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#13 2005-04-27 13:10:03

marz
Archived Plugin Author
From: Barbados
Registered: 2004-11-13
Posts: 43
Website

Re: Restyled Textpattern Interface

Even though I removed the the mod from the bottom of the file and line 87 (I got an error stating call to undefined function quikpik on line 87 in txplib_head.php), I had to disable the rss_admin_quikpick plugin as it wasn’t showing up in the right place, I’m not sure if that was supposed to happen, I’m guessing I did something wrong :/

<br />
I reuploaded the mod, and just disabled the rss_admin_quikpik menu..everything is all good under the hood. :) Although I’d still like to be able to use the admin plugin instead of the mod.

Last edited by marz (2005-04-27 14:30:20)

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#14 2005-04-27 13:26:46

wilshire
Plugin Author
From: Akron, Ohio
Registered: 2004-08-27
Posts: 656
Website

Re: Restyled Textpattern Interface

If that mod changed the structure of the tables on the page its probably breaking the DOM scripting in the plugin.

&nbsp;

IMHO, with the ability to create admin side plugins I think its time to stop publishing hacks to the Textpattern codebase. Its only going to cause problems such as this one. It should be possible to change the styling of pages using a plugin and as several admin plugins have already shown its possible to modify the structure of a page as well. I’ve been able to successfully override the standard textpattern.css styles by changing it on the quikpik preferences tab so I would think its possible in this case too.

Last edited by wilshire (2005-04-27 13:27:42)

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#15 2005-04-27 13:30:42

ArbinShire
Member
From: Tallahassee, FL
Registered: 2004-03-23
Posts: 31
Website

Re: Restyled Textpattern Interface

Woah… I just tried to integrate this with the plugin and all hell broke loose. It definitely didn’t work that well, apparently (from a quick cursory glance at the plugin), it uses tables, whereas this modification does away with the original table structure. Getting this to work is definitely going to be a bit interesting.

For now, an easy fix is to disable the plugin and work with the older hack. I’ll be able to work on this later tonight or tomorrow perhaps.

Destry – in the /textpattern/ dir, replace the textpattern.css file with what is included in the *.zip archive.

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#16 2005-04-27 14:26:02

phiw13
Plugin Author
From: Japan
Registered: 2004-02-27
Posts: 3,249
Website

Re: Restyled Textpattern Interface

> wilshire wrote:

> IMHO, with the ability to create admin side plugins I think its time to stop publishing hacks to the Textpattern codebase. Its only going to cause problems such as this one. It should be possible to change the styling of pages using a plugin and as several admin plugins have already shown its possible to modify the structure of a page as well. I’ve been able to successfully override the standard textpattern.css styles by changing it on the quikpik preferences tab so I would think its possible in this case too.

Maybe it could be time to discuss the way that whole admin interface is build and structured, particularly the navigation area. That nested table structure is pretty difficult to manage, from an accessibility point of view and from the perspective of adding functionality (like adding tabs).

I see no reasons why that whole navigation area should remain a set of nested tables. The same can be said for other parts (write area, forms and templates).

(and I hope this forum quickly get restyled, I can hook up my user stylesheet again that micro ytpe is unreadable).


Where is that emoji for a solar powered submarine when you need it ?
Sand space – admin theme for Textpattern

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#17 2005-04-27 14:37:48

wilshire
Plugin Author
From: Akron, Ohio
Registered: 2004-08-27
Posts: 656
Website

Re: Restyled Textpattern Interface

Agreed phiw13. I think up to this point the emphasis has been on creating an admin interface that functions properly rather than one that can be customized easily. Maybe as we hit the 1.0 milestone some more work will go into cleaning up the admin interface.

&nbsp;

This new version of PunBB went table free so maybe the textpattern admin will eventually get there too. If anyones up for it putting together a patch and sending it to the development team as a suggestion couldn’t hurt.

