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[drupal-devel] [feature] Improve functionality of block generation for book module
by factoryjoe 04 Apr '05

04 Apr '05

Issue status update for http://drupal.org/node/14120 Project: Drupal Version: cvs Component: book.module Category: feature requests Priority: normal Assigned to: andremolnar Reported by: nysus Updated by: factoryjoe Status: patch In general, +1 on the auto-updating aspect of this. It does seem to be a welcome improvement to the book system, though I question Boris’ assertion that this is really a good solution for “brochure-ware” sites. For one thing, when I design a site, no matter who I am, I highly doubt that I would think “ah ha, make a book to contain the pages of my site... and the navigation will be generated from it!” While the functionality is pretty much spot-on, the name is not. So what we end up with is an overloaded book module or worse, a misnamed module. I also wonder about moving the book-generated menus around. For example, the way I would like this patch to work is for there to be top-level “chapters” (like sections of a website) and then book pages within each section, representing the individual pages. I would like to be able to put the “chapters” horizontally in the header of my site (like on OurMedia.org [1]) and then have the pages show up in the sidebar when you navigate to each section. I guess I just wonder about the flexibility of this approach and whether or not it will serve the functional needs that Boris thinks it might. What if I want the page titles to be different from the menu link titles? It doesn't seem that this is something I can control with the current partial menu integration. Anyway, with a specific eyes towards improving book navigation, I do agree that it functionally looks pretty good. I did find one serious bug and one major usability issue. It has to do with integration with the menu system. Andre will hate me for this, but I clicked through the “reset menus” command in the menu system. Doing so wiped out all the book navigation menus. If these menu items were really “locked”, then why were the book menu items wiped out? How do I restore them? As for the usability issue, it is unclear to me where I would go reorganize my book-generated navigation menus. I looked in menus, where it should logically exist, but everything was locked. Does this mean I have to go to each individual node to sort my content? [1] http://www.ourmedia.org/ factoryjoe Previous comments: ------------------------------------------------------------------------ December 9, 2004 - 06:12 : nysus Attachment: http://drupal.org/files/issues/book_19.patch (4.85 KB) Attached is a patch for the book module that does the following: 1) Allows book blocks to appear on any page at any time, not just when a node from the book is being viewed. 2) Allows multiple book blocks to appear on the same page. This functionality is achieved by the automatic creation of individual blocks for each book when the book is created. Simply enable the book's block to enjoy the benefits of 1 & 2 above. If the blocks are not enabled, the blocks will appear only when a node from that block is being viewed (the same way it works now). ------------------------------------------------------------------------ December 9, 2004 - 12:35 : andremolnar Attachment: http://drupal.org/files/issues/book_19_1.patch (4.84 KB) +1 This is great. A good many people have asked for something like this, and I think its a nice solution. But in the end this isn't up to me. One minor error in the patch... + $result = db_query('SELECT n.title, b.block, b.nid FROM {book} b INNER JOIN {node} n on n.nid = b.nid WHERE b.parent = 0'); b.block is not a valid field in this query. this updated patch removes reference to it. andre ------------------------------------------------------------------------ December 9, 2004 - 13:54 : nysus Glad you like it and thanks for fixing that up. It was left over from an older version of my patch. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ December 9, 2004 - 13:54 : andremolnar Steve, If I apply this patch, and I attempt to configure one of the newly created blocks. I noticed that for some reason the block.module is returning "true" at line 249 (of the block module)- and is creating a form for module-specific configuration. But all that shows up on the screen is the word "array". Can you trace this back to see why - and maybe update the patch. I can continue to test your changes - anything to help this patch make it into core. andre ------------------------------------------------------------------------ December 9, 2004 - 15:29 : nysus Hmmm...probably because I tested my patch on my version of Drupal, version 4.5.1. I'm having no problems. Are you using a cvs version of Drupal to test. If so, I'll set up cvs on my site and track this down. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ December 9, 2004 - 18:53 : drumm See http://drupal.org/node/12347 for information on how the block system has been updated. When I saw that the elseif ($op == 'view') was taken out I knew immedaitely that there was something weird about this patch. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ December 9, 2004 - 18:58 : nysus OK, thanks for the tip. Sorry for the confusion. Still kind of new to making open source contributions and it's easy for me to overlook some obvious stuff like this. I'll fix this up when I get a chance. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ December 9, 2004 - 19:06 : Dries Please do, because this being a new feature, it has no chance getting committed to the DRUPAL-4-5 branch. The DRUPAL-4-5 branch is in bugfix-mode. New features go into CVS HEAD. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ December 9, 2004 - 22:32 : Dries There is quite a bit of duplicated code in the patch. Maybe it can be simplified (using a function)? Either way, it is a little weird. I haven't tried the path, and I'm not sure I understood the description. It's somewhat vague. Is the book module exporting multiple blocks that are nearly identical, yet have different display behavior? If so, why not add a simple block configuration setting to the original book block? ------------------------------------------------------------------------ December 10, 2004 - 02:51 : nysus Dries, Yes, there is some code that can be factored out and some general cleaning up that can be done. It was a little tricky to write so I left it kind of ragged around the edges until I'm sure there are no bugs. It has worked very well on 4.5.1 but I obviously need to update it to work with cvs. I'll be on that soon. As far as what it does: 1) For every new book that a user creates, a new block is associated with it. So if you create "Book A", "Book B", "Book C", you will get three new blocks visible on the block administration page called "Book A", "Book B", "Book C". The original "Book Navigation" block is still there, too. The functionality of the "Book Navigation" block is not affected at all by this patch. 2) If Book A's block is enabled, the block containing its menu will appear not only when a node within Book A is viewed, but at all times (unless the user suppresses it on certain pages with the "path" feature). When any node is that is NOT in Book A is viewed, Book A's menu still appears but it is fully collapsed. When a node that DOES belong to Book A is viewed, Book A's Book menu expands accordingly. 3) The user can also enable Book B & C's block, and have their menus appear in a block at all times as well. 4) If none of the book's blocks are enabled by the user, the module will behave just as it did without the patch. That is, when the "Book Navigation" block is enabled, the only time any book menu will appear is when a book node is being viewed. 5) It's important to note (and this was the tricky part to write) that if both the "Book Navigation" block is enabled and "Book A" is enabled, they will play nice with each other and not do nasty things like create the same book menu twice. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ December 10, 2004 - 05:51 : nysus Attachment: http://drupal.org/files/issues/book_20.patch (5.37 KB) Andre, Attached is a new patch that will resolve the problem of the block-specific stuff showing on the block configuration form. Let me know if you spot any other bugs. If it looks good to you, I'll go to work making the code look leaner and prettier. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ December 10, 2004 - 07:26 : nysus Attachment: http://drupal.org/files/issues/book_21.patch (4 KB) Dries, Andre: Here is a new and improved streamlined version of the patch. Have a look if you get a chance. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ December 10, 2004 - 08:11 : nysus Attachment: http://drupal.org/files/issues/book_22.patch (4.15 KB) Found a bug in the last version that would cause the block to jump to a different location. I think this should do it. Everything appear to work well (famous last words). ------------------------------------------------------------------------ December 10, 2004 - 14:49 : andremolnar Steve: bugs appear to be gone, and I didn't run across any other errors. This is functioning exactly as described. everyone: I personally would encourage support for this functionality. Book is a powerful navigation building tool in a site, not only with its ability to move next and back through a hierarchy of pages - but also its ability to build the appropriate navigation block without further user intervention (unlike the admin features in the menu module or taxonomy). The most frequently cited complaint about the book module is its inflexibility when it comes to when and where the block shows up. I also frequently hear requests for the ability to show multiple book blocks at the same time. Up until now the best alternatives suggested required users to do a hack (e.g. build a custom block that calls such and such a hook). Most abandon their request at that point because its over their heads. With this patch all those requests are covered and more. Now all books can automatically have their own block and admins can easily decide when and where each of those individual blocks show up (left right, up down) and coupled with the new configuration features of the block module - its very easy for admins to decide on which individual pages a block will show up. I would be interested what other have to say about this feature. My only reservation (which is minor compared to the benefits of the functionality offered) is that there is no way to turn this functionality off. i.e. The default behaviour is to build individual blocks for each book. If there could be a way to toggle this feature on and off somewhere - it would be perfect. Still, AS IS - this is a major improvement and offers great flexibility to admins and site creators. andre ------------------------------------------------------------------------ December 10, 2004 - 15:04 : Anonymous Andre, Thanks for the feedback on the usefulness of this module. Glad I could pitch in and help. I agree about the inability to turn the feature on/off and I was thinking about that myself. I think it could easily be accomplished by creating a checkbox in the "book navigation" block individual configuration's settings. Call it "Enable individual book blocks." When enabled, the individual book blocks will appear on the block administration menu. One question: Where would the state of this checkbox get saved? Has Drupal moved away from serializing data in the data base? ------------------------------------------------------------------------ December 10, 2004 - 18:36 : Dries I'm afraid that 'Enable individual book blocks.' is not descriptive/clear at all. Are you suggesting a setting to toggle between 'show block on all pages' and 'show block on book pages only'? ------------------------------------------------------------------------ December 10, 2004 - 19:45 : nysus Dries, No. Andre and I suggest a setting within the "Book Navigation" cofiguration page, that would toggle whether or not individual books appear on the list of all blocks on the block administration page. Hence the name 'Enable individual book navigation blocks.' The help text for this checkbox might read something like: "By default, a book's navigation block is visible only when a page from that book is being viewed. Check this box if you want more control over where and when an book's navigation block is visible. You will then be able to control the book's navigation block location and visibility settings on the "admin/block" page." Hope this makes it pretty clear. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ December 10, 2004 - 20:08 : Dries I understand what you are trying to do, but not how you are trying to do it, or how the setting is supposed to work. I guess I'll have to try it when a new patch lands. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ December 11, 2004 - 09:52 : nysus Attachment: http://drupal.org/files/issues/book_23.patch (5.02 KB) Alright, fellas, I'm proud to unveil my crowning achievement in the open source development world (no big deal to most of you guys but pretty good for a hack like me). Thanks for all the input so far. It's been helpful. I've streamlined the heck out of it per Dries suggestion and I've created an option to turn this functionality on an off per Andre's suggestion. Does this look good to you guys? Anything else I have to fix or improve? Thanks. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ December 11, 2004 - 13:02 : Dries I tried the patch. It works great but to me, the 'Give books their own block' settings seems to be redundant. Why not export the current book navigation block, along with an additional block for each book? Looks a lot simpler to me. I think I spotted a bug: orphaned book pages (or possibly book pages that are unpublished) appear to be getting book navigation blocks. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ December 11, 2004 - 17:34 : nysus I'll see if I can fix the bug. Might be tricky. But I don't understand your recommendation to "export the current book navigation block, along with an additional block for each book". Can you expand on this thought? ------------------------------------------------------------------------ December 11, 2004 - 18:06 : nysus Dries, I am unable to duplicate the bug. I have three orphaned pages. I also tried unpublishing some pages. But as far as I can tell, the patch works as expected. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ December 11, 2004 - 19:00 : Dries If you can't reproduce the problem, chances are my node/book table is somewhat fubar. As for the configuration option. I suggest removing it and to always make these new blocks available on the /admin/block configuration screen. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ December 11, 2004 - 19:52 : moshe weitzman I am hoping that we maintain the option to keep the behavior where the appropriate book block only shows up when its book page viewed. this is a nice, tidy arrangement. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ December 11, 2004 - 20:03 : nysus Yes, if you don't enable any of the individual book blocks, the a book's block (i.e. navigation menu) will only appear when a page in a book is viewed. In other words, you have the option to have the book block act like this patch isn't even installed. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ December 11, 2004 - 20:54 : Dries I guess I'll have to try the patch again, because I don't understand why it works like this -- or at least, why it can't be made simpler. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ December 11, 2004 - 21:13 : nysus Can you be more specific? Why it works like what? ------------------------------------------------------------------------ December 11, 2004 - 21:24 : nysus Attachment: http://drupal.org/files/issues/book_24.patch (4.1 KB) This patch reverses a change made in the last patch which required a user to enable individual book block before they could enable any individual book blocks. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ December 11, 2004 - 21:41 : andremolnar As I mentioned earlier I am *fine* with either version of this patch as long as it makes it to core. But, as I said earlier, I clearly think the preference for admins would be to have the option to enable or disable this functionality. BTW - if this does make it in, I would be happy to create a Handbook page that describes the new features - something like "how to build robust site navigation using the book module". (on or after December 17th). andre ------------------------------------------------------------------------ December 12, 2004 - 12:11 : Anonymous I am not at all happy with these features. They are incosistant, confusing and should use exising methods and UIs. May main concern is the incosistancy: it is confusing, will require extra attention with each core code change, adds extra logic to the core, and is not re-useable. so here are my questions: 1) why do we not use the menu system and apis to build and adminster the trees? Saves code, does not add extra UIs, and gives users more power. 