drupal

This Drupal module allows to create and edit spreadsheets on the Web, much like Google Docs. Because it is integrated within Drupal, though, these spreadsheets can now be categorized and manipulated just like any other content. Plus, the module imports and exports Excel and OpenOffice.org files. It brings me closer to my vision of Deep Excel I had a few year ago.

Check it out: http://drupal.org/project/sheetnode

This Drupal filter allows writing Graphviz DOT syntax directly inside a node, to get the graph image when the node is displayed. Pretty useful for geeky types who use Drupal as their notebook.

Check it out: http://drupal.org/project/graphviz_filter

This Drupal module allows one to upload high-resolution images and navigate through them by panning and zooming. It uses the Zoomify component to do its job.

Check it out: http://drupal.org/project/zoomify

An important problem that Drupal faces is the inability to create relationships between nodes. Current solutions are either half-baked or over-ambitious. The half-baked doesn't properly model the ER and OO model of relationships, and the over-ambitious attempts to supply a fully Semantic Web framework, even when it's not required, at the cost of considerable design and code complexity. Plus, it's not ported beyond 4.7.

A cool little addition to the field type node_reference would be to allow for the referenced node to be embedded inside the referencing one, both for viewing and for editing.

To enhance the usability of Drupal, one useful addition would be a read-edit view. This view would be a new node template that allows in-place editing of the node. By clicking or otherwise gesturing on any field of the node (title, body, tags, CCK fields, even separate paragraphs of long text fields) this field would display its own editing block to allow the authorized user to edit it.

Classifying content in Drupal requires creating several taxonomies of various types. One of the useful types for rapid and informal classification is free tagging, where arbitrary, unrelated keywords can be attached to nodes. It is more general than, say, the index we find at the end of a book, where the terms are explicitly found in the text. but I'm getting ahead of myself: let's start at the beginning.

The workflow_fields module extends John VanDyk's workflow module by allowing CCK node fields to be made invisible or read-only depending on the current workflow state. The workflow state form is extended to show all node fields with appropriate controls to hide and/or disable each field for that particular state.

This functionality is useful when a workflow moves among users who have different permissions regarding the document flowing through them. Which is the case in most every workflow we've encountered.

Check it out: http://drupal.org/project/workflow_fields

One of the useful Web patterns I've been noticing has to do with item lists and bulk actions. Given a list of items, add a checkbox in front of each item, and let the user select an action to be executed on the checked selection. Specifically, I've seen it in phpMyAdmin, Mantis, and Google Mail.

This module provides a solution. It comes as a Views style plugin called "Bulk Operations View", selected in the "View Type" control of the View editing screen. This new style creates a form around the view, adds a checkbox in front of each element, and exposes the available Actions as well as all node_operations provided by loaded modules. When "Execute" is clicked, the form asks for confirmation then applies the selected action on all selected nodes.

Check it out: http://drupal.org/project/views_bulk_operations

This little module produces graph diagrams out of workflows, useful for documentation purposes. It uses Graphviz for the actual graph generation.

It currently generates two distinct kinds of graphs:

• One for the workflow definition, showing all workflow states, the transitions linking them, and the roles allowed to perform those transitions.
• One for a workflow instance history, i.e. the path that a workflow took for a specific node.