(review thread) Important decisions about future development of directory.module

Actually a client just requested this very feature: per-vocabulary directories. I'll try to come up with a patch that does this in a cleaner way.

Fast reply!

See this issue: http://drupal.org/node/147412

+200 :P

If you look at clean Drupal 5 code, it's so clean and elegant. But this is so difficult to understand. No offense to inactivist or the other developers, I guess that's just how Drupal has evolved, which is of course A Good Thing.

I'm working on the patch now.

@Wm:

If you look at clean Drupal 5 code, it's so clean and elegant. But this is so difficult to understand. No offense to inactivist or the other developers, I guess that's just how Drupal has evolved, which is of course A Good Thing.

No offense taken!

Just for the record, I didn't build this module - I needed the basic functionality, found this module in the 'orphaned' projects, and resurrected it (became the maintainer and created an official project page) after I made the minimal changes needed in order to make it work in Drupal 4.7 (it had been partially ported but was non-functional, and the original module developers seemed to have abandoned it - perhaps for good reasons.)

Anyway, after I did the initial port, my experience with the code is much the same as yours - the code is very dense, fragile, and needs 'refactoring' - frankly, my goal in taking over the maintainer role was to get this thing back into circulation and see what kind of response I get from the community - and up until recently (beginner, and now Wm!) it's been pretty underwhelming - not that much interest beyond the basic features - but perhaps that's due to the initial 4.7 version's low quality (as has been so aptly described beginner's recent issues and attempts to mitigate the worst of the problems.)

As I said before, the recent attention and offers to help are greatly appreciated, as there is a need for this kind of module in the community, I think.

I agree that it's a complete mess.

I'm currently cleaning it up, to make "directory" use "directory/term" and "directory/vocabulary". I know that there are slightly more features in the latter two, but they're implemented in a crappy (developer perspective) and unusable (user perspective) way anyway. So I'm removing them.

At the same time, I'm cleaning up some code, and adding a new feature: to limit the results to a certain node type (this is the feature I'm being paid for to add). If I would try to apply that feature on the codebase, it'd just make the mess even messier and I would probably end up not understanding my own code anymore.

Any chance you could hop in on IRC to discuss this? IM/mail is fine too.

taxonomy/term/nnn gives you teasers. Suppose 50 nodes are categorized under term nnn, that means 50 teasers, which can be described as "bad overview" at best. That's why directory/nnn is useful. I'm not saying it's high quality though.

Well, my client *needs* the "limit by content type" feature, so that's what I'm implementing. I sure hope you will accept the code, but it *is* pretty much refactored from top to bottom. If I had just added the content type feature, you wouldn't have accepted the patch, because it would make the code even more fuzzy and complex. So this is the best choice.

I've removed lots of leftovers (parameters that were no longer used, comments of the Drupal 4.7 age, etc.), refactored functions that did almost the same, separated the theming from the logic property (those theme_* functions contained a *lot* of logic!) and cleaned up the code in general.

It's not yet ready, but what I have, looks good. It only keeps the stuff that is *really* relevant to a "directory" module. I think (and sure hope) you are going to like it. The code "speaks" now: it looks again like Drupal code :) ;)

The point here is the redundancy. With the current default, the user would browse the site this way:
1) go to /directory
2) click on term to /directory/nnn
3) click on teaser to /node/nnn
4) within node, click on taxonomy term to /taxonomy/term/nnn
5) now the user is confused because he came from one list of terms (directory) but eventually arrives to a different list (taxonomy).

This is confusing. One would expect the user to be able to go back to the directory from the node. But if the user is let back to the directory/nnn page when clicking on a term in the node, then we completely bypass taxonomy/term/nnn listings, which are still there, but unused. In that case, why not remove the directory/nnn listing and use the taxonomy listing instead: it can be themed if wanted.

You've convinced me. directory/nnn (and directory/term/nnn for that matter) is (are) indeed exactly the same as taxonomy/term/nnn. If you don't like the output, theme it. Simple as that.

I will implement this in my refactored version.

There's one UI glitch if you use taxonomy/term/nnn: the breadcrumbs. But that's not a real issue IMO, it is justifiable.

