Drupal Presentation for CapitalCamp 2011: Features Driven Development
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This document provides an overview of feature driven development in Drupal. It discusses how features allow encapsulation of items like views, content types, and configurations to make deployment and version control easier. It provides instructions for creating basic features and exporting non-exportable items. Feature driven development is presented as creating a feature module for each content type along with related components. Examples of real world feature lists are shown to demonstrate how features are used to package common site elements.
Drupal Presentation for CapitalCamp 2011: Features Driven Development
- 1. Features Everywhere! Feature Driven Development By Jay Callicott Mediacurrent Consultant CapitalCamp 2011 July 22, 2011
- 2. Features Everywhere! Outline • Part I - The Basics o About Features o About Jay o The Problem o The Solution o How to Create a Basic Feature • Part 2 - Diving Deeper o Context & Features o Panels & Features o Adding stuff that isn't exportable o Feature Driven Development o Real World Examples!
- 3. About Features • Recommended Reading Managing and deploying configuration with exportables and the Features module - DrupalCon presentation by Jeff Miccolis of Development Seed Making and Using Features in Drupal - Blog by Young Hahn of Development Seed • Who Uses Features? o Originally created by DevelopmentSeed Used extensively in OpenAtrium o Phase2 Used extensively in OpenPublish Now maintained by Phase2
- 6. About Jay • Mediacurrent Web Developer • Developed Drupal sites since version 4.6 • Why Features? o Started using features in early 2010 o Developed features extensively on a large OpenPublish- based multi-site installation, working with Phase2 o Now use features on every site big and small • OpenChurch distribution maintainer o Features used extensively
- 7. The Problem • Drupal has many items in the database o Views o CCK Content types o Imagecache o Context o Panels o Settings o Permissions • Moving these between environments is cumbersome • Backing these up is a pain • No version control • Developers can accidentally override each other's work
- 8. The Solution - Features! • Features' Benefits: o Work more in the „problem space‟ o Encapsulation - Yes! o Backup - Yes! o Version Control - Yes! o Easier deployment o Code reuse! o A place for your form_alters and nodeapi() hooks o Drush integration • And much, much more! o Replace (or supplement) install profiles! Features break an install into components o Create a distribution with drush .make (music site, newspaper site, govt, blog, etc)
- 9. How to Create a Feature • Install and Enable the Following: o Features o Strongarm (important) Saves additional settings with your content types that would otherwise not get save o Context Recommended over admin/build/block o Diff (recommended, only on non-production environments) Can view differences in code
- 10. How to Create a Feature Go to /admin/build/features (Sample screen)
- 11. How to Create a Feature Go to /admin/build/features/create and add components
- 12. How to Create a Feature Click download and save tar file to hard drive (this contains feature module files)
- 13. How to Create a Feature Extract your feature folder to your project (screenshot showing 7zip on Windows 7)
- 14. How to Create a Feature Add/commit to svn/git, svn up and enable on your Drupal site
- 15. How to Create a Feature Your views, content types, etc will now be enabled, you have just deployed a feature!
- 16. How to Create a Feature To update use drush features-update + svn commit to update your features or 'recreate' for additions (new views, etc)
- 17. How to Create a Feature Revert components if you a) updated a feature on another environment or b) want to restore a feature to it's original state
- 18. Context & Features • http://drupal.org/project/context • Context is used primarily for block placement (admin/build/block replacement) • Exports to features out of the box Screenshots next....
- 20. Adding Context to a Feature
- 21. Panels & Features • Panels export to features easily o Falls under 'Panels' or 'Page Manager' in dropdown in components • I like panels for node layouts! o (overriding page manager node template) Screenshots next....
- 22. Panels Feature Example context placed blocks panel regions & views
- 24. Panel Feature Underneath Using CCK, views, panel, strongarm
- 25. Adding a Panel to a Feature under "Panels" or "Page Manager"
- 26. How to export non-exportables • Features doesn't export everything, but it's still a module! • Next: simple example, creating a vocabulary with a feature o (Note: features_extra does this for you)
- 27. How to export non-exportables Using hook_install() & hook_uninstall() • Anything you can do in a module you can do in a feature
- 28. Feature Driven Development • My methodology (adapted from OpenAtrium, DevSeed, OpenPublish) o Create a feature for every content type o Package with any related views o Package panels and node template overrides! o Package relevant imagecache presets o Sometimes directly related permissions o Sometimes package related contexts o Place all related form_alters, nodeapi hooks, hook_menus(), etc in the .module file • That's it!
- 29. Real World Examples! • Seeing is believing, some (more) real world screenshots of feature lists
- 30. Real World List Screenshots
- 31. Real World List Screenshots
- 32. Real World List Screenshots
- 33. Real World Screenshots The trend is I always have at least 1 feature for each content type
- 34. Wait! A couple last items to cover • Features Extra • Drush Make • Distributions with .make • Features Server • Share Features! • Drupal “Apps”(introduced by Ph2) • What about Drupal 7? • I'm a beginner – is this for me?
- 35. The End Resources • Features Project Page o http://drupal.org/project/features • Features Extra Project Page o http://drupal.org/project/features_extra Related • From Zero to Distribution using Features, Profiler, and Drush Make o http://chicago2011.drupal.org/sessions/zero- distribution-using-features-profiler-and-drush-make Hit me up on twitter: http://twitter.com/drupalninja/ Questions??