RE: [Modus-devs] HTML SELECT, WAS: Collections of content objects and performance

[Nathan D. <na...@ch...>]

> On Friday, Nov 1, 2002, at 08:58 US/Pacific, Nathan Dintenfass wrote:
> > Yes, what does an HTML SELECT have to do with a data descriptor??  OK,
> > I
> > should have said that the categoryPicker manifests itself as a form
> > widget
> > with an HTML SELECT.
>
> OK, I can see where you're going with this now (and you know I don't
> like that approach :)

Yes, and that is why I would like to know some alternatives ;)

More generally, do you think a field should not be responsible for rendering
itself into a form widget?  If not, can you give an example of what that
might look like for the developer (in terms of configuration and page level
coding)?



> > I have mixed feelings about it.  When I had to build the
> > categoryPicker it
> > felt "dirty" -- I didn't want to have go build new field types every
> > time I
> > just wanted a discrete list to choose from for a given field.
>
> Hmm... I guess the conceptual question is: do you want the persistent
> implementation to be 0, 1, .., n (i.e., an integer) or a string?
>
> I can see how the 'simplicity' argument leans toward definition inline
> as a string.

Well, in this case it would be a string.  If I had been referencing a linked
object type then I would have expected the persister to store the id of that
instance (as per Jeremy's "key" suggestion, with the default being the id).