[Radiant] Developing Radiant site

[Chris Parrish]

Joe Van Dyk wrote:
> Hi,
>
> I'm new to Radiant, but not Rails.
>
> So, I'm seeing that stuff like the layout and CSS is entered through
> forms and saved to the database, and aren't contained in version
> controlled files.
>
> So, how does that work?  I mean, how do you deploy changes?  Just by
> copy/pasting the updated snippets and css stuff to the live site and
> enter it into the form?  How do you version control it?
>
> Seems a little weird to me, perhaps I'm missing something?
>
> Joe
> _______________________________________________
>   

You pretty much have it right and it's this way for two reasons:

   1. Radiant's design objectives have always been for small teams like
      a small business, brochureware kind of site.  If you think about
      it, those almost never exist under version control (and the small
      business folk who maintain it wouldn't understand it or have time
      to bother with it in many cases).

   2. While #1's true, there are still situations where some kind of
      archiving is called for.  But developers and the core team have
      been busy with other stuff and there are different possible
      needs/approaches. So you'll tend to find some
      extensions/scripts/misc to get it done in a well-enough-for-now
      fashion.

As I see it part of the problem is defining the real need:

    * There's importing/exporting which helps with deploying but could
      also be tied in with a backup or source control process.  The most
      well known one is Sean Cribbs import-export extension:
      http://github.com/radiant/radiant-import-export-extension/tree/master
      and a recently forked version at:
      http://github.com/nelstrom/radiant-import-export-extension/tree/master.

      There is also a plugin for taking a local copy in SQLite and
      deploying to MySQL at:
      http://blog.radixhound.com/2008/4/28/backing-up-radiant-cms-using-sqlite3

    * Then there's just backing up things for archive purposes.  Aitor
      built the Snapshot Extension
      (http://snapshot.rubyforge.org/svn/trunk/).  You can read about it
      here:
      http://www.nabble.com/-PREVIEW--Snapshot-extension%3A-serve-Radiant-sites-statically-tt13392910.html

    * And finally there's version tracking.  Part of the problem here is
      are you just handling drafts while another live "version" is
      actively published, or are you trying to track every save that was
      ever made.  The other issue is working it into Radiant's elegant
      UI.  All the other approaches are more admin tools.  This one
      would involve the user and versioning can really affect usability
      and workflow.

To my knowledge, there isn't anything existing to tackle the third item 
yet (though it's mentioned as being on the development timeline).  
There'd be some happy campers if you want to roll out a first-class 
solution here (all the free beer and pizza you want at the big Radiant 
gatherings).

Hope this helps (though I kind of wrote all this to document everything 
for me too).  And if I've missed anyone's great extensions, please chime in.

-Chris