PPMAF.org

My module selection process goes as follows:
1. Visit any project pages that seem interesting
2. Check the CVS message log. If there weren't any recent messages, or any messages indicating 4.7 compatibility, I skipped the project. (I would often check the issues too to see what problems people were having.)
3. Downloaded the module to my local dev install.
4. Played around with it.
5. If I couldn't get it to work the way I wanted in 15min I would either find a similar project or drop it.

I was given a pretty free hand to set the specs and choose the features of this project. I did write a spec early on and would occasionally refer to it. In the end, I dropped a large portion of the spec - not an unusual process in software development.

To answer your specific questions:
1. I chose send over forward because I know the author. Also, I am working on some CiviCRM projects, and I was using send as a basis to understand CiviCRM (it integrates). In the long run, I would like to harness the CiviCRM aspects.

2. I am guardedly optimistic about scalability. I know 4.7 has had some improvements to the path system. I am hoping that these will help me overcome the scalability problems associated with providing a path to every node. Good SEO and readable links are more important right now than scalability. As the site matures, I may have to revisit this issue, but for now I have bigger fish to fry.

I hope this helps,
-mark

--
http://www.ppmaf.org

The home page uses this technique twice: http://drupal.org/node/44596

First, the main body content is split into two sections: "above the fold" and "below the fold".

The above the fold nodes are printed out.

Next, the same concept is applied to the right sidebar blocks. In this case, after every three blocks a <div class = "clearer"> is inserted (see http://www.complexspiral.com/publications/containing-floats/). The blocks are floated to the left in the CSS and the width is set to slightly less than 33% (dang IE). This creates a CSS design that looks like a table.

Next the left sidebar is floated to the left and the "below the fold" node text is printed out.

Here are the functions that make the magic happen:

function ppmaftheme_contentsplitter($incontent, $delimiter, $headlength)
{
  $outcontent = array();
  
  $tmp = explode($delimiter, $incontent, $headlength + 1);
  
  for ($i = 0; $i < $headlength; $i++) {
    $outcontent['head'] .= $tmp[$i];
  }
  
  $outcontent['tail'] = $tmp[$headlength];
  
  return $outcontent;
}

function ppmaftheme_blockclearer($inputtext, $delimiter, $chunksize, $inserthtml = '<div class="clearer">&nbsp;</div>')
{
  $units = explode($delimiter, $inputtext);
  $units_size = count($units);
  
  for ($i = 0; $i <  $units_size; $i = $i + $chunksize) {
    for ($k = 0; $k < $chunksize; $k++) {
      $output .= $units[$i + $k];
    }
    $output .= $inserthtml;
  }
  
  return $output;
}

If you view the page source you will see the HTML comments that serve as delimiters between the blocks and the nodes.

Hope this helps.
-Mark

--
http://www.ppmaf.org