Building Guide" that will help you as you move forward with Drupal.

This class will be entirely hands-on. You'll have a Drupal site in front of you and will be actively working and learning throughout the class.

We'll also discuss three important topics: Drupal CMS, Drupal AI and Drupal Experience Builder. Finally, you'll walk away with a complete Drupal 11 StarterSite you can use right away!

Drupal theming is evolving fast with Single Directory Components (SDCs), Drupal Canvas, and modern CSS/JS practices changing how we build and maintain frontends. Are you ready?

In this fun and hands-on full-day training, Drupal core subsystem maintainers and theming experts Mike Herchel (Dripyard Premium Themes) and Andy Blum (Lullabot) will guide you through the essential tools, techniques, and best practices for building durable, accessible, and flexible themes that thrive in today’s (and tomorrow’s) Drupal landscape.

You’ll learn how to:

• Create reusable SDCs that work in and out of page builders
• Leverage modern CSS and JavaScript best practices
• Optimize and testing for accessibility, performance, and maintainability
• Avoid common pitfalls when working with page builders like Canvas and Layout Builder
• Use tools like Storybook for better workflows

This training is hands-on. Bring your laptop and a local Drupal installation so you can follow along and build real-world components with Mike and Andy.

Level of experience required

Intermediate-to-Advanced — attendees should be familiar with basic Drupal theming concepts, and be able to perform the following tasks:

• Install and configure Drupal on their local computer
• Install and configure modules and themes
• Write HTML, CSS, Twig, JavaScript, and integrate with Drupal themes

Key takeaways

After this training, attendees will be able to create Drupal themes that:

• Leverage the new Single Directory Components (SDC) subsystem for modular, reusable frontend architecture
• Function as Starterkits, enabling consistent theming across projects or teams
• Implement modern CSS features and tooling, including nesting, logical properties, and container queries
• Integrate maintainable, framework-agnostic JavaScript using best practices including Drupal behaviors, drupalSettings, and once()
• Deliver fast, accessible, and user-friendly experiences that exceed real-world performance and WCAG 2.2 standards

Artificial intelligence is poised to change the way software is developed and content is created. Responsible Drupal AI Basics focuses on utilizing AI in Drupal as a tool that savvy developers and authors can leverage to assist (not replace) their effectiveness and efficiency.

This full-day workshop focuses on some of the basics of the Drupal AI module ecosystem, including understanding many of the various setup options, companion modules for auditing and exploring, as well as numerous practical examples of generating content in a responsible manner. Modules introduced will include AI automators, Field widget actions, AI agents, and AI context control center.

Target audience:

Site builders

Prerequisites:

Basic knowledge of AI prompt engineering, basic site-building skills, paid API account with AI provider (OpenAI, Gemini, or Anthropic recommended.)
 

When was the last time you worked on a WordPress site? It might have been a while ago, or it might have been recently.

At some point, you might have used it to set up a quick demo site. A demo site that’s likely up and running today. We've all been there; it likely started as a side quest.

If you've been using Drupal for a while and have embraced its perks, you might have forgotten some of its trade-offs. This training provides you with hands-on experience and perspective on what each tool can achieve within a given timeframe.

We will be using a core WordPress theme vs a core Drupal theme, look at the contributed themes, and then we will switch into a paid Drupal theme and a paid WordPress theme. We will try to stick to the core as much as possible and showcase where one might have lots of concerns and questions coming from Drupal.

This workshop invites Drupal site builders and developers to take a fresh look at WordPress through familiar eyes.

Items to discuss and play with are:

• Theming: how easy it is to make and preview changes
• Adjusting theme colors and working with theme.json
• Extending or creating custom WordPress themes
• Comparing plugins and modules: what you trade off
• Exploring Gutenberg layouts and default blocks
• Understanding WordPress patterns and their use cases
• Adapting your Drupal mindset to WordPress workflows

By the end of this training, you’ll have a deeper understanding of how to navigate the WordPress ecosystem and apply your existing Drupal experience in mixed-environment projects.

Target Audience:

Drupal Site builders and developers who are new to WordPress or looking to understand how the two systems compare in day-to-day site building and theming. If you are an ambitious site builder and you want to learn what you may be trading off, feel free to come ask a question and see when WordPress might be the right tool for you.

I did WordPress before Drupal, but I never had to modify WordPress code (theme, plugins, or otherwise) or experience other ambitious site builder challenges. I worked around the interface and, with the aid of a paid theme, managed to accomplish my goals. However, now that I have used Drupal for HigherEd and Government and I have a slightly different perspective.

Requirements:

Bring a laptop and basic familiarity with Drupal or WordPress ambitious site-building concepts. Hands-on participation is encouraged, and curiosity is required.

This is an intro to the Laravel framework, from a very practical point of view - instead of going through Laravel features topic by topic, we will just create our first small project of viewing and managing the blog, learning those Laravel features along the way.

Take aways:

In this workshop, I intentionally skip some of the deeper theories and focus on the practical skills - delivering the actual working project.
I will use PHPStorm's Junie PHP AI agent to help along the way, using AI rules/guidelines from Laravel Boost.

Course Material:

We will be using the terrific Laravel Daily intro course Laravel 12 for beginners from Povilas Korop and his Laravel Daily site. Buy a subscription (worth every penny), and get his newsletter.
(I used to use the Laravel Chirper starter course but I find Povilas's one is better)

Ideal audience & Prerequisites:

To start with this course, I assume you already work with PHP, also have HTML and CSS basics.
You will have some familiarity with the command line.
Install PHP and required libraries to your development machine using Laravel Herd.