September 2005 - Development - lists.drupal.org

[drupal-devel] [feature] Separate mail backend
by killes 18 Sep '05

18 Sep '05

Issue status update for http://drupal.org/node/28604 Post a follow up: http://drupal.org/project/comments/add/28604 Project: Drupal Version: cvs Component: base system Category: feature requests Priority: normal Assigned to: Anonymous Reported by: Dries Updated by: killes(a)www.drop.org Status: patch (code needs review) I've fixed a number of things. needs testing. killes(a)www.drop.org Previous comments: ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Wed, 10 Aug 2005 12:35:37 +0000 : Dries It was suggested that we separate the mail backend from the front-end. We might want to include the mail backend in core as includes/mail.inc. Then, other modules like massmailer, subscriptions, notify, pm (private messages), project (project issues), contact, etc. could reuse this component. The mail.inc file would implement some kind of mail queue functionality, and modules just add a mail to the mail queue using a simple /mail API/. In future, the mail backend could deal with bounces and report back proper status codes. Moreover, mail.inc would be pluggable so it could be replaced by a more powerful one, or one that is build specifically for the underlying mail transport (SMTP server). Furthermore, this would solve issues with how many mails get send within a specified interval. Like, when more than one module sends out e-mails it is hard to enforce limitations/restrictions imposed by the hosting company. I'm posting this here so you can keep this in mind when working on simplenews, and to solicit for feedback. Chances are we'll setup an IRC meeting to discuss this further. Details to follow. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Wed, 10 Aug 2005 16:15:16 +0000 : Amazon A good place to start would be to look at existing Mail API's Pear Mail: http://pear.php.net/package/Mail Pear Mail tutorial: http://www.zend.com/pear/tutorials/Mail.php#Heading2 ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Wed, 10 Aug 2005 20:21:57 +0000 : walkah um. +1 and then some. I think this is good... and some good references from Amazon. I'll throw in one other : http://phpmailer.sf.net/ - has great mime handling (i've run into issues with PEAR::Mail's mime handilng in the past, but that was around 2 years ago, and things may have gotten better since then). Oh - and you don't mention it - but support for multipart / mime messages would be lovely :) I'd be interested in / happy to sit in on any IRC discussion as well. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Wed, 10 Aug 2005 21:40:34 +0000 : robertDouglass phpmailer++ I've used it and like how easy it is to send both text and html mail. Did I say html mail? You bet! It's time that we had the option. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Thu, 11 Aug 2005 05:47:01 +0000 : cyberchucktx I'm definitely interested. Hopefully by adding a post to this I'll get notified on new postings (?) If not I may miss the IRC .. I've been doing a lot of work with safe_mode PHPLIST (have posted to the drupal site somewhee, can dig out the reference if anyone is interested). Charlie in TX ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Wed, 17 Aug 2005 08:42:34 +0000 : Dries It was suggested that mail.inc also provides a HTML to text services. Lots of modules (newsletter, notify, project) try converting HTML to text. Having a reusable function makes sense, and will lead to better conversion routines. XSLT anyone? ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Wed, 17 Aug 2005 12:31:27 +0000 : Grugnog2 +1 for phpmailer I found it very easy to use - and most importantly for me - it supports SMTP authentication. As many ISP's will not let you send mail without using SMTP-auth nowadays it may be worth this feature is incorporated into the mail.inc API. - Grug ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Wed, 17 Aug 2005 15:08:43 +0000 : Robert Castelo For about a year now I've been working on an email newsletter and announcement module [1]. There's a version in my sandbox commited about 2 months ago which works fairly well. Dan Robinson and Varr Willis at CivicActions, Moshe Weitzman plus a few others have been testing it, and I've had lots of positive feedback and feature and bug reports from them. A few months ago a realised that there's not much point in putting so much effort into creating all this functionality, only for it to be locked away in my module. Better to Better to create discreet component modules which provide a particular service, such as bounced email handling, but which can be used by any other module that also needs that service. For the last two months I've been working to split functionality into component services modules and make these services available to all modules. One of the biggest challenges was to make these component modules independent of each other. The only area where I haven't managed this is some of the database calls - but thanks to a chat with chx I realised that db_rewrite_sql could be used to handle this very nicely. This is what I have: * bounced_email.module - process bounced emails * html2text.module - convert HTML to plain text equivalent (e.g. list item becomes "* item") * identity_hash.module - manages full and partial loggin based on hash which can be used in email links * publication.module - defines and packages content of publication, which could be any kind of publication * schedule.module - defines and manages schedules, e.g. email sending schedule * subscribed.module - manages subscriptions to publications * templates.module - manage and define templates What's great is that the component modules are not limited to email, they could be used to quickly create RSS newsletters, PDF newsletters, text message newsletters, or even personalised/filtered website sections. I haven't made the new component modules available anywhere yet, but I'll be happy to upload them to contrib and let others get involved. What would be the best way to commit them - as a single directory? or each component module in it's own directory? [1] http://www.cortextcommunications.com/development/newsletter/features ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Thu, 15 Sep 2005 02:05:18 +0000 : vwX Attachment: http://drupal.org/files/issues/mailqueue.tar.gz (3.71 KB) This is a very basic mail queue system I would like to contribute. There are some changes to other modules that will have to be made such as changing user.module to use this instead of directly calling the php mail function and moving mime_header_encoding to mail.inc. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Thu, 15 Sep 2005 15:25:11 +0000 : killes(a)www.drop.org Note: I am moving this to the main project. VwX: What I see looks very nice for a start. Some polishing is certainly needed, but I'd like to try this. If I only had the time... ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Fri, 16 Sep 2005 22:10:19 +0000 : killes(a)www.drop.org Ok, I've been doing some clean-up on this one and made contact.module use it. The module and the .inc file work. I've put the files into my sandbox for now. I plan to work on them over the weekend (unless Dries tells me they are too late for 4.7). http://cvs.drupal.org/viewcvs/drupal/contributions/sandbox/killes/mail/ But I could use some input: - the sql file defines a column to store the module that generated the mail. Do we want this? If yes, we need to fix it. - Do we need a throttle for only sending x mails per cron run? - can somebody try the files with php5? - what else do we need? Please give input, links and what not. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Sat, 17 Sep 2005 20:34:04 +0000 : Dries Some of my comments might be false. If so, sorry. I only looked at it for 5 minutes: * I wonder why we need per-module settings. I can't think of concrete use cases. * For consistency, mailid needs to be mid. * I don't see an option to send mails immediately? * I don't see any "messages per hour" accounting? * I don't understand why mail.inc should be node system aware? * mailid = '%s' should be mailid = %d. * Incorrect use of t(): don't translate user input. * The coding style needs work; inconsistent variable names, inconsistent spacing, etc. * Some PHPDoc is rather cryptic: /Updates table mail queue address table sets sent flag to 1 for a queued msg./.

