Extended use of strings as contexts [#915824]

The context type 'String' seems a pretty universal way to move around small pieces of information in Panels. Unfortunately it seems like the only way of defining strings is to put them in the URL/path, which makes it kind of difficult to load them from other contexts.

It would be awesome if it was possible to add a new String context, and use tokens/keywords (or manual text) to populate it.

The main case for this functionality is that you could then take a CCK field from a context node and use it as an argument for a view. Which would kind of rock, especially if you combine it with stuff like YQL integration in Views 3.

I hope to back this case up with a screencast within a week, just to show how awesome it could be. :-)

Panels rock.

Comments

Comment #1

itangalo commented 20 September 2010 at 21:09

Screencast is in place!
http://nodeone.se/blogg/nodeone-talks-drupal-views-3-yql-arguments-and-p...

In short, my case for extending the use of strings as contexts is as follows:

1: YQL Views Query Backend can do tremendous stuff.
2: We all know Panels and Views can do tremendous stuff too – and part of their strengths comes from the excellent match in how arguments can be handled.

3: Since other data sources use arguments not known to Drupal, using strings as arguments becomes important. If this should work well i Panels, then CTools must handle string contexts in a more flexible way than it does now.

Cheers!