[Drupal] Monster Menus

Fri Sep 27 11:17:00 EDT 2013

> but some of Fisher's requirements probably make Aegir a poor fit for
>their use case.

Agreed. I didn't know they were hosting on Windows.

Cough, pantheon, cough.

> 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

I haven't been following it closely but... the pace to release has
historically been slow but the level of activity and usage is high
(especially now). It's annoying that the hostmaster (ui) portion is d6,
but half or (probably much) more of the code is in provision anyway which
isn't heavily tied to any version number. I guess they're even talking
about supporting backdrop as a first stab at some alien cms support.

For us, running multiple sites isn't a question and I'm unaware of
anything better/more maintainable than Aegir outside of Pantheon hosting
(or Acquia).

Best,
Jason

On 9/27/13 9:49 AM, "Butsko, Michael" <butsko.7 at osu.edu> wrote:

>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 isn¹t the answer you are looking for butŠ
>>  
>> 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
>> Qualtrics Survey Software:  Logging In | Learning More
>> Faculty Profiles: On Engineering Sites | Research in View
>>  
>> From: 
>>drupal-bounces+jason_little=engadmin.ohio-state.edu at lists.service.ohio-st
>>ate.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!
>>  
>> I¹m wondering if anyone around here has used Monster Menus. From what
>>I¹ve 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.
>>  
>> We¹ve got it installed (which was a long process) but we¹re running
>>into some issues, which I suspect is partially a learning curve thing
>>but it¹s also perhaps how we set it up. It¹s a new Drupal 7 instance so
>>I don¹t 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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>
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