A Paradigm for Reusable Drupal Features (DrupalCon 2009 notes)

A Paradigm for Reusable Drupal Features
Young Hahn, Robert Soden, Ian Ward (DevelopmentSeed)

1. In theory: the problem + solution
2. In practice: feature building demo
3. The future: what comes next

A blog is a "feature". So is a pressroom, an image gallery, a publication library, etc., etc. Blog can be created using core module, or cusotm recreated.

Example: making a pressroom: content types, fields, views, etc.

3 problems: slow, not reusable, disconnected pieces

A (turnkey)feature module: takes everything usually done in UI and puts it into code. How?

• Scripted: content type, fields, taxonomy, menus
• Exported: imagecache presets, block visibility, block views, page views, comp. relations

Spaces + Context demo

Code:

• is reusable
• is distributable
• can be kept under version control

Getting site-building into code:

Scripts:

• pain to debug
• pain to maintain
• not easily extensible

Earl Miles' Chaos tool suite

Exportables:

• abstract data storage so that your module can be indifferent to whether it's in code or db
• provide definitions, not scripts
• are easy to maintain
• are overridable and extensible

Modules with exportables?

• views
• panels
• context_ui
• imagecache

Recipe for exportables

• string identifiers
• API functions for collecting all items
• Structured array or object to represent your item

Future: ability to export features into module form

Developers: move toward adding exportability into your module!