Description

Up until now the development of Looplog has been dependent on progress on the initial stages of the learning curve of the software on which Looplog is based. Now that I've gotten somewhat of an understanding of what is going on here, I feel I can safely start making a more reconsidered approach to how Looplog works for my practice and how it works as my practice.  The upcoming release of Drupal 5 offers a perfect opportunity to do this, as I will have to upgrade the site when this occurs.  As such, I think the move to 5.0 will be a big one, but will represent the final incarnation of the site, and subsequently the final representation of my practice, as I head into the assessment stage of my PhD project.

 That being said, I think I have etc really sit down and re-think how I am using the available Drupal modules to fit my needs as a supposed working artist.  I feel i have something quite coherent and robust in the modes of repetition as a schema for both representation and praxis/development, so by focusing the site's development around the modes, I can really begin to produce a working environment with a strong sense of work-flow and connection between content presentation and content creation.

Specifically, I need to look at the Project Module and the Book Module, and the ways in which they can possibly be replaced with a Project Folder module - a place where a parent project is defined much like in the Project module, and nodes can then be added to that parent of varying node types, most probably corresponding to the modes of repetition as defined by the object network.  A possible candidate for this could be the Tree Access Module.  Content should be able to be to filed under multiple parent folders, such that content can in essence be themselves modular and re-usable across multiple projects.  Also, any node should be able to have a mode of repetition assigned to it as defined by the event network.  It seems this can be achieved by the Workflow module, but I have to look into this some more.

Further work also needs to be done to find ways of manipulating nodes within Drupal itself so as to automate somewhat the process of creating the thesis from the content of the site.  This also ties in with the initial aim of allowing user-generated macro-publications - user defined pseudo-theses if you like.  The current capability to produce printer friendly pages is very useful for exporting rare text en-bulk into a word-processor, especially when nodes are organized using the book module.  This has its limitation in that once a node is part of a book it cannot be part of another, and hence content re-usability is lost.  Also, corralling nodes into a book structure after the fact, an essential for any chaotic and dynamic practice with an emphasis on creativity over structured planning, is extremely cumbersome after when a large number of nodes is considered.  Similarly, it is almost impossible ot then re-import the changes made to individual nodes within the word processing environment.  I actually believe with the new Javascript abilities and the emerging use of drag and drop within administrative interfaces (see the Panels module), that it should be possible to compose temporary and exportable books from a drag and drop list of nodes, possibly save-able, which can in turn be reordered within the same interface.  Somewhat like the play-list interface seems to allow for audio play-lists, but being able to do this for any content type and create publishable content lists.  Add an ecommerce gateway between the list interface and publication production stage such that user's can receive highly organized and packaged version of the site after purchasing.. and were back in the traditional domain of macro-payment meets micro-publishing.  Somehow tie in a micro-payment module to a points earned system that allows a macro-publication to be downloaded after a certain number of micro-payments have been made and you get the best of both worlds.

 Of course other issues need to be considered, like for example the versioning and release system of the project module.  Perhaps the Project-Release module can be made to work without the Project module, or the Project itself can drastically modified to achieve the aims in mind.  I have to work this out between now and final submission, which at this point is scheduled for late 2007.