Wedge

Public area => The Pub => Features => Topic started by: Arantor on October 3rd, 2012, 03:58 AM

Title: Categories as boards
Post by: Arantor on October 3rd, 2012, 03:58 AM

This is a slightly odd proposal but here me out.

People often want to make sub-categories. While you can certainly use sub-boards for organisation, categories do offer a clearer method of organisation - you don't just get to separate boards into a hierarchy, you can create a sideways hierarchy or sorts too.

And it occurred to me: if you create a category as a type of board, you get to create sub-categories, apply permissions, and probably even simplify the code should you want to do so.

Thoughts?

Title: Re: Categories as boards
Post by: spoogs on October 3rd, 2012, 05:12 AM

I'd be been one for sub categories in the past so i'd be on board with this. Took me quite some time to get use to Category>Board>Child Board in SMF.

Title: Re: Categories as boards
Post by: Nao on October 3rd, 2012, 02:19 PM

It's an interesting suggestion, one I actually pondered over back when I worked on AeMe and we had these sub-category things.
I would even be tempted to say 'ditch categories and replace them with boards-you-can't-post-to', because if anything, it might simplify a designer's job when styling categories. And modders would be happy too, I'm sure.

However, it's the kind of thing you don't really want to start working on these days, if only because I can guarantee it'll take at least several months of work to 'get it right', and it can be done at the same time as AeMe is converted to a board system.

I'm not saying it can't be done, I'm saying it's going to be more work than we'd want *for version 1.0* of Wedge. I'd recommend waiting until the software is stable enough to start considering it.
Then again, maybe people will be upset that we change such an important thing after 1.0 when they already had to go through so many changes in 1.0. Then again (bis), maybe it's best to offer radical changes one at a time, in which case it's best to wait as I suggested... :lol:

Tell you what, maybe it's simpler to change than I thought. After all, it's just a matter of spotting all the calls to {db_prefix}categories and adapt them, basically...
How about you do a branch somewhere and see if it can be applied to the trunk relatively quickly..?