1 0

[drupal-devel] [bug] Some URLs get ?PHPSESSID added to them
by keto 18 Sep '05

18 Sep '05

Issue status update for http://drupal.org/node/4109 Post a follow up: http://drupal.org/project/comments/add/4109 Project: Drupal Version: cvs Component: base system Category: bug reports Priority: normal Assigned to: Eric Scouten Reported by: Eric Scouten Updated by: keto Status: patch (code needs review) Thanks for all the work on the PHPSESSID issue. After removing the code from the common.inc file and applying the trans_sid.patch my site validates xhtml 1.1 using the chameleon theme. After fixing the phpsessid issue you only need to modify the chameleon.theme file to output the xhtml 1.1 doctype info and you are ready to roll. keto Previous comments: ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Thu, 13 Nov 2003 00:22:39 +0000 : Eric Scouten Some URLs get ?PHPSESSID=(whatever) added to them. I find this distracting and unnecessary for anonymous users. Submitting patch #147 for consideration to remove this issue. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Fri, 05 Dec 2003 14:39:25 +0000 : Kjartan This is a local PHP configuration issue. Don't see it as something Drupal should mess with, the less PHP settings Drupal messes with the better. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Fri, 05 Dec 2003 15:11:33 +0000 : killes(a)www.drop.org Could you elaborate which config setting one has to tweak? ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Fri, 05 Dec 2003 15:18:11 +0000 : Anonymous php_flag session.use_trans_sid off php_flag session.use_only_cookies on The first will disable the automatic addition of the session ID to internal URLs, the second will remove support for passing session IDs in URLs. See http://php.net/session [1] for more info. BTW the above settings are for Apache, in PHP.ini you should not add the php_flag part, and you should use = inbetween the name and value... [1] http://php.net/session ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Mon, 07 Jun 2004 22:42:06 +0000 : shane It seems that Drupal (via the .htaccess file) already "messes with" a bunch of PHP settings. For example, my Drupal install "came with" these messed with settings: php_value register_globals 0 php_value track_vars 1 php_value short_open_tag 1 php_value magic_quotes_gpc 0 php_value magic_quotes_runtime 0 php_value magic_quotes_sybase 0 php_value arg_separator.output "&" php_value session.cache_expire 200000 php_value session.gc_maxlifetime 200000 php_value session.cookie_lifetime 2000000 php_value session.auto_start 0 php_value session.save_handler user php_value session.cache_limiter none php_value allow_call_time_pass_reference On I'm not sure that adding two more "php_value" flags to the stock .htaccess file is going to arguably mess with more than already is. Personally I find it extremely un-professional and very un-clean to have funky PHPSESSID url strings tacked onto a majority of my URLs. I've worked extremely hard to implement clean URLs (above and beyond the already great "clean url" feature of Drupal - I don't like them being turned into muck. I'd vote that these two flags be added to the .htaccess file that is distributed with Drupal. However, I'm uncertain of the overall true impact of making these changes, so barring an technical reason - I would absolutely request this as a feature. I've implemented these in many of my production sites already (just today) - we'll see what impact they have. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Tue, 08 Jun 2004 02:56:00 +0000 : marky It's a performance thing. You need to remember that while not everyone has edit access to php.ini, those of us that do control our own servers see no need for .htaccess directives that set php options. >From the Apache docs [2]: "Apache will look in every directory for .htaccess files. Thus, permitting .htaccess files causes a performance hit, whether or not you actually even use them! Also, the .htaccess file is loaded every time a document is requested." Ok, I'm lucky in that I control my own server, so I can effectively remove the .htaccess file and move its config options to php.ini and the vhost section of httpd.conf, thus speeding up the responsiveness of my server. But if you don't have that option there's nothing wrong with adding those directives to your directory .htaccess file. That's what it's for - it allows directory specific config options for those that don't have access to their server config. As Kjartan said, "the less PHP settings Drupal messes with the better". I've got to agree - as far as I'm concerned it's already big enough. The "php_value short_open_tag 1", "php_value session.auto_start 0" and "php_value session.cache_limiter none" for example serve little purpose, as they mirror the installation default settings (apart from the last, where the available options are: nocache, private or public). If you don't have the choice, use .htaccess, and add whatever directives you see fit. But please remember that not everyone uses it. Anyway, just my 2 beads. [2] http://httpd.apache.org/docs-2.0/howto/htaccess.html#when ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Tue, 08 Jun 2004 04:38:32 +0000 : cel4145 Why not add them, but commented out with an explanation? When I encountered this problem, I had to spend a little time on drupal.org finding the solution. However, I am familiar with the .htaccess file from doing installs. If it had been included there commented out, I would have probably remembered it. After all, this is much the same way that httpd.conf functions with it's many, optional, commented out configuration options. Just makes it easier when a non-standard configuration option has to be used. Besides, I've also seen many Drupal sites with this problem. I suspect that some of those sites would have implemented these flags if they had been an option in the .htaccess file. And it looks bad. People that visit the sites that don't know any better will assume it's Drupal, not the lack of proper PHP settings. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Tue, 08 Jun 2004 10:39:27 +0000 : killes(a)www.drop.org It wouldn't hurt if Drupal had a better documented and possibly extended .htaccess file. Those who whish not to use it should really not care... session.save_handler = user should probably included as well. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Tue, 08 Jun 2004 12:17:06 +0000 : robertDouglass If you use these settings: php_flag session.use_trans_sid off php_flag session.use_only_cookies on won't it make it so that people with cookies disabled cannot have session state? And if the PHPSESSID is in the URL, isn't that an indication that the browser being used refused to take a cookie? I'd really like clarification on this, if anyone knows the answers. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Tue, 27 Jul 2004 13:25:46 +0000 : JonBob The original issue is definitely by design, as these URLs need the session ID to preserve the session when running under the given PHP settings. A better-documented .htaccess is a different issue entirely. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Thu, 19 Aug 2004 18:04:13 +0000 : gtoddv It hasn't been mentioned in this thread or anywhere else that I can find, but this session ID issue breaks validation. I don't know is this will cause accessibility issues too. I have tried the .htaccess fix and that doesn't change anything. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Sat, 06 Nov 2004 07:17:21 +0000 : wazdog The non-validating problem is another problem with your server setup. PHP can be setup to used encoded &'s or not. Your server isn't if the url isn't validating. You'd have to talk to your server admin to fix that. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Thu, 30 Dec 2004 20:32:35 +0000 : m_freeman2004 This is what you have to include in the .htaccess file: # Fix for ?PHPSESSID in clean URLs php_value session.use_trans_sid 0 php_value session.use_only_cookies 1 # End of fix ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Wed, 01 Jun 2005 19:07:53 +0000 : dr05 The code in .htaccess file: # Fix for ?PHPSESSID in clean URLs php_value session.use_trans_sid 0 php_value session.use_only_cookies 1 # End of fix don't work! Error: "Internal Server Error!" ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Thu, 14 Jul 2005 15:25:22 +0000 : jasonwhat Anyone else looking into this? Can one get rid of the id added onto the url but still keep the sessions going? ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Mon, 25 Jul 2005 06:16:22 +0000 : Eric Scouten dr05, what version of Apache and what OS are you using? I've been using this same patch with no problems on Mac OS X, Linux, and FreeBSD-based servers using both Apache 1.3.x and 2.0.x. Attached patch will apply these changes to .htaccess. (IMHO, this is useful for the majority of users; those who are smart enough to understand the performance issues can comment out these lines.) ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Mon, 25 Jul 2005 06:57:18 +0000 : clydefrog You forgot the patch, Eric. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Mon, 25 Jul 2005 08:02:26 +0000 : Eric Scouten Attachment: http://drupal.org/files/issues/htaccess-no-session-ids.patch (383 bytes) D'oh! ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Mon, 25 Jul 2005 08:45:48 +0000 : kbahey There are cases where no parameter will fix this issue. On shared hosting systems where you do not have access to php.ini, and the hosting company has setup things in a way that they cannot be overriden. I found this out the hard way, after lobbying for the settings to be included in the init_set() statements in the settings.php prior to 4.6 being released. They are simply ignored on some hosts. On other hosts, you need to have a php.ini of your own, if suphp or SuExec is being used. In some cases, the only way to make things work is to compile your own PHP as a CGI (detailed writeup) [3]. This can have disadvantages too, such some performance impact, as well as excessive CPU utilization (hosting company may not like it). [3] http://baheyeldin.com/drupal/how-to-get-rid-of-phpsessid-in-drupal-and-othe… ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Mon, 25 Jul 2005 08:49:31 +0000 : kbahey Here is some references: issue 21170 [4], and a forum discussion [5]. [4] http://drupal.org/node/21170 [5] http://drupal.org/node/17947 ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Sat, 30 Jul 2005 16:24:47 +0000 : ufku in my case (shared hosting, ini_set() disabled) a php.ini file with only this line in it solved the problem. url_rewriter.tags = '' you should place the php.ini in your site's base directory ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Sun, 07 Aug 2005 12:18:31 +0000 : djnz Attachment: http://drupal.org/files/issues/rewrite_tags.patch (468 bytes) Drupal already attempts to change a number of values using ini_set() in settings.php, including session.use_trans_sid which should cure this problem. Unfortunately as already noted elsewhere [6], session.use_trans_sid only worked in ini_set() up to PHP 4.2.3. Rather than change the whole philosophy and change this setting in .htaccess or php.ini (neither of which work for many hosted set-ups), surely the answer is to correct settings.php as described The attached patch does just that - it is only one line. Note that session ids are still appended to the url when redirecting by Drupal eg after a POST. This is also easily patched [7], but as it is done deliberately (why?) I have left it alone. [6] http://drupal.org/node/17947#comment-36339 [7] http://drupal.org/node/25852#comment-45111 ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Sun, 07 Aug 2005 13:26:17 +0000 : kbahey PHPSESSIDs in the URL are a) ugly, b) negatively affects search engine indexing, and most importantly, c) is a security risk that can enable a malicious user to hijack your session. We should work on a solution to eliminate this once and for all, and for all configurations. The current approach (putting some PHP parameters in settings.php, or instructing users to change them in .htaccess or php.ini) has severe shorcomings: Whatever we do, there are bound to be some configurations that no amount of PHP parameters will cure. Some hosts deny their users the ability to change some or all of the above parameters. I discovered this the painful way with many hosts I have used, and friends and clients I have helped. I think we need to rethink this whole session thing, in a way that we are not dependant on idiosyncracies of various hosts and PHP configurations. Perhaps attempt to set a DRUPAL cookie and not maintain a session unless we are able to set it. This way we know that we will not have a PHPSESSID in the URL. If we are not able to set the cookie, then we allow only anonymous access that is sessionless.. I am not sure if that will work or not: what other options do we have here? ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Sun, 07 Aug 2005 22:02:19 +0000 : djnz I am convinced that ini_set('url_rewriter.tags','') is the answer. I find it hard to believe that any host would go to the trouble to disable this (not just a matter of setting compile time paramaters, you would have to hack the PHP source; and why would they?) - certainly no cPanel host I have used does. The reason the code currently in settings.php doesn't work is not because hosts disable it, it is because PHP does not support it. RTFM. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Sun, 07 Aug 2005 22:23:59 +0000 : djnz Attachment: http://drupal.org/files/issues/trans_sid.patch (1.4 KB) After further thought, there really is no point in appending the SID to a redirect url, so the attached patch solves this problem too. If anyone has a problem with session IDs in URLs after applying this patch, I'll offer them free hosting myself. Maybe. ;) ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Mon, 08 Aug 2005 03:14:41 +0000 : kbahey You are right about the fact that the use of PHPSESSID in the URL on a redirect is totally unnecessary. That line should be removed from the base code altogether, there is no excuse for it. As for url_rewriter.tags, I am not 100% sure, but I tried it with someone who was facing difficulties, and it did not work as far as I can recall. In any case, your solution should go in base. It cannot hurt, unless some host has disabled it. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Mon, 08 Aug 2005 20:09:40 +0000 : moshe weitzman yeah, i think that is cruft. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Mon, 08 Aug 2005 21:15:29 +0000 : kbahey Attachment: http://drupal.org/files/issues/common.inc-trans_sid.patch (759 bytes) Actually, since the code in common.inc should not fiddle with PHPSESSID in URL in the first place, why not junk that whole section of the code altogether? A patch for common.inc is attached that removes this whole section. As Moshe said, this is cruft. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Tue, 09 Aug 2005 16:40:56 +0000 : djnz Attachment: http://drupal.org/files/issues/both_sid_patches.patch (1.39 KB) Yes, you are both right - I was being too kind to the code just FALSEing it out, it should just be deleted. I don't want to lose the url_rewriter.tags patch though so the attached patch has both. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Tue, 13 Sep 2005 04:28:32 +0000 : Geary +1 on this latest patch. I had a nagging problem on a fresh install of 4.6.3 in a subdirectory on a TextDrive account. If I went into admin/user, then selected 'edit' on the first user, made a change and saved it, I got the PHPSESSID in the URL. This patch fixed it for both PHP4 and PHP5. Eric's earlier patch fixed it for PHP5 but did not fix it for PHP4. (Sorry Eric!)

