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Textpattern 4.5 and existing plugins
Some of you already know that we are putting together a design patterns document for core admin themes for 4.5…
A lot has changed with the underlying structure of the admin HTML code for 4.5 – which means a lot of plugins will need to update their code to reflect that. I’m going to spend the next few weeks finishing off the design patterns documentation and theme CSS files to help this process.
But… are there any more widgets (apart from the grids/columns that I haven’t finished yet) within reason that plugin authors need/want/require to help them make better, more consistent plugins in 4.5 with less effort? If so then list them here and I’ll consider each.
Last edited by philwareham (2012-07-16 09:37:29)
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Re: Textpattern 4.5 and existing plugins
Multiple large warnings. I.e. the #warning block, but with a class. It’s the only one that generates large block messages, but it unfortunately uses an ID. Which means you can’t really use it, at least not multiple times and not on core panels.
I personally use it to report incompatibilities and requirement notices. I want to make the user clear that this plugin doesn’t work on that system until that particular component is updated. Due to the thing using IDs, I’ve had to resolve to using the inline warnings which are not as “hey I’m important” looking.
If all those classes as success, warning, error and information could be used to create blocks, that would be a-w-e-s-o-m-e.
Then there is the thing which is I tweeted you, Phil, about; faux-buttons. Or in general buttons that aren’t necessarily real form elements, but need that “importance”. Like for instance I use .navlink to produce Authenticate/Unlink button in Preferences panel:
Wait! That say Dropbox. Oh, yeah. I have that rah_backup thing that supports Dropbox and couple other things. And it looks sick good on Hive. Yeah. Every theme should have classes that can be used to transform links to buttons.
Um, then there is a.async.busy. Plugin authors could benefit from .busy if it wasn’t targeted just .async. .async has JavaScript attached to it, which limits its use. Coming back to rah_backup, the plugin has some restore links. One next to each backup. Each of those links would benefit from that class, but I can’t use it because of that. While restoration is processing I need to hide the link, but I also need to keep the column same size to prevent content from jumping.
In addition to .busy a universal .disabled class would be good. One that would turn any element it’s applied slightly opaque. So that it looks, you know, disabled. There are times when you are executing a important task, or some link might just be disable until a preference is defined.
Spinner. The indicator thing. Smaller inline version of it would have its uses.
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Re: Textpattern 4.5 and existing plugins
OK, as of r3968 faux buttons now matching to all other buttons in Classic/Remora theme (were already in Hive). You an use .navlink on links to turn them into faux buttons. Similarly, you can use .navlink-disabled on something like a <span> to turn it into a faux disabled button.
I’ll look over you other suggestions and see what I can do about incorporating them.
Anything else?
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Re: Textpattern 4.5 and existing plugins
A comprehensive list of old classes, IDs and their new equivalents by page would be useful. Perhaps you already did this?
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Re: Textpattern 4.5 and existing plugins
@mrdale
I’ve made a start on that list, but it’s in no shape to be released as yet.
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Re: Textpattern 4.5 and existing plugins
OK, I’m going to change the #warning to a more suitable class instead so it can be harnessed for other tasks and for potentially more than one instance per page, I’ve checked the core and it’s only used in 3 places anyway so I can’t see any problems arising from that.
@gocom
Take a look at this proposed code and layout (system message), if it looks OK I’ll commit this (and a Classic/Remora version) to SVN.
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Re: Textpattern 4.5 and existing plugins
philwareham wrote:
Take a look at this proposed code and layout (system message), if it looks OK I’ll commit this (and a Classic/Remora version) to SVN.
Awesome :-) That looks fabulous.
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Re: Textpattern 4.5 and existing plugins
Cool. That’s in now – r3969
I’ll think about the spinner and .busy etc tomorrow along with another couple of bits I’ve been meaning to add for a while.
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Re: Textpattern 4.5 and existing plugins
You’re really doing an excellent job, phil
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Re: Textpattern 4.5 and existing plugins
I concur mrdale, Phil you are on fire…. (and the Stone Roses concert in between – was it good?)
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Re: Textpattern 4.5 and existing plugins
Cheers. The Stones Roses were brilliant thanks, Ian Brown still can’t sing in tune though.
A few more handy CSS things will be out in the SVN later today hopefully.
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Re: Textpattern 4.5 and existing plugins
@gocom
I’ve changed the a.async.busy class, so it’s just a.busy now – r3974. Needs testing, I couldn’t verifying it here, so let me know if it works as expected, or doesn’t.
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