- Development - lists.drupal.org

[drupal-devel] [feature] Centralize node queries somehow
by chx 15 Jan '05

15 Jan '05

Project: Drupal Version: cvs Component: node system Category: feature requests Priority: normal Assigned to: chx Reported by: chx Updated by: chx Status: patch Attachment: http://drupal.org/files/issues/node_rewrite_sql_9.patch (43.98 KB) module_implementations had a minor, but performance eating bug, it's caching was broken. chx Previous comments: ------------------------------------------------------------------------ December 23, 2004 - 22:25 : chx Attachment: http://drupal.org/files/issues/node_builder.patch (5.56 KB) Although I have posted this to the devel list, as Steve pointed out, putting patches to sandbox is not the best way to do things. So I open this thread. I have measured the time for build a node query in this is about 0.22-0.24ms (on an Athlon 933 MHz machine). ------------------------------------------------------------------------ December 23, 2004 - 23:33 : Dries I'm not likely to commit this. It's not conform with Drupal's coding conventions, but more importantly, a node query builder doesn't solve any real problems. It just adds a different way of doing things without offering a significant advantage. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ December 23, 2004 - 23:51 : chx Attachment: http://drupal.org/files/issues/node_builder_0.patch (5.67 KB) At this moment there are direct queries into the node table everywhere. After node_access_*_sql calls were invented, a lot of queries needed to be changed, and I think we will find more to be inserted. If someone does sg. else with the queries, permission, language etc. he needs to patch 60+ quieries in core alone. This is not a good thing. That's why I am proposing a central node query builder. As for code standards, code-style.pl node.module returns 17 errors, none of them comes from my patch. However, I should admit, there were a few spaces missing from the database.inc patch. So I resubmit. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ December 23, 2004 - 23:56 : chx Attachment: http://drupal.org/files/issues/node_builder_1.patch (5.67 KB) OK, I was wrong, there is a space missing in one of the rewritten queries. But I doubt this matters too much, as this is only a proposal and I think there will be a lot of revisions before it gets to the core. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ December 24, 2004 - 00:26 : drumm The blank lines between the comments and function starts will confuse the documentation parser on drupaldocs.org. I'm not sure if I support this quite yet. Reducing the number of queries and whatnot is great, but this patch doesn't do that quite yet. I'd only want this if the new system is more readable and easy to write. I'm not sure if this is true. As for code-style.pl, I don't think this is actually used much and it doesn't catch everything. Such as, most operators (=, =>, +, etc) like a space on either side of themselves. I'd support removing code-style.pl and throwing it in contributions somewhere. (If this needs further discussion or action, please file another issue, lets keep this focused on this patch). I'm going to wait for a few more revisions of this before I weigh in a +1 or -1. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ December 24, 2004 - 00:58 : Jose A Reyero I can really think of a number of advantages of this, and though not really for committing it yet, think is very good to see some discussion on the issue and some concrete implementations. When implementing i18n I run into this problem, of having to patch lots of queries -actually too many- in about all the modules doing any kind of node listing. This far, I'm stuck at this point. Then I realized it was just the same for node permissions, and will be the same again for whatever new functionality you want to add in the future which affects node listings. I think actually that direct access to 'node' table should be avoided when possible out of the node.module. And the only way to achieve this is to have some kind of query builder. And also think that chx's approach is very good. it provides some upper layer at the 'node' level, which can use some object level semantics while relying on a db layer query builder, which could be used later for other objects -users, taxonomy terms...- Just think of all the work that this could have saved when implementing permissions system, which I think is ugly and dirty anyway because of all that node_join, node_where... In the long run, adding such complex logic as sql code, patching and re-patching queries is bad, very bad, making any new change one higher level of complexity and driving us away from a OO model, which I think we should tend to. It's not using PHP objects. It is thinking of nodes as 'objects' and coding according to it. Oh, yes, sorry, this is growing too long to write it here :-). But we could talk also about db portability... ------------------------------------------------------------------------ December 24, 2004 - 01:14 : moshe weitzman I should add that the Organic Groups module could benefit from this node listing SQL builder. I have awkwardly worked around the problem for now but I don't like it. I don't know if this patch is good or not, but I do lean toward the functionality that it offers. Remember that any developer is free not to use the query builder and issue direct SQL as needed. If the query builder is making life hard, simply don't use, just like today. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ December 24, 2004 - 10:35 : Bèr Kessels I +1 for this functionality (i have no time to comment on coding style etc). It will not only improve maintainability, but will allow a far easier implementation of the i18n. i18n currently has a lot of patches, simpley to add logic to all those node sql queries referred to. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ December 24, 2004 - 13:20 : chx Attachment: http://drupal.org/files/issues/node_builder_2.patch (1.63 KB) OK, maybe the former approach was too complex. How about this? This requires a lot less change to the queries and no change to database.inc and ten times faster. As usual, a sample query is rewritten and an example of the proposed hook is provided. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ December 25, 2004 - 00:09 : chx Final thoughts for this day. If you like the last version, there is a possibility to automate the whole thing by adding the following three lines to the beginning of db_prefix_tables: Of course, there is very small chance of a loop here, so this would require more thought, but I think at the end this would be a good thing. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ December 27, 2004 - 12:55 : Dries I like the second approach better as it keep things readable and gives me a bit more control over the order in which things are written. Looking for more feedback from the others. Did you try updating more queries to make sure it works as intended in all cases? ------------------------------------------------------------------------ December 27, 2004 - 19:48 : chx Attachment: http://drupal.org/files/issues/node_builder_3.patch (1.23 KB) Yes, I tried with many different queries. And I have found one bug -- forgot the underscore in the regexp following FORM so I have rewritten the whole regexp. It is now a lot simpler :) And node_query is now reentrant, so if a function in the process of hook_sql calls node_query, it won't fall into an infinite loop. This situation did not occur but it's better to forestall such things. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ December 28, 2004 - 05:48 : moshe weitzman This patch is a step forward. I thought of another feature which becomes easier with the proposed hook_sql(). think of filtering like freshmeat.net. At freshmeat, you can say that you only want to see projects where OS=Windows and License=GPL (for example). A Drupal equivalent is 'only show me nodes related to Democrats and Poverty'. This sort if global node filtering is very hard in Drupal today. With this hook, it becomes easy. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ December 28, 2004 - 12:37 : Dries It's starting to look good (and you're getting more support)! Have you read the following threads: http://lists.drupal.org/archives/drupal-devel/2004-11/msg00198.html and http://lists.drupal.org/archives/drupal-devel/2004-11/msg00230.html? It's an open issue related to your work. If you start joining tables, you might have to add DISTINCT()s. When you are not joining tables, it would be nice if we'd not pay the cost of a DISTINCT(). It would be good if you could update the node queries in core to take advantage of it. It's not necessary while prototyping though. It would be good if the il8n team could take a closer look at this patch by trying to use it. It would be good if you could add some PHPDoc. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ January 4, 2005 - 07:55 : chx Here is a sum of changes in this new revision: Following Dries' advice, I read those threads and now DISTINCT(nid) is used only if there is something joined. Whether the access_grants system is used or not, is determined at the module configuration screen, so for efficiency reasons, I have patched system.module. I the very first version of my patch (you know, with arrays) I passed on the whole query so hook_sql implementations could easily determine whether they are interested in this query or not. In a very cool brainstorming with Jose, we found out, that passing the whole query is not a good thing, hints are enough. So when I will patch the forum queries, I will define a NODE_SQL_FORUM hint, and a filter which does something cool with forums (I have heard something about private forums not implemented -- I maybe wrong here) may do so. We now have a separate helper function to call hook_sql which is cool, 'cos with it the last node_access_*_sql calls which were lurking in node_search could be elinimated. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ January 4, 2005 - 07:56 : chx Attachment: http://drupal.org/files/issues/central_node_query.patch (6.46 KB) Funny thing. Forgot to attach the patch. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ January 6, 2005 - 00:46 : chx Another day, another revision. As this patch now has nothing to do with queries, but it is about rewriting node SQL statements, I have renamed it node_rewrite_sql, the helper _node_rewrite_sql and there is hook_node_rewrite_sql. hook_node_rewrite_sql expected return value has changed: it can return an array('join'=> ..., 'where'=>..., 'distinct'=> ) so it may determine whether DISTINCT is needed or not. Neither index is mandatory. That hook_node_rewrite_sql impementations will decide whether they are asking for DISTINCT or not, is -- I think -- a good opportunity to optimize for speed. For eg. I doubt every node access mechanism requires DISTINCT. One last note: hook return value can be also can be a string with a WHERE statement for the sake of simplicity. node_rewrite_sql now works with multiline queries. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ January 6, 2005 - 00:46 : chx Attachment: http://drupal.org/files/issues/central_node_query_0.patch (7.43 KB) I can't believe I once again did not attach the patch ------------------------------------------------------------------------ January 6, 2005 - 17:22 : chx Attachment: http://drupal.org/files/issues/central_node_query_1.patch (6.65 KB) Moshe, thanks for your patience and wisdom. Extract is thrown out, list is used. node_node_rewrite_sql looks better now. access_grants_present is determined in run time, once per page. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ January 6, 2005 - 21:35 : Dries The hint-stuff looks a bit hairy to me. It would be nice if this could be avoided but I see what it is necessary. The semaphore stuff is vague too. I don't see how you'd be able to get into an endless loop. It might actually be useful to turn node_access_grants_present() into a more generic module.inc function. Maybe something along the lines of module_implements($hook), which would return a list of modules implementing the specified $hook. I suggest you update more core modules. If you do, I'll measure the performance gain against a copy of drupal.org's database. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ January 6, 2005 - 22:47 : chx Attachment: http://drupal.org/files/issues/node_rewrite_sql.patch (15.72 KB) The hint stuff is something is pretty useful: hook implementations can fine tune themselves when to fire and when not. Good for features and performance, too. module_implements is done. Semaphore -- we will have tons of node_rewrite_sql calls in the core. Now someone writes a hook_node_rewrite_sql implementation which calls a function which in turn calls another one which calls node_rewrite_sql . I would rather not be the one who debugs such a scenario. Thanks for the offer! forum.module is now patched. Others will follow tomorrow. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ January 6, 2005 - 23:21 : Jose A Reyero I think this looks good enough, so I'm starting to test and use this for i18n. If this get into the node module, I don't think I will need any node.module patch anymore... A pair of performance hints: - As this node_rewrite_sql is going to be called several times for each page, we can cache the list of modules implementing the hook in a static variable. - We can even cache the whole result for each 'hint' value, so the whole hook will only be called once or twice for each page. Some suggested 'hint' values to be defined: NODE_REWRITE_SQL_LIST -> This one for simple generic list of nodes for the main page, could be default. NODE_REWRITE_SQL_ADMIN_LIST -> List of nodes for administration pages NODE_REWRITE_SQL_RELATED_LIST -> List of objects related to nodes, but no nodes themselves -like comments-, node table may have to be joined... NODE_REWRITE_SQL_BLOCK_LIST -> Listing for a block NODE_REWRITE_SQL_NO_LANGUAGE -> No need to add language conditions. This could hapen when you need a listing for other languages, or mixed languages, for translators or for administrators.. I would need something like this last one for i18n, just to have the permissions working and some flexibility with language conditions. And also the one you already have in place ...._SEARCH. All this will allow for options like search, admin, list current/all languages... ------------------------------------------------------------------------ January 7, 2005 - 17:30 : Jose A Reyero Attachment: http://drupal.org/files/issues/central_node_query_node_module.patch (7.07 KB) I found some problems when using the patch. The where conditions are not merged well if there are more than once, and also conditions need some parenthesis around. So I replaced the $where and $join strings in _node_rewrite_sql by arrays which are imploded at the end. Also added some 'hint' definitions. Patches for i18n module are coming next. This works like charm for node listings, comment listings, searches, etc... Btw, I also think 'semaphores' are not really needed. