Outline Designer
This module is traditionally used by site admins and content authors and (most likely) should only be used by them. "With great power comes great responsibility"
It's taken a long time but I've finally gotten a product out the door i'm happy with (as a first version at least). This is miles better then the 5.x version and as we are moving away from 5 internally I will no long be maintaining the 5.x version. I will help out with support questions still but the 5.x version will not be updated, please, upgrade your drupal site to 6.x, ya...it's that cool!
The Outline Designer is a visual way of structuring and organizing content in your Drupal site that piggy-backs the core-optional Book's functionality. It might as well be called a "Book Usability" module as it provides a massive usability overhaul to drupal and the book's module. I also adds in a jQuery context menu to allow for the following additional operations (all ajax / AHAH of course):
- Add a child node
- Edit a node (via thickbox and Ajax module integration)
- Rename a node
- Duplicate a node or branch of nodes
- Delete a node or branch of nodes
- Change content type
The following modules (and versions) are required / known to work:
- Thickbox 1.2 (1.3 AND 1.4 DON'T WORK CURRENTLY)
- Prepopulate
- Ajax (known to work with 6.x-1.14)
- Also, Outline designer doesn't work unless the "Ajax ui" module is enabled and you check all the content types you plan to use.
It also allows you to quickly reorganize all content within any book in your site as well as change titles and add nodes with the click of a mouse! Make sure to watch the screencasts to see the true power of this module. Please submit issues / feature ideas / glitches that you find and tell your friends. I honestly think a lot of this functionality is important enough that some of it could be integrated as core functionality in books / menu structuring. It also will ajax save the new parent / child / weighting structure on drag-and-drop (currently drupal just tells you you need to click save). The AHAH adding a child also makes building outlines VERY simple.
Lastly, this module has optional TinyMCE integration and works if the module is enabled / configured correctly.
KNOWN ISSUES (no more permission issues :) )
- Duplicate sometimes doesn't associate to the correct branch
- Click/cascading permissions down the tree is still planned for future functionality
Drupal 7 Roadmap
I'm going to try and pull this project off by integrating it with the new context module that's in core. If that doesn't work out then I'll be writing a context menu api. Here are the goals of the Drupal 7 version:
- LIGHTWEIGHT - The Drupal 6 version was a simple overlay and this will look to take it to the next level
- Flexibility - Menus, Books, Users, Views will be able to have functionality of the outline designer. Context menu type of functionality in Views / user lists but full ajax based organizing for the menu and book lists
- Possibly some features of Outline - I was asked to pick up the Outline module so I might be adding in some of that functionality
- Deeper field alteration - Want to just change the date field of a specific node? context menu, edit, fields, Start Date. That's the level of granularity I want to be able to take things to.
- Popups API integration - If you've used the Drupal 7 interface / overlay theme then you know what I want to do with it because it's very similar. This will be more compliant and flexible then the current Thickbox / ajax module junk.
- Outline Designer as a page - OD will also have it's own page that acts similar to the book page. This way it can be dealt out as a permission for use.
- Collapse branches -- Ajax / progressive load of nodes via the Outline Designer page to save time in rendering
- Simple Permissions on outlines -- Similar to Outline module but just a simple permission for users to access an outline.
- Create Outline -- This will create new nodes with menu items automatically associated to them with the correct name. It will also allow for syncing with the Book module if it's enabled (very simple under the hood). Once again as with the past outline designers, designing and then disabling the module will not affect content outlines
This is a very powerful tool so as with any Drupal admin privs. deal them out with caution.