1 0

[drupal-devel] [feature] Administration Control Panel suggestion
by der 18 Sep '05

18 Sep '05

Issue status update for http://drupal.org/node/31326 Post a follow up: http://drupal.org/project/comments/add/31326 Project: Drupal Version: cvs Component: system.module Category: feature requests Priority: normal Assigned to: Anonymous Reported by: der Updated by: der Status: patch (code needs work) Thanks for the code feedback. I'm assuming the extracted style info would get patched to drupal.css? Your right about the duplicate code. A function would make more sense, I'll make the change. I'm not sure about the comment to use "$may_cache" I've never used it before. What's it's purpose? How should I use it in this situation. I'll dig around and see if I can figure it out but I thought you might be able to give me a little insight. Thanks! der Previous comments: ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Thu, 15 Sep 2005 17:50:52 +0000 : der Attachment: http://drupal.org/files/issues/system_9.patch (4.27 KB) New feature suggestion: I would like to suggest a couple of enhancments to administration pages. First, add a new general settings option to allow the user to specify the admin home page. Currently the watchdog log view is the default home page. Second, add a new control panel page that can be used as the default admin start page. I've attached a suggested patch to the CVS head version of the system.module that implements these two enhancements. The patch does the following. Adds a new "default admin page" text field to the general settings group (just after the "default front page"). It also changes the admin menu entry to call a new function that examines the default "admin page" variable and redirects to the appropriate path. For the control panel, the patch adds a new function (system_admin_controlpanel). This function basically looks for the admin entry in the menu structure and then iterates through the child menu items and builds a control panel page using the path and title information returned from the menu structure. For the control panel icons it looks for an icon file in the misc directory that matches the name of the menu item (e.g. user.png, access.png etc) If it doesn't find an icon it uses a default. I've also included some 48/48 icons that I borrowed from my usr/share/icon/gnome directory of my local Linux box. I believe these are gnome GPL'ed icons but any 48/48 icons could be used. This patch allows users who prefer the current functionality to keep it as their default. It provides the option for others to make any admin page they want to be their admin "home page" including using a graphical control panel. Module developers that add new admin menu options can add their own custom icons for the control panel but they are not "required" to do so as a default will be used if they don't provide one. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Thu, 15 Sep 2005 17:52:15 +0000 : der Attachment: http://drupal.org/files/issues/drupal_controlpanel_icons.zip (39.09 KB) 48x48 icons attached ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Fri, 16 Sep 2005 14:30:16 +0000 : der Attachment: http://drupal.org/files/issues/system_2_0.patch (4.5 KB) updated patch. slightly changed the formatting of the control panel page ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Sat, 17 Sep 2005 00:37:24 +0000 : moggy I quite like this. It certainly goes some way to making Drupal easier on the eyes for first time users. I noticed there's a lot of hard coded style. Would this not be better in a stylesheet and the code just containing classes and ids? Also would a dropdown box of possible admin pages be better than trying to remember how to spell controlpanel (something I'm having trouble with tonight ;-) ) ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Sat, 17 Sep 2005 13:02:08 +0000 : syllance Nice job :) the default admin page is a nice feature, and the controlpanel is a very good idea. This goes in the good direction to make Drupal more user friendly. i agree with the dropdown menu and stylesheet additions, but i already really appreciate the current version. hope this will go into core soon, as it really makes the first admin pages contact better :) i don't mind scrolling through the nav menu and i rarely goes into admin without checking the logs, but that definitely will help me converting my wife's site to drupal :p thanks ! ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Sat, 17 Sep 2005 16:09:43 +0000 : der I'll move the styles off to a style sheet but I'm uncertain about whether or not make make the default admin page a dropdown. It's an easy change and it eliminates any typos by the user but it also restricts the user to a current visible admin menu item. If by chance someone wanted to write their own admin start page (ie their own control panel) they would have to hack the core system.module to do it. Anyone else want to weigh in with their preference? Also, anyone up for creating drupalized versions of the control panel icons? ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Sat, 17 Sep 2005 16:16:15 +0000 : chx Maybe just because I created it, I like my control panel module better. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Sat, 17 Sep 2005 16:25:30 +0000 : der If I would have known there was a module I wouldn't have written this patch although I do think this would be good for core Drupal as the default. Is your modules a recent creation? I don't see it on drupal.org nor could I find in the contribs section of CVS (either the modules or sandbox sections). I'm I missing something? Is it called something different? ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Sat, 17 Sep 2005 18:20:15 +0000 : syllance chx control panel is located in his sandbox (cp.module), and thanks to him for letting us know there's one :) it's working fine (tested on HEAD) and provide interesting concept for navigating through the admin, instead of just add a frontend. the settings part is the better one, listing all elements in the page makes quickly forget the standard menu. der's one looks nice and provide a more immediate access to admin pages, but the standard menu is still mandatory to access some elements (dba or store settings for example, still needs to be accessed via left menu). to be honest, i like them both :) being able to change the default admin page is very nice, and icons make admin looks a lot better, raising the Woman Acceptance Factor by a huge amount (my wife loves it :). but i also really like the more in depth admin navigation offered by chx module. mixing both on my head setup gives a nice result, so may be it would be a good idea to join forces and mix the 2 panels. chx, is your module somewhat official and scheduled to hit the core ? ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Sat, 17 Sep 2005 19:24:11 +0000 : Amazon Hi, I asked Karoly to create the control panel module. It important that the control panel be tied into the navigation menu block so that it does not create inconsistent navigation. The goal is to start a user experience grouping exercise to help the community categorize administration tasks. The first thing that has to happen is that administration must be considered a seperate situation from creating personal content in Drupal. To support this seperation of personal tasks and administration tasks we broke out administration to have a separate theme in the CivicSpace theme. Through research interviews into Drupal administration we need to discover what the goals and tasks of administrators are. Some early feedback is that site developers need modules to be evaluated on Drupal.org. They have also indicated they need better and consistent administration help ,with incontext list, which we have been adding. We have also heard administrators want a quick overview. Any change to provide a control panel like overview must have a dashboard like overview. You should assume that we will identify a list of 5-7 top goals for administrators. Once those those 5-7 top goals are identified we need to ensure administrators can acommplish tasks to achieve those goals. Some of those tasks will completed by clicking through to icons or admin interface links. Sub-goals will be accomplished by providing effective navigation. We need to consider 4 types of navigation to be added to the control panel: Global navigation, local navigation, contextual navigation, and situational navigation. Some of this navigation can be accomplished through a theme or blocks. Some will need to be in the page and some need to be added in otherways, such as interaction techniques. Keep all this in mind when creating a control panel solution. It also must respond to the fact that every site will have different permissions set and different modules. This is a complex problem and it's going to research and experimentation to get it right. But this is a big step in the right direction. Cheers, Kieran ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Sat, 17 Sep 2005 19:47:55 +0000 : der Attachment: http://drupal.org/files/issues/system.module_11.patch (5.61 KB) This has sparked a lot of good discussion. I've taken a look at cp.module and I think it really is complimentary with my proposed patch. I've taken my patch one step further and provided the settings icons in a collapsable group below the main control panel. This would allow access to all admin functions without referring to the traditional menu. Syllance, do you think this addresses the gap you saw in my solution? ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Sat, 17 Sep 2005 20:33:10 +0000 : der Kieran, I'm glad to see some serious thought going into the user experience for site administrators. I think separating the user and admin sections of the site is critical. It will not only allow extensive usability work to be done for site admins it will also make it much easier for theme creators as they will be able to focus on the end user experience. I like the admin theme for civicspace. My only dislike about the approach is that it's template driven which causes a sites template to be larger and more complex due to handling all the logic for user and admin themes. I think a better approach may be to use a module such as the sections module. This allows you to have smaller templates focused on user or admin themes. I agree with your point about making sure the control panel ties into them menu system. My approach uses the existing menu structure so modules are added dynamically and all permissions are enforced. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Sat, 17 Sep 2005 22:21:05 +0000 : chx <?php function _system_adminpage () { drupal_goto($path = variable_get('site_adminpage', 'admin/controlpanel'), $query = NULL, $fragment = NULL); } ?> no way. Use menu !$may_cache and set the path based on the variable. Adding in-line style elements is also a no-go. The code style is not kept. Never a space between full stop and apostrophe, always otherwise. It's not $menuvisible but $menu_visible I must be blind (it's 0:17am) but // Build the settings section of the control panel does not seem to differ from the previous section. A function may be appropriate.