2) why do we need that extra showing logic? a book block should not get exeptional if clauses, it should use the existing path setting methods on block admin. extra logic is confusing for administrators (hey, i set the path so that the book-block should show up here, but it does not, why?) we should really not provide extra logic in the block hook, but should rather use default settings in block admin (the book could fill the bookblock sql cells with custom paths, for example) 3) we should avoid extra UIs. We already have far too much, and far too much different ones. Please rather improve the block admin, than add new separate interfaces. 4) why do book blocks need al these expeptions in the first place? If they are so exeptional, we could consider not using blocks, but something else, like in-line book layout (pages with the index etc) 5) why did you not choose for a general, standard, block gerneation API? that way modules, such as taxonomy, image gallery, weblinks, article, etc can reuse it and introduce block gernation. All that sayd, i like the idea of this functionality, but i fear for a great useability downfall if we start introducing all sorts of exeptions for all sorts of modules. Because now chances are very big that taxonomy, image gallery etc will need to introduce other UIs, other code, new methods and new documentation, if they too want some sort of better block handling. so a -1 from me. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ December 12, 2004 - 12:12 : Bèr Kessels ^^--- That was me (bèr kessels) forgot to log in..... ------------------------------------------------------------------------ December 12, 2004 - 12:34 : nysus I'm not going to pretend I can argue if my patch does or does not fit well into Drupal's larger architecture. My motivation for writing it is that I had an immediate need to create an easy way to make it easy for users to create menus. I'll let others decide whether or not the patch has merit from the big picture perspective. But if it doesn't, why not just use it for its immediate benefits and then throw it away when something better comes along? ------------------------------------------------------------------------ December 12, 2004 - 13:01 : Dries My summary is this: +1 on the functionality, -1 on the implementation. The code itself is good, but the usability/integration is not. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ December 12, 2004 - 13:13 : nysus When you say "usability" is that from the user's perspective or the code maintainers? I'm guessing it's the latter but I'm unsure. What about the idea of using the patch until a more permanent solution comes along? Yes, it's much better to live in a home with indoor plumbing but why not use the outhouse while you wait for a toilet to get installed? Or are there other considerations I'm overlooking that would make this a bad idea? ------------------------------------------------------------------------ December 12, 2004 - 13:20 : Goba nysus it is just generally against the Drupal philosophy to add improperly implemented functionality until something better comes along. There even used to be ocassions in Drupal releases, when some functionality was removed (not fixed) for a release, because its implementation was not adequate. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ December 12, 2004 - 13:55 : Dries Usability for the user. The extra setting on the block configuration page is both confusing and awkward. I don't understand why things must be configured/enabled that way (see my and Ber's previous comments on this issue). ------------------------------------------------------------------------ December 12, 2004 - 14:03 : nysus Well, just for the record, I reversed that functionality per your suggestion and uploaded the patch. The indiviudal book blocks now appear automatically. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ December 13, 2004 - 13:56 : Bèr Kessels Hi, I am sure you can make not only simpler, but better usefull for admins and users. All you need to do is use the menus for this. i.e. make a menu entry for each book page. For each book make a menu on level 0, without a parent. that way they become a seoprate menu, each with an own block. it saves code, makes things more consistent, and most important, uses drupal functionality where it should. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ December 13, 2004 - 14:50 : nysus Ber, Are you suggesting that for every single book page that a menu item be created? That's really not practical. That was my main motivation for writing this patch: to make it easy to put links, not necessarily related to one another, into a block. Any more pages than 10 and the sheer tedium of the job would prevent anyone from ever doing that. The menu.module is great, but adding new menu items is far from quick and painless. I just added about 10 to my menu for different taxonomies on my site and it wasn't fun. Plus, if you do as you suggest, there is also the problem of the book showing up twice. It will be generated by the menu and then it will be generated again by the book module which is programmed to design a block. You'd have to put some logic in the book.module _block hook to try to anticipate if a user has enabled a book in the menu. That wouldn't be pretty code. I'm all for putting automatic generation of book navigation blocks as part of the menu module. It does make more sense to have it there. But it forces me to ask the question: "Then why do we currently have code in the book module that generates a menu? Shouldn't that belong in the menu.module, too?" ------------------------------------------------------------------------ December 13, 2004 - 22:31 : killes(a)www.drop.org I think what Ber is trying to say is that you can write a contrib module that monitors the changes to the book table and creates menu items automatically. nodeapi is your friend. I would also prefer this solution. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ December 15, 2004 - 16:39 : Anonymous ""Then why do we currently have code in the book module that generates a menu? Shouldn't that belong in the menu.module, too?" " Because it's old code. It would be nice if book.module generated this block using its _menu hook, so that the admin would have a few options in terms of configuration. "Plus, if you do as you suggest, there is also the problem of the book showing up twice. It will be generated by the menu and then it will be generated again by the book module which is programmed to design a block. " No. The old code which manually builds a block in book.module would be removed. Book blocks would only be generated by the menu. This would also have the added benefit of allow the administrator to easily place a book in an appropriate spot in the menu tree, while still allowing the possibility of displaying it in a separate block. Because of menu caching, I don't expect a large performance hit for creating the menu items. "That was my main motivation for writing this patch: to make it easy to put links, not necessarily related to one another, into a block. " It sounds like instead of (mis)using book.module, your time would be better spent in a usability improvement to menu.module so it's easier to do this. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ December 16, 2004 - 06:55 : nysus Thanks for the feedback and input. I appreciate it. However, I would also appreciate if you took more care to avoid the condescending tone in your post: "It sounds like instead of (mis)using book.module, your time would be better spent in a usability improvement to menu.module so it's easier to do this. " It's really quite unnecessary and off-putting. Though it won't stop me from contributing to Drupal in the future, I'm sure others would be really turned off by such a patronizing comment and it could dissuade them. I'd like the Drupal community to be a welcoming and friendly place that will inspire people to contribute, not discourage them. Thanks. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ December 16, 2004 - 10:07 : Bèr Kessels nyesus, Please do not start /that/ discussion here. :) Drupal community is known fo being direct, maybe because of the big number of western-Europeans attending, maybe because of other reasons. No-one commented that you are wasting your time. But the commentor was telling you somthing likethis: "If you would follow the previous sugeestions, your added feature would be much better appreciated, and will probably work much better for you too". He/she was by no means telling you to stop your silly coding, or anything in that line. He/She only wanted to show you the obvious and better direction. We often deal with issues that add some feature, and a complete new UI, because the author does not like, or cannot use the existing UIs and features. This is nogt good, because if that same author would have spend his/her time on improving that existing functionality or UI (improving is not neccesarily the same as extending!!) that code and time would benefit all much better. Thats what the commentor tried to say. And so is it here: If you dislike the way the books handle the blocks, and if you do not want to use the menu, because you do not like its UI, then do not add another UI and more features, but rather merge these, and improve the parts (in the menu) you dislike. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ December 16, 2004 - 10:35 : Dries We can worry about the menu integration later. Let's focus on the new option's usability/interaction design first. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ December 16, 2004 - 14:51 : nysus I understand what the commenter was saying and like I said, I appreciate and understand it. I'm not upset and I'm not looking for an argument, I was just being direct as well. :) As part of the Drupal community (albeit a minor player), all I'm saying is that I would like to see folks not have a tin ear to the humanity in all of us. It will help make Drupal an even stronger community and attract even more talented developers. Human interaction is part of the development process. Whether we like it or not, we must cope and deal with it. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ December 18, 2004 - 09:54 : Dries I thought some more about this and am starting to believe that integration with the menu system should take priority. Here are common cool scenario's: I want to create a separate navigation block for the 'Drupal handbook'. I want to add a menu item called 'handbook' to the user block. That is, I want the book navigation to be part of the existing user navigation block. I want to add a menu item called 'handbook' to the top-level navigation menu. How would that work from a user's point of view? What do I have to click and where to configure this? ------------------------------------------------------------------------ December 21, 2004 - 18:47 : andremolnar I was actually thinking about the same thing last night (must have been something in the arctic air). / 2. I want to add a menu item called 'handbook' to the user block. That is, I want the book navigation to be part of the existing user navigation block. 3. I want to add a menu item called 'handbook' to the top-level navigation menu. / This is already possible (to a certain extent) with the current Book.module and Menu.module - A 'Books' menu item is created in the user navigation by having the Book.module enabled. Menu.module allows you to enable/disable this menu item. Menu.module also allows you to re-name this menu item. But, this only helps if you only intend to have 1 book (or else the name 'Handbook' is misleading if the user finds more than 1 book listed). - so this isn't good enough (or is it). /1. I want to create a separate navigation block for the 'Drupal handbook'./ This is what I was trying to figure out. Not just this, but a different way to do what Nysus was attempting. i.e. create a menu block for each and every book that is created. There is a way to write code that would (re)build a 'custom menu' on every add/edit/update to a book page - or book outline update. Custom menu's automatically have a block created for them. But, this I think would be a misleading use of the 'custom' menu - as the menu would not be custom if they are a part of core. So, I would think that two new constants could be added to the menu.inc file - MENU_BOOK_MENU - and MENU_BOOK_ITEM - each would behave as custom menu's, but would be reserved for books. These menu types should NOT show up in the Menu.module administration - because the administration of the book_menu items would be done by administering the book itself (adding an item, removing an item, moving an item up/down in the hierarchy, assigning parents etc.). However, the blocks that the book_menus would create would show up in the block administration (so users could enable/disable each block - and decide where on the site they show up). The existing book block logic would be removed. So the logic would be: If a creates a book in the book administration page - the Book.module automatically creates a new MENU_BOOK_MENU Any time a user adds to or updates or delets a book page - the entire book menu is deleted and recreated based on the hierarchy defined by the book itself. The blocks for each book would show up in block administration. Any thoughts - I know that this doesn't exactly address points 1 and 2 - but it could act as a first step. Is this approach a bad idea? It would add special conditions for the proposed book menu's - but books would be a special case. Even if people don't like this solution, maybe it will give someone a better idea. I'd love to hear them. andre ------------------------------------------------------------------------ December 21, 2004 - 22:55 : Boris Mann +1 to this andre I had promised to put down my thoughts on this matter, as it relates to 1) primary and secondary links and how they are managed and 2) auto-generation of primary/secondary navigation based on book outlines So, for 1), we currently have functional-but-not-very-usable plain textfields to manage primary and secondary links. I would like to see menu.module used to control all navigation links, whether it is the navigation block or primary/secondary links. What is needed: a) default system menus labelled "primary" and "secondary" which would store; this is where modules could insert navigation b) support for full URLs (e.g. http://myexternaldomain.com) instead of just path 2) if we got 1 working, and andre does his book menus, this could get taken care of automatically. Basically, for brochureware/business/etc. sites that have static content, you could have a root book as one of the primary navigation links, and then the secondary links are generated automatically. