Chapter 1: Foundation

A Ding site is based on a set of base modules which provide functionality and a set of guidelines which other Ding modules are based on.

The modules are:

• Features: The Features module (http://drupal.org/project/features) provides a way for developers to export Drupal database configuration and store this configuration in code. This configuration includes content types, views, variable, roles, permissions etc. Consequently many Ding modules contain features and corresponding feature files and references to feature configuration in the info file.
• Panels: The Panels module (http://drupal.org/project/panels) is used for structuring the page templates on a Ding site - which blocks of content are shown where. Panels configuration is also exportable as a part of Features.

The goal of features in storing configuration as code corresponds in a guiding principle for Ding development: All configuration required to set up a working site should be stored in code.

Most of this configuration is handled through Features or by modules which already supported configuraton export. If modules do not support configuration export it is the responsibility of Ding developers to handle configuration export manually by way of database queries executed through hook_install() and hook_update_N() functions.