1 0

[drupal-devel] [feature] Administration Control Panel suggestion
by chx 18 Sep '05

18 Sep '05

Issue status update for http://drupal.org/node/31326 Post a follow up: http://drupal.org/project/comments/add/31326 Project: Drupal Version: cvs Component: system.module Category: feature requests Priority: normal Assigned to: Anonymous Reported by: der Updated by: chx -Status: patch (code needs review) +Status: patch (code needs work) <?php function _system_adminpage () { drupal_goto($path = variable_get('site_adminpage', 'admin/controlpanel'), $query = NULL, $fragment = NULL); } ?> no way. Use menu !$may_cache and set the path based on the variable. Adding in-line style elements is also a no-go. The code style is not kept. Never a space between full stop and apostrophe, always otherwise. It's not $menuvisible but $menu_visible I must be blind (it's 0:17am) but // Build the settings section of the control panel does not seem to differ from the previous section. A function may be appropriate. chx Previous comments: ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Thu, 15 Sep 2005 17:50:52 +0000 : der Attachment: http://drupal.org/files/issues/system_9.patch (4.27 KB) New feature suggestion: I would like to suggest a couple of enhancments to administration pages. First, add a new general settings option to allow the user to specify the admin home page. Currently the watchdog log view is the default home page. Second, add a new control panel page that can be used as the default admin start page. I've attached a suggested patch to the CVS head version of the system.module that implements these two enhancements. The patch does the following. Adds a new "default admin page" text field to the general settings group (just after the "default front page"). It also changes the admin menu entry to call a new function that examines the default "admin page" variable and redirects to the appropriate path. For the control panel, the patch adds a new function (system_admin_controlpanel). This function basically looks for the admin entry in the menu structure and then iterates through the child menu items and builds a control panel page using the path and title information returned from the menu structure. For the control panel icons it looks for an icon file in the misc directory that matches the name of the menu item (e.g. user.png, access.png etc) If it doesn't find an icon it uses a default. I've also included some 48/48 icons that I borrowed from my usr/share/icon/gnome directory of my local Linux box. I believe these are gnome GPL'ed icons but any 48/48 icons could be used. This patch allows users who prefer the current functionality to keep it as their default. It provides the option for others to make any admin page they want to be their admin "home page" including using a graphical control panel. Module developers that add new admin menu options can add their own custom icons for the control panel but they are not "required" to do so as a default will be used if they don't provide one. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Thu, 15 Sep 2005 17:52:15 +0000 : der Attachment: http://drupal.org/files/issues/drupal_controlpanel_icons.zip (39.09 KB) 48x48 icons attached ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Fri, 16 Sep 2005 14:30:16 +0000 : der Attachment: http://drupal.org/files/issues/system_2_0.patch (4.5 KB) updated patch. slightly changed the formatting of the control panel page ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Sat, 17 Sep 2005 00:37:24 +0000 : moggy I quite like this. It certainly goes some way to making Drupal easier on the eyes for first time users. I noticed there's a lot of hard coded style. Would this not be better in a stylesheet and the code just containing classes and ids? Also would a dropdown box of possible admin pages be better than trying to remember how to spell controlpanel (something I'm having trouble with tonight ;-) ) ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Sat, 17 Sep 2005 13:02:08 +0000 : syllance Nice job :) the default admin page is a nice feature, and the controlpanel is a very good idea. This goes in the good direction to make Drupal more user friendly. i agree with the dropdown menu and stylesheet additions, but i already really appreciate the current version. hope this will go into core soon, as it really makes the first admin pages contact better :) i don't mind scrolling through the nav menu and i rarely goes into admin without checking the logs, but that definitely will help me converting my wife's site to drupal :p thanks ! ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Sat, 17 Sep 2005 16:09:43 +0000 : der I'll move the styles off to a style sheet but I'm uncertain about whether or not make make the default admin page a dropdown. It's an easy change and it eliminates any typos by the user but it also restricts the user to a current visible admin menu item. If by chance someone wanted to write their own admin start page (ie their own control panel) they would have to hack the core system.module to do it. Anyone else want to weigh in with their preference? Also, anyone up for creating drupalized versions of the control panel icons? ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Sat, 17 Sep 2005 16:16:15 +0000 : chx Maybe just because I created it, I like my control panel module better. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Sat, 17 Sep 2005 16:25:30 +0000 : der If I would have known there was a module I wouldn't have written this patch although I do think this would be good for core Drupal as the default. Is your modules a recent creation? I don't see it on drupal.org nor could I find in the contribs section of CVS (either the modules or sandbox sections). I'm I missing something? Is it called something different? ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Sat, 17 Sep 2005 18:20:15 +0000 : syllance chx control panel is located in his sandbox (cp.module), and thanks to him for letting us know there's one :) it's working fine (tested on HEAD) and provide interesting concept for navigating through the admin, instead of just add a frontend. the settings part is the better one, listing all elements in the page makes quickly forget the standard menu. der's one looks nice and provide a more immediate access to admin pages, but the standard menu is still mandatory to access some elements (dba or store settings for example, still needs to be accessed via left menu). to be honest, i like them both :) being able to change the default admin page is very nice, and icons make admin looks a lot better, raising the Woman Acceptance Factor by a huge amount (my wife loves it :). but i also really like the more in depth admin navigation offered by chx module. mixing both on my head setup gives a nice result, so may be it would be a good idea to join forces and mix the 2 panels. chx, is your module somewhat official and scheduled to hit the core ? ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Sat, 17 Sep 2005 19:24:11 +0000 : Amazon Hi, I asked Karoly to create the control panel module. It important that the control panel be tied into the navigation menu block so that it does not create inconsistent navigation. The goal is to start a user experience grouping exercise to help the community categorize administration tasks. The first thing that has to happen is that administration must be considered a seperate situation from creating personal content in Drupal. To support this seperation of personal tasks and administration tasks we broke out administration to have a separate theme in the CivicSpace theme. Through research interviews into Drupal administration we need to discover what the goals and tasks of administrators are. Some early feedback is that site developers need modules to be evaluated on Drupal.org. They have also indicated they need better and consistent administration help ,with incontext list, which we have been adding. We have also heard administrators want a quick overview. Any change to provide a control panel like overview must have a dashboard like overview. You should assume that we will identify a list of 5-7 top goals for administrators. Once those those 5-7 top goals are identified we need to ensure administrators can acommplish tasks to achieve those goals. Some of those tasks will completed by clicking through to icons or admin interface links. Sub-goals will be accomplished by providing effective navigation. We need to consider 4 types of navigation to be added to the control panel: Global navigation, local navigation, contextual navigation, and situational navigation. Some of this navigation can be accomplished through a theme or blocks. Some will need to be in the page and some need to be added in otherways, such as interaction techniques. Keep all this in mind when creating a control panel solution. It also must respond to the fact that every site will have different permissions set and different modules. This is a complex problem and it's going to research and experimentation to get it right. But this is a big step in the right direction. Cheers, Kieran ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Sat, 17 Sep 2005 19:47:55 +0000 : der Attachment: http://drupal.org/files/issues/system.module_11.patch (5.61 KB) This has sparked a lot of good discussion. I've taken a look at cp.module and I think it really is complimentary with my proposed patch. I've taken my patch one step further and provided the settings icons in a collapsable group below the main control panel. This would allow access to all admin functions without referring to the traditional menu. Syllance, do you think this addresses the gap you saw in my solution? ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Sat, 17 Sep 2005 20:33:10 +0000 : der Kieran, I'm glad to see some serious thought going into the user experience for site administrators. I think separating the user and admin sections of the site is critical. It will not only allow extensive usability work to be done for site admins it will also make it much easier for theme creators as they will be able to focus on the end user experience. I like the admin theme for civicspace. My only dislike about the approach is that it's template driven which causes a sites template to be larger and more complex due to handling all the logic for user and admin themes. I think a better approach may be to use a module such as the sections module. This allows you to have smaller templates focused on user or admin themes. I agree with your point about making sure the control panel ties into them menu system. My approach uses the existing menu structure so modules are added dynamically and all permissions are enforced.

