From: Desilets, A. <Ala...@nr...> - 2010-02-04 14:39:25
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Another example of how to make module installation easier, without too much work. Just by coincidence, I implemented this yesterday, just before the message was posted about this review. Some modules have "prerequisites", i.e. their info() function specifies that certain preferences MUST be active for the module to be active. Until yesterday, if an admin activated a module without first activating the prerequisite preferences, the module did not show up, and there were no error messages whatsoever provided to the user. This is VERY confusing to admins. Even I thought that the module I was trying to enable was not displaying because of a bug in trunk, and it's only by attempting to debug it that I realized I had forgotten to activate one of its pre-requisite. So, I made a change so that error messages are now displayed in the top of the right column, if some modules could not be loaded (but only if current user has admin privileges). Took me an hour to write a preliminary version of this which is SVN now (yet another example that good user experience does not necessarily require lengthy flashy devevelopment effort). But it still needs a bit of polishing. The messages tell the user about the features that need to be enabled, but it uses the internal pref name. I need to change it so it points to a location where the pref can be changed. Marc, you were talking about a central registry of preferences. Can you tell me more about this? It sounds like I should be able to use it to generate those urls. Thx Alain |