Anil Gangolli wrote:
Actually, I did see all the e-mail before about why a weblog-level icon
and "about" text are not the same as user-level ones.
What I was trying to say was that for the weblog-level ones it isn't as
clear why you need db storage (whereas if you wanted similar attributes
at the user-level it is clearer why you would want to represent them in
the db).
Where could they be stored if not in the db?
I also do understand that users shouldn't be expected to have the skills
to edit the templates. I'm just less convinced that these two
attributes are somehow as "fundamental" as this would make them. It
will only really be an issue if similar things proliferate.
I dunno, from my experience these seem to be 2 of the most common weblog
attributes. Of course they won't be required, it would merely give a
template writer an easy way to include them in a blog. i.e. someone
writing a theme can do this ...
#if($model.weblog.icon)
<img src="$model.weblog.icon"/>
#end
... and allow a user to pick an icon for their weblog via the UI rather
than forcing the user to customize the theme and hack the templates to
insert an icon image.
-- Allen
Basically, I'm +0 on the proposal, but not against it.
--a.
----- Original Message ----- From: "Allen Gilliland"
<[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: <[email protected]>
Sent: Thursday, February 15, 2007 9:17 AM
Subject: Re: Quick Proposal: support for weblog avatar and bio attributes
Anil Gangolli wrote:
My personal preference would be to stay simple and just let users
create their own About page as a template page and use uploaded
resource images as "icons".
I would like that too, but our experience on blogs.sun.com has shown
that template editing is too confusing for most people and forcing
people to do it has been hard. There is also the fact that blogging
is supposed to be web publishing made easy, so we need to be careful
about where we draw the lines when it comes to user experience. At
the end of the day we are supposed to be making things as easy as
possible for our users.
I can understand many users would be happy with the level of
functionality being suggested and wouldn't have to bother to learn
how to write the template required. Adding a page to the basic theme
which included instructions on how to edit it would probably do and
be much more flexible for users who need something just beyond what
the text field and icon would provide.
I agree that getting people to be able to edit templates themselves is
preferable, but I just don't think that's realistic.
Wysiwyg vs. templates aside, there is still the fact that there are
some things that themes should be able to do without requiring hand
editing and IMO allowing the blog owner to set a custom icon image and
a little about/bio text should be one of them.
To give an example, the need for this feature has come about because
we have some folks from the sun.com design team who are making some
new themes for us and their research and designs have these 2
components in every theme. I personally don't think it's a stretch at
all to expect these 2 items to be controlled via the UI in a wysiwyg
fashion.
I feel we should have some idea of criteria for representing some
item in the db rather than in templates/resources.
Some example criteria would be that either the item figures in
business logic or it needs to be represented in multiple presentation
formats, feeds, etc. which would require some sort of
duplication/extra work otherwise. In any case, it should buy you
something that's hard, impossible, or awkward to get otherwise.
I agree, we need a criteria or justification for adding things like
this and I have tried to give that. I *do* believe that adding an
icon image and about section to a theme is considered both "hard" and
"awkward" for most users who are not technical.
You've got to remember, many of the people who use blogging tools are
people who barely know enough about html to understand <img> and <a>
tags, let alone enough to feel comfortable editing a velocity template
full of obscure looking #showXXX() macros and loops and conditionals.
And again, template hacking is part of the problem. There are some
things that themes need to be able to do without forcing users to
actually edit the template. To force people to edit templates to do
even the most rudimentary things is to make the whole idea of themes
useless. My belief is that we want themes to provide users with most
of the things they want so that only users who are truly interested in
making a custom design have to edit their templates.
I understood Dave's rationale for the user-level attributes where the
intent seems to be able to avoid duplication for users who
participate in multiple group blogs or to avoid the work to maintain
things if membership of a given group blog changes frequently.
I still don't quite understand the argument for adding these
attributes at all at the web log level (which might be due to my own
limited vision).
Perhaps you didn't read these reasons posted in an earlier email?
1. with the many-to-many relationship between users and weblogs there
is really no reliable way to get to a user from a weblog and more
importantly there is no guaranteed way of getting a single user for a
weblog. so it is basically impossible to figure out which profile to
use in group blog situations.
2. users may own multiple weblogs and probably do not want to use the
same icon and about section on both/all of them.
3. users may also come and go from a weblog, i.e. join and be owner
for a while then leave it to someone else. while this isn't likely to
happen very often, it would be a definite problem if a user who was
controlling the icon and about section on a weblog and that stuff
wasn't available anymore.
I also think that at the end of the day the icon and about section are
really a property of the weblog and in most cases are just being used
to highlight the author. However, in many cases they can be used in a
more generic way such as being an icon and a tagline. So I think it's
easiest and most appropriate to have them as properties of a weblog.
And there are also challenges with attaching these items to authors,
the big one being that right now all of the file uploads
infrastructure is centered around weblogs and not users. We have no
way to allow users to upload photos and so that would require quite a
bit of new infrastructure to support.
-- Allen
--a.
----- Original Message ----- From: "Allen Gilliland"
<[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: <[email protected]>
Sent: Wednesday, February 14, 2007 9:25 AM
Subject: Re: Quick Proposal: support for weblog avatar and bio
attributes
This is a reminder that I am planning to do this work pretty soon
and add it to the current trunk so it's part of Roller 3.2.
This will include adding 2 new weblog fields for "icon" and "about".
-- Allen
Allen Gilliland wrote:
Dave wrote:
On 1/25/07, Allen Gilliland <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
Dave wrote:
>> anyone object to adding these 2 attributes for weblogs?
>
> Yes. Don't those belong on the user or a new user-profile
object? A
> weblog has multiple users and could therefore have multiple
bios > and
> avatars.
Doh, I meant to specifically address that in my original email
but forgot :/
I had the same initial thought, but I came up with a few reasons why
these items wouldn't be associated with a user profile actually ...
1. with the many-to-many relationship between users and weblogs
there is
really no reliable way to get to a user from a weblog and more
importantly there is no guaranteed way of getting a single user
for a
weblog. so it would be troublesome to figure out which profile
to use
in group blog situations.
2. users may own multiple weblogs and may not want to use the same
avatar and bio on both/all of them.
3. users may also come and go from a weblog, i.e. join and be
owner for
a while then leave it to someone else. while this isn't likely to
happen very often, it would be a definite problem if a user who was
controlling the avatar and bio on a weblog and that stuff wasn't
available anymore.
I also think that at the end of the day the image and bio are
really a
property of the weblog and in most cases are just being used to
highlight the author. However, in many cases they can be used in
a more
generic way such as being an icon and a tagline. So I think it's
easiest and most appropriate to have them as properties of a weblog.
In that case it makes more since to call the field "about" instead of
"bio" -- it's a bit of text about the blog, which could be used as a
bio or something else. And instead of avatar how about "image" or
"icon"?
Good point, some more appropriate nomenclature would be helpful.
It would definitely be useful to also have those fields in the user
object or a new user-profile object, that way group blogs like The
Aquarium could include an about page that automatically lists each
blogger in the blog and a photo of each and is automatically updated
as member hip in the group blog changes -- you won't be able to do
that with one bio and avatar for the whole blog.
Yes, I agree that there is definitely still a use for tracking more
info at the user profile level, but there are also more
complexities with that. For example, we currently have no way to
allow attaching of uploaded images to users. All the current file
uploads infrastructure is segmented by weblog, so doing uploads for
users would have to be separate. There are little things like that
which would have to be considered.
-- Allen
- Dave
