[Drupal] Monster Menus

Fri Sep 27 09:52:27 EDT 2013

Mike, curious: Why did you guys not go with Multi-site?

Thanks!

Vedu

-----Original Message-----
From: drupal-bounces+hariths.1=osu.edu at lists.service.ohio-state.edu [mailto:drupal-bounces+hariths.1=osu.edu at lists.service.ohio-state.edu] On Behalf Of Butsko, Michael
Sent: Friday, September 27, 2013 9:50 AM
To: Drupal users list
Subject: Re: [Drupal] Monster Menus

Not to speak too much on Rob's behalf, but some of Fisher's requirements probably make Aegir a poor fit for their use case (the first being that they are a Windows shop). 

The dichotomy has always been hosting many different sites, or one site with many different areas. For ASC, we have a lot of specific department sites that have their own identity, where it makes sense to section them off into their own site, even at the expense of managing the overhead associated with managing hundreds. I think there are some cases (or colleges), where a single site with a module like Monster Menus makes sense -- particularly when you have content managers working on different sections, and you want complete consistency of branding and user experience. One of the primary things that MM offers that I haven't seen elsewhere is delegated permissions (group A can grant group B to change permissions only on group C) -- which would have been a game changer for us when we were starting out.  

Jason's points about technical debt here are well taken; Amherst College, the primary developers of monster menus have made some informal commitments to continue development, but there is a risk in using something so specialized. With that said, I'm curious as to how others feel about the slow progress of aegir 7.x-3.x and choice to release the forthcoming 'Aegir 2.0' on D6, which could see it's official EOL within the next few months (years, or decades -- on the original release schedule, it should have happened this month!) Perhaps the best direction really is to design your own workflow with Workbench. 

--
Michael Butsko 
Web Developer
The Ohio State University
College of Arts and Sciences Technology Services
475 Mendenhall Laboratory, 125 S Oval Mall  Columbus, OH 43210
614-247-2791 Office
butsko.7 at osu.edu asctech.osu.edu

On Sep 27, 2013, at 09:23, "Meade, Emilie" <Emilie.Meade at osumc.edu>
 wrote:

> Yes, we use Aegir still. There is definitely a learning curve with it. I think it all depends on what kind of control you want for each department. Will they each have their own domain name or are you just trying to control who has access to edit content? Will the theme be radically different between each department?
> 
> We were able to achieve quite a bit with Workbench, Context and Menu Block on hsl.osu.edu. Workbench let us control which role or user can edit content in sections. It also let's us control the publishing workflow. Context let us control the look of each section and what menus and blocks appeared in it. Menu Block let us control which level of the menu is displayed in each section.
> 
> I don't have a lot of experience with it, but Organic Groups https://drupal.org/project/og might be another option. Each department could be a group.
> 
> 
> 
> Emilie Meade
> UI / UX Developer
> Health Sciences Library Digital Solutions
> 410 Prior Hall, 376 W. 10th Ave., Columbus, OH 43210
> 614-688-8662 Office
> emilie.meade at osumc.edu hsl.osu.edu
> 
> From: <Little>, Jason <little.129 at osu.edu>
> Reply-To: Drupal users list <drupal at lists.service.ohio-state.edu>
> Date: Thursday, September 26, 2013 2:44 PM
> To: Drupal users list <drupal at lists.service.ohio-state.edu>
> Subject: Re: [Drupal] Monster Menus
> 
> This isn't the answer you are looking for but...
>  
> There are currently 12 sites in the world that reporting using the latest stable 7.x release of monster menus (33 across all versions) and the maintainers of this module are not maintainers for many other things.
>  
> As this module appears to do some very advanced and specific things, that is a very scary place to be. You could easily end up maintaining it, forking it, or running into a lot of compatibility issues with other contrib modules which simply never came up in the 33 sites using it.
>  
> Have you considered domain access (more like monster menus) or Aegir (multisite)? Both have fairly large install bases, and I believe there are people on campus who are well versed in both solutions.
> https://drupal.org/project/domain (I think someone around here is using this)
> http://community.aegirproject.org/ (asc, eng, prior?)
>  
> Alternatively, you might be able to do a lot with workbench and its access control modules.
>  
> Best,
>  
> Jason Little
> Team Lead
> Web Services
> College of Engineering
> Fisher MBA Candidate
> Ohio State University
>  
> Need help?
> Websites: Helpdesk |  Manual
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>  
> From: drupal-bounces+jason_little=engadmin.ohio-state.edu at lists.service.ohio-state.edu [mailto:drupal-bounces+jason_little=engadmin.ohio-state.edu at lists.service.ohio-state.edu] On Behalf Of Walker, Robert T.
> Sent: Thursday, September 26, 2013 11:01 AM
> To: drupal at lists.service.ohio-state.edu
> Subject: [Drupal] Monster Menus
>  
> Hi all!
>  
> I'm wondering if anyone around here has used Monster Menus. From what I've read, it will do exactly what we need for segmenting a site into departments so each one has its own navigation and permissions, without resorting to a multi-site installation.
>  
> We've got it installed (which was a long process) but we're running into some issues, which I suspect is partially a learning curve thing but it's also perhaps how we set it up. It's a new Drupal 7 instance so I don't know what might be causing the issues.
>  
> Long story short, is there anyone that might be able to spare some time to visit Fisher and help us out?
>  
> Thanks,
> Rob
>  
> Robert Walker| Web Application Developer | Fisher College of Business | The Ohio State University | 335 Mason Hall, 250 West Woodruff Ave. | Columbus, OH 43210 | 614-247-5477 /   walker.45 at fisher.osu.edu
>  
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