UI Changes

[John Cox]

Just a quick thought that I had, but not going to be executed for a
while. I was thinking instead of configuration in the single page
admin screen (whatever it will be called), why not have another text
file that executes the mod var sets. Something like this in the
configuration file:

// Mail Configuration

xarModSetVar('mail', 'adminname', 'Enter your name here');

We could even use a constant that would be a little easier to edit.
The less configuration that we show, I believe the better the end
usability, but there is always going to be some configuration values.
However, I would rather let the application developer show what they
need to show, rather than we decide for them.

Updating the configuration vars after changed would be rather easy.
We could put a listener on it, or we could just refresh it when coming
to the main page that lists the modules to be installed and run.

Ideas?

[Jo]

On Jun 10, 8:25 pm, John Cox <john.cox...@gmail.com> wrote:

> I was thinking instead of configuration in the single page
> admin screen (whatever it will be called), why not have another text
> file that executes the mod var sets.  Something like this in the
> configuration file:
>
> // Mail Configuration
>
> xarModSetVar('mail', 'adminname', 'Enter your name here');

Sounds like a straightforward alternative/addition. You probably have
a good picture in your head about how this is going to work, but I
need to get a better idea still to comment usefully.

Re the variables, ,I think you raised this earlier but now I'm
reminded that we probably should look at how all the variable types
are handled now in xaraya, and see if we want to keep them all and
operating the way they do. At least some discussion on what we need/
don't and a clean up required there and I could do something useful
then in code :)

> Updating the configuration vars after changed would be rather easy.
> We could put a listener on it, or we could just refresh it when coming
> to the main page that lists the modules to be installed and run.

The listener is a neat idea. Refreshing when it comes to the main page
might a simpler option for now until we get more of the requirements
down.

[John Cox]

On Fri, Jun 11, 2010 at 7:15 PM, Jo <joj...@gmail.com> wrote:

On Jun 10, 8:25 pm, John Cox <john.cox...@gmail.com> wrote:

Sounds like a straightforward alternative/addition. You probably have
a good picture in your head about how this is going to work, but I
need to get a better idea still to comment usefully.

Nope, I don't have that great of a picture, besides my lessons learned from writing a recent application;)  I just want the standalone application to be center stage, and let Xaraya run in the background.  The less I see of how it is running, the better.  Make sense?

 

Re the variables, ,I think you raised this earlier but now I'm
reminded that we probably should look at how all the variable types
are handled now in xaraya, and see if we want to keep them all and
operating the way they do. At least some discussion on what we need/
don't and a clean up required there and I could do something useful
then in code :)

That would certainly make development easier.  The easier we can make the development usability, the more likely this will be adapted.  Just keep in the back of your mind what you would need to write an application, and the rest can be removed;)

The listener is a neat idea. Refreshing when it comes to the main page
might a simpler option for now until we get more of the requirements
down.

On that same idea, we could do the same for a module / theme.  To take it a bit further, we don't really need the theme structure to be as is, just a way to set it which could be a configuration var.

One more thing on the themes, I don't see a need for RSS / Print, etc.  That can all be accomplished through the page vars.  We would just need a way to set a var to read a separate mod template for items like RSS.