Go to main content

Textpattern CMS support forum

You are not logged in. Register | Login | Help

#109 2011-03-03 00:17:02

ruud
Developer Emeritus
From: a galaxy far far away
Registered: 2006-06-04
Posts: 5,068
Website

Re: The direction of Textpattern 5

mrdale wrote:

Got an use case example?

I didn’t have one for the ability to parse tags within tag attributes within tag attributes (within tag attributes). That didn’t stop people from coming up with creative uses. Make it flexible and let people define their own use cases.

Offline

#110 2011-03-03 01:25:54

michaelkpate
Moderator
From: Avon Park, FL
Registered: 2004-02-24
Posts: 1,379
Website GitHub Mastodon

Re: The direction of Textpattern 5

ruud wrote:

  • forms and pages are really nothing but a hard-coded categorization of templates. Combine it on one tab and allow user-defined categorization (unlike the pre-defined form types). One way to do user-defined categorization of templates is to allow templates to have parents and children, so you can organize them in a tree structure (similar to how it works on the category tab).

Okay. Now I see where you are going: combine the Pages Tab and the Forms Tab into a single Tab called Templates. And then the dropdown for templates type would be article, category, comment, file, link, misc, section, and page?

One of my pet peeves has long been that I generally start each page with a header form and end it with a footer form. The problem with that is that all the tag builder functions I need to edit the page are not available on the Forms Tab. This would address that.

Offline

#111 2011-03-03 01:50:11

artagesw
Member
From: Seattle, WA
Registered: 2007-04-29
Posts: 227
Website

Re: The direction of Textpattern 5

maverick wrote:

Now that I went back and read this, I realize I’m not entirely sure what Sam means since Escher has Themes, Templates, and Snippets. Perhaps I’m mistaken, but Templates and Snippets in Escher seems to be the equivalent of Page Templates and Forms in Txp. . . .???

Yes, I misspoke. What I meant was that Escher does not create several different types of forms (snippets) which I find confusing and of no real practical value. An Escher template is roughly equivalent to a Txp page, and an Escher snippet is roughly equivalent to a Txp form.

Technically, there is nothing terribly special about a template that sets it apart from a snippet. A site needs to have at least one template. Snippets are optional and serve as a useful mechanism for breaking up complex logic and sharing code. But strictly speaking, there is no reason that they couldn’t be merged. I felt that for beginners, it might be a bit easier to wrap up the notion of breaking up / sharing code into a separate concept/entity (snippets) that could be learned later.

Offline

#112 2011-03-03 09:26:57

ruud
Developer Emeritus
From: a galaxy far far away
Registered: 2006-06-04
Posts: 5,068
Website

Re: The direction of Textpattern 5

michaelkpate wrote:

Okay. Now I see where you are going: combine the Pages Tab and the Forms Tab into a single Tab called Templates. And then the dropdown for templates type would be article, category, comment, file, link, misc, section, and page?

Nope. I did not mention a dropdown and I suggested not hardcoding any types.

Offline

#113 2011-03-03 12:37:02

michaelkpate
Moderator
From: Avon Park, FL
Registered: 2004-02-24
Posts: 1,379
Website GitHub Mastodon

Re: The direction of Textpattern 5

artagesw wrote:

An Escher template is roughly equivalent to a Txp page, and an Escher snippet is roughly equivalent to a Txp form.

ruud wrote:

Nope. I did not mention a dropdown and I suggested not hardcoding any types.

Template = Textpattern Page = Movable Type Template

Snippet = Textpattern Form = Movable Type Template Module

Makes sense to me now.

Offline

#114 2011-03-03 17:41:36

mrdale
Member
From: Walla Walla
Registered: 2004-11-19
Posts: 2,215
Website

Re: The direction of Textpattern 5

ruud wrote:

I didn’t have one for the ability to parse tags within tag attributes within tag attributes (within tag attributes). That didn’t stop people from coming up with creative uses. Make it flexible and let people define their own use cases.

Sure… just trying to wrap my mind around how I might make use of such a feature, and whether it would be worth the cost for me to have to recode an arsenal of custom plugins.

Offline

#115 2011-03-16 10:10:48

lazlo
Member
Registered: 2004-02-24
Posts: 110

Re: The direction of Textpattern 5

I am not sure about about putting the Page and Forms under the same tab due to their implicit site design difference, even though from a programming perspective they may be doing the same task. One thing I would like to see is a cleaner less confusing tag builder that is consistent across both “Form” and “Page”, maybe even a drag/drop form tag interface. The list of usable forms should be accesible beside the Page template code window not in a different tab.

Maybe we could change the tag “form” to “tform” or “txform” so I can find it in a search, because it is a pain searching for code examples with word “form” in it. Even discussing the code can become confusing when trying to differentiate between building forms for users and coding forms for Page Templates.

Offline

#116 2011-03-16 13:46:45

renobird
Member
From: Gainesville, Florida
Registered: 2005-03-02
Posts: 786
Website

Re: The direction of Textpattern 5

Pages and Forms should stay on separate tabs. Forms should be renamed to Snippets (or something else logical).

Now stop all this chatter and get to work.

:)


T

Offline

#117 2011-03-16 13:56:12

maverick
Member
From: Southeastern Michigan, USA
Registered: 2005-01-14
Posts: 976
Website

Re: The direction of Textpattern 5

I’m intrigued by the idea of having a list of forms on the side of a page that you could drag and drop. Incredibly lazy, but how quick it would be to assemble a page, and not have to flip back and forth between tabs to remember the names.

More simple, but to the same effect, would be an “insert form” plugin (sort of like wet_quicklink on the write tab, but for forms on the page tab).

Someone recently pointed out that forms are basically the equivalent of php includes. A bit geeky perhaps, but “includes” maybe the most descriptive, and most accurate naming alternative.

Offline

#118 2011-03-16 14:54:10

mrdale
Member
From: Walla Walla
Registered: 2004-11-19
Posts: 2,215
Website

Re: The direction of Textpattern 5

renobird wrote: Pages and Forms should stay on separate tabs. Forms should be renamed to Snippets (or something else logical).

That $5 I paid reno was worth it. ;)

Offline

#119 2011-03-16 14:57:58

renobird
Member
From: Gainesville, Florida
Registered: 2005-03-02
Posts: 786
Website

Re: The direction of Textpattern 5

@maverick

Could drag/drop or insert would work for anything other than inserting <txp:output_form form="" /> in a page template?
What would it do if you needed to use form= in an <txp:article> tag or a plugin.

I haven’t used the admin interface to build a site in a long time (cnk_versioning + textmate) – so I might be missing something.

Offline

#120 2011-03-16 14:59:39

renobird
Member
From: Gainesville, Florida
Registered: 2005-03-02
Posts: 786
Website

Re: The direction of Textpattern 5

@Dale – I’m just one of your many minion.

Offline

Board footer

Powered by FluxBB