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ January 7, 2005 - 19:04 : Dries I don't see how the hint system can be portable: are contributed modules supposed to define their own hits? ------------------------------------------------------------------------ January 7, 2005 - 22:54 : chx The hints -- I was in a hurry yesterday evening, so I have forgot to define a NODE_REWRITE_SQL_FORUM in the forum.module patch and also forgot to use the hints. So I think core node types will have their hint defined. I have a vague idea about how contrib modules could define their own hint type: we shall have a NODE_REWRITE_SQL_HINT_MAX, and every hint define should like this -- beware this is not working! This is just an idea. Well, if defines does not work, maybe a global node_rewrite_sql_hints array should be introduced...? ------------------------------------------------------------------------ January 8, 2005 - 09:54 : chx Attachment: http://drupal.org/files/issues/node_rewrite_sql_0.patch (16.69 KB) Here is a list of changes: Complete rethought of hint system. Uses array of strings instead of defines. There are a number of examples. the new comment.module patch shows a good usage example for the third parameter of node_rewrite_sql which is at the moment called node_alias. It's really not a good name, it should be "the alias of the table which holds the nid field for this query". BTW. there should be an index on comment.nid. Incorporated Jose's "replaced the $where and $join strings in _node_rewrite_sql by arrays which are imploded at the end". I was a fool to lose these, the first version (which used array) used a proper implode for WHEREs. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ January 8, 2005 - 11:27 : Dries I have two fundamental problems with it this patch: The loop detection mechanism has to go. The hints are difficult to understand and I'm not convinced they are good/needed. Does the patch contain a good example of a node_rewrite_sql function/hook that uses these hints? I can't find one. I won't like these hints until I'm convinced they are needed and that they represent the best possible solution. Convince me. Could you extend the documentation about the hint-system? Currently it reads "An array of hint strings about the query, passed on to hook_sql handlers.". Clearly, that doesn't help me at all. The documentation should answer the following questions: (1) what are the hints for, (2) when should I use them (or not use them) and (3) what does hints look like (what is their format/syntax)? Note that I can't compare performance unless more queries have been updated. Thanks chx. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ January 8, 2005 - 11:30 : Dries Why does the hints in the comment module include 'related_list'. This is confusing. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ January 8, 2005 - 12:52 : Jose A Reyero Well, it seems we have different views about the 'hints'. At this point, the node_rewrite has two main uses: permissions and language conditions (i18n). I don't know whether they could have any use for permission system, but for i18n, some extra information about the rewritten queries will be needed: - Most of the queries will just select fields in the node table. Here, only a where condition is needed, but language condition may be added or not depending on the kind of query: _LIST would be a list for the main page, so only in this case, decissions can be made depending on the path. For some pages, you may want a list of nodes for all languages and for some others, only current language. _ADMIN_LIST is a list of nodes for administration. An option will be added in i18n for 'administering all languages together' or 'administer each language separately', or even a language field could be added in the search form. So language conditions will be merged diferently _BLOCK_LIST is a list of nodes for blocks. I'm thinking here of a global option like 'show mixed languages in blocks'. Anyway, this is a list for a block and you cannot have any logic depending on path here. _SEARCH, would be only for searching, and in this case you may decide to search 'all languages' or only the current one. This can be a global option or some extra field in search form. When doing text searches, searching all languages together will make a lot of sense, but also restricting search by language. About _RELATED_LIST, this is the case of comments, is a list of objects which are not nodes themselves, but related objects in a different table. Here, the node table itself may have to be joined as it is not yet in the query. When dealing with the translation system, the language conditions will be added or not by the module requesting the query itself, so no further language conditions will be needed. Queries will have to be run anyway through 'node_rewrite_sql' to have permissions in place. That's what the _NO_LANGUAGE hint is about. So this is my proposed use for the 'hint' thing, though maybe the hints themselves could be better defined or elaborated, but this is the main idea. I mean no specific hints for modules but generic ones for 'kind of listing' you are requesting. Maybe for the permission system, it could be also some use, as you could decide you want to show a list of objects to anyone, but deny access to the objects themselves, something like 'subscribe or register if you want to read the article'. So permissions here will apply differently depending on what you are doing. We can think also about more creative use of permissions like 'you can read latest articles' but old ones will be available only for selected people, or the opposite 'only old content available for everybody'. Or even 'you can read articles but not comments'. This kind of permissions would need also some 'hints'. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ January 8, 2005 - 13:17 : chx Attachment: http://drupal.org/files/issues/node_rewrite_sql_1.patch (26.89 KB) More queries rewritten. Loop detection gone. Will gather my thoughts on hint system later, but I do hope this amount of queries will be enough for a performance measurement. Now only blogapi, blog, book calls node_access_*_sql, all others are done. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ January 8, 2005 - 13:20 : chx Attachment: http://drupal.org/files/issues/node_rewrite_sql_2.patch (26.88 KB) Forgot to save taxonomy.module before rolling the patch, so a DISTINCT remained :( ------------------------------------------------------------------------ January 8, 2005 - 13:38 : chx I see Jose has written a lot about hints, thanks! "Well, it seems we have different views about the 'hints'." -- "we" probably means Dries vs. "Jose and I" 'cos I agree with Jose, but I see some more uses, namely what I have said before on making a filter on forums. If you want to that, you need to know which queries are coming from the forum.module. What shall we do? Pass on the whole query, and let the filter proccess the query to decide whether now it is the forum block it hunts for? I doubt. Let's give it a hint it's a forum and a block query. Some kind of extensionable hint mechanism is necessary, 'cos what about a contrib module which filters another contrib node, say flexinode? ------------------------------------------------------------------------ January 9, 2005 - 15:05 : Dries Could we drop the hint system if we'd choose not to support the il8n module for now? ------------------------------------------------------------------------ January 9, 2005 - 16:54 : Jose A Reyero :-( Ok, let's try to think positively. Could we at least pass the query along so i18n -or whatever module tries to implement this hook- could support itself? ------------------------------------------------------------------------ January 9, 2005 - 18:32 : chx Well, passing along the query would mean no problems, but I wonder whether a better documented hint system would be better? I had no problems with letting the loop detection system go it was just a safety belt for some distant future possibility. But the hint system is -- in my point -- is needed. So, here are the valid hint strings: node, forum, comment etc.name of the module from the query originates, like forum, comment, flexinode etc. genericthis would be be for generic listings, like node_default_page, forum_get_forums etc. relatednode table is not joined so if you want to use other fields from node table than nid you shall join node table yourself. However, if you have your table which is like JOIN {mytable} ON mt.nid=$nid_alias.nid that's fine. adminsomething meant only for administrators. blocknodes in a block searchsomething to do with a search ------------------------------------------------------------------------ January 9, 2005 - 18:36 : chx Attachment: http://drupal.org/files/issues/node_rewrite_sql_3.patch (28.31 KB) Killes said I did not had -F^f in the last version. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ January 9, 2005 - 22:37 : chx Attachment: http://drupal.org/files/issues/node_rewrite_sql_4.patch (28.77 KB) Automatic version as discussed and args for Killes. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ January 9, 2005 - 22:55 : chx Attachment: http://drupal.org/files/issues/node_rewrite_sql_5.patch (28.31 KB) Hm. It seems we have agreed on no automatization. However, arbitrary arguments are kept for Killes. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ January 10, 2005 - 21:02 : Dries The last version of this patch improved the performance of my test site's main page by 257%. That is, my machine can serve 2.57 times as much pages in the same time interval. Out of curiousity, I investigated this some more and it turns out this can be tracked down to the useless DISTINCT's which this patch removes. Unless someone objects to this patch or the approach taken, I'm going to commit this shortly. Please review this patch carefully as it marks an important change. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ January 10, 2005 - 22:39 : chx Attachment: http://drupal.org/files/issues/node_rewrite_sql_6.patch (44.18 KB) More DISTINCTs cleared, now there are no more node_access_*_sql calls in the core modules. This may be a final version. Or we can find a few more to rewrite. I've searched for {node} selects, dropped those which had nid = %d as I thought those do not need rewrite (I may be wrong) and dropped also those that are rewritten, dropped those that are indexing or cron. Here are the remaining queries, which may need rewriting: ------------------------------------------------------------------------ January 10, 2005 - 23:02 : Chris Johnson This patch seems like both a Good Thing and a Bad Thing to me. The idea of centralizing node queries is a good one, I think. It seems to be the original motivation for this patch. It allows better SQL optmization and hence performance. It puts all the code in one place for better future maintenance and enhancement. On the other hand, constructing complex SQL statements from programmatic logic is full of peril. The task quickly becomes very large and complex. Manipulating the SQL language elements via code means it is harder to see when one has made a syntactic mistake. Most such errors will be fatal. As the SQL construction code becomes more complex with development, the number of paths through it become huge and impossible to exhaustively test. Some day, someone will pass parameters that cause fatal SQL syntax to be generated in a "production" system. It also obscures SQL syntax differences between supported databases. It's more likely to introduce usage that works with MySQL but fails with Postgres. I've long been in favor of unifying and centralizing all of the database access in Drupal, to the greatest extent which does not adversely affect performance. So in this way, I think this patch is a big step in that general direction. But I've also been involved in maintaining a search engine which used this technique to create the SQL statements on the fly. It became extremely complex over time as one, then two, then three, etc. new possibilities were added (e.g. new usage, new search criteria). The more complex it became, the more regression errors we had and the harder to debug it became. It got to the point where making one small addition would result in 3 new bugs. It worked most of the time, and when it worked, it was fast. But it failed fatally in a significant number of ways. I'm not sure whether to vote +3 or -4 on this one. It might be good; it might be terrible. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ January 10, 2005 - 23:19 : chx Attachment: http://drupal.org/files/issues/node_rewrite_sql_7.patch (44.18 KB) Chris, I understand your concerns, but this method -- unlike the original -- tries to keep things as simple as possible. You can only JOIN tables and add WHERE conditions. We are not creating complex SQL on the fly, I tried that originally, just read comment #1 for the warm welcome by Dries: "I'm not likely to commit this". So do not worry, while I may be a little hotheaded, Dries keeps order with an iron hand. And the actual rewrite mechanism is also very simple. Ps. Two typos corrected in this version. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ January 13, 2005 - 23:20 : Dries I'm going to test and benchmark the latest version of this patch over the weekend. If all goes well, I'll commit this to HEAD as no concrete alternatives have been proposed. (I can't think of a better approach and believe that this patch does a good job balancing different values/requirements.) It would be much appreciated if those who maintain node-level permission modules could take a look at this patch to evaluate its usefulness/performance. If you maintain a module that queries the node table you might want to look at this as well -- after all, you'll have to update your module if this hits core. (Note that the PHPdoc code in the patch is not up-to-date.) ------------------------------------------------------------------------ January 14, 2005 - 13:47 : chx Attachment: http://drupal.org/files/issues/node_rewrite_sql_8.patch (43.97 KB) PHPdoc is upgraded, I hope now it is up to date. -- View: http://drupal.org/node/14731 Edit: http://drupal.org/project/comments/add/14731

