Re: [Phphtmllib-devel] Usability issues

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On Thu, 2002-06-06 at 04:09, David McNab wrote:
> Hi,
> 
> Following up from previous email, I've come up with a solution - a set
> of function wrappers that constructs tag objects and populates them on
> the fly with an arbitrary number of elements.
---This is a really good suggestion.  I kinda have something like this
already, but not exactly.  There are a bunch of wrapper functions under
phphtmllib/tag_utils that I use more often then creating the object w/
the constructor itself.  I named all of the functions as html_*

The one thing they don't have is the ability to set the attributes AND
push n #'s of content items.  But one of the nice things about some of
the html_* functions is the api of params for most common things.
Such as the html_a() function which has the params of

function html_a($url, $content, $class=NULL, $target=NULL);

This by no means covers ALL the possible attributes of the
a tag, but it covers most of em.  I pretty much use that call
exclusively when constructing an A tag.  There is also the
other wrapper function for a common thing of wrapping an IMG tag
inside an A tag.  this is done with the
function html_img_href( $url, $image, $width='', $height='', $border=0,
$alt="", $usemap=NULL, $target=NULL);

But I guess there isn't a reason why we could have the 
TRtag() function along w/ the other helpers.  Most of the html_*()
functions only accept content items, so creating the new style
wrapper would be a benefit.  
  So the only issue is, what to do w/ the existing html_* functions?
If we create the new wrappers, I want to maintain compatibilty with the
old html_* functions so ppl that are using the libs don't have issues
upgrading to 2.0.0.

This is really a great request tho David.  Thanks!
I'll get right on it.

Walt

> 
> For example:
> 
>   function TRtag($attribs)
>   {
>     $tag = new TRtag($attribs);
>     $n = func_num_args();
>     for ($i = 1; $i < $n; $i++)
>       $tag->push(func_get_arg($i));
>     return $tag;
>   }
> 
> That way, I'm able to take advantages of the strengths of phpHtmlLib and
> generate some quite readable code.
> 
> Example from previous messages then converts to:
> 
>   $cmdstyle = array('size'=>'1',
>                     'face'=>'arial,helvetica,sans-serif');
>   $row1 = TRtag("",
>             TDtag(array('align'=>'right'),
>               FONTtag($cmdstyle,
>                 "Commands:")),
>             TDtag("",
>               FONTtag($cmdstyle,
>                 Atag(array("href"=>"$urlPrefix&dbCommand=newTask",
> 			   "title"=>"Create New Task"),
>                   "Create New"))));
>   print $row1->render();
> 
> That's a whole lot more readable (well, to me anyway).
> 
> I forgot to say - thanks guys for developing phpHtmlLib - it really is
> an excellent tool. Great building-block towards HTML abstraction in PHP.
> 
> Cheers
> David
> 
> 
> On Thu, 2002-06-06 at 22:17, David McNab wrote:
> > Hi,
> > 
> > I've just tried out phpHtmlLib on a part of a web app I've written.
> > 
> > As much as I hate to say this, after all the work you guys have put into
> > it, I've found that the phpHtmlLib-ised code is twice as long and half
> > as readable, compared to plain echo statements.
> > 
> > Code snippets follow.
> > 
> > Before phpHtmlLib:
> > 
> >   $ff = "<td><font size=1 face='arial,helvetica,sans-serif'>";
> >   $ffr = "<td align=right>"
> > 	. <font size=1 face='arial,helvetica,sans-serif'>";
> >   $ffend = "</font></td>";
> > 
> >   echo "<tr>";
> >   echo "$ffr" . "Commands:</td>$ff";
> >   writeLink("$urlPrefix&dbCommand=newTask", "Create New Task",
> > 		"Create New", "", "");
> >   echo "$ffend";
> >   echo "</tr>";
> > 
> > phpHtmlLib-ised version which does exactly the same:
> > 
> >   $row1 = new TRtag();
> >   $fflabel = new FONTtag(array('size'=>'1',
> > 				'face'=>'arial,helvetica,sans-serif'));
> >   $col1 = new TDtag(array('align'=>'right'));
> >   $fff = $fflabel;
> >   $fff->push("Commands:");
> >   $col1->push($fff);
> >   $row1->push($col1);
> >   $col1 = new TDtag(array('align'=>'left'));
> >   $fff = $fflabel;
> >   $link1 = new Atag(array("href"=>"$urlPrefix&dbCommand=newTask",
> > 			  "title"=>"Create New Task"));
> >   $link1->push("Create New");
> >   $fff->push($link1);
> >   $col1->push($fff);
> >   $row1->push($col1);
> >   print $row1->render();
> > 
> > To me, it's about as clear as mud compared to the raw version.
> > 
> > I tried to make it more readable by creating tags on the fly, within
> > constructors for enclosing tags. Thus the previous code looks more like:
> > 
> >   $row1 = new TRtag(
> > 	    "",
> > 	    new TDtag(array('align'=>'right'),
> > 	      new FONTtag(array('size'=>'1',
> > 				'face'=>'arial,helvetica,sans-serif'),
> > 			  "Commands:")));
> >   $row1->push(new TDtag("",
> > 	new FONTtag(array('size'=>'1',
> > 				'face'=>'arial,helvetica,sans-serif'),
> > 		new Atag(array("href"=>"$urlPrefix&dbCommand=newTask",
> > 			"title"=>"Create New Task"),
> > 		   	"Create New"))));
> >   print $row1->render();
> > 
> > Pardon the shitty formatting - blame my email client.
> > 
> > But alas, the readability has not improved.
> > 
> > I might humbly suggest that phpHtmlLib would allow for more readable
> > code if the constructors could take an arbitrary number of content
> > arguments.
> > 
> > Or, better, if there were global functions with the same name as the
> > phpHtmlLib classes, which take an arbitrary number of arguments and
> > return a new instance of a tag object.
> > 
> > For example:
> > 
> >  $row1 = TRtag("",
> >            TDtag(array('align'=>'right'),
> >              FONTtag(array('size'=>'1','face'=>'arial etc'),
> >                "Commands:")),
> >            TDtag(array("",
> >              FONTtag(array('size'=>'1','face'=>'arial etc'),
> >                Atag(array('href'=>'somegoddamurl', 'title'=>'myshit'),
> >                  "Create New"))));
> > 
> > With code like *that*, I could scan over it with even the most tired
> > eyes and still see clearly what's going on, without having to follow
> > gazillions of different variables.
> > 
> > Thoughts anyone?
> > 
> > Cheers
> > David
> > 
> > 
> > 
> > _______________________________________________________________
> > 
> > Don't miss the 2002 Sprint PCS Application Developer's Conference
> > August 25-28 in Las Vegas -- http://devcon.sprintpcs.com/adp/index.cfm
> > 
> > _______________________________________________
> > Phphtmllib-devel mailing list
> > Php...@li...
> > https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/phphtmllib-devel
> 
> 
> 
> _______________________________________________________________
> 
> Don't miss the 2002 Sprint PCS Application Developer's Conference
> August 25-28 in Las Vegas -- http://devcon.sprintpcs.com/adp/index.cfm
> 
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