wf_field - Workflow functionality as a field for Drupal 7 (Screencast + Profile)

CCK and rules have been one approach to the workflow-problem in the past/D6. Johan Falk of nodeone recently posted a proof of concept for a workflow field in D6 (w/ CCK + Rules etc.). We are great fans of the rules-module and we found his suggestions compelling - so we went ahead to try to implement/port the proof of concept in/to D7 :)

If you want to try out the module - consider using the installation profile, that comes preconfigured with the sample rules & content types.

BTW, I just read there is a Workflow as a Field-BoF at DrupalCon Chicago (i wish i could be there, sigh) ... I'll try to figure out what comes out of that BoF & will maybe blog about some more advanced aspects of this whole thing - e.g. persisting workflow steps ("state instances") w/ + for metadata, workflow on other entities, multiple concurrent workflows on one entity, developer-friendly "workflow" wrapper around entities à entity.module etc - some time in the near future ...

Please note: We have been using it as test case for grokking new D7 fields-apis (and the code shows this & isn't stable yet). If you want to take a preconfigured setup for a spin, there is full install profile (or lightweight a "install-profile.makefile" or just a feature)

Code:

• Module wf_field in sandbox on drupal.org
• Install Profile (full, 2.3MB) (UPDATED 20110505)
• Install-Profile-Drush Make-Profile (<1k)
• Feature only

Further Links:

• Discussion on Workflow as a field on g.d.o: http://groups.drupal.org/node/73153
• Johan Falks Screencast: http://nodeone.se/blogg/workflow-field-proof-of-concept
• D6 CCK + Rules Tutorial: http://drupal.org/​node/​550716
• D7 Maestro Workflow Suite: http://drupal.org/​project/​maestro

Assuming you have drush installed and are on some *NIXy system - installing a test system is as easy as this (yay, to D7!).

drush dl drupal-7.x --drupal-project-rename=d7_wf_field_test
cd d7_wf_field_test/profiles/
wget http://flink-solutions.de/wf_field/wf_field_test-20110505.tgz
tar -xzvf wf_field_test-20110505.tgz
drush si wf_field_test --db-url=mysql://USER:WITHSOMEPASSWORD@localhost/d7_wf_field_test

Open your browser (e.g. http://localhost/d7_wf_field_test/user/ and login in as admin:admin). You will need to add a non-priviledged user to test out the permission integration :) Permissions have already been set by the feature/profile.