Posted by Chekhov on September 23, 2012 at 12:30pm
Hi all,
I am planning to use Storm on D7 for a site I am currently building. I've been watching the storm group and issue list for some time now and could not help to notice several things:
- Issue Port Storm to Drupal 7 had its last update in March, 2012.
- Document Helping with Storm had its last update in January, 2012. In Developers for Drupal 7 branch there are no entries.
- Most of the issues for the D7 version are nearly half a year old.
- The issue Port Storm to Drupal 7 mentioned above touches on some basic architectural questions on how the D7 version of Storm should look like. However, there seems to be no other document discussing these questions (or I could not find it).
Maybe I just arrived during a quiet period. But I would definitely like to know whether this module is still alive.
Cheers!
Comments
The number of people
The number of people contributing to Storm has dropped off, and given other constraints on my time, I don't know when I might have time to do this.
So, whilst I do intend to get back to this, it would be much more motivational if there was group of people who had committed to helping out.
Therefore, I'd like to bounce this back to the community - if there are enough people who show that they are willing to be active in the issues queue, I'll put in the time to make sure this gets done sooner.
Any takers...?
Weather Forecast
My agile dev team and I have had our eyes on Storm for a while but haven't had a chance to do a sprint on it yet due to other competing projects. So, while we would be very interested in participating; I have to ask as we have to eat too - Is there energy that would help fund a sprint for this?
As an option to the community we can collect donations for 10cents per transaction and 1.25% instead of pay Pal's 45 cents and 4%
Here's hoping for positive result. Like I said we've had our eyes on storm for a while and would live to use it on our Drupal 7 site.
Daniel J. Furman
Director of Development/Innovation
RACE/FAST
Merging Projects?
It is hard to find people to help for such a big and complex project, especially if it is only used by a handful of people.
None of the project managing tools listed in the wiki (http://groups.drupal.org/node/17948) has a stable release for D7 yet. I don't know if it is wise that there are more than one module out there, which are trying to achieve a common goal, particular with such a low interest of community members to help out.
I really do not want to loose all the work everybody did to help fix storm issues and adding features. But for a proper storm D7 version there is a lot of work ahead, like the use of entities. Also some widely used function in storm should be refactored, like the timezone handling (its somehow a mess... :( ). As far as I know the codebase of storm is still from the first version which was for D4 or D5. And it "only" get improved over the time.
So in conclusion i think another project should be improved to handle all the features storm has and the other project doesn't. But which are written for D7 and do use all the features we have now, with views and fields.
Next to the projects listed in the wiki, there are two projects i know of, which are still active. For one the RedHen CRM solution and the ERPAL distribution. Both sounds promising, both are still active, both are build from scratch for D7. Maybe i would be better to write modules and features, which extends one of these.
It is only we all should think about. If some one is willing to donate for storm D7 and if there are few developers who want to do this, this should be the way. But without the man power this should be considered.
The debate on principles
Whoa. The original post is 5 hours old and already this takes a turn into the right direction.
I fully agree with Karl that it would be a waste of time if there are other projects coding for the same purpose. But the reason I fell for Storm is that I could not find anything going along the same lines. I was looking for a Project Management Drupal module which I can use as a basis for the things I know to be specfic to my projects and extend it easily. So it should be someting which concentrates on project management and project management only.
I was looking for something which has the basic stuff - projects, teams, tasks, organizations, etc. - and allows me to put it to use and extend it. I am not interested in the invoicing functionality for example, but I see the need for having that on a basic level or at least a link to other modules doing it.
I had a look at the mentioned projects (RedHen and ERPAL) but what I see is some sort of CRM and an attempt to do ERP with Drupal. The home pages of the projects point to companies, not to Drupal groups. Lots of marketing gibberish on those pages as well.
In my opinion, Storm is the only No Bullshit module in this area. I knew this from the moment I saw the icons on the Storm dashboard for the first time - no offense.
I am positive on investing time on helping develop or maintain such a module and it does not have to be Storm. But I have not seen any alternatives, so far.
Hi Chekhov, thanks for the
Hi Chekhov,
thanks for the flowers. I agree with Karl. There are multiple projects at the moment but no central direction. My first idea was to build a central framwork like search api is and to adopt then multiple modules for project management, erp, crm and so on. But at the moment there isn't enough manpower and time to realize the ideas. The main content types are always the same like organizations/customers, projects, contacts, tickets and so on.
For myself, i'm very busy at the moment, in company and in private live. I can hopefully start contributing in spring again, but then it is maybe the time to start a Drupal 8 project.
If there are people interested in storm, please help Julian by contributing.
Difference between Storm and OpenAtrium
I'm curious on what commentors think about the difference between Storm and OpenAtrium, seems like a lot of overlap?
I have been told that OA is
I have been told that OA is mainly for internal use, while Storm is for multi customers/projects.
We used Storm on d6 and think that it is not that easy for end users or PM.
We would like to get a kind of CRM+PM tool, because both are connected; for example tasks/cases/issues are mainly handled by devs & project managers, while Invoices are mainly used by sales and accounting people (but invoices are fed with PM/dev tasks info).
My 2 cts.
