Features / Spaces / Context Questions

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Drag's picture
Posted by Drag on July 22, 2009 at 3:44pm

Hi there

I've been trying to get my head around Features / Spaces / Context today, and although I know it really excites me, I'm not sure what else I know about it!

If I got it right, then this is what the three modules are all about:
Context: Let Drupal know you are in a particular area (eg blog) and change settings depending on where you are (eg change active menu, show different blocks)
Features: Lets you export and enable exported features, created mostly with context.
Spaces: This is the one I'm most having trouble with. I kinda understood it when it was talked about with regard to OpenAtrium: each client/team would have its own "space" with different enabled features (eg blog, calendar, to-do list), which would be unique for that space. Presumably in this use-case links would try to be kept within the space. So you wouldn't really need to leverage spaces unless you plan on having clones of different areas used by different people.... Then, however, the 'building a blog feature' screencast kind of threw that out the window. I can't really see the advantages of using spaces in that scenario - why not just use context?

So I have a few questions, if I may!:

  1. Are features from the features module the same or different to the features mentioned in the spaces screencast? That screencast didn't have features installed, but instead of hooking the context into the spaces namespace, could the creator of the blog section export the context via features, upload it, enable it, and have it show up in the spaces configuration?
  2. How does one create feature servers, as demod in a screencast? And why can't one just use the project module instead of the features server module?
  3. Am I right in thinking in thinking that features and context can't deal with things like panels ATM?

Answering these as well as clearing up my general confusion would be much appreciated, if anyone has the time to spare!! If anyone from Development Seed themselves could help out, that'd be great...

Best wishes.

Comments

Same here

Posted by appellation-gdo on July 22, 2009 at 7:09pm
appellation-gdo's picture

Just wanted to say that I am also confused by the distinction between contexts and spaces.

Hi So you're mostly right

Posted by jmiccolis on July 24, 2009 at 2:48am
jmiccolis's picture

Hi

So you're mostly right here; Context is a way of collecting drupal parts together, Features are modules which provide a set of exported Drupal elements, Spaces allows you to configure a feature differently for multiple spaces (think 'per-group').

To answer you specific questions

1) The terminology gets tricky here, but yes, generally we (development seed) try to say 'feature' when we mean features module feature. I believe the actual screencast you're referring to was recorded before we wrote the features module, but the ideas there are the same ones behind the features module.

2) Young does a good job of explaining where we are with feature servers & and difference with the project module, here http://www.developmentseed.org/blog/2009/jun/26/recipe-feature-server

3) Features and context ARE meant to deal with things like panels. The only reason we don't currently have panels support at the moment is timing (that panels 2 development was stopped and panels 3 just saw an RC today).

Hope this is helpful.

I'm struggling as well

Posted by rockitdev on August 25, 2009 at 4:10pm
rockitdev's picture

I'm struggling as well getting my head around some of these concepts. What i'm trying to build is an intranet portal, where each site has it's own content contributors, to manage their section of the site.

Take for example 3 organic groups:

Human Resources
Finance
Marketing

There will be a primary navigation for the site, but each group should also have it's own navigation and respond based on the context that is set.

Here are some questions related to getting this configured.

  • if i have multiple menu's (1 per OG) how in the context UI Config, can i get the reaction to set the correct active menu?
  • Do features require a context to be created prior to be able to export a feature?

I'm trying the same

Posted by vegardjo on September 8, 2009 at 10:47am
vegardjo's picture

Hi, if I understand you right (which I might not) I am working on the same thing. I wish to have a main site with a set of menu items as primary links, and then groups which have different menu items as primary links.

My solution so far is to build everything as features, even if they are just sections with normal content. Some site features and some OG features, then setting the "Features" menu as source for primary links in admin/build/modules. For the main site I enable the site features with their menu items, and for groups the group features..

To try to answer your questions:

  1. In the context you set the "Active menu" reaction to a feature (node, views etc.). Personally I wish to make more menus active here, but it's seems that this cannot be done right now, as you only can set primary or secondary links as active. I'd like to be able to have a custom menu show up in a sidebar, and the set that as active too, for example with a separate "helper context".
  2. No, features do not require contexts at all, it's just one option you can use to create better features. You can also create a context after you have made the feature, and then make it available to the feature by editing the features' .info file. To be useful features needs spaces, though.

I think I'm also trying the same

Posted by harcher on October 13, 2009 at 6:46am
harcher's picture

I have posted a similar subject here:
http://groups.drupal.org/node/28110

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