existing details (special microcontent) entries under node/add/microcontent strangeness

Robrecht Jacques - July 5, 2006 - 17:23
Project:microcontent
Version:4.7.x-1.x-dev
Component:Nodes Code
Category:bug report
Priority:normal
Assigned:Unassigned
Status:needs work
Description

I have couple of issues with microcontent concerning site misson, slogan, details:

  1. If you create a microcontent "Site title/site slogan" node and then change the title or slogan in the settings page, the node is not changed. Can't you hook into the settings form so the two places are synchronised ? Or maybe even remove the possibility to set the title/slogan/mission on the settings page?
  2. If you delete for example the "Site title/site slogan" node and go to "create content >> microcontent >> summary" you get a Page not found error. Should you not unset the variable "site_summary_nid" ? (similar for the other special microcontent nodes)
  3. If you created a "Site title/site slogan" node, does it still make sense to have this in "create content" menu? I mean: you can't create two of these nodes. Maybe you could change the settings page to have a link to the node to edit (fixes point 1 too).

I may fix these issues (time permitted), but let me know if maybe this is by design and whether you would appreciate a patch or not.

Other than that, I think having these things as nodes does make sense.

#1

Robrecht Jacques - July 5, 2006 - 20:10

A patch for #2 (unsetting site_XXX_nid when you delete the microcontent node).

AttachmentSize
microcontent.variable_del.patch.txt 849 bytes

#2

Robrecht Jacques - July 5, 2006 - 20:11
Status:active» needs review

#3

Bèr Kessels - July 7, 2006 - 10:49

Taking them one by one:

#1 I have a patch that needs some more work, wich greys out the fields in admin/settings. It is impossible to catch the event of a changing variable in Drupal, so I decided to simply disable editing in the "old" place. A link with these fields is all that I need to work out better.

#2 Ill commit that patch after some testing.

#3 I left them in that place, because I rename that "create content" link for all my clients in "admin/content" where I tuck most of the content related stuff. (In my opinion the default Drupal menus are very unfriendly for most site owners) That is why i forgot to look at it in a "normal" environment, such as a non-changed menu.
I will think about this a little, but only links from admin/settings is not an option. After all: The mayor point of this module is to allow certain roles to change the mission/footer/etc without giving them full admin permissions. Core does not allow that atm.

Thanks so far. Bèr

#4

Bèr Kessels - July 7, 2006 - 12:11
Title:synchronisation issues» existing details (special microcontent) entries under node/add/microcontent strangeness

A usability issue.

We need this only to preserve backwards compatibility, so we need to work with these items somehow.

I hope that we can come up with a solution for #3 above.

#5

Robrecht Jacques - July 7, 2006 - 14:29

About #1: disabling the form elements *and* providing a link to where one can edit it (but only if the microcontent node was created?) is ok.

About #3: yes, putting it inside "settings" would make this module quite useless. Don't know where to put it exactly either, just wanted to let you know that I didn't think the "create content" was the correct place if the content was already created.
I wanted to add an "[edit]" link to the site mission microcontent node, but unfortunately, as it is still the variable that is used in the themes, and that varialbe is the same for all users, it is not possible to do that (except from within the theme of course, but that should not be the place to do it).

Anyway, thx for the module but I need to do some thinking whether it's a module I'll use. Or maybe change the way I using it.

#6

Bèr Kessels - July 9, 2006 - 10:34

What about this one:

1) we drop the three special nodes completely (saves loads of code).
2) we add a .install that creates three new microcontent nodes. this .install should also empty Drupals mission/footer/etc.
3) then we make sure these three nodes/blocks are enabled in the correct regions by default (I learned yesterday that hook_block has this -undocumented- feature!
4) these blocks will already show the minitabs, our microcontent mission, fore example will eval PHP code (or other filters), will feel consistent to the users etc!

5) optionally, we could add a few pages, in future under admin » content » microcontent (or elsewhere) which contain summaries, or a single form to edit title/summary/mission/footer, etc.

Bèr

#7

Robrecht Jacques - July 9, 2006 - 10:53

That was the approach I was going to take for site mission and the footer, but as far as I can see, this doesn't really work for site title/slogan because the site title is used in a different place too (the html title tag in head). Also, the block in the header (for title and slogan) looks a bit strange.
But for site footer and site mission, this is a good idea.

#8

Bèr Kessels - July 12, 2006 - 09:04

Yes. we need to ship a better CSS file that changes the block in the header region into something less "square".

Indeed we need to think better about the name and slogan, esp the name is used all over Drupal and thus needs to remain synched with the microcontent block.

I will start working on the footer and mission in any case. Dropping the name+slogan from microcontent alltogether might be an option too.

#9

Bèr Kessels - August 26, 2006 - 13:25
Status:needs review» needs work

unfortunately the patch no longer applies. But that said; lets split out the issue into small chunks.

 
 

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