[pmwiki-users] Feature request: Action lists in skins

[Neil Herber]

At 2005-04-05  09:51 AM -0500, Patrick R. Michaud is rumored to have said:
>Hmmm, this is a pretty good idea.  I can also see how to use this so
>that we have only authorized actions appear in the header.  So I'll think
>about this, even though it means adding more pages (and indirection)
>to the distribution.  However, I'm not sure I like "PageTopMenu"
>and "PageFootMenu" -- seems like we might want to call them something
>else.

Hans and I actually batted about several naming conventions for these 
entities, none of which were entirely satisfactory. Why not name these 
things by location? I have always been confused by SideBar, because it 
doesn't tell me which side it is on, and different skins put the content 
defined on the SideBar page in different places. For backwards 
compatibility, we should retain SideBar, and have it operate as it does 
now, with the skin determining the side.

However, for these new "things" I would suggest these names:
LeftBar
RightBar
TopBar
BottomBar

The inclusion of the word "action" in the "thing" name is misleading and 
restrictive. The items that appear in the current SideBar are a mix of text 
headers, page links, and page links with action directives. Let me as admin 
decide what goes in the top, bottom, and right sides too.

I tried many (most??) of the skins when first installing PmWiki, and I 
chose Gemini because of the easy way I could configure the top and bottom 
bars on a PmWiki page without having to delve into HTML, PHP or CSS.

Of particular use to me are the conditional directives that let me show the 
RightBar on selected pages as a "news flash". I have configured my personal 
wiki to show the RightBar only on group home pages. 
http://neil.eton.ca/wiki/index.php/Main/MenuControl

The Gemini skin also has a fifth "thing" called PageFooter, which appears 
below all page content and spans the full width of the page. (By contrast, 
the BottomBar item sits between the LeftBar and RightBar.) I have not found 
this to be particularly useful, but others might. The four bars, however, 
are great and deserve to be part of the standard distribution in my opinion.


Neil

Neil Herber
Corporate info at http://www.eton.ca/
Eton Systems, 15 Pinepoint Drive, Nepean, ON, Canada K2H 6B1
Tel: (613) 829-4668