Re: [Krang-general] [Krang-devel] Two Ideas

[Jesse E. <je...@er...>]

Hi Sam --=20

> This sounds like a good idea to me, and I know it's something you've
> had on your mind for a long time.  What do you have in mind as far as
> the UI/API?

First, I'm not sure what to call these.  Components?  Containers?
Modules?  Units?  Snippets?

What I'm imagining is a new module, "Krang::Snippets" (or, whatever) for
finding these objects at the API level, and a CGI module
"Krang::CGI::Snippets" for accessing them via the UI.

Krang::CGI::Snippets would function very similarly to Krang::CGI::Story.
It would have a find mode, and when a user clicks "Edit",
Krang::CGI::Snippets would leverage the ElementEditor.

Snippets would behave more or less like stories.  They could be checked
out, moved to desks, and versioned.  I suppose they ought to be able to
be scheduled, too, but as their output is not a published page, I'm not
sure what this would entail.  (Just updating the "published version" of
the snippet?  Maybe.)

Snippets should be programmable via the element system.  They should
have the capacity for a fill_template method, as all element libs do,
though which is only used in the context of another story being
published.

How should Snippets be uniquely identified?  Should they be given fake
URLs?  How do we uniquely and easily locate a particular Snippet?  How
do we restrict access to them, if not by category?  Maybe, like
templates, they are "meta data" to a published site?  Automatically
included under certain circumstance?  (Or, as Bodo hinted, maybe they're
just "named"?)

Questions, questions, questions!

To me, the following three use-cases should be satisfied by any
solution:

  1. A user, separate from the user who edits a particular story, should
be able to completely manage a part of a page through this system
without touching the story which publishes that page.

  2. This system should obviate the need to create "mini stories" to
contain bits of data used exclusively by other stories.  For example,
one Krang system we're creating has a concept of an "event" with a date.
These events are published on various story pages, but have no page of
their own.  Right now, we create them as stories and "lead into" them.
This system should eliminate this abuse of Krang.

  3. Generally, Snippets should be more about the data (fields, values),
whereas Stories should be more about the layout of the pages.


Sam:  How useful would something like this be to your work at P3?  Do
you have any other use-cases to add?


TTYL,

-Jesse-


--
=20
Jesse Erlbaum
The Erlbaum Group
je...@er...
Phone: 212-684-6161
Fax: 212-684-6226
=20