During the 8th week of Google Summer of Code 2016, we have started with adding support for posting comments via email. After getting the feedback from my mentors, there was some space to improve proposed solution. The suggestions were accepted and briefly explained below.

Comments in a submodule

As comments are supported through new handler plugin (MailhandlerComment), we decided to move it into a submodule - mailhandler_d8_comment. Following this approach, we can avoid too many dependencies on the main module. The submodule features: Inmail config entity that represents the handler, the plugin class and the related test coverage.

Configurable referenced entity type

With configurable referenced entity type of processed comments, we can support not only node entities but all the other “commentable” entities. In my opinion, this is a nice feature for site administrators in case they want to allow posting comments (for their articles or custom entities) as easy enough as sending an email.

Strict validation

Validation is the important topic in software development in general. In Drupal 8, there is an API made specifically for entity validation - Entity Validation API. It is recommended to use it before saving an entity. However, entity validation does not work as expected in a case of creating comments via API. The referenced entity ID and its bundle were not validated which required us to find a different approach. To accomplish this, we had to implement custom validation checks. They consist of:

• Entity type validation - entity type is “commentable”

• Referenced entity ID validation - referenced entity with provided ID actually exists

• Bundle validation - identified entity bundle supports comments

Last week, besides the improvements made on the comment feature, I was working on the demo module improvements. The pull request has been submitted on Github and available for review. This module serves as an example module to show features of Mailhandler. It creates a sample “Mailhandler” content type (with a body field) and a new user with permissions to add content for “Mailhandler” content type and post comments. The GPG key field of this user was populated  with a sample key (both public and private GPG keys were added to the module) as well. Since last week, the example messages - sample comment and PGP clear-signed, MIME and MIME HTML emails are part of the demo module too. By enabling mailhandler_d8_demo, exploring Mailhandler features becomes very straightforward.

Drupal 8 module demo: Mailhandler from Milos Bovan on Vimeo.

Also, the demo module adds a sample article attached to the front page. The idea is to have a descriptive article about Mailhandler features. Its content will be extended during the “documentation week”. Next week, I will be working on improving overall user experience and user interface of Mailhandler.