Node2Node

Steve Lockwood - July 8, 2008 - 14:52

Node2Node allows you to create relationships between nodes. The main features are:
- Allowed relationships are defined in the admin screen (ie node type A can be a parent of Node type B)
- Relationships are Parent/Child
- Relationships are many-to-many
- Relationships can have a defined sequence, ie the child nodes of a parent will be listed in a user-defined order
- Relationships can be set up by end users (with editing rights)
- Relationships can be named (ie Node 1 Uses Node 2)

Comparison
Here's a brief comparison with some of the other node relationship modules, of which there are several. Here I am comparing:
- Node2Node (N2N)
- Node Hierarchy (NH)
- Node Relativity (NRel)

Features:
- Defining relationships: N2N lets you specify a relationship between specific node types. NH lets you says that a node type can be a parent (of anything that can be a child). NRel is also very specific about node types.
- Cardinality (is that the right word?): N2N allows many-many. NH allows 1-many. NRel is even more specific, letting you specify 1:1, 1-many, many-many etc
- Sequence: N2N and NH both allow to you to put the child nodes in a specific order. NRel does not seem to specify order.
- Display: N2N displays the parent and child nodes on the View screen. NH puts the parent node in the breadcrumb and the child nodes in a separate tab. (Not sure about NRel)
- Edit: N2N integrates the editing of relationships into the main Edit screen. NH uses a separate tab. (Have to say I'm still working on this and may add other ways of creating relationships later.) (Not sure about NRel.)
- Named relationships: N2N relationships are named (Parent "owns" Child, Child "belongs to" Parent) - you can configure the names for each relationship. Don't think the others have this feature.