1 0

[drupal-devel] [feature] Node type filter on node admin page
by Steven 15 Jan '05

15 Jan '05

Project: Drupal Version: cvs Component: node.module Category: feature requests Priority: normal Assigned to: Steven Reported by: Anonymous Updated by: Steven Status: patch Attachment: http://drupal.org/files/issues/node admin.png (30.19 KB) Steven Previous comments: ------------------------------------------------------------------------ August 23, 2004 - 17:09 : Anonymous Attachment: http://drupal.org/files/issues/node_admin_filter.patch (3.8 KB) Here's a patch for the current CVS version which adds the option to filter nodes by type on the node admin page. Having built a few sites recently which make heavy use of flexinodes, the ability to filter out particular node types would have been extremely useful, so I hope this makes it to 4.5.0. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ August 23, 2004 - 21:06 : leafish_dylan This would be a great feature. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ August 23, 2004 - 21:06 : leafish_dylan This would be a great feature. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ September 4, 2004 - 00:38 : Bèr Kessels I think we should really come up with a good solution for this screen. In the past, I went looking for such a solution and found that the various MP3 library tools might come to help. They deal with large amounts of metadata, some of wch are important, other are not. I summarise here what the UI could be like: ** The menu-based (tree) approach: Most mp3 collections use this idea. In a tree like structure on the side, you can make selections. The list in the main area will follow this selection. (Itunes: http://www.apple.com/itunes/playlists.html , Juk: http://developer.kde.org/~wheeler/images/juk-2.0/juk-2.png, finf/freeamp: http://www.zinf.org/images/zinf_mymusic_shot.png) In drupal that would mean a menu-based filtering method. I once made a patch for that, but that was rejected: http://drupal.org/node/view/7766 The good thing here, is that it is virtually endless scalable. So in theory, flexinode coud add menu items to show only nodes where foo is bar. | - nodetype | |- blog | |= Flexinode | | |=foo | | | |=bar | |- page ** The multiple selectlist UI: Another moethod is a extended method of what we have now: select items from select boxes and press submit. Above the main area one will find some selection UI where one can in- and exlude sertain criteria. (rhythmbox: http://www.rhythmbox.org/screenshots/Screenshot-Rhythmbox.png, and winamp http://www.winamp.com/player/walkthrough.php) Note that both still show some form of tree navigation. In drupal that would mean multiple selects in three columns (rhytmbox and winamp show only two artist and album) For drupal we need three of thos blocks: one for node-types, one for node-settings (promoted, etc) and one for taxonomy terms. The node settings should be logical too: If a criteria is selected it it true, if not: false. That way we can also get rod of the annoying logic: "view posts that are not promoted" and the likes. In both solutions the "perform batch action" needs to move somewhere else. I would plead for moving it to the bottom of the list. A lot of webmail cleints do it that way. The reason being simple: the steps you take to perform the update are: 1) select criteria (find nodes) 2) checkmark the chages (we need columns of checkboxes) 3) perform the update. Logically the way you go through the UI is left->right, top-> down (not taking into consideration japanese/hebrew/arabs etc) So all in all: i think indeed the UI needs serious work. I am willing to take this one me, bu I do need some consensus first. I am not willing to spend hours on a new UI (like the menu-based approach) to find the patch being rejected.Therefore I like some discussion up fron, rather than the " code first see later" approach. Regards, Ber ------------------------------------------------------------------------ September 5, 2004 - 23:42 : Bèr Kessels Attachment: http://drupal.org/files/issues/new_UI_proposal.png (175.31 KB) Here is a gimped mockup from what option 2) could look like. WE could add a fouth box with users too, but I am not sure how that would go with permissions and the like. I need to do some thinking about selecatibility by users first. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ September 6, 2004 - 00:01 : Bèr Kessels Sorry for the spam: but I forgot to mention that there are a few issues: The "perform action dropdown" should list stuff as: promote, demote, etc. But that list needs to be generated with the selection above in mind. So if you choose " published" the action list should not have "publish these nodes" Also the action list could contain "recategorise" wich would need another screen after the one in the "ugly screendump-gimp-mockup", to be able to choose the categories in wich the selection should be placed. And of course the delete these items with a confimation dialog. (http://drupal.org/node/view/7743#comment-11624) ------------------------------------------------------------------------ September 6, 2004 - 14:32 : Bèr Kessels Attachment: http://drupal.org/files/issues/node_admin.html (29.95 KB) After a long discussion with Steven And gerhard, I designed the page in HTML, to let you all try it in some way. Beware: the html is an ugly mock, It is meant as scetch, not as valid html. Some notes on the page: "View all nodes that are:" contains three differnet possibilities for searching. The first two (above the blank line) are there for simplicity, but they might confuse users, because they need a lot of text. The second idea uses a checkbox to enable the select next to it. The third one uses some ajvascript to improve useablity. We should of course choose one of these three methods. "View all nodes that are classified in:" There are quite some people that have questions with whether or not we should include this selection aat all. Here is why I think it should definately go Because most sites have only one purpose and thus a lot of nodes of one type in one state. For example a personal blog site: 99% of the nodes are blogs. 99% are promoted. Only 1 or 2 are not promoted, not published or of type page. Or take a photo-album-site. All posts will be images, the main difference is the classification (the galleries) I placed them in. "any/all" There must be a way to choose whether the sected options should be an AND or an OR. I tried three different methods, each block has one method. We should choose one. Please give me feedback, for I still have to decide whether or not to make this a contributed module or start lobby-ing to get it in core. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ September 13, 2004 - 11:50 : moshe weitzman looking good, and really useful. a few small comments: - consider upping the number of nodes that appear on this page. it is nearly pointless to use paging on this sort of UI - i like the second idea of an 'enabled' checkbox, without the javascript. i think you can use 2 checkboxes, where the second one is called 'publish', 'promote', and 'has comments' - I prefer the horizontal configuration of the 'Require: all any' radio buttons - don't repeat 'the selected posts' in the choices for the bottom dropdown. perhaps use a title for that form_select() instead. - the last choice in that dropdown is 'reclassify'. i don't see how this screen could support that. instead, use my taxonomy_multi_edit.module from contrib :) i suggest making this a contrib module at first. it can be a tab off of the current page. thats how taxonomy_multi_edit.module appears. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ September 13, 2004 - 13:03 : Bèr Kessels About that reclassify: That was exactly my intention: using the taxonomy_muliti_edit module for that. All I wanted to do is pass a list of nids to your module and open a screen using that module with the previously selected nodes! About the other comments: Yes upping the number of nodes might be a good idea. Anyone any idea what number would still be usefull. 10.000 nodes (on drupal.org) in one list is not a good idea, IMO, so some paging is needed. indeed: repeatinf words in dropdowns is considered "bad UI design" thank you for pointing it out. Regards, Ber ------------------------------------------------------------------------ September 28, 2004 - 13:37 : eafarris Attachment: http://drupal.org/files/issues/admin_node_filter_by_type.patch (1.96 KB) here is an updated version of this patch, syncing it with CVS HEAD. Also, i did change the functionality somewhat: previous versions of the patch asked the modules what node types were out there (via hook_node_name()). This version asks the node table what types are in there (via SELECT DISTINCT type FROM {node}). I find this more useful, because it's entirely possible that, over time, modules will be removed from the system, yet they still have rows in the node table. This method gives a more accurate view of the types of nodes on the system. The new UI looks excellent, but this patch does not address it. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ September 28, 2004 - 19:05 : drumm -1 I applied and tested and it did not work at all for me. The type options selection only contains 's' and 'W', selecting one does not work. The list of types seems to come from the DB which is probably an unnecessary query. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ September 29, 2004 - 12:51 : eafarris Attachment: http://drupal.org/files/issues/admin_node_filter_by_type_1.patch (2.31 KB) Here's a version of that patch that should work. Sorry. I think that getting the types from the node table is necessary. The list of installed nodes is not the authority on what types of nodes are in the db; we should ask the db directly. It's a small query on one admin page; the result is that the dropdown has in it the most accurate information available. That's worth it, imo. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ September 29, 2004 - 12:52 : eafarris s/list of installed nodes/list of installed modules/ . sheesh. teach me to post before my tea. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ October 21, 2004 - 18:15 : Bèr Kessels Attachment: http://drupal.org/files/issues/node.html (29.33 KB) I do not know where it weant, but my proposal had a HTML mockup. Attaching it here to see what i meant. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ October 23, 2004 - 13:14 : com2 Nice filter options, but what I really miss it the possibility to select all checkboxes. Really boring job when you have to click the whole list one by one. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ October 24, 2004 - 10:41 : Bèr Kessels I am not a big fan of those options in forms. They more often break things than that thy fix them. Rahter use a bookmarklet r so for that: http://www.squarefree.com/bookmarklets/forms.html Ber ------------------------------------------------------------------------ October 25, 2004 - 01:03 : Steven Attachment: http://drupal.org/files/issues/node_admin_ucd.html (29.83 KB) Based on some more IRC discussion, I came up with this (attachment). It is based on an earlier mockup. It does use Javascript and doesn't degrade without script (yet), but I think it's worth considering. It can be implemented quite cleanly. The idea would be to have a filter like this initially, and after clicking 'Go', to show the current filter as well as the form again, allowing you to refine your search. I haven't tested browser compatibility, but it should work on most browsers. The only ones I know for sure won't work are IE4 and NS4, which are old enough to ignore IMO: after all, this is admin only, and we can put some stricter browser requirements on that. Recent versions of other browsers should work (it only does a simple visibility toggle). I like it because it's not an airplane cockpit, but still offers complex filtering options through refinement. It is also quite similar to the search/filtering UI in e.g. mail applications. The question is of course, how to degrade it for people without Javascript. My suggestion would be to simply show all filter options, and put a radiobutton in front of each: ( ) Where type is [ blog | v ] ( ) Where published status is ( ) published ( ) unpublished ( ) Where category is [ term1 | v ] ... It has more visual clutter, but the same principle of use. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ October 25, 2004 - 01:13 : Steven In fact, I just realized that the radio-button version can be coded to send exactly the same form data as the scripted version, which makes it more interesting. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ October 29, 2004 - 00:52 : Steven If you guys approve of my idea, I'll start coding. Assigning to myself for now. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ November 1, 2004 - 17:35 : Bèr Kessels I like this idea much more than my previous approaches. Gave it some thought and came with the follwing behaviour: * I think we need to discuss or at least design the tabular data too: It makes 0 sense to show the "types" column, if you chose "type = image" * I think we need to introduce a hook to add info to that tabulat view. Images can output thumbnails, for example * In tabular view, we should make: title a textfield, type and author a select and satus a select too. * I think we should introduce another range of options: "where content contains" [ ] and "where title contains" [ ] * I would like to get some feedback on how many drupal-using people are firmly against javascript, with a reason why. I bet that this is < 1% ! Bèr ------------------------------------------------------------------------ November 1, 2004 - 17:42 : Steven We don't have an anti-JS policy in Drupal. It's just that until recently, doing cross browser JS was a chore and making it accessible and degradable would be a disaster. This form can be implemented cleanly and will degrade without problems. Anyone who opposes it because it is JS can bugger off ;). ------------------------------------------------------------------------ November 3, 2004 - 19:24 : com2 There is a more radical way around JS. You could forget the table idea alltogether and present the nodes in Listbox. Then selecting becomes much easier with Ctrl-Click and Shift-Click ------------------------------------------------------------------------ November 4, 2004 - 00:02 : Bèr Kessels Did you have a look at the previous applied UI improvements? Did you consider the pre's and cons of those earlier posts? It seams you are repeating passed issues here, please reply with miore detailed issues here, Bèr ------------------------------------------------------------------------ December 3, 2004 - 10:49 : Steven Attachment: http://drupal.org/files/issues/node-admin.patch (13.1 KB) Here's a patch which implements the JS approach of refining the selection. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ December 3, 2004 - 10:50 : Steven Attachment: http://drupal.org/files/issues/node_admin.png (34.38 KB) And here's a screenshot of how it looks. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ December 3, 2004 - 19:23 : FactoryJoe(a)civicspacelabs.org This is looking better and better. I'm going to do a UI review of this a post any additional thoughts or comments. Chris ------------------------------------------------------------------------ December 3, 2004 - 21:50 : Anonymous Ack, I tested this using the bluebeach theme, but there's a small CSS bug with bluemarine, where the header for the operations form is stuck to the right of the filter form. I'll make an updated patch later. In the meantime, comments are much appreciated. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ December 3, 2004 - 23:15 : killes(a)www.drop.org I actually prefer the non-JS menu over the JS menu. Not (only) because of the JS but because I prefer radiobuttons over pulldown menus. The argument that the non-JS approach uses more vertical space can be mitigated by redirecting to a #results anchor. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ January 15, 2005 - 06:32 : Steven Attachment: http://drupal.org/files/issues/node.admin.patch (14.41 KB) Here's an updated patch... I have exams in a week, so I don't have time to finish up the Javascript version, so I removed it (it can be added later easily). However, the non-JS version is still very usable. Changes since last time: - Uses semantic XHTML (definition list, and yes, they are for more than just definitions, even w3c agrees). - Merges the various node flags (promoted, published, ...) into one "status" dropdown. This keeps the whole selector shorter, and is better UI-wise IMO. - Adds drupal_gotos, they were missing. - Updates node admin watchog messages to properly display the type. The code used t($node->type) which is a big no-no. hook_node_name() is now invoked instead. - Removes some dead code. - I rolled Ber's node mass deletion patch in as it affects the same piece of code. Updating either patch for the other separately would be a waste of time. I also added some more improvements to Bèr's code, such as removing the incorrect help from the confirmation page, cleaning up the code style a bit, not loading every node just to display its title and displaying a single drupal_set_message() after the deleting rather than one per node. The old issue is here: http://drupal.org/node/7743 -- View: http://drupal.org/node/10296 Edit: http://drupal.org/project/comments/add/10296

1 0

[drupal-devel] [feature] Node type filter on node admin page
by Steven 15 Jan '05

