Organic Groups Blueprints: Drupal 6 port?

Not directly. In D6, Blueprints will exist as an abstracted, independent layer that is either part of the Panels package itself, or directly integrates with it, such that anything (node types, users, whatever) can leverage the blueprint framework. So you'll still have blueprints for OG, it'll just be through a little bit of a different mechanism.

I'll probably write an upgrade path, though, once I've written the new layer in D6.

this is great. will this be part of panels download or separate module? when will this be done?

Sounds freaky. I like it. :)
subscribe.

Mm, I need to make a post somewhere explaining why, as a rule, I don't estimate release dates. Best I can say, though, is that we're talking months, and summer at the earliest.

I LOVE the blueprints module and it's capacity to empower collective social action.

The Good News: I am currently using it in a multisite drupal5 installation to power a beta non-profit site ( www.grassrootshealthcare.org please feel free to register and try it out) that is striving to create social networking and virtual citizens groups to improve quality and safety in healthcare delivery. The installation is simultaneously running a site ( www.groupsalive.com/bcsis ) as beta social networking and communication site for an elementary school. The school site uses blueprints to replicate class groups and parent groups with a rich toolset and collaborative functionality.

Among other things, the site concept enables anyone (registered user) to create a virtual "healthcare community action group" fully enabled with calendar, discussion, wiki, document repository, best ideas/practices, etc. These groups are automatically networked with other groups and ideas to improve healthcare safety and quality. Much of the core functionality lies in members ability to do a "one-click" create of a templated (read OG Blueprints) group with amazing collaboration functionality.

The Bad News: The world has moved on and I'm finally trying to upgrade the D5 installation to D6. I'm doing this primarily for maintainability not for new features. Most of the modules I'm using (a lot ...) have made it to D6. However it looks like OG_Blueprints may be the dealbreaker.

I understand that you plan to somehow merge this functionality with CTools/Panels. I understand your reluctance to discuss release dates.

Sooo....

1) If OG_Blueprints functionality is essential/core/required to my fundamental site concept am I simply "SOL" at present for an upgrade path?
2) Are there other options/workarounds you know of?
3) Is there a different location/group/forum/discussion somewhere this is being discussed or moving forward? (I've checked CTools and Panels with no luck)
4) What are other people doing? I can't believe I'm the first with D6 somewhere near a year into release.
5) Any very rough sense whether a simple D6 port would be possible technically? Easy but time consuming? Ridiculously difficult waste of time?
6) I have no money now, but if I could get some for the non-profit effort .... what might a good budget number for a "simple" D6 port be? (even if the smart/desirable approach would be a CTools/Panels integration?)
7) Same question (rough budget $) for a CTools/Panels integration to allow the OG_Blueprints style functionality (if not the actual OG_Blueprints module) to work with D6

I know this is a lot of questions. I'm sure you can feel my interest, urgency, and hopefullness. Maybe with a bit more clarity for the community others with interest could somehow band together ...

Thanks for this amazing module. And moreover, for what it can enable. If anyone else even came close to this in vision, features, or successfully accomplished functionality I wouldn't need to be writing this.

Blueprints Rocks! You rock!

Jack Spivak

Unfortunately, you're one of only 15 users according to the usage stats and sdboyer is chronically busy. :( I've been waiting for Blueprints to become a reality for some time and didn't even realize there was the start of a D5 version of it. I want to do what you said, have users be able to set up a fully functioning group from a template.

If we could only find a way to add more hours to sdboyer's day. :)

Michelle

Michelle

Your point is well taken. I'm hoping to generate some new ideas for how to move forward. The functionality is awesome and so needed by a variety of grassroots political, eco, tech, social justice, etc organizations.

I want to emphasize that if you are looking for this kind of functionality (and still willing to be tied to D5) OG_Blueprints does a genuinely amazing and (so far ...) reliable job. Also, I am about a year and a half into my project and learning curve .... drupal, social networking, and the conceptual architectures for collaboration. If anything I've done could be useful I'd be glad to share ideas.

Please feel free to check out the site at www.grassrootshealthcare.org to get a sense of what's been possible. I would love to hear your feedback (probably not here) since you are pretty involved in social networking sites.
BTW ... I've been using and loving your Advanced Profile Kit for a while now (if youre the michell from shell media...)

