[development] Book module break out features

[Steven Peck]

> -----Original Message-----
> From: development-bounces at drupal.org [mailto:development-
> bounces at drupal.org] On Behalf Of Larry Garfield
> Sent: Tuesday, March 27, 2007 10:05 PM
> To: development at drupal.org
> Subject: Re: [development] Book module break out features
> 
> On Tuesday 27 March 2007 11:26 pm, Steven Peck wrote:
> > Jeff Eaton and I had chatted about book module off and on for the
> last
> > month when in Dries 'state of Drupal' presentation he mentioned some
> of the
> > same things as well.  At the code session I hunted several people
> down and
> > tried to come up with a task based list of steps to get book module
> to the
> > 'next' level for Drupal 6.
> >
> > So here's the break down, if no one has any objections I will file
> them as separate issue's.
> >
> > Separate outline out of book/book content type and make a legacy
> content type called book for migration purposes.
> 
> So this would be a "Value-add" module in the style of OG, Event, etc,
> so any arbitrary node type can be pulled into a book?

No.  Any content type can now be pulled into book.  
Right now book content type is old style non-cck type.  
It needs to be changed to the new type.

> > Allow for multiple root books with their own permissions and /menu
> blocks
> > Allow for next/prev automatic links on/off for a given book
> >     yes this can be done through the theme but a switch would make it
> >     more accessible
> > Versioned pages for each book which affect the tree - support
> > branches/tags
> > to allow for selecting which branch you want to see.
> 
> Would this be different than revisions?  Is this to replace the Drupal
> 4/5/whatever taxonomy category used on d.o?  If so, how do you handle
> paging?
> If you're on page a.b.c, in the "Drupal 5 branch", and the next page
> link is
> to page a.b.c.d, does the branch carry over?  How do you handle the
> case that
> a.b.c.d has no Drupal 5 branch?

> If you can make it work, awesome, but I am wary of the complexity here.

Yes interesting question.  It's a like to have from my point of view.
Jeff Eaton had a thought it could be done.
Robert Douglas has a contrib. module that has revision tagging that may
Provide one avenue.

 
> > User input multiple relationship (on page or displayed separate
> block)
> >
> > Menu system allows you to split menu's into multiple navigation
> blocks.
> > Look at integrating book module to register it's menu's with the menu
> > module to create per book modules into the menu system. (per Dries)
> This
> > would also bring it more in line with other core modules.
> 
> With menu 6 pushing everything into the database rather than an
> obscenely large array, that should solve most of the performance issues.
> However, what would the performance penalty be if we were to get up to, 
> say, 50,000 or 100,000 book pages?  I don't know an answer here; 
> I'm just thinking aloud. :-)

Well, that will be interesting but frankly book module needs to be brought into line
With the tools we have in core and get rid of this little independent oddity.

I suspect the performance issue will be better than current book module.  The other 
Problem this solves is the current block pain.  If you have more than one book, 
You only have ONE block.  So all your book table of contents are required 
To be in the same spot in your theme unless you do really weird theme things


> > Allow for a given node to be tagged for more than one hierarchy
> 
> It would need to have a "primary hierarchy", in case you went to the
> page directly.  You can guess next/prev when paging through a book should
> follow the "active" book, but not if you go to a page directly.

Maybe a 'default' initial 'old style' hierarchy but I don't see why it needs an
Ultimate fallback once people begin have multiple 'root' books.

Single root or the first book would mimic the current behavior.

> 
> > Use vamcode for the module (per Dries)
> 
> Questions aside, I think this is highly cool. :-)
> 
> --
> Larry Garfield			AIM: LOLG42
> larry at garfieldtech.com		ICQ: 6817012

My goal was to break it down into separate tasks that people could accomplish.
To more likely get people to work on it and get accepted this time around.
I don't think I myself can learn PHP fast enough.  :)

The last try at this was one humongous patch that scared people.  
SO this is hopefully a series of achievable steps to bring book module up
to current standards.

I have a tentative commitment to try for some of this but will wait to see 
If we have any other hand wavers out there.  I will make the issues tomorrow
Unless there is additional feedback.

Thanks,
-sp