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ December 22, 2004 - 21:02 : Dries I agree with Andre that the book module's integration with the menu system needs to be worked on. I support any effort that makes it easier to structure pages and that makes it easy to link pages/nodes from within a menu. However, I'm opposed to putting book module specific names in the menu system (eg. MENU_BOOK_MENU and MENU_BOOK_ITEM). I can imagine a handful of modules that want to maintain a menu tree (or part thereof) so I'm in favor of generic names. I'd have to read up on the menu system code, but last time I checked there was a MENU_MODIFIABLE_BY_ADMIN flag. You could choose not to set this flag for the menu items generated by the book module. Maybe it's already possible to implement to implement Andre's suggestion without having to modify/extend the menu system. Are you exploring this path? ------------------------------------------------------------------------ December 24, 2004 - 10:01 : andremolnar I've had a few spare hours to work on this. I've started to cobble together a solution - but in doing so I discovered a bug in the menu module (for which I will submit a seperate issue - if one doesn't already exist). The principal I suggested works. I added some code to the book module that creates custom menu's (MENU_CUSTOM_MENU with MENU_CUSTOM_ITEMs) for each Book that exists in a site. This is just as a proof of concept - I chose this menu type to start with because they automatically have a block created for them in admin/block (which is ultimatly the functionality we want). I ran a test and the menus are created as expected - the blocks are also created. But when I tested the menu blocks by enabling them I ran into a problem. It seems as though the menu system does not expand/explode sub menu items if the node type is book. I'm not sure why this is, and I haven't traced the source code yet - I thought I would ask if anyone has intimate knowledge of the menu system if they can point me in the right direction. No patch attached because until that problem is fixed this proposed change won't fly :( andre ------------------------------------------------------------------------ December 24, 2004 - 11:11 : Dries Just a wild guess: maybe it doesn't work because the book module's URI scheme is not hierarchical? ------------------------------------------------------------------------ January 7, 2005 - 10:45 : andremolnar Attachment: http://drupal.org/files/issues/book_module_1.patch (5.1 KB) I finally took some time out to do some work on this. As mentioned in a post to dev the problem I was having with menus not expanding/contracting properly was some crud in my database. Once that was cleared up my changes worked fine. I am attaching a patch for comments and for the brave willing to give it a test drive. History: This thread and http://drupal.org/node/15198 and http://drupal.org/node/15153 node/15198 has a patch that is required for this patch to work. What this does: Pretty straight forward. Any time a user adds/updates/deletes book or book pages (including via outline) - a function is called to create a new menu for each book. Any existing book menus are wiped out and then the new book menus are inserted - and the system menu is rebuilt to reflect the changes. The menus created consist of type MENU_MODULE_MENU and MENU_MODULE_ITEM. These menus show up in the menu/admin page so that admins can be aware of them, but the menu types are not editable via menu/admin (all changes are handled by the book module). Since the menus are in the menu table, the menu_block() hook handles the creation of the blocks for each of them. The blocks can then be administered in the usual ways via the block/admin interface. KNOWN ISSUE: (suggested solutions welcome) Since the menu table is updated on every change to books - the blocks associated with the menus are also recreated with default settings (i.e. disabled, and with no path or throttle settings) requiring a user to take an extra step and re-configure the book blocks for viewing on their site. I think this is unacceptable. For the casual user of the book module that only has a single book that doesn't change often, this would not be a big deal. But, if anyone wanted to make use of book module to handle dynamic site navigation this would create more work than it saves. Looking forward: If the block generation issue can be solved in a tidy way, this patch could allow users to use book to handle all their site navigation generation needs. Also, this patch could allow for the removal of a large chunk of code in the book module dedicated to building its own block via the block system. I left it there for now because I suppose there may be those out there that want to have book.module work the way book.module always worked (only show the book block when viewing a book page). Even so, since each book would have its own block, an admin could specify when and where the block shows via admin/block. I would appreciate feedback. If nothing else I hope this gives someone some new ideas. I'll continue to work on the block regeneration issue. andre ------------------------------------------------------------------------ January 7, 2005 - 10:47 : andremolnar Attachment: http://drupal.org/files/issues/book_module_2.patch (4.98 KB) sorry - here's a patch with prefered line breaks. andre ------------------------------------------------------------------------ January 7, 2005 - 16:47 : nysus Andre, I've been meaning to give this a throrough look when I get a chance. Hopefully this weekend. ---Steve ------------------------------------------------------------------------ January 20, 2005 - 02:02 : andremolnar Attachment: http://drupal.org/files/issues/book_module_3.patch (6.66 KB) Here is an updated patch. Same comments as followup 51 - except that the known issue has been resolved. This changes book module so that any action taken on a book, including adding new books or book pages will create a menu in the menu system for that book - and thus create blocks for those menus that can be administered in the usual ways. This is my first attempt at a major patch to core - comments are welcome I will be happy to update documentation once revisions to the code have been taken care of. andre ------------------------------------------------------------------------ January 20, 2005 - 02:53 : andremolnar Attachment: http://drupal.org/files/issues/book_module_4.patch (6.17 KB) Sorry - would be nice if I removed some debugging code - ;-) also previous patch also would have introduced a need for a change to the menu table that isn't required yet. This patch is a correct version andre ------------------------------------------------------------------------ January 20, 2005 - 19:16 : Dries The menu is recreated every time a book page is updated. I believe this is unwanted behavior because it requires the book block to be reconfigured upon every update. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ January 20, 2005 - 19:32 : andremolnar The menu is indeed re-created with every book page edit - because if the book page title changes the menu needs to reflect this change. The book block re-configuration is not required by the user. The code stores this information and re-sets the block settings. I will see if I can test for 'title change' before forcing the re-build of the menu - It would save a bit of processing power. andre ------------------------------------------------------------------------ January 20, 2005 - 20:21 : andremolnar Took another at this - and it turns out that I already have a check to see if title or weight change (rather - they already existed in the module and I used them). andre ------------------------------------------------------------------------ January 24, 2005 - 02:22 : andremolnar Attachment: http://drupal.org/files/issues/book_module_6.patch (7.42 KB) Feedback received indicated that the original block generation code in this module should be removed - since this patch hands block generation off to the menu and block system. This patch removes that code. BUT - It should be noted, that in order to have book blocks only show up on pages of node type book - an additional patch found at http://drupal.org/node/16074 is required. andre ------------------------------------------------------------------------ January 24, 2005 - 18:36 : andremolnar Attachment: http://drupal.org/files/issues/book_module_7.patch (7.43 KB) Yet another patch: Brings this patch in line with - http://drupal.org/node/16074 (i.e. the column name change in {block} table) andre ------------------------------------------------------------------------ January 25, 2005 - 18:56 : andremolnar Attachment: http://drupal.org/files/issues/book_module_8.patch (7.53 KB) And another minor patch to cover coding style and variable names. Just to bring everyone up to speed: 1) Each book and its children pages have a menu created for them (on any add, edit, delete to a book or book page). 2) Those book menus automatically have a block created for them via menu_block hook. 3) Block settings are preserved any time there is a change to a book that requires the menu and its associated block to be re-built. 4) book_block hook is removed because it is redundant. 5) With the addition of the configuration option in blocks to only show blocks on certain node types (see: http://drupal.org/node/16074) administrators have full control over when and where a book block shows up (including maintaining the status quo of only having book blocks show up on book pages). 6) This patch does require http://drupal.org/node/15198 andre ------------------------------------------------------------------------ January 25, 2005 - 21:49 : Boris Mann +1!! Book-based automatic navigation for corporate/brochureware sites! Fantastic! Chris Messina, get in here and add a +1 to this. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ January 25, 2005 - 22:26 : Dries Boris, have you tested this patch extensively, or are you just giving this +1 based on what you've read? If you want to see this committed, take the time to review/test it. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ January 26, 2005 - 05:45 : andremolnar Yes - please - testers are welcome. Nysus (aka Steve) has already agreed to give this a test drive when he had a spare moment. I hope for some feedback in the near future. But if you have a moment Borris I would appreciate it. OR - If someone would just like to demo this: http://s92258948.onlinehome.us/greenbeach/ UN: drupaldev PW: drupaldev Don't mind the mess - it is my test environment and there is a lot of junk data and settings floating around - but this patch is running there along with the additional block configuration settings. andre ------------------------------------------------------------------------ January 31, 2005 - 19:12 : Boris Mann You got me, Dries... I have since spent time testing the module on andre's site, and it does everything I can foresee needing at this point, with no functional errors. This functionality alone will make creating standalone sites that are composed of mainly static pages very, very simple. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ February 3, 2005 - 08:58 : Dries The demo-site appears to be down. Bummer. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ February 3, 2005 - 22:59 : andremolnar Attachment: http://drupal.org/files/issues/book_module_9.patch (7.58 KB) Sorry - demo site was down while database was being cleaned and latest CVS modules were being installed (general site maintenence for testing). The site is up now with a fresh database and install of Drupal CVS. UN drupaldev PW drupaldev (has access to manage blocks, books, and menus to see this patch in action) Attached is an updated patch to make use of db_rewrite_sql (instead of node_rewrite_sql). Also fixes a minor bug that appeared if you were creating the first book in the site. andre ------------------------------------------------------------------------ February 3, 2005 - 23:13 : Anonymous This patch seems to modify the blocks and menu tables directly from within book.module. (in the new book_build_menu_module_menu function) This sets a terrible precedent for other modules. IMO, these tables should be modified by functions defined within the block module or menu module (or menu.inc). Modifying the tables randomly throughout many other points in the code makes changes to these tables difficult and makes troubleshooting problems much trickier. Let's not sacrafice code organization for the sake of making the patch as small as possible. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ February 4, 2005 - 06:25 : andremolnar With regard to the blocks - the block module is doing all the block building (with the call to _block_rehash) - the only thing that this code does is preserve block settings (the select sql) before the menu is updated - and then restores those block settings (with the update sql). "Modifying the tables randomly throughout... " While I appreciate the point you are making, I would hesitate to call this random. After all the menu items being added to the menu table 'belong' to book module. There is a little bit of a discussion about the best way to go about doing this sort of thing (i.e. allowing modules to build their own menus) over at http://drupal.org/node/15198 - which includes the patch required to make this patch work. Right now there is no existing hook or method of doing this. hook_menu does not have anything in place as of yet. I have suggested the introduction of a new hook (name yet to be determined) that would be in charge of these menu_module_menu type inserts. But, I haven't heard any feedback on whether that is a good idea - or if anyone has a better idea. Anyone else have thoughts on the approach taken here or suggestions for a different/better approach? I'm willing to write the code, I would just like a little bit of input. andre ------------------------------------------------------------------------ February 4, 2005 - 06:46 : Dries I added a test page and all book blocks dissapeared? I also got an SQL error (check your watchdog messages) upon pressing the 'Submit' button. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ February 5, 2005 - 07:31 : Steven Doesn't this patch still suffer from the inability to show the menu block only on the relevant book(s)? I know we can now restrict blocks per node type, but that still doesn't help with multiple books. By the way, big code style violation: $menu_block_settings[$menu_block->path][weight] "weight" should be surrounded by quotes. Right now it is being treated as an undefined constant. This is not a good idea. Other than that there's a bunch of missing spaces... if the code looks cramped, it usually violates the coding style. + $menu_block_settings[$result->path] = array('status'=>$result->status, 'weight'=>$result->weight, 'region'=>$result->region, 'throttle'=>$result->throttle, 'visibility'=>$result->visibility, 'pages'=>$result->pages, 'types'=>$result->types); + db_query('DELETE FROM {menu} WHERE type=%d OR type=%d', MENU_MODULE_MENU | MENU_MODIFIED_BY_MODULE, MENU_MODULE_ITEM | MENU_MODIFIED_BY_MODULE); //restore menu_module_menu block settings There are several more examples. Please pay attention to this. It's incredibly annoying to have to fix it later, and it makes the code harder to read as you cannot make certain assumptions about how it is layed out. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ February 5, 2005 - 22:56 : andremolnar I am fixing up the code as we speak. I actually made a bigger faux pas by not escaping my INSERT sql string properly - (There is a quick fix, but I understand 'addslashes' is not good enough for drupal ;-). (Thank you to Dries for catching this right away on his test of the demo site). As for multiple books - you actually have more flexibility to enable as many book menus as you like - not only based on type but also by path. e.g. Could allow for: drupal.org/handbook (with some general book menu blocks enabled) drupal.org/handbook/developer (with developer book menu blocks enabled) drupal.org/handbook/developer/theme (with theme developer book menu blocks enabled) etc. (the sky is the limit). I will resubmit a patch with all of the coding style fixes requested - and I will be more careful with the coding style in the future. andre ------------------------------------------------------------------------ February 6, 2005 - 00:05 : andremolnar Attachment: http://drupal.org/files/issues/book_module_10.patch (7.7 KB) Updated Patch, Implemented code style improvements as per Steven. Fixed unescaped sql INSERT string (turns out that addslashes is more than enough in this situation, because the 'title' string has already been valided and properly inserted into the database before any of this code ever runs - i.e. this isn't coming directly from user input, but rather from the drupal database). Demo site is once again live and welcomes all testers (Thank you again to those that have already tested this out). andre ------------------------------------------------------------------------ March 13, 2005 - 22:11 : killes(a)www.drop.org Still applies. Andre: Please create patches from the Drupal root directory. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ March 15, 2005 - 10:42 : Paul Iliano This is exactly the functionality I have been waiting for. As I can see many uses for showing a book menu on all pages, I never really understood why book menus could only be shown on book pages. I'm still at DP 4.5, but as soon as 4.6 is out I will install and try it out. I'd love to see this kind of functionality in core! ------------------------------------------------------------------------ March 18, 2005 - 07:43 : Steven Your visibility 'fix' requires that the entire handbook has clean, hierarchical URL aliasing. This is often not the case. I understand that for sites where the book is used to organise the main structure, you might want the block visible everywhere. But it is not good for sites where this isn't the case, like Drupal.org itself. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ April 3, 2005 - 17:12 : Paul Iliano As Steven says, for some type of sites (like perhaps drupal.org) it could not be desirable to show book menus on all pages. But for other sites it could be very much wanted. It seems to me a good solution would be to let administrators simply choose which node types they want book menus to appear on, like we currently can opt to switch off author/date info per node type.

