GHOP #66: Review multi-site manager tools

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Claimed by danielskeenan.

Before I start on the report, what is the format of the report? (i.e. Length)

You sound like one of the good English teachers I've had. :-) I'm working on an outline now, and will post it here and to the Google issue page as soon as I finish it. As of now, I'm looking at 5 paragraphs (introduction, one for each tool, and conclusion) with screenshots of each tool, as well as a table comparing the three near the end in the conclusion.

I'm having some trouble getting HostMaster2 to work, So the outline will probably get posted around mid-tomorrow.

Might make sense. I've almost got the outline done (My computer hates me), so I'll see if it seems like I'm cramming to much into too little.

Just finished cleaning up the outline.

Due to some nasty mid-term stuff, I haven't gotten to work on this all that much. My goal is to have the thing completed by the end of this weekend.

This is the final outline for the review. The review itself will hopefully be done sometime tomorrow.

Done!

I took a look at this and have some comments:

A.)

It has not yet seen a stable release, and requires checkout from the CVS repository.

If it requires checking out from the repository there is *no* release, not just no stable release.

B.) In footnote #1 on page 1, I'd like a title there also, so it's clear what the footnote is for.

C.) Page 2, at the top, refers to the security risk. This seems like a huge risk to me, and you might emphasize this more.

D.) Page 2: "Once past the ins" instead of "Once past the installation" is what I see in my document.

E.) Page 2 bottom: "but it is not as powerful as Druplet and Hostmaster2". Why not? You could expand a little here.

F.) Your table could use a bit more vertical padding so the text from different cells doesn't run together (this is probably only a problem when it's printed).

This looks like a good draft. Hopefully Crell will chip in with some comments as well and you can get this done soon.

I'll work on those problems tonight. I printed out the last page to check out issue F, and I do agree. I'll see what looks good for that one.

Updated the draft. I'm calling this "Draft 2" until Crell gets a chance to look at it.

I do have a lot of homework today, but I'll fix those problems you mentioned as soon as I can.

I'm working on it now. I did just send Matt Koglin, the Druplet maintainer, a message to see if he has a release plan; For now, I'll just cut the sentence short at "Druplet seems very stable."

Do you want me to post the review now or wait until I get a response regarding Druplet's release status?

Go ahead and post it now. That way, if we get a chance to review it now things might move a little faster.

BTW, we usually use the needs more info status for issues where someone reports a bug that can't be reproduced. In this case, we should go between code needs work and code needs review.

This is the review, sans Druplet release plan.

I just wanted to let you all know - I haven't gotten an e-mail back from Matt, so the review as last posted is what I (personally) considering "latest version pending review".

I got the message. I'll upload the review with the release plan in it soon.

A few typos/corrections need to be made:

1.) "administration of [m]any different sites a[t] once"

2.) "and saving [disk]Disk space"

3.) "The Multisite Manager tool is easily the best choice when managing multiple Drupal-powered website[s]."

The following quote is from Crell's review above (#18). You have touched on a few of these concerns, but I don't feel that you've addressed them fully. After reading your report, I still don't have a good sense as to why you say that the Multisite Manager module is the best choice of the three, and I don't have a good sense of which module would be best for my site.

- So how does Druplet actually work? It uses installation profiles, but what does it do with them? How does one create a new site? Is there a way to secure it in production? A multi-site manager that can't be used in production is not super useful. :-)

- For HM2, what "things" need to be checked out, and what's so complicated about svn? :-) Is the documentation for HM2 lacking?

- For MM, you say it uses the same "create content song and dance" as Druplet, but you don't say what that is in either case.

I'd like to see a lot more detail on each option. So far it looks like you're presenting the conclusion for each (Druplet is easy but insecure, Hostmaster2 is hard, Multisite Manager is easy and secure usually), but not any of the reasoning behind your conclusion. That reasoning is important, as it helps people evaluate if the trade-off of each one is worth the stumbling blocks (is HM2 worth the extra hassle? Sometimes yes, sometimes no) as well as give the module maintainers useful feedback on what they need to work on.

I'll get this done as soon as I can.

How's this?

If it's possible, can you also convert this to a .pdf and upload that when you upload new versions. I don't have open office installed on several of my systems, so that limits my capability to review this.

I love you OpenOffice.org PDF export feature :-)

You've got a typo here: "Currently, it is not [computable] with Drupal 6."

Should be compatible.

If you fix this typo and upload your corrected document, I think we can give you credit for the task so that if you want to claim another before the deadline to claim tasks you can.

It's fixed.

Ok, looks good. I'll give you credit for the google task.

HM2 was not ready for public consumption at the time this was made.
it's improved a lot, but is still in development.

Hrm, so this is rather outdated information now so, while interesting, it isn't really a good thing to publish at this point. I'm going to go ahead and close this.