Group | Modules Unraveled
158 Using the Group module as an Alternative to Organic Groups in Drupal 7 and 8 with Kristiaan Van den Eynde - Modules Unraveled Podcast
Published: Wed, 03/23/16
Group Module
- What is the Group module?
- A really awesome tool to basically create subsites within one site, private content, manage groups of people or all that combined.
- Why did you create it instead of just using OG?
- OG DX experience...
- There are versions for D7 and D8. Which are you more focused on?
- D8
- How is the Group module different from Organic Groups?
- Good question! The key difference is how the modules decide to structure their data, how that affects the user flow and how the configuration model is built.
- What is the underlying architecture? OG uses entityreferences heavily. How does Group work?
- Dedicated Group Entity
- What’s the status? Is it usable now? (D7 and D8)
- Available for Drupal 7 and 8, with the 8 version being a large improvement over D7. There’s a few minor things I need to add to the D8 version, but it looks and works great already!
- Is there much difference between the Drupal 7 and 8 version?
- Yes and no: the key concept remains the same, but the UX and data model was improved even further. I would really recommend going forward with D8 from now on if you have the chance.
Use Cases
- Why should I use Group instead of OG?
- UX, UX, UX
- data structure
- DX
- But most of all: dedicated functionality, it will all make sense!
- Users that get something special that you can’t do with Roles
- Groups of people
- Groups of content
- There are so many!!!
Questions from Twitter
- Michelle Lauer @bymiche
How many subgroups can you nest? How are permissions inherited? - Michelle Lauer @bymiche
Can you easily categorize roles within a group? - Michelle Lauer @bymiche
If you have many roles and want to expose them to "managers" - for UX purposes, roles in categories would be easier to look at - Erich Beyrent @ebeyrent
Sounds like a great UX, what about DX - is there a well-defined API as well? - Damien McKenna @DamienMcKenna
Any plans to port some OG modules, e.g. og_menu or og_menu_single? - Damien McKenna @DamienMcKenna
Would it be possible to create og_forum's functionality out of the box or will it require custom work? - Damien McKenna @DamienMcKenna
Are the join forms configurable/fieldable? - Ted Bowman @tedbow
Interested in this. Can you add fields to a membership? - Erich Beyrent @ebeyrent
What doesn't Groups do? Are there features that you feel need to be added before 1.0 release?