Often when I get an idea for a new post or article on a site I submit content to it is a bit difficult to know the correct content type it will use when published. What would be really useful then was if there could be a pre content type option where I can start writing the story. As the story develops I will have a better idea if it should end up as a blog post, general article or something else.
Another advantage with this would be that every user, with the right permissions, would then get their own personal content sandbox where they can start working on stories, or just simply quickly be able to create a number of draft ideas they will get back to later.
Content ideas created using this would be stored completely separate from Drupals content storage until they get promoted to a content type. A great benefit with that would be that only content that will be published would occupy space in the database.
I can also see big benefits when it comes to integration with content workflows as well as content assignments.
Some features in this module that would be really useful are:
- Private Story Ideas - Only visible for the author.
- Story Idea Pool - An idea pool where roles with the right permission can pick a story idea and start working on. Depending on role, this pool will be filtered so that for example the sports writers don't see ideas for the cultural writers and so on.
- Writing assignments - An editor can assign a story to a writers private sandbox.
- File attachment - Be able to attach files to the story that then easily can be transferred to the media management (fields) for the selected content type and used for it.
- Move between users - Roles with the right permission should be able to view all ideas and also move individual stories between writers.
- Workflow Integration - Make sure it can easily be integrated with workflow modules such as Workbench Moderation and Maestro.
- Commenting and Notes - Being able to have internal notes for the story, such as the editor can use to give instructions to the writer about how they want the story to be written. Notes can be used to store for example reference and source information that are relevant, but should not be published. Both should of course also follow the story when it is transformed to a real content type.
Some advantages I see with this functionality:
- Kept completely separate from the normal content management system until it is needed to be there.
- No more worries about what content type to select.
- Could even be kept on a separate site and then pushed to the live site when its time to select content type. Great for staging.
- Great for content workflows
I am no coder so I wouldn't be able to mentor on this, but I will of course be available to help with the feature specification and testing parts.