15 Jan '05

Project: Drupal Version: cvs Component: node.module Category: feature requests Priority: normal Assigned to: Steven Reported by: Anonymous Updated by: Steven Status: patch Attachment: http://drupal.org/files/issues/node.admin.patch (14.41 KB) Here's an updated patch... I have exams in a week, so I don't have time to finish up the Javascript version, so I removed it (it can be added later easily). However, the non-JS version is still very usable. Changes since last time: - Uses semantic XHTML (definition list, and yes, they are for more than just definitions, even w3c agrees). - Merges the various node flags (promoted, published, ...) into one "status" dropdown. This keeps the whole selector shorter, and is better UI-wise IMO. - Adds drupal_gotos, they were missing. - Updates node admin watchog messages to properly display the type. The code used t($node->type) which is a big no-no. hook_node_name() is now invoked instead. - Removes some dead code. - I rolled Ber's node mass deletion patch in as it affects the same piece of code. Updating either patch for the other separately would be a waste of time. I also added some more improvements to Bèr's code, such as removing the incorrect help from the confirmation page, cleaning up the code style a bit, not loading every node just to display its title and displaying a single drupal_set_message() after the deleting rather than one per node. The old issue is here: http://drupal.org/node/7743 Steven Previous comments: ------------------------------------------------------------------------ August 23, 2004 - 17:09 : Anonymous Attachment: http://drupal.org/files/issues/node_admin_filter.patch (3.8 KB) Here's a patch for the current CVS version which adds the option to filter nodes by type on the node admin page. Having built a few sites recently which make heavy use of flexinodes, the ability to filter out particular node types would have been extremely useful, so I hope this makes it to 4.5.0. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ August 23, 2004 - 21:06 : leafish_dylan This would be a great feature. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ August 23, 2004 - 21:06 : leafish_dylan This would be a great feature. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ September 4, 2004 - 00:38 : Bèr Kessels I think we should really come up with a good solution for this screen. In the past, I went looking for such a solution and found that the various MP3 library tools might come to help. They deal with large amounts of metadata, some of wch are important, other are not. I summarise here what the UI could be like: ** The menu-based (tree) approach: Most mp3 collections use this idea. In a tree like structure on the side, you can make selections. The list in the main area will follow this selection. (Itunes: http://www.apple.com/itunes/playlists.html , Juk: http://developer.kde.org/~wheeler/images/juk-2.0/juk-2.png, finf/freeamp: http://www.zinf.org/images/zinf_mymusic_shot.png) In drupal that would mean a menu-based filtering method. I once made a patch for that, but that was rejected: http://drupal.org/node/view/7766 The good thing here, is that it is virtually endless scalable. So in theory, flexinode coud add menu items to show only nodes where foo is bar. | - nodetype | |- blog | |= Flexinode | | |=foo | | | |=bar | |- page ** The multiple selectlist UI: Another moethod is a extended method of what we have now: select items from select boxes and press submit. Above the main area one will find some selection UI where one can in- and exlude sertain criteria. (rhythmbox: http://www.rhythmbox.org/screenshots/Screenshot-Rhythmbox.png, and winamp http://www.winamp.com/player/walkthrough.php) Note that both still show some form of tree navigation. In drupal that would mean multiple selects in three columns (rhytmbox and winamp show only two artist and album) For drupal we need three of thos blocks: one for node-types, one for node-settings (promoted, etc) and one for taxonomy terms. The node settings should be logical too: If a criteria is selected it it true, if not: false. That way we can also get rod of the annoying logic: "view posts that are not promoted" and the likes. In both solutions the "perform batch action" needs to move somewhere else. I would plead for moving it to the bottom of the list. A lot of webmail cleints do it that way. The reason being simple: the steps you take to perform the update are: 1) select criteria (find nodes) 2) checkmark the chages (we need columns of checkboxes) 3) perform the update. Logically the way you go through the UI is left->right, top-> down (not taking into consideration japanese/hebrew/arabs etc) So all in all: i think indeed the UI needs serious work. I am willing to take this one me, bu I do need some consensus first. I am not willing to spend hours on a new UI (like the menu-based approach) to find the patch being rejected.Therefore I like some discussion up fron, rather than the " code first see later" approach. Regards, Ber ------------------------------------------------------------------------ September 5, 2004 - 23:42 : Bèr Kessels Attachment: http://drupal.org/files/issues/new_UI_proposal.png (175.31 KB) Here is a gimped mockup from what option 2) could look like. WE could add a fouth box with users too, but I am not sure how that would go with permissions and the like. I need to do some thinking about selecatibility by users first. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ September 6, 2004 - 00:01 : Bèr Kessels Sorry for the spam: but I forgot to mention that there are a few issues: The "perform action dropdown" should list stuff as: promote, demote, etc. But that list needs to be generated with the selection above in mind. So if you choose " published" the action list should not have "publish these nodes" Also the action list could contain "recategorise" wich would need another screen after the one in the "ugly screendump-gimp-mockup", to be able to choose the categories in wich the selection should be placed. And of course the delete these items with a confimation dialog. (http://drupal.org/node/view/7743#comment-11624) ------------------------------------------------------------------------ September 6, 2004 - 14:32 : Bèr Kessels Attachment: http://drupal.org/files/issues/node_admin.html (29.95 KB) After a long discussion with Steven And gerhard, I designed the page in HTML, to let you all try it in some way. Beware: the html is an ugly mock, It is meant as scetch, not as valid html. Some notes on the page: "View all nodes that are:" contains three differnet possibilities for searching. The first two (above the blank line) are there for simplicity, but they might confuse users, because they need a lot of text. The second idea uses a checkbox to enable the select next to it. The third one uses some ajvascript to improve useablity. We should of course choose one of these three methods. "View all nodes that are classified in:" There are quite some people that have questions with whether or not we should include this selection aat all. Here is why I think it should definately go Because most sites have only one purpose and thus a lot of nodes of one type in one state. For example a personal blog site: 99% of the nodes are blogs. 99% are promoted. Only 1 or 2 are not promoted, not published or of type page. Or take a photo-album-site. All posts will be images, the main difference is the classification (the galleries) I placed them in. "any/all" There must be a way to choose whether the sected options should be an AND or an OR. I tried three different methods, each block has one method. We should choose one. Please give me feedback, for I still have to decide whether or not to make this a contributed module or start lobby-ing to get it in core. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ September 13, 2004 - 11:50 : moshe weitzman looking good, and really useful. a few small comments: - consider upping the number of nodes that appear on this page. it is nearly pointless to use paging on this sort of UI - i like the second idea of an 'enabled' checkbox, without the javascript. i think you can use 2 checkboxes, where the second one is called 'publish', 'promote', and 'has comments' - I prefer the horizontal configuration of the 'Require: all any' radio buttons - don't repeat 'the selected posts' in the choices for the bottom dropdown. perhaps use a title for that form_select() instead. - the last choice in that dropdown is 'reclassify'. i don't see how this screen could support that. instead, use my taxonomy_multi_edit.module from contrib :) i suggest making this a contrib module at first. it can be a tab off of the current page. thats how taxonomy_multi_edit.module appears. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ September 13, 2004 - 13:03 : Bèr Kessels About that reclassify: That was exactly my intention: using the taxonomy_muliti_edit module for that. All I wanted to do is pass a list of nids to your module and open a screen using that module with the previously selected nodes! About the other comments: Yes upping the number of nodes might be a good idea. Anyone any idea what number would still be usefull. 10.000 nodes (on drupal.org) in one list is not a good idea, IMO, so some paging is needed. indeed: repeatinf words in dropdowns is considered "bad UI design" thank you for pointing it out. Regards, Ber ------------------------------------------------------------------------ September 28, 2004 - 13:37 : eafarris Attachment: http://drupal.org/files/issues/admin_node_filter_by_type.patch (1.96 KB) here is an updated version of this patch, syncing it with CVS HEAD. Also, i did change the functionality somewhat: previous versions of the patch asked the modules what node types were out there (via hook_node_name()). This version asks the node table what types are in there (via SELECT DISTINCT type FROM {node}). I find this more useful, because it's entirely possible that, over time, modules will be removed from the system, yet they still have rows in the node table. This method gives a more accurate view of the types of nodes on the system. The new UI looks excellent, but this patch does not address it. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ September 28, 2004 - 19:05 : drumm -1 I applied and tested and it did not work at all for me. The type options selection only contains 's' and 'W', selecting one does not work. The list of types seems to come from the DB which is probably an unnecessary query. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ September 29, 2004 - 12:51 : eafarris Attachment: http://drupal.org/files/issues/admin_node_filter_by_type_1.patch (2.31 KB) Here's a version of that patch that should work. Sorry. I think that getting the types from the node table is necessary. The list of installed nodes is not the authority on what types of nodes are in the db; we should ask the db directly. It's a small query on one admin page; the result is that the dropdown has in it the most accurate information available. That's worth it, imo. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ September 29, 2004 - 12:52 : eafarris s/list of installed nodes/list of installed modules/ . sheesh. teach me to post before my tea. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ October 21, 2004 - 18:15 : Bèr Kessels Attachment: http://drupal.org/files/issues/node.html (29.33 KB) I do not know where it weant, but my proposal had a HTML mockup. Attaching it here to see what i meant. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ October 23, 2004 - 13:14 : com2 Nice filter options, but what I really miss it the possibility to select all checkboxes. Really boring job when you have to click the whole list one by one. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ October 24, 2004 - 10:41 : Bèr Kessels I am not a big fan of those options in forms. They more often break things than that thy fix them. Rahter use a bookmarklet r so for that: http://www.squarefree.com/bookmarklets/forms.html Ber ------------------------------------------------------------------------ October 25, 2004 - 01:03 : Steven Attachment: http://drupal.org/files/issues/node_admin_ucd.html (29.83 KB) Based on some more IRC discussion, I came up with this (attachment). It is based on an earlier mockup. It does use Javascript and doesn't degrade without script (yet), but I think it's worth considering. It can be implemented quite cleanly. The idea would be to have a filter like this initially, and after clicking 'Go', to show the current filter as well as the form again, allowing you to refine your search. I haven't tested browser compatibility, but it should work on most browsers. The only ones I know for sure won't work are IE4 and NS4, which are old enough to ignore IMO: after all, this is admin only, and we can put some stricter browser requirements on that. Recent versions of other browsers should work (it only does a simple visibility toggle). I like it because it's not an airplane cockpit, but still offers complex filtering options through refinement. It is also quite similar to the search/filtering UI in e.g. mail applications. The question is of course, how to degrade it for people without Javascript. My suggestion would be to simply show all filter options, and put a radiobutton in front of each: ( ) Where type is [ blog | v ] ( ) Where published status is ( ) published ( ) unpublished ( ) Where category is [ term1 | v ] ... It has more visual clutter, but the same principle of use. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ October 25, 2004 - 01:13 : Steven In fact, I just realized that the radio-button version can be coded to send exactly the same form data as the scripted version, which makes it more interesting. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ October 29, 2004 - 00:52 : Steven If you guys approve of my idea, I'll start coding. Assigning to myself for now. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ November 1, 2004 - 17:35 : Bèr Kessels I like this idea much more than my previous approaches. Gave it some thought and came with the follwing behaviour: * I think we need to discuss or at least design the tabular data too: It makes 0 sense to show the "types" column, if you chose "type = image" * I think we need to introduce a hook to add info to that tabulat view. Images can output thumbnails, for example * In tabular view, we should make: title a textfield, type and author a select and satus a select too. * I think we should introduce another range of options: "where content contains" [ ] and "where title contains" [ ] * I would like to get some feedback on how many drupal-using people are firmly against javascript, with a reason why. I bet that this is < 1% ! Bèr ------------------------------------------------------------------------ November 1, 2004 - 17:42 : Steven We don't have an anti-JS policy in Drupal. It's just that until recently, doing cross browser JS was a chore and making it accessible and degradable would be a disaster. This form can be implemented cleanly and will degrade without problems. Anyone who opposes it because it is JS can bugger off ;). ------------------------------------------------------------------------ November 3, 2004 - 19:24 : com2 There is a more radical way around JS. You could forget the table idea alltogether and present the nodes in Listbox. Then selecting becomes much easier with Ctrl-Click and Shift-Click ------------------------------------------------------------------------ November 4, 2004 - 00:02 : Bèr Kessels Did you have a look at the previous applied UI improvements? Did you consider the pre's and cons of those earlier posts? It seams you are repeating passed issues here, please reply with miore detailed issues here, Bèr ------------------------------------------------------------------------ December 3, 2004 - 10:49 : Steven Attachment: http://drupal.org/files/issues/node-admin.patch (13.1 KB) Here's a patch which implements the JS approach of refining the selection. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ December 3, 2004 - 10:50 : Steven Attachment: http://drupal.org/files/issues/node_admin.png (34.38 KB) And here's a screenshot of how it looks. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ December 3, 2004 - 19:23 : FactoryJoe(a)civicspacelabs.org This is looking better and better. I'm going to do a UI review of this a post any additional thoughts or comments. Chris ------------------------------------------------------------------------ December 3, 2004 - 21:50 : Anonymous Ack, I tested this using the bluebeach theme, but there's a small CSS bug with bluemarine, where the header for the operations form is stuck to the right of the filter form. I'll make an updated patch later. In the meantime, comments are much appreciated. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ December 3, 2004 - 23:15 : killes(a)www.drop.org I actually prefer the non-JS menu over the JS menu. Not (only) because of the JS but because I prefer radiobuttons over pulldown menus. The argument that the non-JS approach uses more vertical space can be mitigated by redirecting to a #results anchor. -- View: http://drupal.org/node/10296 Edit: http://drupal.org/project/comments/add/10296