I just realized that using taxonomy/term/nnn is not possible due to the feature my client wants: filtering the results by content type. That's not supported by taxonomy/term/nnn, nor by the underlying function.
So I'll have to add this stuff again. Aside from that, everything was ready.

And I just noticed that taxonomy/term/nnn is NOT themable... boooooo at taxonomy.module!

I can unfortunately not break this into smaller pieces, because it's a completely refactored module. Things are separeted much more clearly now though, so my hopes are good that you will accept it. I know this is not-done, but if the module's code was fairly clean, I wouldn't have to do it in the first place.

Legacy support is IMO not in order here. We're trying to clean things up, not to make things 100% backwards compatible. Few people use this module, and those who do will have to accept that their links are broken and that certain very inaccessible features will be gone. That's the same price you have to pay with every Drupal core update: no backwards compatibility.

Such a nasty way of theming (node.tpl.php and checking for arguments) is not acceptable IMO. And it's indeed a bug in core.

For your client: why not having one vocabulary per node type? then the terms are automatically filtered by content type!

That's not acceptable. What's the point of taxonomy if you cannot apply the same vocabularies to multiple content types? Not to mention that his vocabulary consists of thousands of terms.

I posted my refactored version at http://drupal.org/node/161075.

No need to get sarcastic.

Please continue the discussion there.

No need to get sarcastic.

Please continue the discussion there.

Hi,

I would like to have a requirement in this module and not sure whether it will be considered.

I would assume directory module does have generally tree structure of categories where user can configure them. I would to have same categories and also content relation between Classified Ads and Directory.

For example, if i want to create a category called "Rental" either in real estate directory or Apartments directory, then users should be able to browse the Classified Ads posted under Rental category of Classifieds Modules.

Directory > Real Estate > Rental
Classifieds > Rental >

I'm not sure whether it is currently available, if not, i'm hoping this would be considered in further development.

Thanks,
Paradesi

I would love to see this module updated to something that resembles the Moset Tree for Joomla. There is also a backend bulk upload feature along with related categories etc.

I'm hoping that Directory continues to be developed and will eventually resemble a Yahoo style directory listing. This kind of directory listing is apparently hard to come by. Joomla seems to have one but I don't really want to switch to Joomla. I hope that Drupal can develop something that will rival phpmydirectory. Don't give up on Directory. I will wait patiently.

What is the latest stand on Directory?

I am looking in to helping out. People are very interested in this module. I think the alpha pager should be kept.

Directory has a very organized way to present all terms. It should just be that. showing the terms for that alphabet....it could work much like tagadelic with an alpha pager.

Hi - not too sure about all the options for posting. Just wanted a minor comment.

I have added the Directory module to my site - soon to be live - to list links to useful sites on the internet. The only nodes in the Directory are Janodes - a node type for internet links.

I like it because I want users to see a Description of the site - too many times I see lists of links with no description and no indication of what the site linked to is about.

Anyway - I have come to the Drupal site because I would like users to be able to rate the items in the directory.

I have installed Fivestar - and the ratings show up in the teaser but not in the Directory list - where I would like them too.

Reading this discussion has made me think I should use a Taxonomy module. In the past I have installed heaps of Taxonomy modules and additions and have still not been able to get what I want ... but then I have been using drupal a lot longer now :-)

Anyway - just my comments. I'll try to keep track of this conversation. Internet access is a bit limited where I am - so do not always keep up with this stuff.

And I am going to look into the 'undocumented features' :-) They look useful

Don

Since feedback and comment is directed here...

First, I am about to use the Directory module as a starting point for a project I'm working on. It's a nice start, but at the moment the view it outputs is too simple for me. I'll try and do this with the wider community in mind, and perhaps I'll have a useful patch when I'm done. What I'm going to build is this:

- True "DMOZ"-style home page (search and tier one taxonomy items + teasers of tier two items)
- True "DMOZ"-style listing pages (e.g. click on a category and get the sub-category, listing it's sub-categories first and then all relevant nodes underneath that)
- An option to turn these views on and off
- Additional search forms for searching within a sub-category only

Regarding the future of this module, since Category is *not* being adopted (for now) by the Drupal core team, Taxonomy will be around for a few years to come. In the past I have ditched Taxonomy entirely because the Category module, combined with Views, makes directory creation much more flexible.

