Recommendations
- Enhance settings.php to allow dual write
- Settings.php could be configured to share drupals 'commands' to the database between multiple databases. These "writes" could be things such as node-updates. This "multi-write single-read" method would allow user-side updates to be updated at all times while the developer is completing the development on a test install. An issue regarding this would be things such as major version changes (such as live site being 4.7 while the test install is 5.x for updates), also server vs server database version issues could occur.
- Extend Watchdog Module
- Extend the watchdog module to log admin changes; for example this could be a module such as watchdog_dev. These should not simply include nodes, but also modifications to admin settings, views modifications, and cck (fields and new node-types) changes. In addition, the log items should include a new checkbox.
- How will this recommendation assist a developer?
- Developers will be able to see the changes they have made within the administration panel and to modules which control major functionality on their website. For example, when an administrator displays the change logs through watchdog, they will see view A has been updated. The administrator will then be able to export view A and import it to view A on the site. The checkbox will allow an admin to select whether a port has been completed or not.