OCLS Platform Main Feature

Introduction

This repository contains both the generalized configurations required for all OCLS sites, as well as several specific configurations required for individual sites.

Requirements

This module requires the following modules/libraries:

• Features

Additionally, individual submodules may have their own requirements based on what they work with.

Installation

Install as usual, see this for further information.

Troubleshooting/Issues

Having problems or solved a problem? Contact discoverygarden.

Maintainers/Sponsors

Current maintainers:

• discoverygarden

Development

Rules of the road

Features code should not be directly modified; rather:

• Navigate to admin/structure/features on the site from which you wish to export a configuration
• Take a look for Overridden or Needs Review features - these are ones that have (likely) been modified in some way. You can click on each feature to view what's in it.
• On that feature's configuration page, either check off individual parts of the configuration and Revert components to revert parts of the configuration, or click the RECREATE tab to re-export the configuration
• On the RECREATE tab, click Download feature to grab a copy of the configuration as it currently exists on the site. This will give you a module (in a .tar file) representing that feature.
• Extract the module from the .tar file and use the extracted folder to overwrite the folder of the same name in this repository
  • Doing this should likely follow git best practices, i.e., fork this repository, make your changes locally, make a pull request back to the source fork, and have someone review and merge
• Once the updates are made to this repository, git pull the copy on the server
• Either run drush fr FEATURE_NAME on the server, where FEATURE_NAME is the name of the feature you re-exported, or from the admin interface for the site you want to update, navigate to admin/structure/features, click on the feature you want to update, check off all the components, and click Revert components
  • Of note with this: the status of features is site-dependent (e.g., a feature could be enabled on 5 sites, or only 1). Drush will run against an individual site if done from within that site folder, but in general, it's safest to revert features from the admin interface for the site you're working on.

Features description

Feature sets contained in this repository can be found by navigating to admin/structure/features; they are split up into four major categories:

• Generalized configurations suitable for all sites, including:
  • ocls_basesite_suggester_config, which contains the configuration for the Islandora Solr Suggester module, which is identical on all sites.
  • ocls_theme_modifications, which contains views overrides shared across all sites.
  • ocls_platform_content_types, which contains configurations for content types and content fields.
• Individualized Solr configurations containing search configuration and metadata display for one site; these all use the naming convention ocls_SITE_solr_metadata_config, can be found under the 'OCLS Site Features' section, and include:
  • The full Islandora Solr Fields Configuration component defining the field display, sort fields, facets, and advanced search fields used by Islandora Solr.
  • The Islandora Solr Metadata Configurations component created for that site, which defines the fields that display on object view pages.
  • Any Strongarm variables Solr requires to function; these are typically variables defined by the Islandora Solr module (such as the Solr facet limit or the number of results to display), and the names of these variables will typically be prefixed by islandora_solr_ or islandora_solr_metadata_.
• Individualized theme configurations; these use the naming convention. ocls_SITE_theme_feature, can be found under the 'OCLS Site Features' section, and will contain:
  • Block Contents and Block Settings to define block placement and configuration.
  • Node Export to support various display pieces specific to that site.
  • Some Menu Links and Menus to be placed around the site.
  • Any Strongarm variables the theme requires.
  • Some Views defined by the site.
• Individualized miscellaneous configurations; these use the naming convention ocls_SITE_main_feature, can be found under the 'OCLS Site Features' section, and contain a variety of configurations. Some elements in these features could make more sense as part of the theme features, but they got bundled in with the main feature initially, and just haven't had a reason to be separated out; probably in an effort to keep the theme features relatively low maintenance and simple. Grouping configuration in a feature is like sorting file storage: there are various approaches, with very few hard limitations, so it can be as granular as it needs to be.

There is also a basic Solr configuration and basic theme configuration for use in the case where a site does not have or need a specific configuration. Otherwise, one of each of the latter two types of features exists per site.

Best practices

The Solr configurations should be considered off-limits; these configurations are volatile, and the discoverygarden_features_safety module should be turned on to avoid changes to these.

No permissions features are defined by default. Roles must be finalized before exporting permissions as features as collisions can occur when re-importing them. To state the importance of this plainly: if roles are added, removed, or otherwise moved, and permissions are changed, exporting permissions in a feature and then importing them later can and will remove permissions from people who had them, and give permissions to people who did not. Changes to permissions and roles should be done in communication with discoverygarden. Enabling discoverygarden_features_safety will prevent users from being able to make changes to permissions, mitigating this issue.

Exporting and re-exporting Solr field and metadata configurations also has permissions implications, as they contain permissions to view and work with Solr fields. discoverygarden_features_safety should ensure both of these remain intact.