[development] Book module break out features

[Frando (Franz Heinzmann)]

I thought about wether it would be a good idea or not to use the (new) 
menu system as a base for all this [hierarchical page structuring 
module, iow. book module], as the menu system already provides the basic 
data structures to construct a hierarchy/tree.
If the menu system would be the base, things could look like this:

* each 'thing' in the tree is represented by a menu item
* the book module takes care to keep nodes and their menu items
   synchronized
* the module provides a simple form that can be added to other forms,
   for example to the node creation form (we have this already, but the
   I could be improved) but also to e.g. the views creation form, to
   create a new menu item
* the module also provides a simple book (= special menu trees)
   managment UI
* the module provides a per-root-menu option wether navigation links
   (like in the old book module) shall be displayed or not [as per
   berkes' suggestion: in a block that is placed in the "content_bottom"
   region by default]
* Breadcrumbs are taken care of by the menu system

The advantage would be that you would then have a page hierarchy that 
can include all types of pages and not only nodes.

I'm not yet totally sure wether this could work out, I just wanted to 
throw in the idea...

- so - what would be the advantage of maintaining a second 
structuring/tree table with just nodes instead of improving menu.module, 
and giving it a book-module like UI (maybe additionally to the classic 
menu UI)?

regards,
-- frando

(originally posted as a comment on http://drupal.org/node/128731)

Steven Peck schrieb:
> 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.
> 
> 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.
> 
> 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.
> 
> Allow for a given node to be tagged for more than one hierarchy
> 
> Use vamcode for the module (per Dries)
>