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Views Bulk Operations
This module augments Views by allowing bulk operations to be executed on the nodes displayed by a view. It does so by showing a checkbox in front of each node, and adding a select box containing operations that can be applied on the selected nodes.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
- News
- Compatibility
- Quickstart for D6
- Quickstart for D5
- Credits and sponsorship
- Complementary modules
- Technical details
- Roadmap
- FAQ
- Meanwhile on the net...
News
- 2010-03-10: Administration menu 6.x-3.x and 7.x-3.x now include standard VBO admin views for nodes, comments, users and taxonomies!
- 2010-01-20: VBO now used on Drupal.org! Thanks to everyone who pushed for it :-)
Compatibility
- Views 6.x-2.x works with VBO 6.x-1.x
- Views 6.x-3.x works with VBO 6.x-3.x
- Views 7.x-3.x works with VBO 7.x-3.x
Quickstart for D6
- Click Site building > Views > Add
- View name = "test", View type = "Node"
- Click "Add display" to create a new page
- Click Style: Unformatted and select "Bulk Operations", then click "Update"
- In Page: Style options > Selected operations, select a few operations then click "Update default display"
- In Fields, press +, then select "Node: Title", then click "Add" then "Update default display"
- In Page settings, click Path: None and type "test", then click "Update"
- Click "Save", then "View Page" (top-right corner)
- Enjoy your first VBO!
Quickstart for D5
Please note that I am no longer actively maintaining VBO for D5. I will only commit security and critical bug fixes to this version.
- Install and enable Views 5.x-1.x and VBO
- Click Site building > Views > Add
- Name = "test"
- In the Page section, check Provide Page View
- URL = "test"
- Select View Type = "Bulk Operations View"
- In the Fields section, select "Node: Title" then click Add Field
- Click Save
- You get a message "No operations are enabled. You must enable one or more operations in order to use Views Bulk Operations."
- Check a few available operations in the Operations section, then click Save configuration
- Enjoy your first VBO!
Credits and sponsorship
Sponsored by OpenCraft. The 6.x-1.5 release was sponsored by Growing Venture Solutions. Thank you for your generous support.
If you feel this module is useful to your business, please consider the following:
Thanks!
Complementary modules
- Views Send allows sending mass emails using VBO.
- VBO Context menu provides a context menu for VBO, where all operations available to the VBO show up on right click.
- Views Block in Views Hacks exposes blocks as Views objects that can be administered using a dedicated VBO.
Technical details
The module works by exposing a new Views 2 Style plugin called "Bulk Operations". The settings for this plugin allow to choose the operations that should appear on the view. Operations are gathered from two sources: 1) Action API 2) hook_node_operations and hook_user_operations. The module also allows to use Batch API or the Job queue module to process the selected nodes, in order to avoid timeouts.
VBO can support all object types supported by Views. Natively, VBO comes with support for nodes, users and comments. Through the new VBO-defined hook_views_bulk_operations_object_info()
, other modules can help VBO handle arbitrary object types. Refer to function views_bulk_operations_views_bulk_operations_object_info() (you'll have to search for it on the page sorry) for information.
EXAMPLE VBO
As an example, the module comes with a re-implementation of the Content admin page. To access it, just go to the URL admin/content/node2. You can modify the path to admin/content/node to override the default Content admin page.
INCLUDED ACTIONS
Modify node taxonomy terms
The module comes with a new action to manipulate nodes' taxonomy terms. Unlike Taxonomy Node Operations, which creates a new action for each single term, this module exposes a single configurable action that allows the user to choose which term(s) should be added to the selected nodes. The user can also choose to keep existing terms or to erase them.
Delete node, user, comment
Actions to delete these objects.
Rulesets -> actions
Detect rulesets created with the Rules module and expose them as actions that VBO can invoke.
Arbitrary PHP script
Write PHP code that is applied to each node in VBO. This action requires the 'administer site configuration' permission - even if actions_permissions.module says otherwise.
Modify node fields
Bulk-modify CCK and other node fields.
Modify profile fields
Bulk-modify user profile fields.
Modify user roles
Assign and unassign roles to users.
Managing blocks
The Views Type Block module exposes block data to Views, allowing VBO to manage blocks just as nodes or users. Try it out!
ACTIONS PERMISSIONS
A module called actions_permissions is included in the package. This module generates a permission for each action, and VBO honors those permissions before showing or executing the corresponding actions. This is useful if you want to provide your VBO to several groups of users with different privileges: the same view will accommodate those different groups, showing to each the actions that they are permitted to see.
Roadmap
- Support arbitrary arguments in Rules rulesets by mapping view fields to ruleset arguments
- #734886: Schedule operation
- #331866: Preserve selection across pages
- Allow pre- and post- processing of objects
- Compound actions
-
Branch off VBO 7.x-3.x for Views 7.x-3.x - Integrate with Drupal Queue
- Support style plugins different than Table
FAQ
Even though the action gets called on my selected nodes, these nodes still retain their old values! What's going on?
