High-level overview of the Spaces module for Drupal and some use cases. Presentation given at DrupalCamp Gent 2012 http://www.drupalcampgent.be/nl/session/using-spaces

1. Using Spaces
Stijn De Meyere

2. Topics
• Spaces in general
• Space types
• Spaces + PURL
• Space controllers
• Features integration
• Use cases
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3. What is spaces?
http://drupal.org/project/spaces
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4. From the project page
Spaces is an API module intended to make
configuration options generally avaliable
only at the sitewide level to be configurable
and overridden by individual "spaces" on a
Drupal site.
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5. My description
Spaces is an API module that introduces
context to your site, effectively allowing you
to load different configuration.
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6. What does this mean?
• Abstract API
• No real UI
• For developers
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7. What’s it good for?
• Create site sections
• Set up multiple sites with or without shared content
• Create private/public groups
• Give editor/admin rights to certain users on certain
parts of the site
• Enable different features based on the active
space
• ...
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8. The Magic
spaces_load('space_type', 'id')->activate();
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9. The Magic
$space = spaces_get_space();
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10. The Magic
$space->deactivate();
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11. Space types
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12. Space types
• Trigger (not as in actions)
• A property, anything you want
• Plugin based (ctools)
• Extend base types
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13. Provided space types
• Organic Groups
• Taxonomy
• User
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14. Spaces + PURL
http://drupal.org/project/purl
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15. PURL
Persistent URL
It is meant to be a helper for other modules
interested in using elements of the page
request to sustain information between
pages without using a SESSION or other
hackish means.
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16. PURL Providers
• Path prefixes: http://example.com/foo/node/5
• Path prefix pairs: http://example.com/group/1/node/5
• Query string: http://example.com/node/5?group=1
• Domains: http://example.com/node/5
• Subdomains: http://foo.example.com/node/5
• Path Extensions: http://example.com/node/5.csv
(detection only, no rewriting)
• HTTP User Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; U; CPU like
Mac OS X; en) (detection only, no rewriting)
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17. PURL
• Rewrite link
• hook_url_inbound_alter()
• hook_url_outbound_alter()
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18. The Magic
$options = array(
'purl' => array(
'provider' => 'purl_provider',
'id' => 5
),
);
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19. The Magic
$options = array(
'purl' => FALSE,
);
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20. Spaces + PURL
• extend space_type_purl
• Keeps a space alive
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21. Space controllers
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22. Space controllers
Provides a way to manage configuration for
each space.
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23. Space controllers
Configuration that lives, or can live, in code can
be overruled.
(or basically: anything that comes with a hook or a
drupal_alter can become space dependent)
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24. Configuration stack
site > preset > space
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25. Configuration stack
site > preset > space
site > preset > space > user
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26. Implemented controllers
• Variable
• Context
• (menu reorder)
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27. Spaces + Features
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28. Spaces + Features
• A special controller to manage features in a
space
• Disable / Enable a feature without touching the
feature module
• Provide configuration for your feature
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29. The Magic
spaces[types] = "all"
spaces[types] = "og"
spaces[types] = "user"
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30. Spaces Dashboard
Provides a feature to create/configure a
dashboard per space.
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31. Obligatory screenshot
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32. Use Cases
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33. Open Atrium
http://openatrium.com/
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34. Belgian Beer Weekend
http://belgianbeerweekend.jp
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35. Belgian Beer Weekend
http://belgianbeerweekend.jp
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36. Belgian Beer Cafe
http://www.belgianbeercafe.com/
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37. Belgian Beer Cafe
http://www.belgianbeercafe.com/
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38. Mystery project
• Launch with 200+ microsites
• Grow up to 800+ microsites
• Lots of shared content (± 30 pages/microsite)
• Authors & editors per microsite, top-level
moderators
• Custom entity
• Whitelabling
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39. @stijndm
freelance Drupal dev
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40. Feedback & follow-up:
http://drupalcampgent.be/feedback