Posted by Anonymous on March 24, 2008 at 9:32pm
I like the idea that suggested a theme and module manager for Drupal. I am hoping for some suggestions here. I was thinking about basing my proposal on that, but adding a few things. Administators should not only be able to automatically install new themes and modules, but they should be able to update and remove them as well. I was even thinking that it might be nice to check dependencies, so that one installed module would install all required modules with it.
Suggestions? (Other than "Go home!") ;)
Oh, my proposal can be seen here
Comments
Please note
Please note that this will have to support multiple backends, including ftp, sftp, and possibly scp. Please read the updated issue on drupal.org.
I think one of the major
I think one of the major issues with this will also be OS compatibility for the server. You'll be fine on unix/linux/mac, but if someone is hosting on a windows server (or working locally and they don't have a mac), the differences in file systems might give you headaches.
Some notes
There is no issue with the OS. This app runs on the server and runs an ftp/scp request back to the same server -- so, same machine, same OS. About multiple backends, yes, we need them because many servers today do not run FTP any more. Shared hosts are likely to run that, those with their own (virtual) server can install the necessary PECL extension for SSH.
Updated
I have updated my submission, trying to follow the suggested direction. I appreciate all comments, criticisms and suggestions that anyone might have. The one thing I know for sure about programming is that I definitely don't know everything. Hopefully that's a good thing though. ;)
Thank you,
Joshua Rogers
the wise man knows nothing...
Or at least that's why the Oracle knew that Socrates was the wisest man in Greece (because he said "I don't know anything"). So, looks like you're on a wise path. ;-)
Anyway, that's neither here nor there- welcome to the Drupal community and the GSoC!
Alex Urevick-Ackelsberg
ZivTech: Illuminating Technology
Alex Urevick-Ackelsberg
ZivTech: Illuminating Technology
Screenshots
I have two screenshots as links below. The first screenshot is what the user would see as they look over the different themes. It would update the top whenever the "view" link was clicked, allowing the user to see the different themes, without loading the screenshots for all of them from D.O
http://geektownhall.com/Description.jpg
The second screenshot shows the actual installation. Assuming that a user clicks continue on the first page, they are given a screen where they input their username and password so that the actual installation can take place.
http://geektownhall.com/Install.jpg
Modules would work very much the same way (only without a screenshot.)
So, what do you think?
more feedback and install thoughts
These look good to me. Perhaps you could post them as a top level node and add them to the Usability group so we can get some feedback from those folks?
Some feedback:
On the Install.jpg one other field it needs is the md5 hash of the file, right?
Also, I think it will be useful if users could select modules using a "multi-select" interface (i.e. checkboxes). Then the installation page should probably be redesigned as "The following modules/themes will be installed" with a list of the plugins and space for the md5 for that plugin:
theme1 md5: [ {textbox for md5} ]
theme2 md5: [ {textbox for md5} ]
moduleFoo md5: [ {textbox for md5} ]
The multi-plugin-installation facility is also important so that the PluginManager can handle dependencies. Have you thought about that part, yet? Like, what should happen if the user selects to install OG which has a dependency on Views module and they don't have Views installed yet?
Perhaps before posting the screenshots into the Usability group you could try to take into account some of these use cases I've just described.
Thanks for these, though, I think it's great to have screenshots before your work has even really begun.
--
Open Prediction Markets | Drupal Dashboard
knaddison blog | Morris Animal Foundation