1 0

[drupal-devel] [bug] QUICKFIX: Missing $node object in book export
by Goba 17 Sep '05

17 Sep '05

Issue status update for http://drupal.org/node/31496 Post a follow up: http://drupal.org/project/comments/add/31496 Project: Drupal Version: cvs Component: book.module Category: bug reports Priority: normal Assigned to: Goba Reported by: Goba Updated by: Goba Status: patch (ready to be committed) Attachment: http://drupal.org/files/issues/Drupal.node-object-missing-from-book-export.… (530 bytes) book_export() does three flavors of export, of which two try to use $node->title along the way. But there is no $node object to deal with. This patch actually creates that object in book_export. A simple onliner. Goba

1 0

[drupal-devel] [feature] Separate mail backend
by Dries 17 Sep '05

17 Sep '05

Issue status update for http://drupal.org/node/28604 Post a follow up: http://drupal.org/project/comments/add/28604 Project: Drupal Version: cvs Component: base system Category: feature requests Priority: normal Assigned to: Anonymous Reported by: Dries Updated by: Dries Status: patch (code needs review) Some of my comments might be false. If so, sorry. I only looked at it for 5 minutes: * I wonder why we need per-module settings. I can't think of concrete use cases. * For consistency, mailid needs to be mid. * I don't see an option to send mails immediately? * I don't see any "messages per hour" accounting? * I don't understand why mail.inc should be node system aware? * mailid = '%s' should be mailid = %d. * Incorrect use of t(): don't translate user input. * The coding style needs work; inconsistent variable names, inconsistent spacing, etc. * Some PHPDoc is rather cryptic: /Updates table mail queue address table sets sent flag to 1 for a queued msg./. Dries Previous comments: ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Wed, 10 Aug 2005 12:35:37 +0000 : Dries It was suggested that we separate the mail backend from the front-end. We might want to include the mail backend in core as includes/mail.inc. Then, other modules like massmailer, subscriptions, notify, pm (private messages), project (project issues), contact, etc. could reuse this component. The mail.inc file would implement some kind of mail queue functionality, and modules just add a mail to the mail queue using a simple /mail API/. In future, the mail backend could deal with bounces and report back proper status codes. Moreover, mail.inc would be pluggable so it could be replaced by a more powerful one, or one that is build specifically for the underlying mail transport (SMTP server). Furthermore, this would solve issues with how many mails get send within a specified interval. Like, when more than one module sends out e-mails it is hard to enforce limitations/restrictions imposed by the hosting company. I'm posting this here so you can keep this in mind when working on simplenews, and to solicit for feedback. Chances are we'll setup an IRC meeting to discuss this further. Details to follow. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Wed, 10 Aug 2005 16:15:16 +0000 : Amazon A good place to start would be to look at existing Mail API's Pear Mail: http://pear.php.net/package/Mail Pear Mail tutorial: http://www.zend.com/pear/tutorials/Mail.php#Heading2 ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Wed, 10 Aug 2005 20:21:57 +0000 : walkah um. +1 and then some. I think this is good... and some good references from Amazon. I'll throw in one other : http://phpmailer.sf.net/ - has great mime handling (i've run into issues with PEAR::Mail's mime handilng in the past, but that was around 2 years ago, and things may have gotten better since then). Oh - and you don't mention it - but support for multipart / mime messages would be lovely :) I'd be interested in / happy to sit in on any IRC discussion as well. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Wed, 10 Aug 2005 21:40:34 +0000 : robertDouglass phpmailer++ I've used it and like how easy it is to send both text and html mail. Did I say html mail? You bet! It's time that we had the option. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Thu, 11 Aug 2005 05:47:01 +0000 : cyberchucktx I'm definitely interested. Hopefully by adding a post to this I'll get notified on new postings (?) If not I may miss the IRC .. I've been doing a lot of work with safe_mode PHPLIST (have posted to the drupal site somewhee, can dig out the reference if anyone is interested). Charlie in TX ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Wed, 17 Aug 2005 08:42:34 +0000 : Dries It was suggested that mail.inc also provides a HTML to text services. Lots of modules (newsletter, notify, project) try converting HTML to text. Having a reusable function makes sense, and will lead to better conversion routines. XSLT anyone? ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Wed, 17 Aug 2005 12:31:27 +0000 : Grugnog2 +1 for phpmailer I found it very easy to use - and most importantly for me - it supports SMTP authentication. As many ISP's will not let you send mail without using SMTP-auth nowadays it may be worth this feature is incorporated into the mail.inc API. - Grug ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Wed, 17 Aug 2005 15:08:43 +0000 : Robert Castelo For about a year now I've been working on an email newsletter and announcement module [1]. There's a version in my sandbox commited about 2 months ago which works fairly well. Dan Robinson and Varr Willis at CivicActions, Moshe Weitzman plus a few others have been testing it, and I've had lots of positive feedback and feature and bug reports from them. A few months ago a realised that there's not much point in putting so much effort into creating all this functionality, only for it to be locked away in my module. Better to Better to create discreet component modules which provide a particular service, such as bounced email handling, but which can be used by any other module that also needs that service. For the last two months I've been working to split functionality into component services modules and make these services available to all modules. One of the biggest challenges was to make these component modules independent of each other. The only area where I haven't managed this is some of the database calls - but thanks to a chat with chx I realised that db_rewrite_sql could be used to handle this very nicely. This is what I have: * bounced_email.module - process bounced emails * html2text.module - convert HTML to plain text equivalent (e.g. list item becomes "* item") * identity_hash.module - manages full and partial loggin based on hash which can be used in email links * publication.module - defines and packages content of publication, which could be any kind of publication * schedule.module - defines and manages schedules, e.g. email sending schedule * subscribed.module - manages subscriptions to publications * templates.module - manage and define templates What's great is that the component modules are not limited to email, they could be used to quickly create RSS newsletters, PDF newsletters, text message newsletters, or even personalised/filtered website sections. I haven't made the new component modules available anywhere yet, but I'll be happy to upload them to contrib and let others get involved. What would be the best way to commit them - as a single directory? or each component module in it's own directory? [1] http://www.cortextcommunications.com/development/newsletter/features ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Thu, 15 Sep 2005 02:05:18 +0000 : vwX Attachment: http://drupal.org/files/issues/mailqueue.tar.gz (3.71 KB) This is a very basic mail queue system I would like to contribute. There are some changes to other modules that will have to be made such as changing user.module to use this instead of directly calling the php mail function and moving mime_header_encoding to mail.inc. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Thu, 15 Sep 2005 15:25:11 +0000 : killes(a)www.drop.org Note: I am moving this to the main project. VwX: What I see looks very nice for a start. Some polishing is certainly needed, but I'd like to try this. If I only had the time... ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Fri, 16 Sep 2005 22:10:19 +0000 : killes(a)www.drop.org Ok, I've been doing some clean-up on this one and made contact.module use it. The module and the .inc file work. I've put the files into my sandbox for now. I plan to work on them over the weekend (unless Dries tells me they are too late for 4.7). http://cvs.drupal.org/viewcvs/drupal/contributions/sandbox/killes/mail/ But I could use some input: - the sql file defines a column to store the module that generated the mail. Do we want this? If yes, we need to fix it. - Do we need a throttle for only sending x mails per cron run? - can somebody try the files with php5? - what else do we need? Please give input, links and what not.

