Patterns

PLEASE NOTE: This module is in EARLY alpha stage. It is working, but use it at your own risk. It is highly recommended to be logged in as user 1 with full permissions. If you try to run this as a user without sufficient privileges you will have problems.

For more information please join the Patterns discussion here on groups.drupal.org.

There is also a session proposal for Patterns at Drupalcon 2009: http://dc2009.drupalcon.org/session/drupal-patterns-managing-and-automat...

Overview:
The patterns module will enable the setup of complex and detailed sites without actually doing any of the setup yourself. A pattern will be a collection of rules, definitions, and dependencies that will automatically setup and create simple or complex features for you. Patterns allow you to define features and functionality for a site in a standard text format (currently XML with planned support for other formats,) or directly on the site, and then apply them to an already running site. An administration page will let you enable (and possibly disable or remove) each pattern that has either been provided by default, contributed, or created specifically for the application at hand.

A typical example would be to easily and simply setup a fully functional forum with user registration, authorization, avatars, comments, captchas, views and more without touching a single setting. Of course the unique, specific settings for the site at hand can be adjusted like usual, however basic settings can also be tweaked when turning on the pattern.

For those that need more control over the setup of their desired features, patterns could possibly guide the user through all of the setting pages and settings that are available for a particular feature set. They could have stop points that prompt the user for a specific choice or input (similar to Photoshop actions.)

Here are it's primary uses:

Define reusable site architecture patterns and best practices that are easy to update and maintain.
Quickly setup and configure new (and existing!) sites based on site architecture documents/patterns. (Next evolution of Install Profiles)
Migrate changes, updates and new features from you local development environment to dev server to QA site to the final production environment. (Change Management)
Possibility of making a specific pattern to update/change a site(s) from some other known configuration (legacy best practice to current best practice for instance)

Architecture Overview:

Base install profile (setup Patterns module)
Patterns Drupal module
Patterns component modules
Hooks/API
Pattern XML files
Stop points for allowing the user to set/change a value
Pattern groups/subgroups

Most patterns will be made up of a combination of any/all these components:

Module(s)
Module settings
CCK Content Type(s)
Fields
Field weights/order
Views
Type
Fields
Panels
Blocks
Permissions
Content/Nodes (not finished yet)
Files
Other patterns!

Cool features:

XML based. Keeps it open and flexible so you can possibly use other systems to process or work with the XML
Creation of content types and fields
Creation of views and settings
User and node creation
Setup of user roles and permissions
Automatic and assisted panel creation
Automatic and assisted menu setup
Basic conflict checking and resolution
A pattern can be a list of other patterns
Support for tokens from the Tokens module

This project is developed and supported by Gravitek Labs

Releases

Official releases	Date	Size	Links	Status
5.x-1.1-alpha2	2008-Nov-26	34.47 KB	Download · Release notes	Recommended for 5.x

Development snapshots	Date	Size	Links	Status
6.x-1.x-dev	2008-Dec-31	41.58 KB	Download · Release notes	Development snapshot
5.x-1.x-dev	2008-Nov-26	34.48 KB	Download · Release notes	Development snapshot