[development] Book to Book-Pages... Many to many

[Ken Rickard]

Two simple answers.

1) Kevin, I read in digest mode and missed a character when changing the
subject line.

I am hoping to integrate with D6 after I finish first cut of the module to
solve my immediate need.  If I'm right and this feature doesn't exist, it
seems a natural extension of the new Outline approach to books.

2) Dan asked:

> Here's the magic question: Are the nodes in each "instance" really clones,
> as you described, or are they actually just a single node?  I'm hoping for
> the latter: I need to be able to edit the node once, and have it changed
in
> every book or outline it lives in.  Something like symbolic links, in
> filesystem terms.

Dan, you and I have a slightly different use-case.  I want the base node to
be the same, but then diverge after the new book is created.  For example,
we're tracking client projects, so we create a new "skeleton outline" for a
"Client" which contains the following page nodes:

Title (node type)
- Overview (book)
- Project Schedule (CCK)
- Billing Schedule (CCK)
- Client Contacts (page or CCK)
- Our Contacts (page or CCK)
- and so on...

I'm also integrating with NodeAccess to provide preset node grants, so that
each book instance can be locked per-page by role.  That would let the
Client see pages some pages, the developers other pages, and the project
manager even more.

I'm rolling this out for an Intranet site designed to track contractual
relationships, so that the legal staff sees one set of pages, the developers
another, and so on.

That said, with what I'm building, you could theoretically make your
template node simply call node_render($nid) [yes, this isn't the right code]
for the "parent" node as the node body for each "instance" node.  Then edit
the "parent" node instead of the "instance" nodes to make changes.  Again in
theory, the parent could have status "unpublished" and simply deliver its
contents to the instance nodes.

All that said, if there are already ways to do this, someone send me a note
off-list, as I hate to waste time.

(And that said, this project really gets me into CCK, node_access and
hook_form_alter(), all of which I don't use much... so that's a good thing.)

- Ken Rickard
agentrickard
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