Is there any way to get a very rough ballpark estimate of what it might take to go from 5.x to 6.x. Are module ports "relatively" standard or do things get ridiculously complicated often enough to matter. (I know that inevitably some modules will be very difficult to port. I'm wondering if this is the exception or the rule)

No, there's no way I'd go back to Drupal 5 at this point. I finally dragged my site kicking and screaming into D6 last November. :)

Probably not a good idea for me to go look at what was possible in D5 since I can't really help with bringing it to D6. :(

Yes, that's me.

I have no idea what it would take to port Blueprints. I didn't even realize it was more than theory until I stumbled on this issue.

Michelle

Thanks for the kind words, Jack. It sounds like you're using Blueprints for _exactly_ the kind of thing I'd hoped it would empower when I first wrote it. Shame I haven't had the time to drive my own, similar effort forward :)

Lemme do your bulleted questions:

1) Yep, pretty much SOL if you're site is based around it, until the upgrade path comes about.
2) No real options that I'm aware of. The closest thing functionality-wise is probably Spaces, but they're two entirely separate systems and there'd be _no_ way to migrate at all cleanly.
3) Nope, there's no central location for discussion. A lot of other issues have brought me back to this in a roundabout way, and merlinofchaos and I agree that blueprints are basically the next big step for Panels/CTools. But the extent of the discussion is still really just between me and him, on IRC. Sporadically.
4) I don't know what other people have done. Other people have approached me and asked me about funding a port, but until recently I wasn't a) mentally prepared to really do the work and b) in a position to even take the work for hire.
5) A straight D6 port would be possible, and not THAT difficult (now that og_panels is relatively stable). 40-60 hours work, perhaps. I've always avoided doing it because I loathed the thought of doing just a port, rather than the whole blueprints kaboodle...
6) For a straight port, see the ballpark hours estimate from the previous bullet. If I were to actually take a contract to do the work, though, I'd need to revisit that estimate to make sure it's accurate.
7) I recently ballparked the time required for the basic underlying Panels/CTools integration at 150 minimum. It may be more.

I'd rather keep $$-specific discussions over email, so if you'd like to proceed in that direction, you can hit my contact form.

You might be interested to know, though, that I've set myself the hurdle of getting blueprints basically working by DCSF :) It's feeling quite tight now, and I'm going to have to push HARD if I want to make it, but I've gotta do SOMETHING for that presentation...that said, I wouldn't mind more chip-in style support so I'm not losing too much income while I work on it. So while I can't guarantee fully functioning Blueprints at DCSF, it's the best news about blueprints in years :)

Sam,

Thanks for responding so completely and thoughtfully.

Do you still have contact with the other parties that have approached you about a port?
Is there a way to find out which sites that have registered with Drupal.org are using blueprints (and thus perhaps find their owners/developers)? I've looked but don't seem to have the mojo to find this.

I'm thinking that maybe a group of users might be able to chip in enough $ to make a major dent in your needs.

I would be happy to do the contact and attempt persuasion if we could build a list ...

Also, FWIW, I have spent quite a bit (read ... way too much) of time thinking_about/creating collaboration architectures, feature sets and taxonomies for my sites and their underlying set of modules. The structures were intended to be generic so that they could be deployed perhaps as a drupal profile and then customized lightly for various customer needs.

If you and merlinofchaos would care to have an ear or a voice from an Actual_User in your development conversations, I would love to participate and offer any end user perspective or testing that might help. I have a pretty good sense of what's involved in software development. I'm not a "real" coder but I've written way more code than a mechanical/bioengineer has any right to. (... and in the process I've learned that I know enough to be dangerous if I'm off my leash)

While I have a vested interest, I am also passionate about this functionality. As far as I can tell, no other social collaboration platforms come even close to what blueprints enable from a community empowerment/action perspective ... especially when coupled with the drupal strength of taxonomies.

I want to see it happen.
I want to see its impact in the "post-release" world.

Is there a way to find out which sites that have registered with Drupal.org are using blueprints (and thus perhaps find their owners/developers)? I've looked but don't seem to have the mojo to find this.

No, update status sends info anonymously. All you can tell is that there's about 15 sites using it. There may be more since update status isn't part of core in D5 and that skews the stats.

Michelle