On Thu, Sep 04, 2008 at 04:53:45AM -0700, Arthus Erea wrote:
> 
> On Sep 4, 3:31 am, "Michael C. Harris" wrote:
> > On Tue, Sep 02, 2008 at 09:50:51PM -0400, Owen Winkler wrote:
> >
> > > Michael C. Harris wrote:
> >
> > > Our interface could highlight the hardpoint names that are in use.  For
> > > example, the listing for a theme named Aardvark could look like this:
> >
> > > Theme name: Aardvark     [Activate]
> > > Supported Hardpoints:  *sidebar*  footer  ?header?
> >
> > > "*sidebar*" would be bold (or something) indicating that your current
> > > theme outputs data to that hardpoint.  "?header?" would be red (or
> > > something) indicating that the data output to the "header" hardpoint
> > > will have no place to go in this theme.  Or something useful like that.
> >
> > It sounds like you're suggesting that the core would define a list of
> > hardpoints, plugins would send output to a particular hardpoint by
> > default, and theme authors would choose to support some subset of the
> > listed hardpoints, which would be advertised in the XML. Users could
> > override the plugin's default hardpoint and choose to have the data
> > output to a different hardpoint. Is that what you're meaning ?
> 
> Actually, as I understood it we wouldn't define any hardpoints in the
> core.
> 
> Instead, we would "recommend" that certain naming conventions be used,
> but allow themes to define their own hardpoints–this is a much more
> flexible approach.
> 
> The idea of having the interface listing your active theme's
> hardpoints would be to show you which ones the theme does in fact
> support.
> 
> Given this model, I see so need to develop an arbitrary list of
> hardpoints which theme authors must choose from.

Which is why I was trying to clarify what Owen was meaning. If no list
is defined, what does "the "header" hardpoint will have no place to go
in this theme" mean ? And if a theme can define arbitrary hardpoints,
then a plugin isn't going to know where it can put content.

> > > The key point being that if you rely on what functions are called to
> > > know what hardpoint names are available in the theme, then it becomes
> > > difficult to know what they are without activating the theme first.
> >
> > The active theme is currently activated in the admin anyway, so that
> > you can configure it. Do we really need to see the available
> > hardpoints of non-active themes ? I'm still not convinced that a
> > function that returns an array of supported hardpoints isn't simpler.
> 
> Actually, I think we probably do. That's what supplies the
> functionality of being able to see if a theme you are about to
> activate will support the hardpoints you are currently using.

People aren't going to know what hardpoints they're currently using.
Unless we provide a list of them on the page.

> Plus, XML is usually pretty readable–certainly easier than a set of
> arbitrary function calls.

I'm not sure where the "arbitrary function calls" comes from. I was
talking about a function call that returns one array of hardpoints.

Just to be clear, I'm playing devil's advocate so that we make sure
we're getting the best outcome we can.

-- 
Michael C. Harris, School of CS&IT, RMIT University
http://twofishcreative.com/michael/blog
IRC: michaeltwofish #habari

--~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~
To post to this group, send email to [email protected]
To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
For more options, visit this group at 
http://groups.google.com/group/habari-users
-~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---

Reply via email to