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#18 2005-04-27 15:01:25

phiw13
Plugin Author
From: Japan
Registered: 2004-02-27
Posts: 3,249
Website

Re: Restyled Textpattern Interface

If anyones up for it putting together a patch and sending it to the development team as a suggestion couldn’t hurt.

Well we have a good start at a patch for the navigation area discussed in this very thread. It might still be improved, I guess. From a strictly html pov, one could even get rid of the two divs that wrap around the ‘tab’lists. Not that they really hurt, providing additional hooks for styling. The way ArbinShire made the php code, I’ll leave it to brighter php wizheads… . The basic thing there would be: make it as easy as possible for admin plugins to add one or more tabs.


Where is that emoji for a solar powered submarine when you need it ?
Sand space – admin theme for Textpattern

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#19 2005-04-27 15:04:25

ArbinShire
Member
From: Tallahassee, FL
Registered: 2004-03-23
Posts: 31
Website

Re: Restyled Textpattern Interface

Hmm. A patch could easily be submitted relatively soon as the work for the top level navigation has already been done. The next hurdle to overcome, would be the main content area, but that shouldn’t be too difficult. A simple, consistent, table free, structure would allow greater flexibility and allow easy changes, perhaps even by the existing CSS interface.

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#20 2005-04-27 15:08:37

wilshire
Plugin Author
From: Akron, Ohio
Registered: 2004-08-27
Posts: 656
Website

Re: Restyled Textpattern Interface

The basic thing there would be: make it as easy as possible for admin plugins to add one or more tabs.

Its already possible to add tabs through plugin code. The quikpik plugin does this as do others such as Andrew’s notepad plugin.

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#21 2005-04-27 15:30:14

ArbinShire
Member
From: Tallahassee, FL
Registered: 2004-03-23
Posts: 31
Website

Re: Restyled Textpattern Interface

The tabbed interface works exactly as it did before, except it doesn’t use a single table at the head of the document. The problem that rss_admin_quikpik is having, is that it coded in such a way that took advantage of the table structure and hooks on to that.

Just looking at the code behind everything that holdes the various text boxes and other assorted items in the textpattern interface, it is going to take longer than I thought to redo (if I decide I want to take this on.) At least Finals for me should be over with tomorrow and as such, I’ll have a week to kill before my next semester begins. It’s always slightly bugged me that the interface used a table layout.

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#22 2005-04-27 18:11:19

Destry
Member
From: Haut-Rhin
Registered: 2004-08-04
Posts: 4,912
Website

Re: Restyled Textpattern Interface

I like where this talk is going.

Paul Scrivens (whitespace) did a review of the Textpattern interface once (can’t seem to find it, probably due to the recent Moveable Type crash he had recently…and no, this article is not the one I’m talking about), and had some worthwhile things to say about how the individual panels are not laid-out as well as they could be. I would add to this discussin that If there are changes to the structure of the TxP panels, it would also be a good time to reevaluate how they are organized for default presentation as well.

Last edited by Destry (2005-04-27 18:14:03)

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#23 2005-04-27 18:34:54

blumie607
Member
Registered: 2004-03-08
Posts: 175
Website

Re: Restyled Textpattern Interface

Glad to see that this whole thing is taking off. And about using this hack with the rss_admin_quikpik, don’t say I didn’t warn you guys…

Anyways, is there going to be a fix (on some side of the table) for using rss_admin_quikpik and this hack (and or a plugin version of the hack as wilshire says is possible)?


bludrop studios .::. Creative Expression

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#24 2005-04-27 18:39:47

Jeremie
Member
From: Provence, France
Registered: 2004-08-11
Posts: 1,578
Website

Re: Restyled Textpattern Interface

Beside visual things, and the quality of the (html) code, another thing might need improvement : the ability to customize the backend. Mainly adding help here and here, eplanations for special cases, and so on. Without hacking TXP (SVN can handle merging, but we shouldn’t rely too much on this).

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