[development] is anyone picking up DOC module?

[Vladimir Zlatanov]

oops, forgot to cc the list. Sorry. Somebody else might be able to pitch
in as well.

>> As DOC module seems to be stuck,
>> I am looking for alternative method for primitive DOC management.
>
>> So far I have been thinking of attaching .doc and .xls
>> files to nodes and removing body from those nodes
>> then displaying them with views2...
>
> Just to clarify - you are looking for ways to store files with drupal.
> And maybe some tagging, etc...

> yes - very basic

> > It that is yes - you can use views to display the various lists the way
> > you want them to. You  could style the results.
> 
> yes - just need to have them in Blocks rather then full pages.
Views does blocks. And you seem to like them.

> > If I had to start from scratch, I wouldn't even develop docs in the
> > first place. It fills a very narrow niche, and my users are very, very,
> > very conservative. I would try and configure a system similar to what
> > you described. In D6 it should be trivial to make a simple file node. I
> > haven't done it, but the infrastructure is there. You will need to
> > invest some time in coding though.
> 
> PHP coding of new feature or just HTML/CSS+Views2 or CCK2?
Very few lines of code to create the new node type and possibly assign a 
node title based on the file name. There is sample code in docs, but it is 
overcomplicated, since it does more work. I'm not sure if you won't be able
to get away with mostly a custom .info file.  Haven't looked carefully
at d6 yet. 

If you base it around standard nodes, you don't need cck. views is
automatic. Theming as well, unless you want a custom look, which is
sightly more complicated, but quite straight forward. The docs team has
done a good job, really.

> >> That way files can be commented on, searched for and
> >> can have notes on versions
> > Only if you can extract text from the files. You still could do taxonomy based queries.
> 
> just few words would be sufficient
Well, you need something to put those words into the search table. You need something 
to extract them from your files - doc, pdf, whatever.... Drupal by default doesn't
know anything but their name and size and that is not in the search table.

I would be happy to update docs, but i will possibly have a week or so
free(ish) towards the middle of July. Before that it is busy, busy,
busy. If anyone wants to help out with the module or become a
co-maintainer/maintainer, just shout. We can sync via email and irc.

Cheers,
Vlado