Drupal Modules

What a mess

Before even starting by downloading this module, I watched a number of videos and demonstrations so that I didnt end up wrestling with something awful.

I'll tell you right now - the videos by the developers are a pie in the sky ficticious account of how this thing will integrate into your site.

Like a previous reviewer wrote - expect to drunkenly stumble through tons of administration pages to try to get one thing or the other working. With the total lack of useful documentation expect to trash your site in the process of your drunken stumbles, even the step by step documentation has major errors (like "select this option" and that option doesnt even exist!) which will leave you scratching your head wondering what they were thinking.

The video demos show a blank site with nothing but an organic group, and, I guess the implication that multiple groups could be viewed from a list, that you could easily click on a group and request membership, or receive a PM inviting you to join one, that you can easily add a gallery, a micro blog, and your off to the races.

If it were only so easy. For one you have to hit 5-10 administration menu options at the highest security level just to create a test group. For two, it isnt private to the group and will hit every area of your site. For three, following the instructions in the most basic of fashions can cause you to smash your whole site (in my case all of my forums were squashed to the left 25% of the pages, along with all other content).

For all of the authors bragging about the D7 release and how they have tied it very tightly into the Core modules... Youd wonder if they have ever used their own software. Sure, you have to hit Panels, Views, Content Types, Fields, the design manager, and a raft of other crap just to try to configure a sample group; but when you get into Permissions you get a single option: permission to administer everything or not. So any role from anonymous to administrator can write to, join, or create a group. The permissions inside OG are limited to the groups themselves. I myself want to restrict people of certain roles from even being able to join a group -- this module doesnt even restrict people who arent in the group from seeing the contents of the group. For example: my sample group became the top article on my homepage pushing my news for all users down the pipe, and I even deslected "promoted to home page".

Also what your probably thinking at this point is of the description right off the Drupal modules description: "Allows users to create organic groups within which to share content relevant to the group".

Well, thats true if all of your users have administrative access to your site... not in my world. Maybe in the single user developer world.

The module Advanced Forum is better written, more tightly integrated, and cleaner than this highly touted group that is supposed to bring social media type features to drupal website admins like facebook groups.

Im going to fumble and stumble around in it some more because I need the features, but I'm sure not impressed with what they were selling on it's features vs. what it actually does.

It makes me wonder if the developer ever intended to use this software for anything other than demonstrating it.

Review by computerology [info] on December 29, 2011 - 22:08

What documentation?

F: I can't fault the features - if you want something that creates groups and allows people to join, this module does it. However, joining a group seems to be meaningless - anybody can post to the group node and anybody can read the group node. I hope there's a way to get around this, but see my comment below about docs.

R: If reliability means it works as advertised, then I'd advise anybody using this to check very carefully. Having set a group to be private, I can still post to it and read it when I log on as a different user. See my comment below about docs.

E: Ease? First of all, there are many dependencies and many modules that you might not particularly want for their own sake have to be installed. Secondly, there's no single place you can go to create groups, add members, and do all the admin. You do a little piece here, navigate somewhere else to do another bit, go yet elsewhere to do the next bit... Unless your menu is bare and you need a dozen OG-related items to fill it up, and you love spending your time clicking about in desperate search for an item you're sure you saw somewhere, keep away. It's a horror.

D: Was there any documentation? You mean the readme.txt? The written documentation would suit the kind of person who throws away the instructions for a new gadget and learns how to use it by trial and error. The long, rambling, tedious video would suit the kind of person who can use the word 'cool' without blushing. Wow! You can hear developers talking! And see them too! What will they think of next? Cool!

Don't expect to find answers to even your most trivial questions easily. Most won't be answered at all. Docs? What docs?

Review by Footsie [info] on June 19, 2009 - 02:11

Are you down with OG? Yeah you know me!

What, no reviews or votes yet? That is surprising. This module has been the reason I can build community driven websites for clients. Great module. Keeps improving over time. There have been some difficulties with theming an those darn blocks have given me hell in specific situations, but that is more because I'm not the greatest coder.

Review by designdivide [info] on April 9, 2008 - 11:53