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

[Timothy Appnel]

On 1/25/08, Beau Smith <beau at sixapart.com> wrote:

> We had the page_layout setting implemented on the publishing settings
> screen exactly as you have suggested... but removed it because of
> lack of time and resources during 4.1 development... and because we
> figured that this variable could be easily set at the top of any
> index, archive, or system template (Notice that the Universal
> template set sets a different page_layout variable on different
> templates). I assure you that this setting will be added in upcoming
> release... and I'm hoping that we can allow users to define custom
> layout ids.

Fair enough. I suppose the old consulting adage "it didn't happen if
the customer doesn't know" applies here though. ;) This is why I look
forward to the opening (widening?) of communication channels between
Six Apart's engineering and developer like myself and others.

The setting as I had suggested is for the basic to intermediate
templates. Setting the page_layout on a per template basis starts to
sound complicated or tedious though. I haven't had time to dissect the
Universal Template Set templates yet -- is there some type of
relationship that could be built-in? "If the page layout is X the
front page is this and the archives use that" sort of thing? I guess
that needs to get worked out through a different thread in the near
future.

> I'm sad to hear that the modularized templates are difficult and

I'm sorry you feel that way.

> scary and intimidating. As a "pro" I found that the redundancy in the
> MT3 flattened templates was a major barrier to efficient editing of
> the templates. I hope that the documentation that I'm working on will
> assist in making the modularized templates easier, less scary and
> less intimidating.

I absolutely agree with you on the redundancy part. I had may one
system for reducing a lot of that for years:
http://timaoutloud.org/2003/08/hacks-object-oriented-weblog-publishing

I'm not sure when you joined the team Beau, but there was a big debate
in the community about the template sets back in March or April of
last year when modularized template sets where floated. I recall a
couple of pieces of feedback that seemed to have reached consensus --
too many class & ids  (verbose) markup and don't modularize them like
TypePad. OK, the latter one was mostly me and my blunt commentary was
taken poorly by Six Apart, but the few others who had done TypePad
customization did seem to agree with me that TypePad modularization
was really really tedious and difficult to work with.

That feedback seems to have gotten overlooked somehow that I'm not to
surprised at where things ended up.

> Over the past year the MT team has tackled some major code re-
> factoring and large features within Movable Type. I'm very excited to
> keep up the momentum and focus on more polish, optimization, and
> features. I'm particularly excited our ideas around templates,
> themes, and general construction of Movable Type powered websites.

Agreed.

> and looking
> forward to collaborating with ProNet--to make it happen! =)

Likewise. Now that we have one stable version out there let's get this
party started.

<tim/>

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