[MTOS-dev] proposal: page layout blog setting and accompanying template tags.

[Timothy Appnel]

For those of you not on the ProNet list there has been a very
"spirited" discussion about the improved template set capabilities in
MT 4.1 and the default template set that ships with the software.

The template sets are geared towards "pros" so they are too difficult
and scary and intimidating for those who are new to MT.

It would seem that consensus is that MT should ship with a simple
"flattened" template set that users that users who want to start
customize their templates can learn from. Those who need something
more (presumably advanced) can grab a template set plugin.

Assuming that is where things are going for a moment, I started
looking at how StyleCatcher works and it occurred to me that MT has
different default layout types -- 3-column wide-thin-thin, 3-column
thin-thin-wide and so on. How does MT decide which layout to use?
There is a metadata column called page_layout; however, it seems that
only the StyleCatcher plugin uses it. From what I can tell, if someone
is not using StyleCatcher, but are using the default templates they
are forced to insert that attribute into the templates by hand.

In light of this and the conversation on Pronet, I have a small
proposal to make.

Add a pulldown menu to one of the blog properties screens
(Publishing?) in addition to mt:blogpagelayout and mt:ifblogpagelayout
template tags to the MT core set. This setting/property should be
considered advisory, meaning templates designs can ignore it if it
makes sense to the
developer. (Ignoring this as a template set developer probably wouldn't.)

Thoughts?

<tim/>

-- 
Timothy Appnel
Appnel Solutions
http://appnel.com/