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Date: Thu, 13 Jul 2006 13:25:26 -0400
From: "Dave Johnson" <snoopdave@gmail.com>
To: roller-dev@incubator.apache.org
Subject: Re: should we use a different structure for page templates?
In-Reply-To: <44B4517A.1080806@sun.com>
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References: <44B4517A.1080806@sun.com>

Comments below...


On 7/11/06, Allen Gilliland <allen.gilliland@sun.com> wrote:
> i mentioned this to Dave recently and we both thought the idea merited a
> bit more discussion so i am bringing it up here.
>
> i've been wavering back and forth for quite some time on the way our
> weblog templates are setup, meaning how we use Weblog, _day, etc, and
> what we have now works, but i've often felt that merging the Weblog and
> _day templates into a single template would actually be a nicer approach.

Yes, I'm not sure forcing blogs to have a day template is really necessary.

Back in the old days (0.9.6), we implemented day template support in
Java code but nowadays template authors can implement day templates
without our help, so we don't really need to mandate them.

Of course, we need to support 2.X templates for the foreseeable future
-- that may limit our options here.


> i think it's a bit easier on template writers to not have to switch back
> and forth between the 2 templates to understand how the page will be
> rendered and that really complex showEntriesInCategory() macro which
> handles the entry display logic for collection views, permalinks, and
> search results is a bit over the top.

With the new macros in 3.0, that complex logic is gone. It's all been
cleaned-up and moved into the pager object.  Allen and I know about
all this new stuff, but for the rest of y'all... in case you're
wondering what's going on with the 3.0 macros and models, here are a
couple of links.

http://tinyurl.com/qzf5p - the new PageModel
http://tinyurl.com/nbmo9 - the pager interface
http://tinyurl.com/qk9bn - the new model and pager in action in the
Andreas08 theme

The 3.0 stuff is starting to stabilize now and we're going to need to
get some feedback. I hope to update the template developers guide over
the next week.


> there aren't any plans to implement this right now, but it's something
> to think about.  at some point it no longer makes sense to try and make
> the Weblog and _day templates fit the bill for all types of weblog page
> views, and I feel like that's the path we are headed down right now.  To
> me it makes a little more sense to separate pages out into their own
> templates because they are easier to work on that way.
>
> to add a little bit more technical info to this so that it's clear, i am
> basically suggesting that each weblog should have 3 required templates
> which replace the current Weblog and _day templates ...
>
> Weblog - displays entry collection views like homepage and date/category
>   pages.
>
> Permalink - pretty obvious.
>
> SearchResults - page for showing search results.
> thoughts?  opinions?  the basic goal is to simplify the template editing
> process to make it easier for users to understand and i think this
> approach is a little bit more flexible and still easier for users to
> grasp than the combination of the Weblog and _day templates.

I wonder if we need to mandate any required templates beyond just the
one main view, i.e. the Weblog template.

There is enough information available from the models to allow a
template author to determine the context and display the appropriate
data.

And I'm not sure it's a good idea to make different data available to
different types of pages, it could lock blogs into having only one
permalink or search page, when they actually want to have several
depending on the category or locale.

For example, in 3.0 now, you just put a pager on a page and it handles
permalink, day and month views all on one page. It should be able to
work on any page, not just one designated as a Weblog page.

- Dave