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[drupal-devel] Plain-text checking / text output in Drupal
by Steven Wittens 03 Apr '05

03 Apr '05

I just committed the large check_plain() patch after a green light from Dries: http://drupal.org/node/18817 The main idea is to make sure plain text is handled as plain text... so you can use <> or & in a taxonomy term name or comment subject, and not mess up validation or your site. This should've in fact already been okay, but it seems due to general confusion on what the right way was many people didn't pay much attention to it. After my patch, every single-line field should be plain-text in Drupal, including in particular node/comment titles, which used to be stored as stripped HTML instead (which was really bad for usability, see the issue for more info). A few notable changes: - drupal_specialchars() and check_form() have been merged into check_plain() - node and comment titles are now plain-text and need to be check_plain()'ed before output. Note that due to changes in l(), many cases will be caught already. - theme('placeholder', $text) was added for putting dynamic pieces of text into a sentence ("are you sure you want to delete %block"). It outputs ''. check_plain($text) .'' by default and should be used when appropriate. I've written up a short text on text output in Drupal after my patch... once it's cleaned up a bit, it should go into the documentation somewhere. I'll also add a short blurb to the module upgrading guide. Steven ------------- Text output in Drupal When handling and outputting text to HTML, you need to be careful that proper filtering or escaping is done. Otherwise there might be bugs when users try to use angle brackets or ampersands, or worse you could open up XSS exploits. When handling data, the golden rule is to keep exactly what the user typed. On the database and input side of things there isn't much to worry about. Text remains text. Note that you should never use a plain strip_tags() call to clean up user input. This would strip out all tags, but still force you to use entities for angle brackets or ampersands. You get all the disadvantages of HTML without any benefits. Conversion is done on output where the text has to be placed in another format/context, e.g. HTML. There are two types of text in Drupal: 1. Plain text _____________ This is simple text without any markup. What the user entered is displayed exactly on screen as is, and is not interpreted in any form. This is almost always the format used for single-line text fields. It is good to keep this consistency in your own code. When outputting plain-text, you need to pass it through check_plain() before it can be put inside HTML. This will convert quotes, ampersands and angle brackets into entities. Most themable functions and APIs take HTML arguments, but there are a few which already have check_plain() in it for convenience: * l(): the link caption should be passed as plain-text (unless overridden with the $html parameter). * menus: the menu item titles are plain-text. * theme('placeholder'): the placeholder text is plain-text. Some places require HTML which might not be obvious: * page titles set through drupal_set_title(). The page title is displayed in the HTML, where it makes sense to use tags like for clarity. When the page title is displayed in the HTML <title> tag however, all tags will be stripped out. * block titles passed in through hook_block(). For the same reason as the page title, using HTML here is commonly done. Note that functions which logically take 'data' and not 'output' will almost always take plain-text and require no escaping on your side. A good example is the value passed to form_ functions, e.g. a plain-text field's contents. What the user entered is exactly what you should pass to form_textfield. On the other hand, this does not count for the form item's title or description, which are passed as HTML. This is done so that modules can format the item title as they want. 2. Rich text ____________ This is text which is marked up in some language (HTML, Textile, etc). It is stored in the markup-specific format, and converted to HTML with the various filters that are enabled. This is almost always used for multi-line text fields. All you need to do is pass the rich text to check_output() and you'll get HTML returned, safe for outputting. You should also allow the user to choose the input format with a format widget through filter_form() and should pass the chosen format along to check_output(). URLs ____ A note about URLs. URLs require special handling in two ways: - Putting dynamic data into URLs. If you wish to put any sort of dynamic data into an URL, you need to urlencode() it. If you don't, characters like # will disrupt the normal URL semantics. urlencode() will escape them with %XX syntax. - Putting URLs into HTML. URLs are a common attack vector for XSS exploits. Though we have an XSS filter at the beginning of the page request, it is still smart to be careful. When putting an URL inside an HTML attribute (e.g. <a href="...">), you should pass it through check_url(). Check_url() is similar to check_plain(), but it contains some extra XSS protection. Note that all Drupal functions which return URLs (url(...), request_uri(), etc.) output 'real' URLs which have not been HTML escaped in any way. Remember to use check_url() to escape them when outputting HTML (or XML). Don't use check_url() in situations where a real URL is expected, e.g. in the HTTP 'Location: ...' header. In practice ___________ If this sounds all confusing, there are only a limited number of functions where this is important, and you will easily get to know them. Usually you control your own output in your module so the output process is quite transparent. Every piece of plain-text should be converted with check_plain() once before going into HTML. When in doubt, you can always put some test text like "foo" in your text fields, and see how it comes out. For plain-text fields, the underline tag should not be interpreted, but displayed as is. When displaying a piece of user-submitted text in a message, you should pass it through theme('placeholder', $text) to make it stand out. It will also escape the text for you with check_plain(). Note that you cannot pass HTML entities to functions which accept plain-text. If you need to use high Unicode characters in a plain-text string, input them directly in the code with UTF-8 encoding. It's more compact as well.

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[drupal-devel] [bug] have db_prefix_tables() handle 'default' key not being set
by Dries 03 Apr '05

03 Apr '05

Issue status update for http://drupal.org/node/19609 Project: Drupal Version: cvs Component: base system Category: bug reports Priority: normal Assigned to: Anonymous Reported by: danielc Updated by: Dries Status: patch 5% compared to what? What did you measure? Dries Previous comments: ------------------------------------------------------------------------ March 28, 2005 - 23:24 : danielc Attachment: http://drupal.org/files/issues/database.diff (720 bytes) The db_prefix_tables() function in includes/database.inc generates notices if $db_prefix['default'] is not set. This patch fixes that problem. This has a side benefit of making $db_prefix easier to use. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ March 29, 2005 - 00:06 : moshe weitzman nice ... this has been a bit a pimple for a while. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ March 29, 2005 - 17:40 : danielc Attachment: http://drupal.org/files/issues/database2.diff (1.17 KB) I've come up with a new version of the patch that optimizes the speed of the whole function. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ March 29, 2005 - 17:56 : danielc Change Version from "4.5.2" to "cvs". ------------------------------------------------------------------------ March 29, 2005 - 18:01 : danielc Pardon me, I'm testing if this goes the drupal-dev list now that the version is "cvs." ------------------------------------------------------------------------ April 3, 2005 - 14:45 : Dries Any idea of how much faster the second patch is? I don't think it makes a real difference in which case I'd favor the first patch. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ April 3, 2005 - 20:40 : danielc The speed increase is 5%.

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[drupal-devel] [bug] have db_prefix_tables() handle 'default' key not being set
by danielc 03 Apr '05

03 Apr '05

Issue status update for http://drupal.org/node/19609 Project: Drupal Version: cvs Component: base system Category: bug reports Priority: normal Assigned to: Anonymous Reported by: danielc Updated by: danielc Status: patch The speed increase is 5%. danielc Previous comments: ------------------------------------------------------------------------ March 28, 2005 - 16:24 : danielc Attachment: http://drupal.org/files/issues/database.diff (720 bytes) The db_prefix_tables() function in includes/database.inc generates notices if $db_prefix['default'] is not set. This patch fixes that problem. This has a side benefit of making $db_prefix easier to use. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ March 28, 2005 - 17:06 : moshe weitzman nice ... this has been a bit a pimple for a while. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ March 29, 2005 - 10:40 : danielc Attachment: http://drupal.org/files/issues/database2.diff (1.17 KB) I've come up with a new version of the patch that optimizes the speed of the whole function. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ March 29, 2005 - 10:56 : danielc Change Version from "4.5.2" to "cvs". ------------------------------------------------------------------------ March 29, 2005 - 11:01 : danielc Pardon me, I'm testing if this goes the drupal-dev list now that the version is "cvs." ------------------------------------------------------------------------ April 3, 2005 - 07:45 : Dries Any idea of how much faster the second patch is? I don't think it makes a real difference in which case I'd favor the first patch.

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[drupal-devel] [feature] Improve functionality of block generation for book module
by Paul Iliano 03 Apr '05