1 0

[drupal-devel] [feature] let admins mass delete nodes
by Bèr Kessels 15 Jan '05

15 Jan '05

Project: Drupal Version: cvs Component: node system Category: feature requests Priority: critical Assigned to: Bèr Kessels Reported by: killes(a)www.drop.org Updated by: Bèr Kessels Status: patch Attachment: http://drupal.org/files/issues/batch_delete_4-6.patch (6.66 KB) Updated for 4.6. (hint, hint) Bèr Kessels Previous comments: ------------------------------------------------------------------------ May 12, 2004 - 16:44 : killes(a)www.drop.org Attachment: http://drupal.org/files/issues/node_2.patch (1.41 KB) It would be nice if admins could mass delete unpublished nodes. The attached patch allows this. It also improved error handling. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ May 12, 2004 - 20:48 : Kjartan Looks good to me. Since it only allows deletion of unpublished nodes there probably isn't need for an approval page? Thats the only thing I can think of as a critism. Everything else is reversable, but delete is permanent (unless the site has some form of backup). ------------------------------------------------------------------------ May 12, 2004 - 23:43 : killes(a)www.drop.org Well, I found I'd need this capability and therefore coded it. I don't know how to fit a "are you sure" page in that filter mechanism. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ May 13, 2004 - 00:34 : killes(a)www.drop.org Teh patch also does not call the neccessary delete hooks thu sleaving data in additional tables like event or flexinode. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ May 13, 2004 - 20:08 : Dries Setting the status to 'active' until it works like it should. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ June 29, 2004 - 22:01 : killes(a)www.drop.org Ber is developing a better patch. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ June 29, 2004 - 22:33 : Bèr Kessels Attachment: http://drupal.org/files/issues/batch_delete_easy_coding.patch (4.16 KB) Extracting the bits and bytes from http://drupal.org/node/view/5162. Hope it might help bring life into this feature. Overall my comment is that that part of node.module is quite messy. There's html hardcoded and the function handling this part is one big bloat of code. That makes it kinda hard to fix this issue in a more elegant way, without cleaning up that mess before. I would like to use a nicer method of confirmation once this part is cleaned. But as it currently stands thats a quite hard task. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ June 29, 2004 - 22:46 : Bèr Kessels Moshe had some better ideas. Those need a lot more coding however. moshe_work>I think you can give a confrim screen just like we do for nodes, comments, etc. moshe_work>"You are about to delete ..." and then do a theme(item_list, $items) showing all the titles moshe_work>you would want to stick all the nids about to be deleted in a hidden form field the problem with this is, that somehow you need to bypass the update and filter form generation. Since that whole admin part is gernerated in one big (120 + lines.) function node_admin_nodes() this needs some work too, if you wnat to apply moshe's idea. For now i am satisfied with the above attached patch. And I would like to hear feedback about the UI for confirmation. Regards ------------------------------------------------------------------------ June 30, 2004 - 09:09 : stefan nagtegaal Can you show us some screenshots Ber? ------------------------------------------------------------------------ June 30, 2004 - 10:20 : Bèr Kessels Attachment: http://drupal.org/files/issues/batch_delete_step1.png (18.8 KB) Screenshot: first you select the nodes you want to have deleted. Than from the dropdown you select "delete selected nodes". ------------------------------------------------------------------------ June 30, 2004 - 10:22 : Bèr Kessels Attachment: http://drupal.org/files/issues/batch_delete_step2.png (26.77 KB) After pressing [update] you see the screen back, and in the "update actions dropdown" you get a confirmation. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ June 30, 2004 - 10:22 : Bèr Kessels Attachment: http://drupal.org/files/issues/batch_delete_step3.png (15.72 KB) after pressing [update] again the nodes are actually deleted. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ June 30, 2004 - 14:59 : Dries Wouldn't a dedicated confirmation page be a lot better usability-wise? At least, that's what one would expect. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ June 30, 2004 - 15:52 : kika Attachment: http://drupal.org/files/issues/typepad_multiitem_deletion.png (54.11 KB) please, resign step 2 in you patch and build a proper confimation page. Have look at the screenshot included, this is the Typepad multi-item-deletion workflow (scroll down) ------------------------------------------------------------------------ June 30, 2004 - 15:57 : Bèr Kessels True Dries, kika, thats why I pasted some comments in http://drupal.org/node/view/7743#comment-9138. I see only one big issue in the typepad approach. That will do for deleting, but our range of updating- actions will not work there, or you would need 5 columns of selection boxes. IMO thats a no-go. I linke the current method. My gmx mail uses that, and Ive seen it a lot. The dedicated screen for confirmation is a good idea, but kinda hard to code, in the current state. The big problem is that I tried that raod first (it seems much more logical to go for that). But untill the node_admin_nodes() gets a big cleanup, I think that adding a dedicated UI is a pain, and will make the mess even worse. :( So in fact the road to take here (IMO) is: 1) clean up the node.module admin area. 2) split all actions into separate functions (e.g. node_admin_update_promote($nodelist) ) 3) add a function forbatch deleting 4) maybe add some more actions (e.g batch re-taxonomising) I tried to skip 1 and 2 and go straight for 3, but I ended up with 3-levels deep nested ifs nad foreaches and a 200+ lines big function node_admin_nodes(). And still it had some bugs. I might have done it worong there, but that made me decide to use this much simpler approach. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ June 30, 2004 - 15:59 : kika to clarify: I am not suggesting to use popup, just a standard confimation page ------------------------------------------------------------------------ July 1, 2004 - 10:29 : Bèr Kessels Allright, All has been said, little done. I think we all agree on the fact that there should be some confirmation screen. But, as i pointed out, that will not be there for a while. Unless someone else takes this task and does a total revamp of (the code of) the node admin UI. So, if we want some batch deletion, I would suggest to either start coding and come up with a better UI, or use this solution. Regards, ------------------------------------------------------------------------ July 1, 2004 - 11:58 : Dries I don't intend to commit this patch as is. I'll see if I can make a confirmration screen. Marking this active in the mean time. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ July 23, 2004 - 19:23 : laird This patch is wonderful; I install it everywhere I use Drupal (several sites now). I'd like to make two feature requests: 1) It leaves behind records in the node-type specific tables. For example, if you have node 1000 that's an image, this patch will delete node 1000 from the node table, but won't delete node 1000's entry in the image table. This isn't a huge problem, since it doesn't cause anything to break (since they're not linked anywhere, so don't appear in any selects joined against the node table). But it's a bit messy to leave these disconnected records around in the database, so it should be fixed on general principles. 2) If you are deleting a large number of nodes, you have to manually click on each check box, then delete the batch. It'd be great to have a 'check all' button, to speed the process. It'd be even better to have a means to 'delete all unpublished nodes' as a one-click way to clean up the database. I have several automated feeds on one site, and it accumulates tons of unused nodes that are quite tedious to delete manually. - LP ------------------------------------------------------------------------ August 15, 2004 - 21:59 : Anonymous newbie who needs help how do you incorporate the patch file into the node.module file? does it have to be in a certain area or just at the top of the code? ------------------------------------------------------------------------ August 15, 2004 - 22:00 : Anonymous newbie who needs help how do you incorporate the patch file into the node.module file? does it have to be in a certain area of the code? ------------------------------------------------------------------------ August 16, 2004 - 11:49 : Bèr Kessels please refer to http://drupal.org/book/view/323 for info about patching. And please be aware that you should be carefull with changing the category of an issue. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ August 25, 2004 - 11:51 : Bèr Kessels Attachment: http://drupal.org/files/issues/batch_delete_with_confirm page.patch (6.41 KB) Final attempt. Now with a default confirmation screen. That confirmation shows a list with titles of all nodes that are about to be deleted. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ October 29, 2004 - 19:46 : mpamphile Is this patch 4.5 compliant ? I would like to add it to a 4.5 site. If anyone is intrested, I'm also modifying taxonomy.module so that multiple terms can be added. If anyone is interested in this, let me know... mpamphile hotmail . com. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ December 9, 2004 - 02:09 : michaelemeyers can this be added to core? Very valuable/useful patch... thnx. _m re - mpamphile on October 29, 2004: Is this patch 4.5 compliant ? I just patched 4.5.1 and other than line numbers being slightly off, the only difference was that in the Menu callback function node_admin() I needed to make the following change: case t('Delete'): // $output = node_delete($edit); // remove this and add line below $output = node_admin_nodes($edit); break; -- View: http://drupal.org/node/7743 Edit: http://drupal.org/project/comments/add/7743

1 0

re: [drupal-devel] [feature] node_delete doesn't pass params to_deletecalls.
by Kent Livingston 15 Jan '05

