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#1 2005-11-11 10:15:32

boblet
Member
Registered: 2005-08-08
Posts: 53

naming suggestions wrt "default"

Hey All,

don’t know if this is the right place to post, but a small feature suggestion would be to make the names of the default sections/pages/forms etc a little more descriptive. As everything is called “default” (and that’s the way it is by .. uh .. default ;-) it can be quite difficult to describe to new users. I’d like to suggest a prefix_[something], eg default_section, default_page, default_error_page, default_article_form, default_comment_form. These names might be overly descriptive (=long) for some, so shorter options might be “base_” or “d_”. I’d prefer a prefix over the “error_default” precedent because then once you’ve put 20 forms in, the default ones will still be grouped together and probably above the fold.

While this would no doubt be a PITA to roll out for all established users, it’d sure be nice having an easier-to-describe and consistent naming scheme. Even better for present users would be a checkbox to give default functionality to any template (“use this section to display the site’s homepage?”), but that might not be KISS enough ;-)

peace- boblet

Last edited by boblet (2005-11-11 10:33:40)

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#2 2005-11-11 11:37:45

Sencer
Archived Developer
From: cgn, de
Registered: 2004-03-23
Posts: 1,803
Website

Re: naming suggestions wrt "default"

While this would no doubt be a PITA to roll out for all established users

Which is reason enough that this will never happen in the 4.0.x branch. But I wonder how other people feel about this in general? I’ll hold off on more comments until I hear more opinions about this.

be a checkbox to give default functionality to any template (“use this section to display the site’s homepage?”)

You can assign any template (= “page”) to any section and any template(=page) to the “homepage” (= default “section”) as well.

But you can’t “use a section” to “display the homepage”, I have a feeling you are confusing sections and pages, no?

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#3 2005-11-11 12:29:44

boblet
Member
Registered: 2005-08-08
Posts: 53

Re: naming suggestions wrt "default"

Which is reason enough that this will never happen in the 4.0.x branch

but of course ;-) However, if new templates will be added (such as error_default) it’d be good to have naming system for them (in a small way).

But you can’t “use a section” to “display the homepage”, I have a feeling you are confusing sections and pages, no?

(sorry – I was meaning all the “default” things in the various ‘presentation’ tabs, so I should have said “give the relevant ‘default’ status to any section/page template/article form template etc”). this was more in reference to my link about helping Deron put static content on the default section, which is made somewhat difficult because we can’t directly assign an article to the default section (I hope my suggestion was the “TxP way” to do it). What I was meaning was for any section to replace default as the one used for the site’s homepage, and as the section where “on front page?” sections can be listed by default displayed.

I guess this is two issues; not being able to assign articles to the default section, and wanting to rename the defaults. Btw, could you tell me why we can’t assign articles to the default section? I’m sure there’s a good reason ;) As an example of renaming the defaults, I’m planning to use prefixes for all my form templates; ‘a’ for article forms, ‘h-’ for forms in the page’s head, ‘m-’ for forms in the main content div etc. I’d like to rename the default form to “a-default” so it’s listed with other article forms, and I’d also prefer to name the default section “home”. Just personal preference, little things etc.

peace – boblet

PS any hints on how I’d list articles that are in two categories (not one or the other) and a specific section? No one seems to want to reply to my difficult post ;-)
PPS Just wanted to say your icon is kick-ass! I’m starting to think of it as your photo though… :D

Last edited by boblet (2005-11-11 12:37:15)

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#4 2005-11-11 16:23:31

Sencer
Archived Developer
From: cgn, de
Registered: 2004-03-23
Posts: 1,803
Website

Re: naming suggestions wrt "default"

Ok, I think I understand what you mean (though there is still a big conceptual difference between “default-section” – which is not a section; and all the other things named default like pages, forms etc.). The thing is: default is not a section at all – or it wasn’t, and now looks more like it might be than it used to (confused, yet? ;)). In the past the front-page fell completely out of the section stuff, and it would always use the default-page template, and the default-css, it was much like “search-results” or “category-listing” or some other things, just there; acting as a way to pull together stuff from all over the site (I am not sure at all, but it might be possible that it was before article_custom even existed). So the reason it is the way it is today is historical.

There have been ongoing discussions in the development team, about how sections, and the desire for subsections are going to be met in the future, and how categories will relate to it; (in major releases). And I see that the issue of the “hidden/limited” category/search-results/homepage/default-section is something that can be handled at that point (since internal and to some degree external changes will be necessary for it. There hasn’t been anything decided yet, so I’m certainly interested in reading discussions about it on the one hand. On the other hand, some of what could be done, will depend on how we move forward with the desire for subsections.

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#5 2005-11-12 00:14:49

boblet
Member
Registered: 2005-08-08
Posts: 53

Re: naming suggestions wrt "default"

OK that makes sense (I think!) – thanks for explaining it to me. I guess there’ll be major changes if you make the level of subsections arbitrary huh. That’d be great though, as the use of categories to create greater URL ‘depth’ seems pretty hack-ish, and this was something that was important for me. Presently I’m using a section/category1/article naming scheme with gbp_faux_static, and it was a bit of a nightmare to set up. It would seem more logical to use a section/subsection1(/subsecion2…)/title URL structure, with categories being an additional way (rather than the main way) of creating extra depth. One additional thing that caught me out was the inability to use Apache Multiviews to provide different language options based on the user’s browser preferences, although the new version mentioned on the weblog might solve this. I wanted to make two language versions for each page and let multiviews send the right one, but wasn’t able to. I got something equivalent working in the end though ;-)

peace – boblet

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