Re: [Phpslash-devel] Page blocks

[Joe S. <joe...@us...>]

On Mon, Nov 10, 2003 at 01:28:48PM +0000, Peter Cruickshank wrote:
> On Monday 10 Nov 2003 12:39 pm, Joe Stewart wrote:
> 
> > If not it sounds like you are describing two sections.
> ...
> I think so, now...
>

No.  I've had more coffee now.  If you've got separate scripts, like
glossary.php, feedback.php ,etc.

You should be able to assign the same section argument and applicable
module argument.  This is the way the admin pages work.  They are all in
the admin section.

> In the old days (ie before the move to module blocks), they could have been in 
> the same section - the section was a way for ensuring that they had the same 
> blocks surrounding the generated content. The benefit was that the number of 
> sections could be kept under control, saving on admin time if you want to 
> change what blocks appear on what page - this pays off if like me, you're 
> using PSL as a site-building engine, rather than a news-blogger.
> 

The limitation was that all the poll, mailinglist, glossary, about, etc
had the same blocks.

> I'm not saying to go back to the old set-up tho, and I know I may be in a 
> minority.
> 
> Slightly different topic - it's a hassle to delete sections, because you have 
> to delete all the (many) blocks first. Maybe it's time to add to the section 
> admin page some indication of what blocks have been assigned to the section + 
> the option to add/remove them?
> 

Yes it is a hassle.  Doesn't it tell you when you try to delete the
section which blocks are assigned?

We could offer to force the removal of the section assignment to to those
blocks.

> > > 2. What contains the blocks in the top and bottom columns?
> > >
> > > The old navbar and topic bars were in slashHead.tpl and slashFoot.tpl. It
> > > now seems they are inserted between slashHead/Foot.tpl and
> > > index?col*.tpl.
> >
> > You're right.
> 
> [...]
> 
> > So if you don't use the topic bar or want to move the navbar to the left
> > blocks, you can do it right from the block admin.
> 
> That's a cool new feature for sure.
> 
> > uses:
> >
> > Got different ad zones?
> > I guess you could do away with the header file and have everything in the
> > index template if you edit html in a wysiwyg editor.
> 
> That would also allow more design flexibility over how/where the topic and nav 
> bars appear (eg some designs might need the topic bar before the site logo 
> etc).
> 
> Thinking aloud...
> 
> slashHead + slashFoot are now embedded into the index*tpl files...
> Wouldnt it make more sense to generate pages from slashHead + index*tpl + 
> slashFoot, with all the columns in index*.tpl files? (ie dont embed slashHead 
> etc). That way, the {TOP} / {BOTTOM} elements in index.tpl could be enclosed 
> by TABLE or DIV tags if that's what the design required.
>

This was one of the reasons for doing it this way.  For your index
template, just move the {TOP} / {BOTTOM} where you need it.  Or assign the
header/footer block to the top/bottom of the center column.  And leave the
TOP and BOTTOM empty.

I grew frustrated trying to make a two and three column skin with just CSS
and no tables using a common footer location.  

Joe

> ... it'd be easier for the programmer/designer interface IMO.
> 
> But not a big deal... 
> 
> [...]
> 
> Peter
> -- 
> The Macintosh is Xerox technology at its best.