Talk to Jen about Comments & Entities

[jensimmons]

I've got complex ideas about how people can comment on episodes, contribute links, submit corrections, and provide other resources for learning. I don't think Drupal's basic commenting system is what's needed. I'm thinking more along the lines of letting listeners add new content to the system of a certain type (like "correction") with a need reference linking the two (the correction & the episode it belongs to).

Perhaps nodes, node reference, views with arguments, and a good architectural plan is all that's needed. Although, perhaps someone who's a master of D7 entities would say, no don't make these comment-like content objects into nodes, create a custom entity... make them like comments....

I don't have a mastery of entities. So I'm not sure what the best way to go is... plus I haven't thought all of this through — what exactly I want for functionality and user experience.

I don't want to over-engineer this. Maybe nothing custom is needed. But I don't want to hack together a pile of not-quite-right if some elegant use of custom entities would be better.

Thoughts? Let's use this thread to talk this out.

[sffitzpatrick]

Jen, this sounds interesting. I don't have a mastery of entities either but regardless it seems smart to separate something like a Correction from regular Comments. In my way of thinking, Corrections would be content, so I'd probably just use nodes...

Here's a possible recipe based on your initial thoughts:

1. Create a content type (or new entity) with a node reference field and other fields you need (e.g., body and whatever else).
2. Add a link (node links array) to each Episode node in the theme or hook_node_view, linking to /node/add/correction.
3. Use a form alter to auto-populate (and hide from most users) the node reference field on the Correction form if the referer url is an Episode node. Or alternatively, add the referer nid as a url parameter in 2 above, as in "/node/add/correction?ref_id=XXX" and get the value that way. Possibly autopopulate and hide the Title field as well?
4. Use views+args to display Corrections on the Episode nodes. Possibly append the view in hook_node_view from 2 above, or in theme_node or tpl or Blocks UI or wherever makes sense

Happy to help work out a prototype for this if that sounds like good approach. I should have some time tonight or tomorrow afternoon.

Sean

[jensimmons]

Yeah, I'm going to think about this some more. There are other priorities to tackle first — like creating the theme!

I remember doing this in D6 without custom code. Lullabot had a tutorial on building a a photo gallery with module recommendations someplace. Clickity-click. Each main node page (gallery) ended up with a link to add more images (a separate content type) to that gallery (through node reference). The two content types + node references is easy enough. The last magic piece was the link on the one node (episode in our case) that would pre-populate and hide the reference field so the person adding the content (correction) wouldn't even realize what's happening. Exactly what you are saying, only by finding that module instead of writing a new one.

I'd actually forgotten about all this until I started typing this issue up, so just explaining this to you has been helpful.

I'm thinking each episode will have several kinds of additional-associated-listener-contributed content. And yes, it's all content, so perhaps nodes do make the most sense.

• Comments. Old-school comments. Probably threaded. With a way to mark and surface great comment threads. I'm thinking though of putting the comments on a second page, a-la Drupal 5. Does Drupal still do that?
• Corrections. I want to be able to list these separate from the comments. With maybe a reply from me or the guest. In smaller type or something. For formal AND SHORT corrections, not by long comment-like debates.
• Additional show note links. So listeners can contribute to the list of links. Somehow a bit secondary to the "official list" — with a bit different visual presentation — but listed right after the official list, with a link for listeners to add more.
• Examples. For the more new technology focused shows (like, say, a show on WebRTC) a place for listeners to add examples of awesome websites that are using WebRTC. While it'd make sense for this content to be connected to an episode it actually should really be connected to the technology (aka, WebRTC, not episode 59) so that it can be A) put into a gallery of awesome examples that's totally separate from the podcast, a gallery that's sorted by technology; and B) be collected on the page for that technology. (Since many topics are covered more than once, I want to have Taxonomy handle sorting things and creating pages for tech. So there'll be a Accessibility page with all the shows on Accessibility. And a WebRTC page with all the shows and links to resources and exempts of WebRTC — whether we have one show on WebRTC or four shows on it..)

These ideas are not fully fleshed out. Sorry for rambling instead of waiting until I have wireframes or something.

This is not the top priority, all this stuff. I know it's going to take a while to build, and I'd like to meanwhile ship a site for the show that has just the minimum needed to be viable. So without all this. This will come in Release 2.

So let's not write any code or build any of this. Not test it. Just think a bit and write in this rambling discussion. We can get serious about this later.

[jensimmons]

A, ha! Here it is: Node Reference URL. https://www.drupal.org/project/nodereference_url I'm adding it to the repo now.

[jensimmons]

Yes and yes. But not now. Later. Like in the Fall/Winter. So I'm going to close this for now.