Actions in D6 use a flag called 'changes_node_property' to give a hint to Drupal whether this action modifies node contents or performs a read-only operation on the node. VBO uses that flag to determine whether node_save() should be called or not after executing the action. Actions that modify node contents but don't expose this flag in hook_action_info() will not be properly handled by VBO! Checkout node.module's node_action_info() implementation for an example.
How can I write an action that performs a function on all selected nodes AT ONCE?
You need to write a node operation instead of an action. Whereas actions get called *once for every selected node*, node operations are called once only, and they are passed an array of selected nodes. Check out sirkitree's article for the same concept applied to user operations.
I need VBO to modify thousands of nodes at once! Help!
VBO is designed to handle large numbers of nodes, without causing memory errors or timeouts. When you select thousands of nodes, you can choose to execute the operations using Batch API, which provides visual feedback on VBO's progress. To select Batch API, edit your view, open the "Bulk Operation" style settings and in the section "To execute operations:", select "Use Batch API". You can also choose to execute the operations during cron runs via the Job queue module if you have it enabled.
How can I use VBO to copy values from one field to another?
You will need to write simple PHP code.
-
Install Devel, and open the "Dev load" tab on a node of the type you want to manipulate. Write down the name of the source field, as well as the array key that contains the field value. E.g.
'field_contact' => array(
0 => array('value' => 'Some value'),
); -
Use the stock VBO at
/admin/content/node2
and filter the nodes by the desired type. Then choose the action "Modify node fields" and press "Execute". - On the "Set parameters for 'Modify node fields'" page, locate the destination field and check it ON.
-
In the "Code" area of that field, write the script needed to copy the value from the source field. The help text below the code area shows you the expected format, and you can access the node being manipulated using the variable
$node
. E.g.
return array(
0 => array('value' => $node->field_contact[0]['value']),
); - Press "Next" then "Confirm"
How can I make sure that unauthorized users are prevented from destroying nodes or any other parts of my Drupal installation?
VBO gives a lot of power to admins, so it's important that security measures be enforced. There are currently 3 different ways to restrict access to VBO:
- Using the bundled actions_permissions module, the admin can set permissions on each individual action. VBO honors those permissions by hiding the unauthorized actions *and* checking permissions again when it is about to execute an action.
-
VBO also calls
node_access
on each node that is about to be acted upon. Nodes for which the user does not have appropriate permissions are discarded from the execution list. The action flagchanges_node_property
is mapped tonode_access('update')
. There are other mappings as well described in the VBO development guide. -
The author of actions can specify additional permissions in
hook_action_info
under the attribute'permissions' => array(perm1, perm2, ...)
.
How to theme VBO in D5?
If you want to modify the VBO theme, you should call your theme overriding function:
phptemplate_views_bulk_operations_view_VIEW_NAME($view, $nodes, $type)
and place it in your theme's template.php file. This will require you to recode the whole form. If you just want to change the look of the nodes table but leave everything else as is, just override the function
phptemplate_views_node_selector($element)
What is the difference between these pairs of actions:
- Make post sticky (node_make_sticky_action) vs Make sticky (node_mass_update:c4d...794)
- Promote post to front page (node_promote_action) vs Promote to front page (node_mass_update:14de7d028b4bffdf2b4a266562ca18ac)
- Publish (node_mass_update:9c5...047) vs Publish post (node_publish_action)
- Unpublish (node_mass_update:0cc...080) vs Unpublish post (node_unpublish_action)
These pairs are functionally equivalent. Technically, they differ in that the node_mass_update
function is a core node operation used in the original content administration screen, whereas the node_xxx_action
functions are core actions. As a site administrator, feel free to choose either for your VBO content administration screen.
How can I edit fields created for the Content Profile module?
Create a Node view and filter by the content types that are attached to Content Profile. Then use the "Modify node fields" action to edit those fields.
- Greg Knaddison of Growing Venture Solutions has published a screencast entitled Bulk image uploading and tagging with Imagex and Views Bulk Operations. Thanks Greg!
- Johan Falk of NodeOne has written an article entitled Make Rules dance with Views Bulk Operations. Great stuff Johan!
- justintime has written an article on a real-life usage of VBO. Thanks Justin.
- Review at DrupalModules.com
- VBO has been included in the Open Atrium profile. I'm glad Development Seed found it useful!
- Featured in chapter 5 of Drupal 5 Views Recipes by mroswell. Thanks author!
- sirkitree has written a very cool technical article on writing a new user_operation. Thanks Jared.
- Featured in chapter 6 of O'Reilly's Using Drupal. Thanks authors!
- Featured in Lullabot Podcast #64. Thanks Lullabot and speakers.
- Starbow Consulting seem to like it too. Thanks Starbow.
- Robin Barre from CivicActions reviewed VBO and seemed to like it. Thanks Robin and CivicActions.
- ComputerMinds expressed their love for VBO and are applying the same concept to individual nodes. Great idea and thanks ComputerMinds.