Allow publishing of a staged channel as `next`

[rtibbles]

Desired behavior

When a channel is staged for deployment by the ricecooker library, the only way to test the channel in a veridical environment is to publish the channel and import it to Kolibri. This involves deploying the channel and then publishing, which somewhat defeats the point of having a staged channel for quality assurance purposes. This is particularly problematic if the channel is already being widely used, and a potentially flawed update might be published.

While there are existing workarounds for this, such as staging the channel to an alternative channel, this adds additional burden to the content integration and quality assurance processes.

Instead, it would be desirable for a staged channel to be 'published' as the next version of the channel.

Requirements

• Prerequisite task: Generate a versioned copy of the channel database when publishing #4470
• Update the channel publishing logic to allow the staging tree to be used as the base for publishing #4977
• Create a new change type for creating a 'next' publish
• Add a button on the staging tree frontend view that reads "Publish draft" - it can be in a similar location to the usual publish button - which will initiate the task using the same change event mechanism that publishing and deployment already use.

Value add

Allow easier testing of staged channels

Possible tradeoffs

This adds a small amount of additional complexity, and will also require some tweaks to Kolibri to make this completely usable.

[rtibbles]

Hi @Advaitgaur004 - the task list in the issue should provide the guidance needed here - do you have any questions about any of the specific tasks?

[taoerman]

@rtibbles Can I work on the second task "Update the channel publishing logic to allow the staging tree to be used as the base for publishing - write tests to cover these scenarios"? So I can get more context for the community list feature for GSoC?

[taoerman]

Hi @rtibbles ! I have read the code about change event. Let me know if I can work on the third task?

[rtibbles]

Hi @taoerman - apologies for the delay here - several urgent things have delayed my response.

I have slightly updated the incomplete steps of this issue and I will assign you. Please feel free to reach out on Slack or here for clarification at any point.

[learning-equality-bot]

Automatically unassigning @taoerman due to no comments here, or updates on the associated pull request for 1 month. @taoerman, if you're still interested in this issue or already have work in progress, please message us here, and we'll assign you again. Thank you!