RE: [Slashcode-development] Side effects of making a topic a nexus?

[Gaulin, M. <mg...@gl...>]

FYI, it turns out that making a topic a nexus has a side effect that no =
one mentioned yet: the topic will not appear in the list of available =
topics for story submission, which stinks (for my situation, anyway).  I =
wish I knew the reason for that restriction... that might help me avoid =
other issues later (esp if I try to work around it).

It seems weird since a topic already has a "story submittable" attribute =
that you'd think would cover any case were you wouldn't want someone to =
submit to the nexus topic.  The logic to prevent a nexus topic from =
showing up in the submit.pl topic dropdown is in getDescriptions(), item =
"non_nexus_topics-submittable".  The "non_nexus_topics" prefix certainly =
means it was done on purpose.

Oh well... I guess the whole topic/nexus thing was not intended to deal =
with a single topic that just needs extras (or, more generally, a single =
topic that just wants to be a nexus of one).  Maybe the "nexus" concept =
in "topic_nexus_extras" should be dropped, so any old topic can have =
extras.  (The extra I'm trying to use is the Rating system.) =20

Thanks
	Mark


-----Original Message-----
From: Gaulin, Mark=20
Sent: Friday, March 04, 2005 6:58 AM
To: 'Shane'
Cc: sla...@li...
Subject: RE: [Slashcode-development] Side effects of making a topic a
nexus?


Hi Shane
Thanks again for the explanation, and the confirmation that what I want =
to do should work. I believe I fixed my problem by changing the code a =
bit. I'm going to run my changes by the original author to see if they =
are right.
Thanks
  Mark

-----Original Message-----
From: Shane [mailto:sh...@lo...]
Sent: Thursday, March 03, 2005 5:25 PM
To: Gaulin, Mark
Cc: sla...@li...
Subject: Re: [Slashcode-development] Side effects of making a topic a
nexus?



A skin is the equivlant of a 'section'.

The skin kinda brings it all together, including the graphical-changes=20
in appearance, if any, you'd want.

So, to answer your questions: yes, a skin gives you distinct sets of=20
articles - based on the skins.nexus. Since the nexus is a group of=20
topics - any story posted w/ a topic that's in that nexus is shown in=20
that skin. (well, depending on how you've arranged your topic=20
parent/children and the topics-list in each story).

I believe nexuses and skins are supposed to be 1-1, because you can=20
only assign a single nexus to any one skin.

A topic seems to only have topic-extras when it's marked as a nexus. So=20
you'd have to mark your 'book reviews' topic as being a Nexus. But you=20
don't necessarily have to associate a Nexus with a skin that I can see.=20
So I think you're OK with what you want to do.

  Shane




On Mar 3, 2005, at 4:05 PM, Gaulin, Mark wrote:

> Hi Shane
> I don't think I want the topic to be a skin, but that may be because I =

> don't know what a skin is for. Looking at the skins table definition,=20
> it seems that you want a skin if you want to have a different host=20
> name, indexhandler, and I'm not sure, but does it also give you a=20
> distinct set of articles on the "home" page (for that host name)?  I=20
> don't want any of those things for this topic/nexus (called Book=20
> Reviews), I just want to have topic_nexus_extras that are different=20
> than the Main Page (it's parent topic).
>
> Are nexuses and skins always supposed to be 1-to-1?  I would think=20
> not, but that could be part of my problem.
>
> Thanks
> 	Mark
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Shane [mailto:sh...@lo...]
> Sent: Thursday, March 03, 2005 1:28 PM
> To: Gaulin, Mark
> Cc: sla...@li...
> Subject: Re: [Slashcode-development] Side effects of making a topic a
> nexus?
>
>
>
> On Mar 3, 2005, at 11:40 AM, Gaulin, Mark wrote:
>
>> Hi
>> In order to get unique "extras" (from topic_nexus_extras) for a topic
>> I have, it looks like I need to convert the topic to a nexus, which
>> could be as simple as checking the Nexus box on the Topics Editor
>> page.  So far so good.  My question is, will anything else change for
>> that topic, assuming I don't change anything else?
>>
>> Thanks
>> 	Mark
>
> I don't think so. Just realize that making it a nexus doesn't
> necessarily make it a skin, if that's what you're going after.
>
>   Shane
>
>
>
--
http://shane.lottadot.com/