Converting blocks to boxes

Very early in the development of this module I had code that would transform all existing custom blocks in to boxes, but it got nixed simply because I didn't get around to working the workflow kinks out of it. I think a drush command would be brilliant. I had been doing it on install, but that made it impossible to turn the module off and still have access to your old blocks.

I'd be very happy to commit a drush command that kept the blocks in the database but changed them from blocks to boxes. That transformation itself should be pretty straightforward, just collect the body and format of the block, serialize that properly and save it to box.options and user `simple` as the box.plugin_key. You can probably get away with using the `info` property as the box.delta and box.description. So the only tricky part is the title.

Things to be aware of... The core block system stores the title with the visibility settings and not with the block's content. So some decision needs to be made in the case where a block is used with two themes and different titles. Also the old custom blocks should be deleted by the migration to boxes, but we'd probably want to confirm that with the user.

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right on.

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This is awesome! Got a site I'm working on at the moment and I want to move the blocks to boxes. Not sure when I'll get a chance/budget to do it, but I will be reviewing this patch as soon as I get the green light. This is *exactly* what I'll need! =)

subscribe. great idea

Looks really handy!

@sirkitree, great patch. One minor thing, you'll want to check that a box uses the 'simple' plugin before presenting a link, and probably check again before actually trying to do the transformation.

I am a little wary about showing these links on all boxes and blocks, but I guess have a confirm for is probably protection enough.

So one small thing, one question;

Small thing

When you calculate the new block delta during the block->box conversion, it's seems quite possible that the newly crafted delta will get truncated when it gets inserted into the database. `boxes.info` can be 128 chars, but `blocks.delta` can only be 32. So we should probably do some truncation in here...

$block->delta = ctools_cleanstring($block->description .'_'. $delta);

Question

Should we roll this into a submodule so you can disable it and prevent reckless clients/administrators from messing about?

+1

Looks like this is really close to fruition. I can't wait for this either...I'm starting to move a site to Features and finding myself doing this. Fortunately it's not too hard for a couple blocks by hand...but this'd be cool.

Subscribing.

Looks like this could do with some serious work on the interface side of things.

Re-rolled (it no longer applied), and truncated $block->delta to 32 characters (using ctools_cleanstring()'s options; also set to lowercase and removed unknown characters rather than replacing them with a dash).

^{benjamin, agaric}

Should there be a link that says "convert" next to the 'configure' and 'delete' links that appear on the main blocks listing page? If so, then I cannot see the link. So I don't know how to convert a block to a box.

I am using Boxes version 6.x-1.0-beta11 and Ctools version 6.x-1.7

Subscribing.

Subscribing.

I'm also missing the convert link as reported in comment 25. It seems like the link is getting added to the form array, so there must be something in the form themeing that needs addressing.

Also, I'm not particularly fond of the boxes_load_blocks() method. As the todo indicates in the code it uses two queries for what can be one and then does some funky cast-as-array-merge-cast-back-into-object stuff. I think this can just go away if we do something like;

SELECT bx.body, bx.info AS descriptions, bx.format, blk.title, blk.bid
FROM boxes bx JOIN blocks blk ON bx.bid = blk.delta AND blk.module = 'block'
WHERE bx.delta = '%s'

Subscribing.

Not sure why this isn't displaying but I was able figure out the convert url from the module code.

Say your block url is "/admin/build/block/configure/block/15" the convert url would be "/boxes/convert/block/15"

// The offending function is at Line 379 of the patched boxes.module 6.x-1.0.
// Add convert link.
if (($module == 'block' || $module == 'boxes') && strpos($delta, 'add__') !== 0) {
  $module_opp = $module == 'block' ? 'box' : 'block';
  if (($module_opp == 'box' && $box->plugin_key == 'simple') || $module_opp == 'block') {
    $form[$i]['configure']['#value'] .= ' | '. l(t('convert to @type', array('@type' => $module_opp)), 'boxes/convert/'. $module .'/'. $delta);        
  }
}

This feels hacky but maybe thats only because I don't fully understand all the code. The $module and $delta variables weren't returning any value because they weren't set within the scope of the statement. Preventing the link from showing and linking correctly.

/** 
 * The offending function is at Line 379 of the patched boxes.module 6.x-1.0.
 */
// Add convert link.
if (($module == 'block' || $module == 'boxes') && strpos($delta, 'add__') !== 0) {
  $module_opp = $module == 'block' ? 'box' : 'block';
  if (($module_opp == 'box' && $box->plugin_key == 'simple') || $module_opp == 'block') {
    $form[$i]['configure']['#value'] .= ' | '. l(t('convert to @type', array('@type' => $module_opp)), 'boxes/convert/'. $module .'/'. $delta);       
  }
}

/** 
 * Replace above code with this
 */
// Add convert link.
$module = $form[$i]['module']['#value'];
if (($module == 'block' || $module == 'boxes') && strpos($delta, 'add__') !== 0) {
  $module_opp = $module == 'block' ? 'box' : 'block';
  $delta = $form[$i]['delta']['#value'];
  $form[$i]['configure']['#value'] .= ' | '. l(t('convert to @type', array('@type' => $module_opp)), 'boxes/convert/'. $module .'/'. $delta);        
}

Someone more familiar with this module should have a look at this and reup the patch.

I tested it on my dev box and everything seems to be in order now.

Just a thought while this ticket is still open - it would be good to be able to make it a two way street - by being able to convert from boxes to blocks as well, so users are not stuck later for whatsoever reason.

Too bad this never made it into 7.x branch.

Does any documentation exist for writing bridge modules between one block module and boxes?

I am using menu blocks in my contexts, but any time I attempt to place content or even edit a context using context field only box "blocks" remain while all menu block "blocks" are automatically removed from the context.