Feature Management

Startup API provides some tools with managing application features.

Usage

Features are configured within user_config.php file in your application.

Feature class allows defining a feature which in turn can be assigned to Users and/or Accounts.

// define a readable name for unique integer feature ID for use in your code
define('MYAPP_MYFEATURE_NAME', 1); // never change this number
new Feature(MYAPP_MYFEATURE_NAME, 'My Feature Name');

Application code then can make simple checks if current user has feature enabled and enable / disable functionality.

if ($current_user->hasFeature(MYAPP_MYFEATURE_NAME)) {
     ... code of the feature ...
}

Code roll-out

Features can be available to a user under following scenarios:

• Feature is explicitly rolled-out to this user
• Feature is explicitly rolled-out to account user is currently logged in with
• Feature is globally rolled-out to all users
• Feature is available under the subscription plan for current account (coming soon)

Disable the feature

Features can also be globally disabled by passing FALSE as 3rd argument to constructor (useful for testing the code or discontinuing features).

// define unique feature ID for use in your code
define('MYAPP_MYFEATURE_NAME', 1);
new Feature(MYAPP_MYFEATURE_NAME, 'My Feature Name', FALSE);

Operations

In addition to disabling features globally, they can be temporarily disabled due to system load or outage.

Features are also ranked for emergency shutdown - application administrators can write a load/issue detection logic in their user_config.php files that will auto-scale down the system.

// define unique feature ID for use in your code
define('MYAPP_MYFEATURE_NAME', 1);
new Feature(MYAPP_MYFEATURE_NAME, 'My Feature Name',
     TRUE,    // enabled
     TRUE,    // rolled-out to all users
     5,       // emergency shutdown priority
     FALSE    // change to true to temporarily shut down
);

Admin interface

You can see the list of features and their current state in the admin interface on http://yoursite/users/admin/features.php page.