Has anyone successfully implemented og where each group lives on its own subdomain, but on a shared code base? We are looking at this as an alternative to a multi-site (separarate dbs w/ shared users) implementation. The wrinkle on this project is that the site could grow to a couple hundred subdomains. They don't need to be added on-the-fly via admin interface.
Any suggested approaches to this?
Is there a roadmap anyone might suggest for feature enhancements or supporting module development we might consider for the og module package itself?
(If 5.0 beta proceeds well, we'll likely be wanting to build this in 5.0 as well.)
Your ideas would be most welcome. Whatever we end up doing we'll be contributing back into the community (as handbook info and/or patches, modules, etc.).
Thanks!
Laura
Comments
hmm....
Don't know the answer to your sub-domain issue.
But to suggest a feature:
http://drupal.org/node/add/project_issue/og/feature
This is the current feature request:
http://drupal.org/project/issues/og?categories=feature
http://xamox.NET
Apache ReWrite and Mass URL Rewrite
This seems more like a problem solved with either (or both) with apache mod_rewrite or the built in drupal custom_url_rewrite function.
In either case, you could rewrite incoming urls of groupname.domain.org to domain.org/node/XXX based on a database look up. Using the custom_url_rewrite code, you could also alias outgoing paths to refer back to the groupname.domain.org.
Pseudo code might look like:
if ($outgoingpath =~ /node\/(\d+)/) {
$lookup = db_query("SQL TO GET GROUPNAME FROM \d+ ABOVE");
$outgoingpath = $lookup
}
return $outgoingpath;
I once spent some time trying to make "sites within a site" based on taxonomy terms and domains. Each incoming request was checked against a list of "sites". If the site match, it's theme was custom loaded. Each site had it's own homepage (a nodequeue) and some other stuff. It worked pretty well. But I got bogged down in the details, got busy with other stuff, etc.
I think applying the custom_url_rewrite technique could be a good avenue. You get all the site like qualities of og with url aliasing (not to be confused with Drupal's simple path aliasing).
If you'd like a little more direction on this, feel free to hit me via my contact form. I continue to run into groups that need this functionality and I'd be happy to work with you to find a real solution.
Issue filed
Thanks! We're still going over options with the client, so we're on hold for the moment. Meanwhile I filed a feature request to make this official: http://drupal.org/node/94041
Laura
pingVision, LLC
PINGV | Strategy • Design • Drupal Development
the handbook
Laura if you do end up going down this path could you create a handbook page on your experiences? I have a client who may be interested in something like this soon.
motivation?
I'm curious why you would want to do it this way instead of a multi-site with shared user table. OG is a cool module, but I suspect you'd run into limitations pretty fast with your project. There's certainly some init overhead in OG for language and theme stuff that slows down your install, and there can be some confusing interface issues, depending on how 'independent' you want all these subsites to be. It would also preclude using other modules that manipulate the node_access table, so your privacy options would be limited, and force each sub site to use the same admin options (which may or may not be a good thing ...).
You actually have described the alternative approach
It's a matter of weighing the content management workflows, granularity of admin control over the sub-sites, and some other issues.
As it turns out, the client has independently re-defined their site goals, and so we're no longer looking at this approach (though that could change again).
Still, this kind of feature -- being able to have group home pages live on subdomains or other domains on the same server -- would be very nice for some websites.
Laura
pingVision, LLC
PINGV | Strategy • Design • Drupal Development
OG as a multisite
hi Laura,
i go through your comments on OG.i really excited about OG as a multisite concept. can u please provide a handbook on your experience.my client want these feature.right now it's a strongly demanding feature.plz help me.
Thanx in Advance
Kamlesh Patidar
See now og_sites module
http://drupal.org/project/og_sites
and this post:
http://groups.drupal.org/node/3470
It provides a way of implementing something of what you're looking for.
subdomain
Have you checked out http://drupal.org/project/subdomain ?