1 0

[drupal-devel] [feature] Administration Control Panel suggestion
by der 17 Sep '05

17 Sep '05

Issue status update for http://drupal.org/node/31326 Post a follow up: http://drupal.org/project/comments/add/31326 Project: Drupal Version: cvs Component: system.module Category: feature requests Priority: normal Assigned to: Anonymous Reported by: der Updated by: der Status: patch (code needs review) Kieran, I'm glad to see some serious thought going into the user experience for site administrators. I think separating the user and admin sections of the site is critical. It will not only allow extensive usability work to be done for site admins it will also make it much easier for theme creators as they will be able to focus on the end user experience. I like the admin theme for civicspace. My only dislike about the approach is that it's template driven which causes a sites template to be larger and more complex due to handling all the logic for user and admin themes. I think a better approach may be to use a module such as the sections module. This allows you to have smaller templates focused on user or admin themes. I agree with your point about making sure the control panel ties into them menu system. My approach uses the existing menu structure so modules are added dynamically and all permissions are enforced. der Previous comments: ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Thu, 15 Sep 2005 17:50:52 +0000 : der Attachment: http://drupal.org/files/issues/system_9.patch (4.27 KB) New feature suggestion: I would like to suggest a couple of enhancments to administration pages. First, add a new general settings option to allow the user to specify the admin home page. Currently the watchdog log view is the default home page. Second, add a new control panel page that can be used as the default admin start page. I've attached a suggested patch to the CVS head version of the system.module that implements these two enhancements. The patch does the following. Adds a new "default admin page" text field to the general settings group (just after the "default front page"). It also changes the admin menu entry to call a new function that examines the default "admin page" variable and redirects to the appropriate path. For the control panel, the patch adds a new function (system_admin_controlpanel). This function basically looks for the admin entry in the menu structure and then iterates through the child menu items and builds a control panel page using the path and title information returned from the menu structure. For the control panel icons it looks for an icon file in the misc directory that matches the name of the menu item (e.g. user.png, access.png etc) If it doesn't find an icon it uses a default. I've also included some 48/48 icons that I borrowed from my usr/share/icon/gnome directory of my local Linux box. I believe these are gnome GPL'ed icons but any 48/48 icons could be used. This patch allows users who prefer the current functionality to keep it as their default. It provides the option for others to make any admin page they want to be their admin "home page" including using a graphical control panel. Module developers that add new admin menu options can add their own custom icons for the control panel but they are not "required" to do so as a default will be used if they don't provide one. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Thu, 15 Sep 2005 17:52:15 +0000 : der Attachment: http://drupal.org/files/issues/drupal_controlpanel_icons.zip (39.09 KB) 48x48 icons attached ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Fri, 16 Sep 2005 14:30:16 +0000 : der Attachment: http://drupal.org/files/issues/system_2_0.patch (4.5 KB) updated patch. slightly changed the formatting of the control panel page ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Sat, 17 Sep 2005 00:37:24 +0000 : moggy I quite like this. It certainly goes some way to making Drupal easier on the eyes for first time users. I noticed there's a lot of hard coded style. Would this not be better in a stylesheet and the code just containing classes and ids? Also would a dropdown box of possible admin pages be better than trying to remember how to spell controlpanel (something I'm having trouble with tonight ;-) ) ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Sat, 17 Sep 2005 13:02:08 +0000 : syllance Nice job :) the default admin page is a nice feature, and the controlpanel is a very good idea. This goes in the good direction to make Drupal more user friendly. i agree with the dropdown menu and stylesheet additions, but i already really appreciate the current version. hope this will go into core soon, as it really makes the first admin pages contact better :) i don't mind scrolling through the nav menu and i rarely goes into admin without checking the logs, but that definitely will help me converting my wife's site to drupal :p thanks ! ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Sat, 17 Sep 2005 16:09:43 +0000 : der I'll move the styles off to a style sheet but I'm uncertain about whether or not make make the default admin page a dropdown. It's an easy change and it eliminates any typos by the user but it also restricts the user to a current visible admin menu item. If by chance someone wanted to write their own admin start page (ie their own control panel) they would have to hack the core system.module to do it. Anyone else want to weigh in with their preference? Also, anyone up for creating drupalized versions of the control panel icons? ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Sat, 17 Sep 2005 16:16:15 +0000 : chx Maybe just because I created it, I like my control panel module better. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Sat, 17 Sep 2005 16:25:30 +0000 : der If I would have known there was a module I wouldn't have written this patch although I do think this would be good for core Drupal as the default. Is your modules a recent creation? I don't see it on drupal.org nor could I find in the contribs section of CVS (either the modules or sandbox sections). I'm I missing something? Is it called something different? ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Sat, 17 Sep 2005 18:20:15 +0000 : syllance chx control panel is located in his sandbox (cp.module), and thanks to him for letting us know there's one :) it's working fine (tested on HEAD) and provide interesting concept for navigating through the admin, instead of just add a frontend. the settings part is the better one, listing all elements in the page makes quickly forget the standard menu. der's one looks nice and provide a more immediate access to admin pages, but the standard menu is still mandatory to access some elements (dba or store settings for example, still needs to be accessed via left menu). to be honest, i like them both :) being able to change the default admin page is very nice, and icons make admin looks a lot better, raising the Woman Acceptance Factor by a huge amount (my wife loves it :). but i also really like the more in depth admin navigation offered by chx module. mixing both on my head setup gives a nice result, so may be it would be a good idea to join forces and mix the 2 panels. chx, is your module somewhat official and scheduled to hit the core ? ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Sat, 17 Sep 2005 19:24:11 +0000 : Amazon Hi, I asked Karoly to create the control panel module. It important that the control panel be tied into the navigation menu block so that it does not create inconsistent navigation. The goal is to start a user experience grouping exercise to help the community categorize administration tasks. The first thing that has to happen is that administration must be considered a seperate situation from creating personal content in Drupal. To support this seperation of personal tasks and administration tasks we broke out administration to have a separate theme in the CivicSpace theme. Through research interviews into Drupal administration we need to discover what the goals and tasks of administrators are. Some early feedback is that site developers need modules to be evaluated on Drupal.org. They have also indicated they need better and consistent administration help ,with incontext list, which we have been adding. We have also heard administrators want a quick overview. Any change to provide a control panel like overview must have a dashboard like overview. You should assume that we will identify a list of 5-7 top goals for administrators. Once those those 5-7 top goals are identified we need to ensure administrators can acommplish tasks to achieve those goals. Some of those tasks will completed by clicking through to icons or admin interface links. Sub-goals will be accomplished by providing effective navigation. We need to consider 4 types of navigation to be added to the control panel: Global navigation, local navigation, contextual navigation, and situational navigation. Some of this navigation can be accomplished through a theme or blocks. Some will need to be in the page and some need to be added in otherways, such as interaction techniques. Keep all this in mind when creating a control panel solution. It also must respond to the fact that every site will have different permissions set and different modules. This is a complex problem and it's going to research and experimentation to get it right. But this is a big step in the right direction. Cheers, Kieran ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Sat, 17 Sep 2005 19:47:55 +0000 : der Attachment: http://drupal.org/files/issues/system.module_11.patch (5.61 KB) This has sparked a lot of good discussion. I've taken a look at cp.module and I think it really is complimentary with my proposed patch. I've taken my patch one step further and provided the settings icons in a collapsable group below the main control panel. This would allow access to all admin functions without referring to the traditional menu. Syllance, do you think this addresses the gap you saw in my solution?