03 Apr '05

Issue status update for http://drupal.org/node/14120 Project: Drupal Version: cvs Component: book.module Category: feature requests Priority: normal Assigned to: andremolnar Reported by: nysus Updated by: Paul Iliano Status: patch As Steven says, for some type of sites (like perhaps drupal.org) it could not be desirable to show book menus on all pages. But for other sites it could be very much wanted. It seems to me a good solution would be to let administrators simply choose which node types they want book menus to appear on, like we currently can opt to switch off author/date info per node type. Paul Iliano Previous comments: ------------------------------------------------------------------------ December 9, 2004 - 07:12 : nysus Attachment: http://drupal.org/files/issues/book_19.patch (4.85 KB) Attached is a patch for the book module that does the following: 1) Allows book blocks to appear on any page at any time, not just when a node from the book is being viewed. 2) Allows multiple book blocks to appear on the same page. This functionality is achieved by the automatic creation of individual blocks for each book when the book is created. Simply enable the book's block to enjoy the benefits of 1 & 2 above. If the blocks are not enabled, the blocks will appear only when a node from that block is being viewed (the same way it works now). ------------------------------------------------------------------------ December 9, 2004 - 13:35 : andremolnar Attachment: http://drupal.org/files/issues/book_19_1.patch (4.84 KB) +1 This is great. A good many people have asked for something like this, and I think its a nice solution. But in the end this isn't up to me. One minor error in the patch... + $result = db_query('SELECT n.title, b.block, b.nid FROM {book} b INNER JOIN {node} n on n.nid = b.nid WHERE b.parent = 0'); b.block is not a valid field in this query. this updated patch removes reference to it. andre ------------------------------------------------------------------------ December 9, 2004 - 14:54 : nysus Glad you like it and thanks for fixing that up. It was left over from an older version of my patch. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ December 9, 2004 - 14:54 : andremolnar Steve, If I apply this patch, and I attempt to configure one of the newly created blocks. I noticed that for some reason the block.module is returning "true" at line 249 (of the block module)- and is creating a form for module-specific configuration. But all that shows up on the screen is the word "array". Can you trace this back to see why - and maybe update the patch. I can continue to test your changes - anything to help this patch make it into core. andre ------------------------------------------------------------------------ December 9, 2004 - 16:29 : nysus Hmmm...probably because I tested my patch on my version of Drupal, version 4.5.1. I'm having no problems. Are you using a cvs version of Drupal to test. If so, I'll set up cvs on my site and track this down. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ December 9, 2004 - 19:53 : drumm See http://drupal.org/node/12347 for information on how the block system has been updated. When I saw that the elseif ($op == 'view') was taken out I knew immedaitely that there was something weird about this patch. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ December 9, 2004 - 19:58 : nysus OK, thanks for the tip. Sorry for the confusion. Still kind of new to making open source contributions and it's easy for me to overlook some obvious stuff like this. I'll fix this up when I get a chance. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ December 9, 2004 - 20:06 : Dries Please do, because this being a new feature, it has no chance getting committed to the DRUPAL-4-5 branch. The DRUPAL-4-5 branch is in bugfix-mode. New features go into CVS HEAD. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ December 9, 2004 - 23:32 : Dries There is quite a bit of duplicated code in the patch. Maybe it can be simplified (using a function)? Either way, it is a little weird. I haven't tried the path, and I'm not sure I understood the description. It's somewhat vague. Is the book module exporting multiple blocks that are nearly identical, yet have different display behavior? If so, why not add a simple block configuration setting to the original book block? ------------------------------------------------------------------------ December 10, 2004 - 03:51 : nysus Dries, Yes, there is some code that can be factored out and some general cleaning up that can be done. It was a little tricky to write so I left it kind of ragged around the edges until I'm sure there are no bugs. It has worked very well on 4.5.1 but I obviously need to update it to work with cvs. I'll be on that soon. As far as what it does: 1) For every new book that a user creates, a new block is associated with it. So if you create "Book A", "Book B", "Book C", you will get three new blocks visible on the block administration page called "Book A", "Book B", "Book C". The original "Book Navigation" block is still there, too. The functionality of the "Book Navigation" block is not affected at all by this patch. 2) If Book A's block is enabled, the block containing its menu will appear not only when a node within Book A is viewed, but at all times (unless the user suppresses it on certain pages with the "path" feature). When any node is that is NOT in Book A is viewed, Book A's menu still appears but it is fully collapsed. When a node that DOES belong to Book A is viewed, Book A's Book menu expands accordingly. 3) The user can also enable Book B & C's block, and have their menus appear in a block at all times as well. 4) If none of the book's blocks are enabled by the user, the module will behave just as it did without the patch. That is, when the "Book Navigation" block is enabled, the only time any book menu will appear is when a book node is being viewed. 5) It's important to note (and this was the tricky part to write) that if both the "Book Navigation" block is enabled and "Book A" is enabled, they will play nice with each other and not do nasty things like create the same book menu twice. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ December 10, 2004 - 06:51 : nysus Attachment: http://drupal.org/files/issues/book_20.patch (5.37 KB) Andre, Attached is a new patch that will resolve the problem of the block-specific stuff showing on the block configuration form. Let me know if you spot any other bugs. If it looks good to you, I'll go to work making the code look leaner and prettier. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ December 10, 2004 - 08:26 : nysus Attachment: http://drupal.org/files/issues/book_21.patch (4 KB) Dries, Andre: Here is a new and improved streamlined version of the patch. Have a look if you get a chance. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ December 10, 2004 - 09:11 : nysus Attachment: http://drupal.org/files/issues/book_22.patch (4.15 KB) Found a bug in the last version that would cause the block to jump to a different location. I think this should do it. Everything appear to work well (famous last words). ------------------------------------------------------------------------ December 10, 2004 - 15:49 : andremolnar Steve: bugs appear to be gone, and I didn't run across any other errors. This is functioning exactly as described. everyone: I personally would encourage support for this functionality. Book is a powerful navigation building tool in a site, not only with its ability to move next and back through a hierarchy of pages - but also its ability to build the appropriate navigation block without further user intervention (unlike the admin features in the menu module or taxonomy). The most frequently cited complaint about the book module is its inflexibility when it comes to when and where the block shows up. I also frequently hear requests for the ability to show multiple book blocks at the same time. Up until now the best alternatives suggested required users to do a hack (e.g. build a custom block that calls such and such a hook). Most abandon their request at that point because its over their heads. With this patch all those requests are covered and more. Now all books can automatically have their own block and admins can easily decide when and where each of those individual blocks show up (left right, up down) and coupled with the new configuration features of the block module - its very easy for admins to decide on which individual pages a block will show up. I would be interested what other have to say about this feature. My only reservation (which is minor compared to the benefits of the functionality offered) is that there is no way to turn this functionality off. i.e. The default behaviour is to build individual blocks for each book. If there could be a way to toggle this feature on and off somewhere - it would be perfect. Still, AS IS - this is a major improvement and offers great flexibility to admins and site creators. andre ------------------------------------------------------------------------ December 10, 2004 - 16:04 : Anonymous Andre, Thanks for the feedback on the usefulness of this module. Glad I could pitch in and help. I agree about the inability to turn the feature on/off and I was thinking about that myself. I think it could easily be accomplished by creating a checkbox in the "book navigation" block individual configuration's settings. Call it "Enable individual book blocks." When enabled, the individual book blocks will appear on the block administration menu. One question: Where would the state of this checkbox get saved? Has Drupal moved away from serializing data in the data base? ------------------------------------------------------------------------ December 10, 2004 - 19:36 : Dries I'm afraid that 'Enable individual book blocks.' is not descriptive/clear at all. Are you suggesting a setting to toggle between 'show block on all pages' and 'show block on book pages only'? ------------------------------------------------------------------------ December 10, 2004 - 20:45 : nysus Dries, No. Andre and I suggest a setting within the "Book Navigation" cofiguration page, that would toggle whether or not individual books appear on the list of all blocks on the block administration page. Hence the name 'Enable individual book navigation blocks.' The help text for this checkbox might read something like: "By default, a book's navigation block is visible only when a page from that book is being viewed. Check this box if you want more control over where and when an book's navigation block is visible. You will then be able to control the book's navigation block location and visibility settings on the "admin/block" page." Hope this makes it pretty clear. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ December 10, 2004 - 21:08 : Dries I understand what you are trying to do, but not how you are trying to do it, or how the setting is supposed to work. I guess I'll have to try it when a new patch lands. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ December 11, 2004 - 10:52 : nysus Attachment: http://drupal.org/files/issues/book_23.patch (5.02 KB) Alright, fellas, I'm proud to unveil my crowning achievement in the open source development world (no big deal to most of you guys but pretty good for a hack like me). Thanks for all the input so far. It's been helpful. I've streamlined the heck out of it per Dries suggestion and I've created an option to turn this functionality on an off per Andre's suggestion. Does this look good to you guys? Anything else I have to fix or improve? Thanks. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ December 11, 2004 - 14:02 : Dries I tried the patch. It works great but to me, the 'Give books their own block' settings seems to be redundant. Why not export the current book navigation block, along with an additional block for each book? Looks a lot simpler to me. I think I spotted a bug: orphaned book pages (or possibly book pages that are unpublished) appear to be getting book navigation blocks. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ December 11, 2004 - 18:34 : nysus I'll see if I can fix the bug. Might be tricky. But I don't understand your recommendation to "export the current book navigation block, along with an additional block for each book". Can you expand on this thought? ------------------------------------------------------------------------ December 11, 2004 - 19:06 : nysus Dries, I am unable to duplicate the bug. I have three orphaned pages. I also tried unpublishing some pages. But as far as I can tell, the patch works as expected. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ December 11, 2004 - 20:00 : Dries If you can't reproduce the problem, chances are my node/book table is somewhat fubar. As for the configuration option. I suggest removing it and to always make these new blocks available on the /admin/block configuration screen. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ December 11, 2004 - 20:52 : moshe weitzman I am hoping that we maintain the option to keep the behavior where the appropriate book block only shows up when its book page viewed. this is a nice, tidy arrangement. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ December 11, 2004 - 21:03 : nysus Yes, if you don't enable any of the individual book blocks, the a book's block (i.e. navigation menu) will only appear when a page in a book is viewed. In other words, you have the option to have the book block act like this patch isn't even installed. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ December 11, 2004 - 21:54 : Dries I guess I'll have to try the patch again, because I don't understand why it works like this -- or at least, why it can't be made simpler. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ December 11, 2004 - 22:13 : nysus Can you be more specific? Why it works like what? ------------------------------------------------------------------------ December 11, 2004 - 22:24 : nysus Attachment: http://drupal.org/files/issues/book_24.patch (4.1 KB) This patch reverses a change made in the last patch which required a user to enable individual book block before they could enable any individual book blocks. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ December 11, 2004 - 22:41 : andremolnar As I mentioned earlier I am *fine* with either version of this patch as long as it makes it to core. But, as I said earlier, I clearly think the preference for admins would be to have the option to enable or disable this functionality. BTW - if this does make it in, I would be happy to create a Handbook page that describes the new features - something like "how to build robust site navigation using the book module". (on or after December 17th). andre ------------------------------------------------------------------------ December 12, 2004 - 13:11 : Anonymous I am not at all happy with these features. They are incosistant, confusing and should use exising methods and UIs. May main concern is the incosistancy: it is confusing, will require extra attention with each core code change, adds extra logic to the core, and is not re-useable. so here are my questions: 1) why do we not use the menu system and apis to build and adminster the trees? Saves code, does not add extra UIs, and gives users more power. 2) why do we need that extra showing logic? a book block should not get exeptional if clauses, it should use the existing path setting methods on block admin. extra logic is confusing for administrators (hey, i set the path so that the book-block should show up here, but it does not, why?) we should really not provide extra logic in the block hook, but should rather use default settings in block admin (the book could fill the bookblock sql cells with custom paths, for example) 3) we should avoid extra UIs. We already have far too much, and far too much different ones. Please rather improve the block admin, than add new separate interfaces. 4) why do book blocks need al these expeptions in the first place? If they are so exeptional, we could consider not using blocks, but something else, like in-line book layout (pages with the index etc) 5) why did you not choose for a general, standard, block gerneation API? that way modules, such as taxonomy, image gallery, weblinks, article, etc can reuse it and introduce block gernation. All that sayd, i like the idea of this functionality, but i fear for a great useability downfall if we start introducing all sorts of exeptions for all sorts of modules. Because now chances are very big that taxonomy, image gallery etc will need to introduce other UIs, other code, new methods and new documentation, if they too want some sort of better block handling. so a -1 from me. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ December 12, 2004 - 13:12 : Bèr Kessels ^^--- That was me (bèr kessels) forgot to log in..... ------------------------------------------------------------------------ December 12, 2004 - 13:34 : nysus I'm not going to pretend I can argue if my patch does or does not fit well into Drupal's larger architecture. My motivation for writing it is that I had an immediate need to create an easy way to make it easy for users to create menus. I'll let others decide whether or not the patch has merit from the big picture perspective. But if it doesn't, why not just use it for its immediate benefits and then throw it away when something better comes along? ------------------------------------------------------------------------ December 12, 2004 - 14:01 : Dries My summary is this: +1 on the functionality, -1 on the implementation. The code itself is good, but the usability/integration is not. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ December 12, 2004 - 14:13 : nysus When you say "usability" is that from the user's perspective or the code maintainers? I'm guessing it's the latter but I'm unsure. What about the idea of using the patch until a more permanent solution comes along? Yes, it's much better to live in a home with indoor plumbing but why not use the outhouse while you wait for a toilet to get installed? Or are there other considerations I'm overlooking that would make this a bad idea? ------------------------------------------------------------------------ December 12, 2004 - 14:20 : Goba nysus it is just generally against the Drupal philosophy to add improperly implemented functionality until something better comes along. There even used to be ocassions in Drupal releases, when some functionality was removed (not fixed) for a release, because its implementation was not adequate. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ December 12, 2004 - 14:55 : Dries Usability for the user. The extra setting on the block configuration page is both confusing and awkward. I don't understand why things must be configured/enabled that way (see my and Ber's previous comments on this issue). ------------------------------------------------------------------------ December 12, 2004 - 15:03 : nysus Well, just for the record, I reversed that functionality per your suggestion and uploaded the patch. The indiviudal book blocks now appear automatically. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ December 13, 2004 - 14:56 : Bèr Kessels Hi, I am sure you can make not only simpler, but better usefull for admins and users. All you need to do is use the menus for this. i.e. make a menu entry for each book page. For each book make a menu on level 0, without a parent. that way they become a seoprate menu, each with an own block. it saves code, makes things more consistent, and most important, uses drupal functionality where it should. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ December 13, 2004 - 15:50 : nysus Ber, Are you suggesting that for every single book page that a menu item be created? That's really not practical. That was my main motivation for writing this patch: to make it easy to put links, not necessarily related to one another, into a block. Any more pages than 10 and the sheer tedium of the job would prevent anyone from ever doing that. The menu.module is great, but adding new menu items is far from quick and painless. I just added about 10 to my menu for different taxonomies on my site and it wasn't fun. Plus, if you do as you suggest, there is also the problem of the book showing up twice. It will be generated by the menu and then it will be generated again by the book module which is programmed to design a block. You'd have to put some logic in the book.module _block hook to try to anticipate if a user has enabled a book in the menu. That wouldn't be pretty code. I'm all for putting automatic generation of book navigation blocks as part of the menu module. It does make more sense to have it there. But it forces me to ask the question: "Then why do we currently have code in the book module that generates a menu? Shouldn't that belong in the menu.module, too?" ------------------------------------------------------------------------ December 13, 2004 - 23:31 : killes(a)www.drop.org I think what Ber is trying to say is that you can write a contrib module that monitors the changes to the book table and creates menu items automatically. nodeapi is your friend. I would also prefer this solution. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ December 15, 2004 - 17:39 : Anonymous ""Then why do we currently have code in the book module that generates a menu? Shouldn't that belong in the menu.module, too?" " Because it's old code. It would be nice if book.module generated this block using its _menu hook, so that the admin would have a few options in terms of configuration. "Plus, if you do as you suggest, there is also the problem of the book showing up twice. It will be generated by the menu and then it will be generated again by the book module which is programmed to design a block. " No. The old code which manually builds a block in book.module would be removed. Book blocks would only be generated by the menu. This would also have the added benefit of allow the administrator to easily place a book in an appropriate spot in the menu tree, while still allowing the possibility of displaying it in a separate block. Because of menu caching, I don't expect a large performance hit for creating the menu items. "That was my main motivation for writing this patch: to make it easy to put links, not necessarily related to one another, into a block. " It sounds like instead of (mis)using book.module, your time would be better spent in a usability improvement to menu.module so it's easier to do this. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ December 16, 2004 - 07:55 : nysus Thanks for the feedback and input. I appreciate it. However, I would also appreciate if you took more care to avoid the condescending tone in your post: "It sounds like instead of (mis)using book.module, your time would be better spent in a usability improvement to menu.module so it's easier to do this. " It's really quite unnecessary and off-putting. Though it won't stop me from contributing to Drupal in the future, I'm sure others would be really turned off by such a patronizing comment and it could dissuade them. I'd like the Drupal community to be a welcoming and friendly place that will inspire people to contribute, not discourage them. Thanks. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ December 16, 2004 - 11:07 : Bèr Kessels nyesus, Please do not start /that/ discussion here. :) Drupal community is known fo being direct, maybe because of the big number of western-Europeans attending, maybe because of other reasons. No-one commented that you are wasting your time. But the commentor was telling you somthing likethis: "If you would follow the previous sugeestions, your added feature would be much better appreciated, and will probably work much better for you too". He/she was by no means telling you to stop your silly coding, or anything in that line. He/She only wanted to show you the obvious and better direction. We often deal with issues that add some feature, and a complete new UI, because the author does not like, or cannot use the existing UIs and features. This is nogt good, because if that same author would have spend his/her time on improving that existing functionality or UI (improving is not neccesarily the same as extending!!) that code and time would benefit all much better. Thats what the commentor tried to say. And so is it here: If you dislike the way the books handle the blocks, and if you do not want to use the menu, because you do not like its UI, then do not add another UI and more features, but rather merge these, and improve the parts (in the menu) you dislike. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ December 16, 2004 - 11:35 : Dries We can worry about the menu integration later. Let's focus on the new option's usability/interaction design first. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ December 16, 2004 - 15:51 : nysus I understand what the commenter was saying and like I said, I appreciate and understand it. I'm not upset and I'm not looking for an argument, I was just being direct as well. :) As part of the Drupal community (albeit a minor player), all I'm saying is that I would like to see folks not have a tin ear to the humanity in all of us. It will help make Drupal an even stronger community and attract even more talented developers. Human interaction is part of the development process. Whether we like it or not, we must cope and deal with it. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ December 18, 2004 - 10:54 : Dries I thought some more about this and am starting to believe that integration with the menu system should take priority. Here are common cool scenario's: I want to create a separate navigation block for the 'Drupal handbook'. I want to add a menu item called 'handbook' to the user block. That is, I want the book navigation to be part of the existing user navigation block. I want to add a menu item called 'handbook' to the top-level navigation menu. How would that work from a user's point of view? What do I have to click and where to configure this? ------------------------------------------------------------------------ December 21, 2004 - 19:47 : andremolnar I was actually thinking about the same thing last night (must have been something in the arctic air). / 2. I want to add a menu item called 'handbook' to the user block. That is, I want the book navigation to be part of the existing user navigation block. 3. I want to add a menu item called 'handbook' to the top-level navigation menu. / This is already possible (to a certain extent) with the current Book.module and Menu.module - A 'Books' menu item is created in the user navigation by having the Book.module enabled. Menu.module allows you to enable/disable this menu item. Menu.module also allows you to re-name this menu item. But, this only helps if you only intend to have 1 book (or else the name 'Handbook' is misleading if the user finds more than 1 book listed). - so this isn't good enough (or is it). /1. I want to create a separate navigation block for the 'Drupal handbook'./ This is what I was trying to figure out. Not just this, but a different way to do what Nysus was attempting. i.e. create a menu block for each and every book that is created. There is a way to write code that would (re)build a 'custom menu' on every add/edit/update to a book page - or book outline update. Custom menu's automatically have a block created for them. But, this I think would be a misleading use of the 'custom' menu - as the menu would not be custom if they are a part of core. So, I would think that two new constants could be added to the menu.inc file - MENU_BOOK_MENU - and MENU_BOOK_ITEM - each would behave as custom menu's, but would be reserved for books. These menu types should NOT show up in the Menu.module administration - because the administration of the book_menu items would be done by administering the book itself (adding an item, removing an item, moving an item up/down in the hierarchy, assigning parents etc.). However, the blocks that the book_menus would create would show up in the block administration (so users could enable/disable each block - and decide where on the site they show up). The existing book block logic would be removed. So the logic would be: If a creates a book in the book administration page - the Book.module automatically creates a new MENU_BOOK_MENU Any time a user adds to or updates or delets a book page - the entire book menu is deleted and recreated based on the hierarchy defined by the book itself. The blocks for each book would show up in block administration. Any thoughts - I know that this doesn't exactly address points 1 and 2 - but it could act as a first step. Is this approach a bad idea? It would add special conditions for the proposed book menu's - but books would be a special case. Even if people don't like this solution, maybe it will give someone a better idea. I'd love to hear them. andre ------------------------------------------------------------------------ December 21, 2004 - 23:55 : Boris Mann +1 to this andre I had promised to put down my thoughts on this matter, as it relates to 1) primary and secondary links and how they are managed and 2) auto-generation of primary/secondary navigation based on book outlines So, for 1), we currently have functional-but-not-very-usable plain textfields to manage primary and secondary links. I would like to see menu.module used to control all navigation links, whether it is the navigation block or primary/secondary links. What is needed: a) default system menus labelled "primary" and "secondary" which would store; this is where modules could insert navigation b) support for full URLs (e.g. http://myexternaldomain.com) instead of just path 2) if we got 1 working, and andre does his book menus, this could get taken care of automatically. Basically, for brochureware/business/etc. sites that have static content, you could have a root book as one of the primary navigation links, and then the secondary links are generated automatically. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ December 22, 2004 - 22:02 : Dries I agree with Andre that the book module's integration with the menu system needs to be worked on. I support any effort that makes it easier to structure pages and that makes it easy to link pages/nodes from within a menu. However, I'm opposed to putting book module specific names in the menu system (eg. MENU_BOOK_MENU and MENU_BOOK_ITEM). I can imagine a handful of modules that want to maintain a menu tree (or part thereof) so I'm in favor of generic names. I'd have to read up on the menu system code, but last time I checked there was a MENU_MODIFIABLE_BY_ADMIN flag. You could choose not to set this flag for the menu items generated by the book module. Maybe it's already possible to implement to implement Andre's suggestion without having to modify/extend the menu system. Are you exploring this path? ------------------------------------------------------------------------ December 24, 2004 - 11:01 : andremolnar I've had a few spare hours to work on this. I've started to cobble together a solution - but in doing so I discovered a bug in the menu module (for which I will submit a seperate issue - if one doesn't already exist). The principal I suggested works. I added some code to the book module that creates custom menu's (MENU_CUSTOM_MENU with MENU_CUSTOM_ITEMs) for each Book that exists in a site. This is just as a proof of concept - I chose this menu type to start with because they automatically have a block created for them in admin/block (which is ultimatly the functionality we want). I ran a test and the menus are created as expected - the blocks are also created. But when I tested the menu blocks by enabling them I ran into a problem. It seems as though the menu system does not expand/explode sub menu items if the node type is book. I'm not sure why this is, and I haven't traced the source code yet - I thought I would ask if anyone has intimate knowledge of the menu system if they can point me in the right direction. No patch attached because until that problem is fixed this proposed change won't fly :( andre ------------------------------------------------------------------------ December 24, 2004 - 12:11 : Dries Just a wild guess: maybe it doesn't work because the book module's URI scheme is not hierarchical? ------------------------------------------------------------------------ January 7, 2005 - 11:45 : andremolnar Attachment: http://drupal.org/files/issues/book_module_1.patch (5.1 KB) I finally took some time out to do some work on this. As mentioned in a post to dev the problem I was having with menus not expanding/contracting properly was some crud in my database. Once that was cleared up my changes worked fine. I am attaching a patch for comments and for the brave willing to give it a test drive. History: This thread and http://drupal.org/node/15198 and http://drupal.org/node/15153 node/15198 has a patch that is required for this patch to work. What this does: Pretty straight forward. Any time a user adds/updates/deletes book or book pages (including via outline) - a function is called to create a new menu for each book. Any existing book menus are wiped out and then the new book menus are inserted - and the system menu is rebuilt to reflect the changes. The menus created consist of type MENU_MODULE_MENU and MENU_MODULE_ITEM. These menus show up in the menu/admin page so that admins can be aware of them, but the menu types are not editable via menu/admin (all changes are handled by the book module). Since the menus are in the menu table, the menu_block() hook handles the creation of the blocks for each of them. The blocks can then be administered in the usual ways via the block/admin interface. KNOWN ISSUE: (suggested solutions welcome) Since the menu table is updated on every change to books - the blocks associated with the menus are also recreated with default settings (i.e. disabled, and with no path or throttle settings) requiring a user to take an extra step and re-configure the book blocks for viewing on their site. I think this is unacceptable. For the casual user of the book module that only has a single book that doesn't change often, this would not be a big deal. But, if anyone wanted to make use of book module to handle dynamic site navigation this would create more work than it saves. Looking forward: If the block generation issue can be solved in a tidy way, this patch could allow users to use book to handle all their site navigation generation needs. Also, this patch could allow for the removal of a large chunk of code in the book module dedicated to building its own block via the block system. I left it there for now because I suppose there may be those out there that want to have book.module work the way book.module always worked (only show the book block when viewing a book page). Even so, since each book would have its own block, an admin could specify when and where the block shows via admin/block. I would appreciate feedback. If nothing else I hope this gives someone some new ideas. I'll continue to work on the block regeneration issue. andre ------------------------------------------------------------------------ January 7, 2005 - 11:47 : andremolnar Attachment: http://drupal.org/files/issues/book_module_2.patch (4.98 KB) sorry - here's a patch with prefered line breaks. andre ------------------------------------------------------------------------ January 7, 2005 - 17:47 : nysus Andre, I've been meaning to give this a throrough look when I get a chance. Hopefully this weekend. ---Steve ------------------------------------------------------------------------ January 20, 2005 - 03:02 : andremolnar Attachment: http://drupal.org/files/issues/book_module_3.patch (6.66 KB) Here is an updated patch. Same comments as followup 51 - except that the known issue has been resolved. This changes book module so that any action taken on a book, including adding new books or book pages will create a menu in the menu system for that book - and thus create blocks for those menus that can be administered in the usual ways. This is my first attempt at a major patch to core - comments are welcome I will be happy to update documentation once revisions to the code have been taken care of. andre ------------------------------------------------------------------------ January 20, 2005 - 03:53 : andremolnar Attachment: http://drupal.org/files/issues/book_module_4.patch (6.17 KB) Sorry - would be nice if I removed some debugging code - ;-) also previous patch also would have introduced a need for a change to the menu table that isn't required yet. This patch is a correct version andre ------------------------------------------------------------------------ January 20, 2005 - 20:16 : Dries The menu is recreated every time a book page is updated. I believe this is unwanted behavior because it requires the book block to be reconfigured upon every update. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ January 20, 2005 - 20:32 : andremolnar The menu is indeed re-created with every book page edit - because if the book page title changes the menu needs to reflect this change. The book block re-configuration is not required by the user. The code stores this information and re-sets the block settings. I will see if I can test for 'title change' before forcing the re-build of the menu - It would save a bit of processing power. andre ------------------------------------------------------------------------ January 20, 2005 - 21:21 : andremolnar Took another at this - and it turns out that I already have a check to see if title or weight change (rather - they already existed in the module and I used them). andre ------------------------------------------------------------------------ January 24, 2005 - 03:22 : andremolnar Attachment: http://drupal.org/files/issues/book_module_6.patch (7.42 KB) Feedback received indicated that the original block generation code in this module should be removed - since this patch hands block generation off to the menu and block system. This patch removes that code. BUT - It should be noted, that in order to have book blocks only show up on pages of node type book - an additional patch found at http://drupal.org/node/16074 is required. andre ------------------------------------------------------------------------ January 24, 2005 - 19:36 : andremolnar Attachment: http://drupal.org/files/issues/book_module_7.patch (7.43 KB) Yet another patch: Brings this patch in line with - http://drupal.org/node/16074 (i.e. the column name change in {block} table) andre ------------------------------------------------------------------------ January 25, 2005 - 19:56 : andremolnar Attachment: http://drupal.org/files/issues/book_module_8.patch (7.53 KB) And another minor patch to cover coding style and variable names. Just to bring everyone up to speed: 1) Each book and its children pages have a menu created for them (on any add, edit, delete to a book or book page). 2) Those book menus automatically have a block created for them via menu_block hook. 3) Block settings are preserved any time there is a change to a book that requires the menu and its associated block to be re-built. 4) book_block hook is removed because it is redundant. 5) With the addition of the configuration option in blocks to only show blocks on certain node types (see: http://drupal.org/node/16074) administrators have full control over when and where a book block shows up (including maintaining the status quo of only having book blocks show up on book pages). 6) This patch does require http://drupal.org/node/15198 andre ------------------------------------------------------------------------ January 25, 2005 - 22:49 : Boris Mann +1!! Book-based automatic navigation for corporate/brochureware sites! Fantastic! Chris Messina, get in here and add a +1 to this. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ January 25, 2005 - 23:26 : Dries Boris, have you tested this patch extensively, or are you just giving this +1 based on what you've read? If you want to see this committed, take the time to review/test it. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ January 26, 2005 - 06:45 : andremolnar Yes - please - testers are welcome. Nysus (aka Steve) has already agreed to give this a test drive when he had a spare moment. I hope for some feedback in the near future. But if you have a moment Borris I would appreciate it. OR - If someone would just like to demo this: http://s92258948.onlinehome.us/greenbeach/ UN: drupaldev PW: drupaldev Don't mind the mess - it is my test environment and there is a lot of junk data and settings floating around - but this patch is running there along with the additional block configuration settings. andre ------------------------------------------------------------------------ January 31, 2005 - 20:12 : Boris Mann You got me, Dries... I have since spent time testing the module on andre's site, and it does everything I can foresee needing at this point, with no functional errors. This functionality alone will make creating standalone sites that are composed of mainly static pages very, very simple. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ February 3, 2005 - 09:58 : Dries The demo-site appears to be down. Bummer. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ February 3, 2005 - 23:59 : andremolnar Attachment: http://drupal.org/files/issues/book_module_9.patch (7.58 KB) Sorry - demo site was down while database was being cleaned and latest CVS modules were being installed (general site maintenence for testing). The site is up now with a fresh database and install of Drupal CVS. UN drupaldev PW drupaldev (has access to manage blocks, books, and menus to see this patch in action) Attached is an updated patch to make use of db_rewrite_sql (instead of node_rewrite_sql). Also fixes a minor bug that appeared if you were creating the first book in the site. andre ------------------------------------------------------------------------ February 4, 2005 - 00:13 : Anonymous This patch seems to modify the blocks and menu tables directly from within book.module. (in the new book_build_menu_module_menu function) This sets a terrible precedent for other modules. IMO, these tables should be modified by functions defined within the block module or menu module (or menu.inc). Modifying the tables randomly throughout many other points in the code makes changes to these tables difficult and makes troubleshooting problems much trickier. Let's not sacrafice code organization for the sake of making the patch as small as possible. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ February 4, 2005 - 07:25 : andremolnar With regard to the blocks - the block module is doing all the block building (with the call to _block_rehash) - the only thing that this code does is preserve block settings (the select sql) before the menu is updated - and then restores those block settings (with the update sql). "Modifying the tables randomly throughout... " While I appreciate the point you are making, I would hesitate to call this random. After all the menu items being added to the menu table 'belong' to book module. There is a little bit of a discussion about the best way to go about doing this sort of thing (i.e. allowing modules to build their own menus) over at http://drupal.org/node/15198 - which includes the patch required to make this patch work. Right now there is no existing hook or method of doing this. hook_menu does not have anything in place as of yet. I have suggested the introduction of a new hook (name yet to be determined) that would be in charge of these menu_module_menu type inserts. But, I haven't heard any feedback on whether that is a good idea - or if anyone has a better idea. Anyone else have thoughts on the approach taken here or suggestions for a different/better approach? I'm willing to write the code, I would just like a little bit of input. andre ------------------------------------------------------------------------ February 4, 2005 - 07:46 : Dries I added a test page and all book blocks dissapeared? I also got an SQL error (check your watchdog messages) upon pressing the 'Submit' button. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ February 5, 2005 - 08:31 : Steven Doesn't this patch still suffer from the inability to show the menu block only on the relevant book(s)? I know we can now restrict blocks per node type, but that still doesn't help with multiple books. By the way, big code style violation: $menu_block_settings[$menu_block->path][weight] "weight" should be surrounded by quotes. Right now it is being treated as an undefined constant. This is not a good idea. Other than that there's a bunch of missing spaces... if the code looks cramped, it usually violates the coding style. + $menu_block_settings[$result->path] = array('status'=>$result->status, 'weight'=>$result->weight, 'region'=>$result->region, 'throttle'=>$result->throttle, 'visibility'=>$result->visibility, 'pages'=>$result->pages, 'types'=>$result->types); + db_query('DELETE FROM {menu} WHERE type=%d OR type=%d', MENU_MODULE_MENU | MENU_MODIFIED_BY_MODULE, MENU_MODULE_ITEM | MENU_MODIFIED_BY_MODULE); //restore menu_module_menu block settings There are several more examples. Please pay attention to this. It's incredibly annoying to have to fix it later, and it makes the code harder to read as you cannot make certain assumptions about how it is layed out. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ February 5, 2005 - 23:56 : andremolnar I am fixing up the code as we speak. I actually made a bigger faux pas by not escaping my INSERT sql string properly - (There is a quick fix, but I understand 'addslashes' is not good enough for drupal ;-). (Thank you to Dries for catching this right away on his test of the demo site). As for multiple books - you actually have more flexibility to enable as many book menus as you like - not only based on type but also by path. e.g. Could allow for: drupal.org/handbook (with some general book menu blocks enabled) drupal.org/handbook/developer (with developer book menu blocks enabled) drupal.org/handbook/developer/theme (with theme developer book menu blocks enabled) etc. (the sky is the limit). I will resubmit a patch with all of the coding style fixes requested - and I will be more careful with the coding style in the future. andre ------------------------------------------------------------------------ February 6, 2005 - 01:05 : andremolnar Attachment: http://drupal.org/files/issues/book_module_10.patch (7.7 KB) Updated Patch, Implemented code style improvements as per Steven. Fixed unescaped sql INSERT string (turns out that addslashes is more than enough in this situation, because the 'title' string has already been valided and properly inserted into the database before any of this code ever runs - i.e. this isn't coming directly from user input, but rather from the drupal database). Demo site is once again live and welcomes all testers (Thank you again to those that have already tested this out). andre ------------------------------------------------------------------------ March 13, 2005 - 23:11 : killes(a)www.drop.org Still applies. Andre: Please create patches from the Drupal root directory. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ March 15, 2005 - 11:42 : Paul Iliano This is exactly the functionality I have been waiting for. As I can see many uses for showing a book menu on all pages, I never really understood why book menus could only be shown on book pages. I'm still at DP 4.5, but as soon as 4.6 is out I will install and try it out. I'd love to see this kind of functionality in core! ------------------------------------------------------------------------ March 18, 2005 - 08:43 : Steven Your visibility 'fix' requires that the entire handbook has clean, hierarchical URL aliasing. This is often not the case. I understand that for sites where the book is used to organise the main structure, you might want the block visible everywhere. But it is not good for sites where this isn't the case, like Drupal.org itself.