15 Jan '05

oops... Thought I was replying to the message below the one that I actually did :-)... It actually made sense in context to my friend who was saying she was looking for intelligent men.... "Kent Livingston" <klivingston(a)worldwebsystems.net> wrote: __________ > >At least you still, theoretically, believe there are intelligent men in the universe. > >Kent Livingston/World Web Systems >Strategic Network, Web, and Email Systems - Sent via a wireless PDA > >darrian <drupal-devel(a)drupal.org> wrote: >__________

1 0

re: [drupal-devel] [feature] node_delete doesn't pass params to _deletecalls.
by Kent Livingston 15 Jan '05

15 Jan '05

At least you still, theoretically, believe there are intelligent men in the universe. Kent Livingston/World Web Systems Strategic Network, Web, and Email Systems - Sent via a wireless PDA darrian <drupal-devel(a)drupal.org> wrote: __________

1 0

[drupal-devel] [feature] node_delete doesn't pass params to _delete calls.
by darrian 15 Jan '05

15 Jan '05

Project: Drupal Version: cvs Component: node system Category: feature requests Priority: normal Assigned to: Anonymous Reported by: darrian Updated by: darrian Status: patch A group is in fact multiple nodes. I did it this way for a few reasons, one of them being other modules (such as remindme) work with it better this way. I am no longer working on development of this feature, so I am not going to redesign the way its done. I only try and keep it updated so other people that need this feature can use it, seeing as there is no other alternative. As for this particular patch to node.module I still think it is a bug because variables available the first time any _delete function is called dissappear after the confirm step. Those variables should be available to module developers regardless of how they are used. -Darrian darrian Previous comments: ------------------------------------------------------------------------ June 18, 2004 - 21:07 : darrian Attachment: http://drupal.org/files/issues/node.module-cvs.patch (872 bytes) When you delete a node, it asks for confirmation, after that step all extra fields in $node get lost because $node is recreated with only 2 fields, nid and confirm. I created a small patch that adds extra fields back into the $node variable so they get passed to subsequent _delete calls. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ June 27, 2004 - 20:29 : Dries AFAIK, deleting a node works fine. How can we reproduce your problem? Not sure what you are trying to accomplish but this patch looks wrong. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ July 12, 2004 - 23:05 : darrian Right, this patch is so the modification I made to event.module works. I added functionality for repeating events to event.module, and in order for the delete to work I had to make this small change outside of event.module (believe me I really tried not to). What this patch does is pass variables originally passed to the delete function to whats called after the user clicks confirm. In other words when a user clicks delete the first thing they get is a prompt to confirm deletion, after the user clicks yes, the delete function is called, but the only variables that are passed are nid and confirmed, all other variables are lost, which is usually ok because no other vars needed for deletion, however in my case I needed another variable. This patch has no effect on all current modules, the reason i made this a bug report is because it seems to me like variables originally passed to node_delete should still exist after the user clicks confirm, even though current modules dont use other vars. I made a reference to this bug from this bug: http://drupal.org/node/view/4122 If the changes I made to event.module ever get put into the current cvs version, then this patch also needs to get put in. -Darrian ------------------------------------------------------------------------ July 13, 2004 - 07:28 : Dries When an event (node) is deleted, the _delete hook is called and the event (node) is passed as a parameter. That seems to work for all other node modules/types so I don't understand why this shouldn't work for the event module. What is so special about this particular field or node type that this does not suffice? ------------------------------------------------------------------------ July 14, 2004 - 14:14 : darrian $node is passed, but after the user clicks confirm, $node only has two fields, nid and confirm. I need an extra field, which is whether I'm supposed to delete only this event, or all events in the group. This is for the reocurring events feature I added. My modification adds the extra fields originally in $node back to $node after the user clicks confirm. -Darrian ------------------------------------------------------------------------ August 2, 2004 - 16:27 : darrian In order for my repeating/reocurring event module patch to get submitted to cvs, this very small patch needs to make it into core. It does not effect the functionality of anything current. Here's the details of what happens, >>> is what happens when my node patch is there: 1. User is looking at the form to delete an existing event, there are a bunch of fields like date/time title, etc. This holds true for any node, but I am going to reference an event node. 2. User clicks delete to delete the node being looked at. (User checks to delete all events in this group - from my event patch) 3. All the fields for that node are a form element at this point, some hidden, like nid, and a variable I set telling the event_delete function to delete all events in this group. 4. The code makes its way to the node_delete($edit) function. At this point all the form elements from above are members of the $edit variable, including my variable mentioned above. 5. The code checks to see if the user already clicked confirm, at this point they haven't. 6. Now we're in the else branch that creates only two form elements, the nid, and confirm. This has been ok in the past, because the only thing that you needed to delete a node was its nid. But in my case I want to delete multiple nodes, so this doesnt work. >>> My node patch creates hidden form elements of all the previous variables, not just nid and confirm. 7. The code makes it way back to node_delete, this time however there are only two members of $edit, nid and confirm. 8. The code checks to see if the user has clicked confirm, and they have. 9. Now we're in the true branch which deletes the core node components, then calls the node specific delete function, in our case the event_delete function, passing only the nid and confirm variables. >>> My node patch makes it so all variables, including my varible to check whether we're deleting all nodes or not, are passed back in. 10. Now we're in the event_delete function. The event delete function checks for the variable to see if we're deleting all events in group, it doesnt exist, so it acts as if the user didn't check to delete all events, and deletes just this event. >>> With my patch, all previous variables still exist, so event_delete knows that it needs to delete multiple nodes. Hopefully this patch gets into core before feature freeze for the sake of the event module. If it doesnt, then my patch for repeating/reocurring events also cannot make it into cvs. Thanks, Darrian ------------------------------------------------------------------------ August 2, 2004 - 17:29 : moshe weitzman the patch looks good to me. thanks for the clear description of the bug. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ August 13, 2004 - 08:03 : TDobes +1, except the single comment prefixed with a # should be changed to // ------------------------------------------------------------------------ August 16, 2004 - 21:57 : darrian Does the code freeze mean that this patch wont make it into 4.5? -Darrian ------------------------------------------------------------------------ August 16, 2004 - 22:31 : Steven This sounds like a bugfix or at least code fix, so it can still go in. I'm wondering about your description though. It sounds that if I first edit a couple of fields, then click delete, then my edited variables are passed around rather than the original ones. Because I did not click 'submit', this is not desirable. It may be better to call node_load() before deleting the node, so the correct, original data is passed to the nodeapi. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ August 17, 2004 - 01:09 : darrian Remember, for node_delete, only nid and confirm are passed. But I already do as you suggest, to be more specific: node_load is called, those variables, along with extra fields that are not loaded with node_load (such as my variable for deleting group events), are passed to subsequent _delete calls. Just to re-iterate, without this patch the ONLY variables that make it to the final delete call are nid and confirm. -Darrian ------------------------------------------------------------------------ August 17, 2004 - 01:55 : JonBob The point is that (efficiency aside) if you have the node ID, you can reconstruct the node with a simple node_load() call. If your delete function is called with only $nid, you can use that to load the whole node again if need be. Now this may not be enough in your case, as you are presenting additional interface to the user that adds fields to $edit that are not part of the node, but all the parts *of the node* are certainly available to you. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ September 5, 2004 - 17:47 : Steven "The point is that (efficiency aside) if you have the node ID, you can reconstruct the node with a simple node_load() call. If your delete function is called with only $nid, you can use that to load the whole node again if need be." At the point where hook_delete gets called, the node itself has been deleted already, so reconstruction is not an option. The point here seems to be to pass variables from the editing form to the delete operation. I'm not sure if this is a good idea. If it's not about this, then maybe we should invoke deletes in the opposite order: nodeapi, hook, node.module. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ September 9, 2004 - 23:05 : darrian Right, the point is to get variables from the form passed to the delete function, namely 1 variable, which tells me if I should delete 1 event, or all grouped reoccuring events, that I need for the modification I made to the event module. The way I made the modification is very UN-obtrusive. No variables get squashed, and everything current ignores the new variables. Also, the variable that I want exists in the node_delete function the first time around, its only after the user clicks confirm that all variables except the nid are lost. So I could delete things with my modified event module if i skip the confirm step, but I'm sure that would bite someone down the road and I really dont want to do it that way. -Darrian ------------------------------------------------------------------------ October 4, 2004 - 21:06 : Steven "Right, the point is to get variables from the form passed to the delete function, namely 1 variable, which tells me if I should delete 1 event, or all grouped reoccuring events, that I need for the modification I made to the event module." This sounds like really bad UI: the rest of the node form is about data related to the node, which gets saved when you click "submit". Adding a delete-related checkbox there sounds odd and confusing. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ October 8, 2004 - 21:58 : darrian Attachment: http://drupal.org/files/issues/editevent.png (35.72 KB) Here's the UI i'm referring to. This patch to node.module is extremely small and unobtrusive... Why so much resistance to it? ------------------------------------------------------------------------ January 12, 2005 - 22:47 : darrian Attachment: http://drupal.org/files/issues/node.module-4.5.1.patch (822 bytes) Here's an updated patch for drupal 4.5.1 -Darrian ------------------------------------------------------------------------ January 13, 2005 - 00:28 : tangent Is a recurring event a single node or a group of nodes? Without getting into the appropriate implementation of that, your bug suggests that the checkbox will allow multiple nodes to be deleted. This is why it has been suggested that it is a confusing UI. It isn't necessarily clear what the "group" of nodes is? FWIW, if a recurring event is a single node (which is displayed in multiple places on the calendar) then this would not be an issue. -- View: http://drupal.org/node/8611 Edit: http://drupal.org/project/comments/add/8611