1 0

[drupal-devel] [feature] Administration Control Panel suggestion
by der 17 Sep '05

17 Sep '05

Issue status update for http://drupal.org/node/31326 Post a follow up: http://drupal.org/project/comments/add/31326 Project: Drupal Version: cvs Component: system.module Category: feature requests Priority: normal Assigned to: Anonymous Reported by: der Updated by: der Status: patch (code needs review) Attachment: http://drupal.org/files/issues/system.module_11.patch (5.61 KB) This has sparked a lot of good discussion. I've taken a look at cp.module and I think it really is complimentary with my proposed patch. I've taken my patch one step further and provided the settings icons in a collapsable group below the main control panel. This would allow access to all admin functions without referring to the traditional menu. Syllance, do you think this addresses the gap you saw in my solution? der Previous comments: ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Thu, 15 Sep 2005 17:50:52 +0000 : der Attachment: http://drupal.org/files/issues/system_9.patch (4.27 KB) New feature suggestion: I would like to suggest a couple of enhancments to administration pages. First, add a new general settings option to allow the user to specify the admin home page. Currently the watchdog log view is the default home page. Second, add a new control panel page that can be used as the default admin start page. I've attached a suggested patch to the CVS head version of the system.module that implements these two enhancements. The patch does the following. Adds a new "default admin page" text field to the general settings group (just after the "default front page"). It also changes the admin menu entry to call a new function that examines the default "admin page" variable and redirects to the appropriate path. For the control panel, the patch adds a new function (system_admin_controlpanel). This function basically looks for the admin entry in the menu structure and then iterates through the child menu items and builds a control panel page using the path and title information returned from the menu structure. For the control panel icons it looks for an icon file in the misc directory that matches the name of the menu item (e.g. user.png, access.png etc) If it doesn't find an icon it uses a default. I've also included some 48/48 icons that I borrowed from my usr/share/icon/gnome directory of my local Linux box. I believe these are gnome GPL'ed icons but any 48/48 icons could be used. This patch allows users who prefer the current functionality to keep it as their default. It provides the option for others to make any admin page they want to be their admin "home page" including using a graphical control panel. Module developers that add new admin menu options can add their own custom icons for the control panel but they are not "required" to do so as a default will be used if they don't provide one. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Thu, 15 Sep 2005 17:52:15 +0000 : der Attachment: http://drupal.org/files/issues/drupal_controlpanel_icons.zip (39.09 KB) 48x48 icons attached ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Fri, 16 Sep 2005 14:30:16 +0000 : der Attachment: http://drupal.org/files/issues/system_2_0.patch (4.5 KB) updated patch. slightly changed the formatting of the control panel page ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Sat, 17 Sep 2005 00:37:24 +0000 : moggy I quite like this. It certainly goes some way to making Drupal easier on the eyes for first time users. I noticed there's a lot of hard coded style. Would this not be better in a stylesheet and the code just containing classes and ids? Also would a dropdown box of possible admin pages be better than trying to remember how to spell controlpanel (something I'm having trouble with tonight ;-) ) ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Sat, 17 Sep 2005 13:02:08 +0000 : syllance Nice job :) the default admin page is a nice feature, and the controlpanel is a very good idea. This goes in the good direction to make Drupal more user friendly. i agree with the dropdown menu and stylesheet additions, but i already really appreciate the current version. hope this will go into core soon, as it really makes the first admin pages contact better :) i don't mind scrolling through the nav menu and i rarely goes into admin without checking the logs, but that definitely will help me converting my wife's site to drupal :p thanks ! ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Sat, 17 Sep 2005 16:09:43 +0000 : der I'll move the styles off to a style sheet but I'm uncertain about whether or not make make the default admin page a dropdown. It's an easy change and it eliminates any typos by the user but it also restricts the user to a current visible admin menu item. If by chance someone wanted to write their own admin start page (ie their own control panel) they would have to hack the core system.module to do it. Anyone else want to weigh in with their preference? Also, anyone up for creating drupalized versions of the control panel icons? ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Sat, 17 Sep 2005 16:16:15 +0000 : chx Maybe just because I created it, I like my control panel module better. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Sat, 17 Sep 2005 16:25:30 +0000 : der If I would have known there was a module I wouldn't have written this patch although I do think this would be good for core Drupal as the default. Is your modules a recent creation? I don't see it on drupal.org nor could I find in the contribs section of CVS (either the modules or sandbox sections). I'm I missing something? Is it called something different? ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Sat, 17 Sep 2005 18:20:15 +0000 : syllance chx control panel is located in his sandbox (cp.module), and thanks to him for letting us know there's one :) it's working fine (tested on HEAD) and provide interesting concept for navigating through the admin, instead of just add a frontend. the settings part is the better one, listing all elements in the page makes quickly forget the standard menu. der's one looks nice and provide a more immediate access to admin pages, but the standard menu is still mandatory to access some elements (dba or store settings for example, still needs to be accessed via left menu). to be honest, i like them both :) being able to change the default admin page is very nice, and icons make admin looks a lot better, raising the Woman Acceptance Factor by a huge amount (my wife loves it :). but i also really like the more in depth admin navigation offered by chx module. mixing both on my head setup gives a nice result, so may be it would be a good idea to join forces and mix the 2 panels. chx, is your module somewhat official and scheduled to hit the core ? ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Sat, 17 Sep 2005 19:24:11 +0000 : Amazon Hi, I asked Karoly to create the control panel module. It important that the control panel be tied into the navigation menu block so that it does not create inconsistent navigation. The goal is to start a user experience grouping exercise to help the community categorize administration tasks. The first thing that has to happen is that administration must be considered a seperate situation from creating personal content in Drupal. To support this seperation of personal tasks and administration tasks we broke out administration to have a separate theme in the CivicSpace theme. Through research interviews into Drupal administration we need to discover what the goals and tasks of administrators are. Some early feedback is that site developers need modules to be evaluated on Drupal.org. They have also indicated they need better and consistent administration help ,with incontext list, which we have been adding. We have also heard administrators want a quick overview. Any change to provide a control panel like overview must have a dashboard like overview. You should assume that we will identify a list of 5-7 top goals for administrators. Once those those 5-7 top goals are identified we need to ensure administrators can acommplish tasks to achieve those goals. Some of those tasks will completed by clicking through to icons or admin interface links. Sub-goals will be accomplished by providing effective navigation. We need to consider 4 types of navigation to be added to the control panel: Global navigation, local navigation, contextual navigation, and situational navigation. Some of this navigation can be accomplished through a theme or blocks. Some will need to be in the page and some need to be added in otherways, such as interaction techniques. Keep all this in mind when creating a control panel solution. It also must respond to the fact that every site will have different permissions set and different modules. This is a complex problem and it's going to research and experimentation to get it right. But this is a big step in the right direction. Cheers, Kieran

1 0

[drupal-devel] [feature] Administration Control Panel suggestion
by Amazon 17 Sep '05

