Features and Context Overview

Brent Ratliff
Twitter: @brentratliff
Blog: laminarlogic.com

Old Drupal Paradigm
Extend Drupal core with modules in order to add functionality
Modules added content types, blocks, and queries with Drupal API calls and hooks
Modules added site functionality including end to end workflow

Common Site Functionality
Events
Blog
Forums
Articles
Videos
Product Views
Ticketing System / CRM

“Functionality” Modules
Pros
One click install
Worked out of the box
Established workflow
Cons
Inflexible
Too many assumptions made
Required coding to change
Tough to customize

CCK and Views Changed Everything

CCK/Views Paradigm
Create some content types with the fields we need (text, images, videos, dates, currency, locations, etc)
Reference content types to content and users
Create nice lists of these things for display and search (Views, Node & User References)
Create some blocks to display when our users are interacting with these features

Contrib
Module developers began contributing smaller modules made to target specific tasks
Sitebuilders use these lighter modules to build their desired functionality in a more custom way like assemblingLego™ blocks
Examples: Views plugins, specific CCK fields, Nodereference widgets, GMAP, Rules, Workflow - all geared towards a CCK/Views paradigm

CCK/Views Functionality
Pros
Incredibly flexible
Only minor glue modules needed if any code at all
Can completely control workflow, forms, queries, lists, and display
Clients now get almost exactly what they want
Cons
Configuration is in the database
Lots of time spent on configuration clicking through the U/I
Portability, Version Control, Dev+Staging+Production
We lost the one click install

This is great, this “feature” works exactly how I want it to.

Oh crap, now everything’s in the database. How do I get it out?

Options
Backup & Migrate Module
Deploy Module
Feeds (Feed API)
Custom SQL
Exportables – This sounds promising

Exportables
Views (Export/Import UI)
CCK Export/Import
Panels 3
Context
Boxes
Strongarm (Drupal Variables Table)
Ctools – API to expose custom module vars

Context and Features
Wouldn’t it be great if you could define the functionality you want your site to have, build the pieces separately, or maybe, some for now and some for later.
It sure would be nice if I could build a cool feature once and deploy it wherever I want by clicking a check box.
Or better yet, develop it offline and deploy it.

The Features Module
A module that builds modules from exportables
Provides a UI to gather exportables related to site functionality (a feature)
Creates and manages .info, .module and other files
Custom hooks can be added
The best of both worlds

Context
A module that allows sitebuilders to layout their site into logical sections by controlling conditions and reactions
Block visibility, body classes, active menus, custom plugins
Replaces block admin page
Exportable

Context Theme Gotchas
Theme functions
hook_block
Menu Trees
Primary Links
preprocess_page

Let’s take a look at an example

Features and Context Overview

by brentratliff on Jun 14, 2010

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Features and Context Overview — Presentation Transcript