1 0

[drupal-devel] [task] Improve story help texts
by Bèr Kessels 15 Jan '05

15 Jan '05

Project: Drupal Version: cvs Component: story.module Category: tasks Priority: normal Assigned to: Bèr Kessels Reported by: Bèr Kessels Updated by: Bèr Kessels Status: patch Attachment: http://drupal.org/files/issues/story_improve_help.patch (3.19 KB) **sigh** Bèr Kessels Previous comments: ------------------------------------------------------------------------ January 7, 2005 - 14:19 : Bèr Kessels Attachment: http://drupal.org/files/issues/story_help.patch (3.06 KB) Because of historical reasons the story module help contained all sortts of odd texts, that are partly even untrue. This patch changes the help so that it: * stresses that stories are nodes in their simplest form * removes all the bloat about workflow. workflow can be configured for any node type, why should nstories mention it? * removes parts of voting, queues, promotion, comments etc. Any node type can have this. * adds a note that you can use stories for personal blogging, and as general pages, pages with no specific purpose (I consider, for example, a forum node a node with a special purpose) * stresses that you should use other modules (taxonnomy, menu) to give the node a place on your site. set to CVS but will apply to 4.5 too..... ------------------------------------------------------------------------ January 10, 2005 - 17:41 : Bèr Kessels Attachment: http://drupal.org/files/issues/story_help_0.patch (3.06 KB) previous patch was the one before spellchecking. This one is without the two spelling errors. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ January 10, 2005 - 20:29 : Dries Can someone review this please? ------------------------------------------------------------------------ January 12, 2005 - 14:53 : Bèr Kessels Attachment: http://drupal.org/files/issues/story_help_1.patch (3.01 KB) After some discussion on the drupal-docs ML, i came up with the following help-texts: Short: Stories are articles in their simplest form: they have a title, a teaser and a body, but can be extended by other modules. The teaser is part of the body too. Stories may be used as a personal blog or for news articles. Longer: Stories are articles in their simplest form: they have a title, a teaser and a body, but can be extended by other modules. The teaser is part of the body too. Stories may be used as a personal blog or for news articles. By default, no menu item, or navigation element is created for a story. An extra feature of a story is, that an administrator can specify a submission guideline and enforce a minimum word count for user submitted stories ------------------------------------------------------------------------ January 13, 2005 - 20:42 : Dries This patch doesn't apply against HEAD. patching file modules/story.module Hunk #1 FAILED at 14. Hunk #2 FAILED at 26. 2 out of 2 hunks FAILED -- saving rejects to file modules/story.module.rej ------------------------------------------------------------------------ January 14, 2005 - 23:55 : Bèr Kessels AARHGH, such a simple patch, so much hassle. My mistake, uplaoded the wrong one again. This one should be right. -- View: http://drupal.org/node/15264 Edit: http://drupal.org/project/comments/add/15264

1 0

[drupal-devel] [task] Improve story help texts
by Bèr Kessels 14 Jan '05

14 Jan '05

Project: Drupal Version: cvs Component: story.module Category: tasks Priority: normal Assigned to: Bèr Kessels Reported by: Bèr Kessels Updated by: Bèr Kessels Status: patch AARHGH, such a simple patch, so much hassle. My mistake, uplaoded the wrong one again. This one should be right. Bèr Kessels Previous comments: ------------------------------------------------------------------------ January 7, 2005 - 14:19 : Bèr Kessels Attachment: http://drupal.org/files/issues/story_help.patch (3.06 KB) Because of historical reasons the story module help contained all sortts of odd texts, that are partly even untrue. This patch changes the help so that it: * stresses that stories are nodes in their simplest form * removes all the bloat about workflow. workflow can be configured for any node type, why should nstories mention it? * removes parts of voting, queues, promotion, comments etc. Any node type can have this. * adds a note that you can use stories for personal blogging, and as general pages, pages with no specific purpose (I consider, for example, a forum node a node with a special purpose) * stresses that you should use other modules (taxonnomy, menu) to give the node a place on your site. set to CVS but will apply to 4.5 too..... ------------------------------------------------------------------------ January 10, 2005 - 17:41 : Bèr Kessels Attachment: http://drupal.org/files/issues/story_help_0.patch (3.06 KB) previous patch was the one before spellchecking. This one is without the two spelling errors. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ January 10, 2005 - 20:29 : Dries Can someone review this please? ------------------------------------------------------------------------ January 12, 2005 - 14:53 : Bèr Kessels Attachment: http://drupal.org/files/issues/story_help_1.patch (3.01 KB) After some discussion on the drupal-docs ML, i came up with the following help-texts: Short: Stories are articles in their simplest form: they have a title, a teaser and a body, but can be extended by other modules. The teaser is part of the body too. Stories may be used as a personal blog or for news articles. Longer: Stories are articles in their simplest form: they have a title, a teaser and a body, but can be extended by other modules. The teaser is part of the body too. Stories may be used as a personal blog or for news articles. By default, no menu item, or navigation element is created for a story. An extra feature of a story is, that an administrator can specify a submission guideline and enforce a minimum word count for user submitted stories ------------------------------------------------------------------------ January 13, 2005 - 20:42 : Dries This patch doesn't apply against HEAD. patching file modules/story.module Hunk #1 FAILED at 14. Hunk #2 FAILED at 26. 2 out of 2 hunks FAILED -- saving rejects to file modules/story.module.rej -- View: http://drupal.org/node/15264 Edit: http://drupal.org/project/comments/add/15264

1 0

[drupal-devel] [bug] new revisions not created if user doesn't have administer nodes permission
by robertDouglass 14 Jan '05

14 Jan '05

Project: Drupal Version: 4.5.0 Component: node system Category: bug reports Priority: critical Assigned to: wazdog Reported by: wazdog Updated by: robertDouglass Status: patch My opinions: 1. administer nodes is the wrong permission to determine revisions behavior. At least one revision-specific permission is necessary, perhaps two or more (view, create, delete, rollback revisions). 2. If the default workflow says revisions are made, this should definitely make it so that normal users create revisions every time. 3. Users with admin rights (either a revisions specific permission or administer nodes) can override the default. All others should not see the checkbox. 4. Whether revisions are rolled back destructively or non-destructively *could* be a setting, but if not, should be non-destructive by nature as we already have a mechanism for deleting revisions. ----- That much is the minimum I consider necessary to be a useable system. I would additionally wish for the following: 5. Since I would like to have a site where normal users can view any of the revisions, but not delete and not roll back, I would really like to see the following permissions: read revision, rollback revision, delete revision 6. The ability to compare two or more revisions [1] 7. The possibility for moderation of revisions ie. people with administer nodes (or moderate revisions) look at a queue of revisions and rollbacks and approve or disapprove them. 8. The possibility to vote on revisions. 7 could be an extension of 8. If only administrators can vote on revisions, it would be the same as moderating them. I know the last bits sounds like a bunch of pipe dreams, and may be off topic for this thread, but the system I imagine would be for a site where the wording of entries must be considered very carefully by many people and a concensus about the best version be found. The above features would achieve this. [1] http://drupal.org/node/15596 robertDouglass Previous comments: ------------------------------------------------------------------------ November 1, 2004 - 10:33 : wazdog If you enable revisions for a node type via content > configure > default workflow, and the user who is editing a node of that type doesn't have the administer nodes permission, then a new revision is not created. I see this a huge bug. I am trying to have all edits to a node type saved as revisions (in this case a flexinode, but I also tested with blog types). I want to recreate the book pages, but with more fields (hence, flexinode). But if one of my authenticated users creates a node, and then later edits it, a revision is not made. However, if an admin or moderator (who both have the administer nodes permission) edits the node, a new revision is created. I don't want my regular users to have administer nodes permission, that gives them too much power, but their revisions need to be kept (just like I give them all publish permission via default workflow). If this is supposed to be how it works, what is the point of the default workflow setting? (and why do the other default workflow settings behave differently? i.e. they all apply no matter the users permissions) ------------------------------------------------------------------------ November 3, 2004 - 02:48 : wazdog Attachment: http://drupal.org/files/issues/node-rev.patch (721 bytes) Okay, here's a short little patch. It seems like node_create_revision() was being called before $node->revision was set. Since $node->revision is what tells Drupal whether or not to make a new revision, this was causing nodes to not keep revisions. I moved node_create_revision() to after this check. I'm not sure exactly why only regular users without 'administer nodes' permission were affected, but that seems the case. Now, if a particular node type has 'revision' checked in content > default workflow, a new revision is always created, no matter who is doing the editing... I'm setting this to critical because I think the current behavior goes against logic, and what admins may expect. And if they don't notice it's not working like they expect (i.e. revisions aren't being kept always), then content is lost... The patch is against 4.5.0, but always applies to current cvs (with a slight offset error). ------------------------------------------------------------------------ January 14, 2005 - 22:54 : mcd I tried this patch against 4.5.1 and it worked, but it took me some time to figure out that it was working because it's still not doing the intuitive thing. The user still can't see the revisions tab unless they have node administration privileges (which makes it unlike the outline tab). They can't see the checkbox to decide whether their edit is a new revision, so every edit they do becomes a revision from which they derive no benefit. I would let them see the revision checkbox and the revisions tab, and also roll back (non-destructively as suggested in http://drupal.org/node/12479) I don't think there is an intuitive way to handle the five node administration Options checkboxes as a group while appearing to enable them separately in the default workflow. I've had similar issues with the defaults, like a page I made sticky coming unstuck every time the owner edited it (with the default non-sticky in the workflow). Now I see why that was happening, but it's still highly counterintuitive. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ January 14, 2005 - 22:56 : mcd Sorry, I didn't mean to change the main title. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ January 14, 2005 - 23:11 : chx IMHO in some situations it is a good thing if a new revision is created every time a user edits the node. It's not her privilege to roll back, it's something a moderator should do. It'd be even better if the new revision would not be automatically published only after approval by the moderator. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ January 14, 2005 - 23:18 : mcd Rolling back nondestructively is just a means of editing a page. Why should a user with permission to edit be prevented from that edit? They can certainly do more destructive things. As for creating new revisions every time, it depends on usage patterns. You may not want too many almost indistinguishable revisions collecting in the revisions tab. -- View: http://drupal.org/node/12401 Edit: http://drupal.org/project/comments/add/12401

1 0