17 Sep '05

Issue status update for http://drupal.org/node/31326 Post a follow up: http://drupal.org/project/comments/add/31326 Project: Drupal Version: cvs Component: system.module Category: feature requests Priority: normal Assigned to: Anonymous Reported by: der Updated by: Amazon Status: patch (code needs review) Hi, I asked Karoly to create the control panel module. It important that the control panel be tied into the navigation menu block so that it does not create inconsistent navigation. The goal is to start a user experience grouping exercise to help the community categorize administration tasks. The first thing that has to happen is that administration must be considered a seperate situation from creating personal content in Drupal. To support this seperation of personal tasks and administration tasks we broke out administration to have a separate theme in the CivicSpace theme. Through research interviews into Drupal administration we need to discover what the goals and tasks of administrators are. Some early feedback is that site developers need modules to be evaluated on Drupal.org. They have also indicated they need better and consistent administration help ,with incontext list, which we have been adding. We have also heard administrators want a quick overview. Any change to provide a control panel like overview must have a dashboard like overview. You should assume that we will identify a list of 5-7 top goals for administrators. Once those those 5-7 top goals are identified we need to ensure administrators can acommplish tasks to achieve those goals. Some of those tasks will completed by clicking through to icons or admin interface links. Sub-goals will be accomplished by providing effective navigation. We need to consider 4 types of navigation to be added to the control panel: Global navigation, local navigation, contextual navigation, and situational navigation. Some of this navigation can be accomplished through a theme or blocks. Some will need to be in the page and some need to be added in otherways, such as interaction techniques. Keep all this in mind when creating a control panel solution. It also must respond to the fact that every site will have different permissions set and different modules. This is a complex problem and it's going to research and experimentation to get it right. But this is a big step in the right direction. Cheers, Kieran Amazon Previous comments: ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Thu, 15 Sep 2005 17:50:52 +0000 : der Attachment: http://drupal.org/files/issues/system_9.patch (4.27 KB) New feature suggestion: I would like to suggest a couple of enhancments to administration pages. First, add a new general settings option to allow the user to specify the admin home page. Currently the watchdog log view is the default home page. Second, add a new control panel page that can be used as the default admin start page. I've attached a suggested patch to the CVS head version of the system.module that implements these two enhancements. The patch does the following. Adds a new "default admin page" text field to the general settings group (just after the "default front page"). It also changes the admin menu entry to call a new function that examines the default "admin page" variable and redirects to the appropriate path. For the control panel, the patch adds a new function (system_admin_controlpanel). This function basically looks for the admin entry in the menu structure and then iterates through the child menu items and builds a control panel page using the path and title information returned from the menu structure. For the control panel icons it looks for an icon file in the misc directory that matches the name of the menu item (e.g. user.png, access.png etc) If it doesn't find an icon it uses a default. I've also included some 48/48 icons that I borrowed from my usr/share/icon/gnome directory of my local Linux box. I believe these are gnome GPL'ed icons but any 48/48 icons could be used. This patch allows users who prefer the current functionality to keep it as their default. It provides the option for others to make any admin page they want to be their admin "home page" including using a graphical control panel. Module developers that add new admin menu options can add their own custom icons for the control panel but they are not "required" to do so as a default will be used if they don't provide one. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Thu, 15 Sep 2005 17:52:15 +0000 : der Attachment: http://drupal.org/files/issues/drupal_controlpanel_icons.zip (39.09 KB) 48x48 icons attached ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Fri, 16 Sep 2005 14:30:16 +0000 : der Attachment: http://drupal.org/files/issues/system_2_0.patch (4.5 KB) updated patch. slightly changed the formatting of the control panel page ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Sat, 17 Sep 2005 00:37:24 +0000 : moggy I quite like this. It certainly goes some way to making Drupal easier on the eyes for first time users. I noticed there's a lot of hard coded style. Would this not be better in a stylesheet and the code just containing classes and ids? Also would a dropdown box of possible admin pages be better than trying to remember how to spell controlpanel (something I'm having trouble with tonight ;-) ) ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Sat, 17 Sep 2005 13:02:08 +0000 : syllance Nice job :) the default admin page is a nice feature, and the controlpanel is a very good idea. This goes in the good direction to make Drupal more user friendly. i agree with the dropdown menu and stylesheet additions, but i already really appreciate the current version. hope this will go into core soon, as it really makes the first admin pages contact better :) i don't mind scrolling through the nav menu and i rarely goes into admin without checking the logs, but that definitely will help me converting my wife's site to drupal :p thanks ! ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Sat, 17 Sep 2005 16:09:43 +0000 : der I'll move the styles off to a style sheet but I'm uncertain about whether or not make make the default admin page a dropdown. It's an easy change and it eliminates any typos by the user but it also restricts the user to a current visible admin menu item. If by chance someone wanted to write their own admin start page (ie their own control panel) they would have to hack the core system.module to do it. Anyone else want to weigh in with their preference? Also, anyone up for creating drupalized versions of the control panel icons? ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Sat, 17 Sep 2005 16:16:15 +0000 : chx Maybe just because I created it, I like my control panel module better. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Sat, 17 Sep 2005 16:25:30 +0000 : der If I would have known there was a module I wouldn't have written this patch although I do think this would be good for core Drupal as the default. Is your modules a recent creation? I don't see it on drupal.org nor could I find in the contribs section of CVS (either the modules or sandbox sections). I'm I missing something? Is it called something different? ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Sat, 17 Sep 2005 18:20:15 +0000 : syllance chx control panel is located in his sandbox (cp.module), and thanks to him for letting us know there's one :) it's working fine (tested on HEAD) and provide interesting concept for navigating through the admin, instead of just add a frontend. the settings part is the better one, listing all elements in the page makes quickly forget the standard menu. der's one looks nice and provide a more immediate access to admin pages, but the standard menu is still mandatory to access some elements (dba or store settings for example, still needs to be accessed via left menu). to be honest, i like them both :) being able to change the default admin page is very nice, and icons make admin looks a lot better, raising the Woman Acceptance Factor by a huge amount (my wife loves it :). but i also really like the more in depth admin navigation offered by chx module. mixing both on my head setup gives a nice result, so may be it would be a good idea to join forces and mix the 2 panels. chx, is your module somewhat official and scheduled to hit the core ?

1 0

[drupal-devel] [feature] Administration Control Panel suggestion
by syllance 17 Sep '05

17 Sep '05

Issue status update for http://drupal.org/node/31326 Post a follow up: http://drupal.org/project/comments/add/31326 Project: Drupal Version: cvs Component: system.module Category: feature requests Priority: normal Assigned to: Anonymous Reported by: der Updated by: syllance Status: patch (code needs review) chx control panel is located in his sandbox (cp.module), and thanks to him for letting us know there's one :) it's working fine (tested on HEAD) and provide interesting concept for navigating through the admin, instead of just add a frontend. the settings part is the better one, listing all elements in the page makes quickly forget the standard menu. der's one looks nice and provide a more immediate access to admin pages, but the standard menu is still mandatory to access some elements (dba or store settings for example, still needs to be accessed via left menu). to be honest, i like them both :) being able to change the default admin page is very nice, and icons make admin looks a lot better, raising the Woman Acceptance Factor by a huge amount (my wife loves it :). but i also really like the more in depth admin navigation offered by chx module. mixing both on my head setup gives a nice result, so may be it would be a good idea to join forces and mix the 2 panels. chx, is your module somewhat official and scheduled to hit the core ? syllance Previous comments: ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Thu, 15 Sep 2005 17:50:52 +0000 : der Attachment: http://drupal.org/files/issues/system_9.patch (4.27 KB) New feature suggestion: I would like to suggest a couple of enhancments to administration pages. First, add a new general settings option to allow the user to specify the admin home page. Currently the watchdog log view is the default home page. Second, add a new control panel page that can be used as the default admin start page. I've attached a suggested patch to the CVS head version of the system.module that implements these two enhancements. The patch does the following. Adds a new "default admin page" text field to the general settings group (just after the "default front page"). It also changes the admin menu entry to call a new function that examines the default "admin page" variable and redirects to the appropriate path. For the control panel, the patch adds a new function (system_admin_controlpanel). This function basically looks for the admin entry in the menu structure and then iterates through the child menu items and builds a control panel page using the path and title information returned from the menu structure. For the control panel icons it looks for an icon file in the misc directory that matches the name of the menu item (e.g. user.png, access.png etc) If it doesn't find an icon it uses a default. I've also included some 48/48 icons that I borrowed from my usr/share/icon/gnome directory of my local Linux box. I believe these are gnome GPL'ed icons but any 48/48 icons could be used. This patch allows users who prefer the current functionality to keep it as their default. It provides the option for others to make any admin page they want to be their admin "home page" including using a graphical control panel. Module developers that add new admin menu options can add their own custom icons for the control panel but they are not "required" to do so as a default will be used if they don't provide one. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Thu, 15 Sep 2005 17:52:15 +0000 : der Attachment: http://drupal.org/files/issues/drupal_controlpanel_icons.zip (39.09 KB) 48x48 icons attached ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Fri, 16 Sep 2005 14:30:16 +0000 : der Attachment: http://drupal.org/files/issues/system_2_0.patch (4.5 KB) updated patch. slightly changed the formatting of the control panel page ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Sat, 17 Sep 2005 00:37:24 +0000 : moggy I quite like this. It certainly goes some way to making Drupal easier on the eyes for first time users. I noticed there's a lot of hard coded style. Would this not be better in a stylesheet and the code just containing classes and ids? Also would a dropdown box of possible admin pages be better than trying to remember how to spell controlpanel (something I'm having trouble with tonight ;-) ) ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Sat, 17 Sep 2005 13:02:08 +0000 : syllance Nice job :) the default admin page is a nice feature, and the controlpanel is a very good idea. This goes in the good direction to make Drupal more user friendly. i agree with the dropdown menu and stylesheet additions, but i already really appreciate the current version. hope this will go into core soon, as it really makes the first admin pages contact better :) i don't mind scrolling through the nav menu and i rarely goes into admin without checking the logs, but that definitely will help me converting my wife's site to drupal :p thanks ! ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Sat, 17 Sep 2005 16:09:43 +0000 : der I'll move the styles off to a style sheet but I'm uncertain about whether or not make make the default admin page a dropdown. It's an easy change and it eliminates any typos by the user but it also restricts the user to a current visible admin menu item. If by chance someone wanted to write their own admin start page (ie their own control panel) they would have to hack the core system.module to do it. Anyone else want to weigh in with their preference? Also, anyone up for creating drupalized versions of the control panel icons? ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Sat, 17 Sep 2005 16:16:15 +0000 : chx Maybe just because I created it, I like my control panel module better. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Sat, 17 Sep 2005 16:25:30 +0000 : der If I would have known there was a module I wouldn't have written this patch although I do think this would be good for core Drupal as the default. Is your modules a recent creation? I don't see it on drupal.org nor could I find in the contribs section of CVS (either the modules or sandbox sections). I'm I missing something? Is it called something different?

1 0