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Fwd: [drupal-devel] Is anybody doing any major work on subscriptions module?
by Dries Buytaert 03 Apr '05

03 Apr '05

Robert meant to send this to drupal-devel ... Begin forwarded message: > From: Robert Douglass <rob(a)robshouse.net> > Date: Sat 2 Apr 2005 21:16:48 CEST > To: Dries Buytaert <dries(a)buytaert.net> > Subject: Re: [drupal-devel] Is anybody doing any major work on > subscriptions module? > Reply-To: rob(a)robshouse.net > > I've committed the new subscriptions module to my sandbox > (robertdouglass) along with a small upgrade script which converts all > 'blog' subscriptions to 'user' subscriptions. > > Thank you all for your comments and suggestions. I've implemented the > feature set which I described in my first mail (minus the link on the > user page) and screenshots can be seen here: > http://www.webs4.com/image/tid/6 > > I'll leave the module in my sandbox for a week or so but hope that > after everyone has had the chance to review it we can agree to replace > the existing module with this version. At that point, if dziemecki and > TDobes are agreeable, I'd like to become the maintainer of the module. > > I marked several things with //TODO: in the code so people can quickly > see the places that need immediate attention in the future. > > Looking forward to your feedback, > > Robert > > -- Dries Buytaert :: http://www.buytaert.net/

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[drupal-devel] Re: [contributions(DRUPAL-4-5):sheldon] contributions/modules/interwiki
by Jim Riggs 03 Apr '05

03 Apr '05

So what's up with all of contrib being tagged for 4.5 this morning? Did that mess up the branching of a lot of contrib? All of my modules look fine, because they already had 4.5 branches. Items that didn't, though, may now be branched even though they don't work with 4.5. Looks like some repair work may be in order... On Apr 2, 2005, at 20:58, drupal-cvs(a)drupal.org wrote: > User: sheldon Branch: DRUPAL-4-5 Date: Sun, 3 Apr 2005 > 02:58:15 +0000 > > Log message: > > - Added DRUPAL-4-5. > > -- > [ Drupal cvs list | http://list.drupal.org/ ] >

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[drupal-devel] [bug] Cannot delete users
by moshe weitzman 03 Apr '05

03 Apr '05

Issue status update for http://drupal.org/node/19750 Project: Drupal Version: cvs Component: user.module Category: bug reports Priority: critical Assigned to: Anonymous Reported by: AtomicMaestro Updated by: moshe weitzman Status: patch when one deletes a user from list of users in admin, he expects to return back to that list after successfully deleting. thats the intent of the $_REQUEST['destination']. I think this patch will defeat that behavior. There certainly is a bug here, but I don't think we have found the right fix yet. I suggest testing a delete from both admin and user/edit pages. make sure you arrive at the expected page after a successful delete. moshe weitzman Previous comments: ------------------------------------------------------------------------ March 31, 2005 - 04:33 : AtomicMaestro I can't seem to delete users. To reproduce: 1. Create a user. 2. View the user created in 1. 3. Click Delete I would expect to be told I have to block the user first, but instead, I'm sent back to the user report. There's no message, nothing in the log. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ April 1, 2005 - 02:40 : asimmonds Attachment: http://drupal.org/files/issues/fix_delete_user.patch (581 bytes) Patch attached to fix this, the delete code in node.module works the same way

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[drupal-devel] [feature] Request New Password Security
by Jose A Reyero 03 Apr '05