I didn't mentioned
I didn't mentioned OpenAtarium, because it is still D6 and the question here was about D7 :)
I never tried OpenAtarium, but here are some points i could think of:
There is definitely some overlap here, but storm is in my mind a bit more complex with the hierarchy structure of organization->project->task->ticket and teams->people, which is used nearly every where in storm. And I think this is the better way to build up such a module. You can disable team and tickets to have something like OpenAtarium, but it is more complex to add these missing features in OpenAtarium.
Try Asana
I've gone to a commercial program called Asana. It's got everything I need and if free for less than 30 users.
Try this try that, we can try all that...
Try this try that, we can try all that...
:) not my intentions to offend anybody, but that's not the point of discussion.
Having a look at Storm and Storm contrib code, I find that it would be a mammoth task to rewrite it for D7. This i find really unlikely due to few number of people involved. But what if we take a different approach to the problem!
Could Storm be stripped down to just a framework? A framework which makes no assumption about the workflow. This framework should expose api's for developer to plug in to storm?
This way we have a storm base module which is useless as such. And those who want to use it, have to develop plugin ( maybe borrow few algorithms from existing equivalent sub-modules of storm/storm-contrib ). A robust plugin interface should exist ( am thinking apps ).
Therby maintainer's wont have to port entire storm project. Downside would be that there would be no upgrade path, but then again i don't see we could spend enough time to create an upgrade path.
Developers interested in using storm could contribute back their plugins for storm. This would essentially lead to a workflow which would help nurture and mature those modules which are widely used.
Please let me know if this is possible...
=================================================
The comment below is about D6 ( read only if you are interested ).
Throwing in my experience with Storm and Atrium.
I had a fair chance to work with storm as well as open atrium. There were efforts to merge storm into openatrium ( replacing the default casetracker with storm's ) but again those were efforts put into D6.
Storm doesn't rely on cck (but you can extend the fields using cck ) and thus is not feature compatible. This may come as a blessing while performance tuning when there are lots of users. On the other hand it doesn't play along well with features.
Features is where open atrium shines. But then the downside is it gets bloated with modules too (to some extend you can use a meaner machine to solve that issue). It has a pleasing user interface. I had a small hack into timetracker which made it possible to create a module that updates storm time tracker
Albeit, neither of them takes care of any organizations/ individual's need right out of the box. They need to extend that with some customization to suite their needs. So the choice comes down to.. which of these help me customize it to my need!
The choice would be based on how you Drupal :), if you love to mess around with php, Storm would welcome you with arms wide open. Or if you are more comfortable around purl and features and context... Open Atrium is the one for you.
Suppose we rewrite from scratch
Independently of whether there are enough contributors, it looks like this is the preferred way to go.
Being quite the newbie on drupal.org, my next questions would be:
Meanwhile, I'll dive a bit into the API idea ...
I think the issue queue is
I think the issue queue is what you want: http://drupal.org/project/issues/storm
I think we should follow the original plan by julian. Make a D7 Version which works at least first and then create a new branch with the new D7 features. Step-by-Step.
If you want to help read: http://drupal.org/node/510742#comment-5700810
Also I got a request in IRC yesterday, how to help. It seems there will be some movement for Storm. Lets look if this is only temporary or if this keep going till we have a D7 version of storm at least.
Till the end of october i have no time for real developing, but I try my best to look at the issue queue and review patches, if necessary.
Storm D7 Sponsership
Hi All,
We are a Professional Services company.
We're using Storm to manage our whole operation, including Customers, Employees, Subcontractors, Auditors, Knowledge Base and use all modules except for invoices.
We certainly do not want Storm to fade away and will be willing to consider sponsoring the project maintenance and upgrade to D7.
Financial Intermediary/Programming Sprint
All,
My team and I would be happy to run a sprint and/or work as a financial intermediary. As an international not-for-profit and recognized NGO, we can offer a direct pass through of cash and accept credit cards for only 10 cents/transaction and 1.2% charge (much lower than paypal, western union, etc)
Let's do a project plan and get our milestones scheduled!
Daniel J. Furman
Director of Development/Innovation
RACE/FAST
I'm planning to put in some
I'm planning to put in some substantial time next week to push on Storm - does anyone have time to help out?
I cannot guarantee exactly when I'll be online, but it is most likely to be Mon-Thurs during UK office hours.
Ideally, it'd be good to have people who are willing to test and/or create patches.
Sounds Good
Thanks fpr the heads up Julian. I will make time available for testing as well.
10/16 edit : I'm on EST. Just downloaded Storm 7.x-1.x-dev 10/16 post. Seemed to load up OK, on D7.12. Updating to d7.15 next.
Tried to add project Description. Looks like thats not been implemented yet...
I have some time
Hi Julian
I should be able to put in some time for testing and patching next week.
I'm on CEST (GMT + 1), so there shouldn't be a problem with communicating with you.
I'm around
Hi julian, I'm going to be around this week too. I am on PST - so connecting directly with you may be a little tough.
Is there any chance of you jumping in IRC when you are around? I'm happy to test things - and I am making a few small patches as I learn.
Yes, I'll try to remember to
Yes, I'll try to remember to log in to IRC.