HOWEVER, it is not easy - Category is still a little shakey (in my experience) and building complex Views can be a skill in it's own right. Also (IMHO) the default taxonomy pages are not hugely flexible. Currently NO ONE makes an easy-to-use directory building module. Many other directory solutions to this use case involve doing large chunks of logic in the template layer, which is WRONG WRONG WRONG.

So I believe this module could actually become an important addition to Drupal given a bit more attention. It is nicely lined up to become the Directory module for Drupal. I will help where I can, starting with my work for this client. =)

Ps - is this module still being maintained? Any thoughts on Drupal 6.x port?

Another thought - what do you guys think about making the Directory module depend on Views, tearing out the query building functions and replacing them with provided views coded in to the module? I think I will do this anyway, as I don't see the sense in maintaining a query builder for node selection within a module, when that's essentially what Views is, but interested to hear what you think...

This will module will probably become obsolete in Drupal 6 when Views 2 (which will be Drupal 6 only) is released: Views 2 is no longer limited to the node table as the base table.

Really? So you'll be able to make Taxonomy views? Wow. Still a few months away though... =(

ARG! Double-post... =(

hesitant to believe that views2 will be the end all of node browsing... the one feature that sold me on directory is that it's a relatively simple hierarchical term browser. i needed a simple tool to find nodes in a deeply nested taxonomy... the core taxonomy module is useless for that and i don't think you'd be able to construct such a thing with views2 arguments but we'll see.

drewish: then look at the code of this module and you won't like it anymore ;) At the very least, it will require a rewrite for D6, to be somewhat manageable.

then look at the code of this module and you won't like it anymore ;)

That's the truth! I am half way through a re-write using the Views module instead. The code in my version is now about 75% less by embedding exported views instead of re-writing all the presentation code, as the current module does. I'm not finished yet, but I intend to post my re-write for review when done. It will be for Drupal 5.x (D6 isn't ready yet, as far as I'm concerned, cos CCK and Views are still in alpha and beta states, respectively, so you'd be insane to deploy any site using those modules in a Production environment - and none of my sites DON'T use both those modules). I will probably do a D6 port of the same code at a later date. It's all a case of time and money (I'm doing the job for a paying client, so if he pays for it, I will build it - otherwise I don't have time).

I have the Moset Code (I paid the $119.00 for then switched to Drupal from Joomla) if you are interested in looking at it. It was a real nice directory.
http://www.mosets.com/tree/

This is a real important module and we really need this for Drupal.

Is directory module working?

himagarwal, don't hijack issues. if you're having a problem with the module open a new support request.

I am rewriting something basic for a taxonomy directory based off joomla's alpha content

it shouldn't be hard to customize to show the nodes like mosets

this is very basic, i should be done by the end of the month.

bjraines
That would be awesome! Moset Tree was great on Joomla so this will be a great addition for the Directory module.

@ #37, #40

Does someone want to give a brief explanation of how #40 can be achieved using #37? I have to do this real soon and I have no idea how it works/might work...

could you give me a better idea of what you want

I am currently writing a very simple taxonomy directory. one that works the way I wish Views did.

however i am keeping the structure in mind to write a node directory as well as a different node based glossary.

Wim is basically convinced that this can be achieved with Views 2 and a style plugin(?) as I have spoken to him on several occasion about this.

Basically, for me, I want something similar to the Mosets thing, but of course it would be nice to have some contextual information in there as well (not sure what) which Panels 2 can provide (admittedly not yet) and perhaps also V2 can?

NikLP: Basically what you want to do is:
- in Views 2, you can set a different base table than the node table. This allows you to do listings of users, taxonomy terms, comments, whatever, instead of nodes. Since you want a taxonomy term listing, you'd join against taxonomy's table.
- In order to present this information in a way like the Directory module does, you'll need a Views style plugin that does this. In Views 2, this has changed a lot; it became much more advanced. You'll have to consult the Views 2 documentation to find out how to do this.

I'm personally terrified of this, but... bounty, anyone?

That makes two of us that are terrified lol

I want this out of my list of issues.