Nao

  • Dadman with a boy
  • Posts: 16,079
Permanent sidebar
« on May 7th, 2011, 01:04 PM »Last edited on September 11th, 2011, 06:58 PM by Nao
Feature: Permanent sidebar
Developer: Nao
Target: users, modders, themers
Status: 100% (complete; might need to add features in the future.)
Comment:

This is one of our most controversial moves. Well, maybe not, but at least one that could be questioned.
Basically, Wedge now always shows a sidebar on the page, and moves it to the bottom if the page is too narrow. It systematically shows your user box (hello user, date, avatar, unread posts, unread replies) at the top, and RSS links at the bottom, and then adds contextual data based on the current page. Calendar pages show day links in the sidebar. Media item pages may show item details in the sidebar (although they'll usually use their own additional sidebar.) Dropdown menus may be moved to the sidebar... Things like that.

In addition, modders can easily add any kind of block to the sidebar by calling loadBlock('my_block_function', ':side'). The same can be done with the top template, which is a series of blocks (sub-templates) that are called before the main template is actually shown, allowing you to add important information at the top without reorganizing everything.

dwc


Re: Permanent sidebar
« Reply #47, on January 8th, 2013, 06:06 AM »
Quote
We'll agree to disagree that forcing a sidebar is not the answer to that.
Anyone can make a plugin to remove the sidebar if they don't like it. Developers make their own software for their uses and distributed it for free because they want to share to the users.

dwc

Re: Permanent sidebar
« Reply #48, on January 17th, 2013, 09:15 PM »
Quote from Nathan Sparrow on January 8th, 2013, 06:06 AM
Quote
We'll agree to disagree that forcing a sidebar is not the answer to that.
Anyone can make a plugin to remove the sidebar if they don't like it. Developers make their own software for their uses and distributed it for free because they want to share to the users.
I'm not sure what the plugin system looks like yet, but that's good it is doable.

I'm sort of coming around to the functionality of the sidebar...

Re: Permanent sidebar
« Reply #49, on January 17th, 2013, 10:05 PM »
I already alluded to this fact when I said there were multiple ways it could be done - except they all result in the same side effect of queries being run that should not be, and content being set up but not being displayed.

dwc

Re: Permanent sidebar
« Reply #50, on January 17th, 2013, 11:57 PM »
Quote from Arantor on January 17th, 2013, 10:05 PM
I already alluded to this fact when I said there were multiple ways it could be done - except they all result in the same side effect of queries being run that should not be, and content being set up but not being displayed.
No worried... I'm sure after you refactor it, it will work perfect!

Re: Permanent sidebar
« Reply #51, on January 18th, 2013, 12:16 AM »
Short of actually implementing the option you wanted, there is no way to refactor it to avoid those things.

dwc


Re: Permanent sidebar
« Reply #53, on January 18th, 2013, 12:20 AM »
At the risk of repeating myself... anything a plugin can do will just be to hide it. To actually prevent all the other stuff happening would be to either make an option for it, or have everything detect whether the sidebar is present.

Either case requires more effort computationally than is currently in use, so hiding a plugin, while entirely possible, is not a smart idea because it will force more work to be done than it should be.

dwc

Re: Permanent sidebar
« Reply #54, on January 18th, 2013, 12:25 AM »
Quote from Arantor on January 18th, 2013, 12:20 AM
At the risk of repeating myself... anything a plugin can do will just be to hide it. To actually prevent all the other stuff happening would be to either make an option for it, or have everything detect whether the sidebar is present.

Either case requires more effort computationally than is currently in use, so hiding a plugin, while entirely possible, is not a smart idea because it will force more work to be done than it should be.
I understand.