For the first time, and not mentioned in the Release Notes, OpenPublish Features 6.x-1.18 links OP Article and OP Blog to a third-party service, DocumentCloud. Because this linkage was removed in OpenPublish Features 7.x, this issue does not affect sites developed in Drupal 7.

Developers who try to update OpenPublish Features in their Drupal 6 installations will find that the related Drupal module, Document Cloud, is not in synch with the development of the third-party application. Between a broken link and outdated documentation, I lost a day trying to sort out which files I should upload to /sites/all/libraries to make the Document Cloud module, and thus two modules in OpenPublish Features, work.

Furthermore, the third-party application, which is designed for investigative reporters working in professional newsrooms to use, is inappropriate for many of the small publications that are drawn to OpenPublish. (I'm sure that's part of the reason the linkage was removed in 7.x.)

Although it was great to consider whether to synch OpenPublish with DocumentCloud, now that isn't going to work, we need better documentation on OpenPublish Features as well as the Document Cloud module to keep developers from getting stuck in this all-too-enticing trap.

Comments

amanda’s picture

amanda commented

DocumentCloud is a third party in this case and there's no guarantee that DocumentCloud will extend an account to every OpenPublish user, so it is definitely inappropriate to require DocumentCloud.

I do want to clarify, however that DocumentCloud does welcome account requests from small, ad hoc, and not for profit newsrooms.

jec006’s picture

jec006 commented
Title: Updating to 6.x.1.18 will break your site » Remove DocumentCloud as a dependency for Openpublish Article and Blog Features

I think the best course of action here is for us to move the document cloud fields into their own feature, which a user can then optionally enable. This will better allow users who don't necessarily want or need this functionality to avoid extra work while also allowing those who like/need it to use it without a lot of work.

The secondary issue is that the documentation for DocumentCloud download is incorrect - I will go fix that also (there is an issue already for the DocumentCloud module).

Please use the title area to describe the specific issue instead of just saying it will break openpublish. This way people will be able to find issues related to what they are dealing with and prevent duplicate issues.

jec006’s picture

jec006 commented

I fixed the document cloud documentation issue and have someone looking into moving document cloud into its own feature

#989440: Document Viewer link is incorrect - Document Cloud can't be installed