Good to have the context of which timezone everyone is on - so that we can make best use of our time!
Please get involved!
There has been movement on the port this week, but it'd be really good to get as many people as possible involved to keep momentum going.
Ways you can help:
1) Coding: Either get stuck in by yourself (plenty of bits left to do), or let me know your area of expertise and I'll point you towards something.
2) Testing: It's really useful when people post issues for the bits that they can see aren't working as it provides a checklist of items that need to be looked at. It will also benefit you to test early so that items you rely on are fixed sooner.
Thanks all, and thanks to everyone who has already been on the issues queue this week and/or trying the D7 version out.
#drupal-storm on Freenode (IRC)
Hi folks, I have created and registered #drupal-storm
The regular drupal channels can get very busy with chatter, so I thought creating this would be a nice way for people working on the port to chat with each other real time.
I am running a copy of hubot-irc in there - that will fetch and return info on drupal.org URLs - as well as say in channel when I commit to the public bitbucket repo I have set up to manage my Storm port :)
Here are some examples:
21:09:14 stormb0t> willwh pushed 2 commits to storm:21:09:14 stormb0t> [null] drupal_render() fix
21:09:14 stormb0t> [storm_render] Fixing this properly in a new branch
21:13:22 stormb0t> willwh pushed 1 commits to storm:
21:13:22 stormb0t> [storm_render] Fixing up stupids :)
22:00:03 @willwh> http://drupal.org/node/81916422:00:04 stormb0t> http://drupal.org/node/819164 => Omega Theme Documentation Handbook [Drupal 7.x, Mobile, Responsive, Responsive Design, theme]
22:00:07 @willwh> http://drupal.org/node/1799550
22:00:08 stormb0t> http://drupal.org/node/1799550 => Convert SQL queries [Storm, needs work, 14 comments, 3 followers]
Please do come and drop on by and say hello if you want to help!
Hi all, I think we've made
Hi all,
I think we've made some great progress over the last couple of weeks, and its great to have had a few of you involved on the issues queue helping out (means we can do more than if it is just me alone).
There is still more to do!
The next gap in my schedule will probably be tomorrow evening (UK time). I intend to spend a couple of hours on Storm then. It'd be great if you're also around to push on it - I will try to make sure I remember to sign into #drupal-storm.
Here's how to help:
Thanks all, look forward to discussions tomorrow evening.
Views module in Storm
I just wanted to flag up to you that Storm on Drupal 7 will shortly have a mandatory dependency on the views module.
I could see from developing that if we didn't do this now, we'd spend ages debugging custom code for little reason.
Most people will already have that module, but if not, please install when you're testing for Storm.
If you haven't tried the 7.x-1.x-dev release for a while also, please do download and see where we've got to.
Is there still momentum?
I haven't seem much momentum lately, is there still interest in a Storm D7 port?
Is there still momentum?
I use Storm on a daily basis and rely on it. I still run it on D6 and it meets my needs for now. I am interested in moving to D7 and using Storm in that environment, but I am unfortunately unable to do so, or contribute anything meaningful to a development effort until late April.
So, +1
still interested
I am working with another tool now, but I am still interested, and I know D7 hooks, can code something. But I doubt I can had a look and discuss a plan for this month at least. Maybe there is plan to read already ...
Porting to D7 could be managed in D7 Storm itself, after all it is an application meant to develop and advance projects, and if things to coordinate and tracking advance are missing it will arise from this. Doesn't it?
No commits in 2 weeks is not a drop in momentum - its a Christma
No commits in 2 weeks is not a drop in momentum - its a Christmas / New Year break!
You're right though that there hasn't been an update here in a while.
I would encourage you to look at the Roadmap for the D7 port here: https://drupal.org/node/1862286 . This issue lists a lot of other items, and priorities for getting those bits done.
Sorry that it is slow, but this is the nature of projects where the work is done voluntarily.
Any "Tips for Migrating Storm(D6) to PM(D7)"
The Storm Port to D7 seems to have made good progress of late. I created this issue at PM Tips for Mirating Storm (D6) to PM (D7) , and then came across this discussion, so I thought I repost it here as well to 'fish' for more feedback...
I'm getting antsy, so I'm thinking seriously about migrating an existing Storm (D6) site to PM (D7) site. I'm wondering if anyone has already done this, and if so what was your experience?
I have questions like ...
Is it even possible?, and if so, is it worth the effort at this point? ...Maybe still to early?
What other contributed modules (if any) were most helpful? I see such modules as Migrate, Drush, d2d, etc?
Not all Storm/PM features are critical to me at this point. Things like Notes, Invoices, Expenses, Teams and Knowledge Base, would not be critical to me if they didn't come thru. Mostly what I'm after would be Organizations, Persons, Projects, Tasks, Tickets and Timetrackings.
Anyone try this yet?
Integrating Asana with Storm
I see some people are promoting Asana here, we have switched to asana also, but our clients still login through storm for invoices. Asana has a JSON API, any work being done on an integration, since i am interested in starting a project that does so.
"If you have to do a sequence of actions more than twice, they are in the wrong abstraction layer :D" - Learned from drupal