03 Apr '05

Issue status update for http://drupal.org/node/18719 Project: Drupal Version: cvs Component: user.module Category: feature requests Priority: critical Assigned to: Anonymous Reported by: neofactor Updated by: Jose A Reyero Status: patch About usability I've written this piece [1], so I really prefer to discuss it on the forums... That patch, I'll be cleaning it up a little bit, adding that last login field, and maybe go for that 'reasonable default', which anyway is not worth so much discussion.... [1] http://drupal.org/node/19918 Jose A Reyero Previous comments: ------------------------------------------------------------------------ March 11, 2005 - 03:52 : neofactor Problem: Any user can force another user's password to change... simply by selecting "request new password" and putting in their username. The user gets an email with the new.. but this feels like a violation to the user... and a pain. Solution? If someone requests a new password... Don't blindly change it... send an email that says...."Is this a real request authorized by you? Click here to confirm otherwise disregard this message" Please consider this critical for user by-in to Drupal as a secure system. I appreciate your consideration. http://drupal.org/node/18689 ------------------------------------------------------------------------ March 11, 2005 - 05:05 : neofactor I added some code to prevent the admin account from being reset... Please add as a patch. if ($account->uid == 1 { unset($account); form_set_error('name', t('Sorry. The username %name is not allowed to be changed.', array('%name' => ''. $edit['name'] .''))); } // Just above this code on line 911: if ($account) { $from = variable_get('site_mail', ini_get('sendmail_from')); $pass = user_password(); ------------------------------------------------------------------------ March 11, 2005 - 05:08 : killes(a)www.drop.org Please only set to "patch" if you are actually submitting one. The solution you proposed is rather a workaround and will not be acceptable for core. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ March 11, 2005 - 09:21 : Deno I was in charge of a web site with >10000 paying customers for some time, and the "customers care" was constantly troubled with pasword change requests, until we switched to a system that worked in the following way: 1) "I forgot the password" function accepts either users email, or users login name, generates a random phrase, and adds an entry to "pasword_change_request" table. This entry consists of: - User ID (corresponding to email or login) - random phrase - datestamp User ID is unique key, and the entries in this table older than MAX_TIME are regularly purged by a cron job. 2) System sends an email with a link to "change forgotten password" page with this random phrase as argument to the user. That would be something like: https://drupal.org/user/cfp/d438rwiuodw894732ehdw 3) When user follows the link, "cfp" page checks if the random phrase exists in the table, allows the user to immediately change the password, and sends another email with "your password was changed on RIGHT_NOW ... " note to the user in question. - Password change automatically triggers deleting of the corresponding entry in pasword_change_request table. - Password change automatically logs-in the user as well. This way, users weren't bothered by accidental password changes, and they also understood the system better than the one with automatically generated passwords. For additional security, we also built some brakes that assured that the number of attempts to change the password, such as: - "An email with instructions was sent to you X minutes ago. In case you don't receive it within N hours, please contact the site administrator" - "According to our logs, you have visited the CFP page more than NMAX times within last 24 hours. For security reasons, you will be denied access to this page for the next 24 hours. Please contact the site administrator." hope this helps... ------------------------------------------------------------------------ March 30, 2005 - 21:01 : Jose A Reyero Attachment: http://drupal.org/files/issues/user_one_time_login.patch (6.52 KB) This patch for -cvs- addresses this issue. It generates an *only one use* URL to login into user account, instead of a new password. Then the user clicks on the URL, logs in, and may change his old password if desired. It is a only one use URL, and has some additional security measures, like a configurable time-out -can be confgured in admin/user/settings- and also, if somebody uses it or password is changed in the meanwhile, previously generated login URLs of this type won't work. About how it works, it creates a new url with: - user id, - timestamp - a hash of current timestamp, changed date for account, and the old password hashed With this patch, this wont work for admin accounts, which I think is better, you never know... It has a number of features like: - User can be ignoring these emails if somebody else is requesting access, a new password request wont change current password. However, the user will be warned when seeing the emails - It reveals no sensible information about the user account in the URL itself - the generated hash is not predictable at all if you dont know the old password, as it depends on user's old password - there's a configurable timeout - The URL's are only one use, as they depend on two timestamps, one of which will be changing in case this login is used -or in case user logs in for other means - Any 'new password' request is independent of others, so no one can be interfering with one user asking for his password back. Also doesn't require any new db field nor keeping track of requested passwords. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ March 30, 2005 - 21:41 : chx Very nice patch. Please consider for 4.6. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ March 30, 2005 - 23:16 : drumm Couldn't those nested if statements be made into one with a bit cleaner indentation? It looks like the page which the user arrives at after getting the new login information is their user page, not a page to set the password. The "Time out for password recovery e-mail" configuration is very unfriendly. It should be a drop down select of the most used human readable durations. Or we could just decide on one timeout and leave that hard coded in; who actually needs to use that setting? The url is quite long, what could be done to make it shorter? ------------------------------------------------------------------------ March 31, 2005 - 00:50 : Jose A Reyero /Couldn't those nested if statements be made into one with a bit cleaner indentation?/ Maybe, but I had to split that if conditions in two parts because the $account var didn't get the value before the rest of the conditions -latest two- where evaluated. Someone can help with PHP here? /It looks like the page which the user arrives at after getting the new login information is their user page, not a page to set the password. The "Time out for password recovery e-mail" configuration is very unfriendly. It should be a drop down select of the most used human readable durations. Or we could just decide on one timeout and leave that hard coded in; who actually needs to use that setting?/ Agreed, will be polishing this a little bit, just wating for some more suggestions... For the duration, I'll change to 'hours', ok? Just don't like to restrict options using unneccessary dropdowns, it's only intended for administrators anyway. Maybe I add also a '0' for unlimited. Hardcoding it, would need anyway to be mentioned in the module help, so it's about the same overhead, both for coding and for the admin interface, and harcoding in two places in code is not good anyway. And I like having options, am I the only one? / The url is quite long, what could be done to make it shorter?/ Well, the url has to be long, it has neccessary params and an MD5 hash, which yes, could be cut someway, but that adding inneccessary code and also reducing security -though half an MD5 hash may be secure enough- but I see no point in that. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ March 31, 2005 - 02:18 : FactoryJoe(a)civicspacelabs.org "Or we could just decide on one timeout and leave that hard coded in; who actually needs to use that setting? " +1 for making this *not* configurable! C'mon, Drupal should have standards about security -- and if best practices say that, say, 8 hours, is a good amount of time for that URL to be active, then do that. Cut out the confusion and extra brain juice it takes to decide... "Gee, is 4 hours better than 5?" Additionally, there's a simple way to make this workflow better for the user. If you visit an outdated change password URL, you should be told, "Sorry, but that link you followed to change your password has expired. If you would like to reset your password, please fill out this form: [form] If you did not request to change your password, please notify [administrator's name w/ PM link]". This way, if you missed your change password deadline, you can request your password again right from the timeout page. If you didn't request the change, it will be obvious that someone else was trying to change it, and then you can contact the administrator and find out who it was that was messin' with your account. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ March 31, 2005 - 06:55 : chx Attachment: http://drupal.org/files/issues/user_one_time_login_0.patch (4.72 KB) I cleaned up the patch a bit. I hope code style is OK. So may -- there are no checks against the arguments? There is no need. user_load uses %d for 'uid', so that's dealt with. Comparison by < and > means an implicit cast to integer, so $timestamp is also dealt with automatically. I do not think timeout needs to be configured. Please comment on not letting uid 1 using this one. I am not sure whether this is necessary. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ March 31, 2005 - 07:12 : chx Attachment: http://drupal.org/files/issues/user_one_time_login_1.patch (6.21 KB) Implemented Chris' idea, so if you use a one time URl which is expired, you are sent to user/password with a message to ask for another. I changed a few messages and deleted the "not for admin" feature. Do we really want one gazillion support requests "I locked myself out of my site, user/password tells me not for admin, what now"? ------------------------------------------------------------------------ March 31, 2005 - 08:24 : chx One more point on uid 1. Yes, uid 1 can reset his pwd over the database. But then we would need to lock out administer users privileged users. Then administer nodes, 'cos of XSS. Then administer comments... then administer filters... OK, this is pointless. If someone can eavesdrop on your emails, everything is lost, I think. This is not something Drupal shall address. Maybe we could employ a security question -- secret answer pair. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ March 31, 2005 - 11:52 : Bèr Kessels Eventhough I am a less-settings advocate, I think this must remain a setting :). Why? Sites on Drupal differ a lot, and have a very differnet userbase. I run very low level sites, where it sometimes takes days before someone will read his/her mail. But I also know sites (drupal.org) where days would certainly be too long. Sorry Chris et al, I +1 on configurable duration. (hell, we really need some about:config alike screen in drupal) ------------------------------------------------------------------------ March 31, 2005 - 12:46 : Dries IMO, that setting has nothing to do with a site being "low level". If you request a new password, you probably want to login ASAP. I vote against a configuration option. Either way, this patch needs work: 1. We don't glue words together (eg. $hashedpass, $currenttime, $loginurl). Similarly, I suggest to change 'user/newpassword' to 'user/reset' or 'user/request-password'. 2. The patch exposes technical details to the user; terminology like "one time login URL" is likely to confuse many users. 3. The login URL is not clean URL safe, I think. 4. Please rename the variable $pass1 in user_pass_rehash(). 5. The code comments are often inconsistent. Some end with a punctuation, some don't. Some span two lines, others don't. On a related note, can't we reuse this system for the initial password? That is, instead of mailing a password, we mail an URL and force the user to enter a password. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ March 31, 2005 - 18:20 : Jose A Reyero Attachment: http://drupal.org/files/issues/user_one_time_login_2.patch (12.77 KB) Ok, I've started with chx's reviewed patch, and done most of Dries suggestions Main changes are: ----------------------- - Rewording, variable names, path, etc... as pointed out by Dries. Now it's user/reset. And yes, it was not clean-URL safe; it is now. - Allowed also for admin account, I dont like it though, but seem to be the only one :( - Used also for user registration, but I also kept old style login/password, think it can be some use and anyway, it's up to the site admin to remove it from the welcome e-mail. However it is only for 'no admin approval', see below about this.... - Added back in the config option for time-out, though reworked completely for usability. Default is '1 day' which I think should be reasonable. However, there's no time out for firts time users. About this, read below, please... ----------------------- Using this for first time login has some problems when admin aproval is required, as the hashed pass depends on 'changed' timestamp, and it changes when the admin approves an account. Actually, there's no way to know -or I didn't find it- when it is the first login for an approved account. For no admin approval, I just used 'changed' == 'created' as a criterium. I think we should be separating this changed date and last login date creating a new field in the user table, but that maybe for a future patch. That would also increase security, as the Administrator's info would be more accurate, and 'last login date' could be shown when user logs in, which is also security+ Related with this I've experienced problems, as administrator, when editing user accounts, then last login info for the users gets lost -is reset-... About the config option for time out, though I agree that enforcing security can be good in general, this is one of this cases where more security means less usability. And that decission should be left to Site administrators -each site has its own security requirements-. So I think the target here should be a 'reasonable' default, and then some flexibility for site admins. IMHO this latest patch is quite well balanced. So... everybody happy? ------------------------------------------------------------------------ March 31, 2005 - 20:43 : Dries "So ... everyone happy?" Not quite. The patch is an improvement but it uses tabs, incorrect spacing, incorrect placement of brackets, and does not use theme('placeholder'). If a new database column is required to implement this properly, please add one. This patch won't get committed until it is implemented properly. I still vote to remove the configuration option. We're getting there ... ------------------------------------------------------------------------ April 2, 2005 - 19:45 : factoryjoe I’m going to have to stick by my earlier assertion on this one, and, and, as with most usability issues, none of us are “correct” until we test it 50 times and see whether anyone actually uses the option. Just like with my folksonomy review [2], more options is *not always better* nor does it always help people *get things done*! To further expand this point, Jose says [3]: About the config option for time out, though I agree that enforcing security can be good in general, this is one of this cases where more security means less usability. And that decission should be left to Site administrators -each site has its own security requirements. " But this is a misuse of the term “usability”. What you’re talking about is *functionality*—since usability has more to do with focusing single-mindedly on the task at hand and reducing distraction than it does with providing extraneous options that might be useful for a fraction of all Drupal admins. To speak to Ber’s point [4], I cannot imagine a situation where, if I want to change my password because I’ve forgotten it, that it will take more than a few hours to get the email and fulfill the process. And even still, if it does — for whatever reason — take me a week to get around to resetting my password, then starting the process over again isn’t all that time consuming. Plus, I have the added sense of security that Drupal doesn’t let things like password resetting links stay active forever! So again, I agree that we need a reasonable default—24 hours is very generous for the singular task that we’re trying to serve here, which is, to my knowledge, to make the process for resetting your password easier and more secure. Lastly, about the patch itself: I noticed a couple tags strewn around in lines 38, 43, 54 and 72 (as well as a on 54). Until we have a style guide for marking up usernames, should we really be using HTML like this? It seems to be that it would be better to use a span with a class of… say… “username” and let the themer determine whether the username should be bold, italicized, red, all caps and so on.*/ [2] http://drupal.org/node/19697#comment-25599 [3] http://drupal.org/node/18719#comment-25480 [4] http://drupal.org/node/18719#comment-25463 ------------------------------------------------------------------------ April 2, 2005 - 21:29 : factoryjoe One other quick question. How does this patch interact with distributed authentication? If I'm logged in with a remote account and ask to reset my password, what happens? ------------------------------------------------------------------------ April 3, 2005 - 10:22 : Dries factoryjoe: you can't reset your password when you are logged in.

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[drupal-devel] [bug] have db_prefix_tables() handle 'default' key not being set
by Dries 03 Apr '05

03 Apr '05

Issue status update for http://drupal.org/node/19609 Project: Drupal Version: cvs Component: base system Category: bug reports Priority: normal Assigned to: Anonymous Reported by: danielc Updated by: Dries Status: patch Any idea of how much faster the second patch is? I don't think it makes a real difference in which case I'd favor the first patch. Dries Previous comments: ------------------------------------------------------------------------ March 28, 2005 - 23:24 : danielc Attachment: http://drupal.org/files/issues/database.diff (720 bytes) The db_prefix_tables() function in includes/database.inc generates notices if $db_prefix['default'] is not set. This patch fixes that problem. This has a side benefit of making $db_prefix easier to use. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ March 29, 2005 - 00:06 : moshe weitzman nice ... this has been a bit a pimple for a while. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ March 29, 2005 - 17:40 : danielc Attachment: http://drupal.org/files/issues/database2.diff (1.17 KB) I've come up with a new version of the patch that optimizes the speed of the whole function. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ March 29, 2005 - 17:56 : danielc Change Version from "4.5.2" to "cvs". ------------------------------------------------------------------------ March 29, 2005 - 18:01 : danielc Pardon me, I'm testing if this goes the drupal-dev list now that the version is "cvs."

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