[MTOS-dev] attaching vs. embedding assets to entries patch

[Hirotaka Ogawa]

On Mon, Mar 24, 2008 at 3:38 AM, Timothy Appnel <tim at appnel.com> wrote:
> On Sat, Mar 22, 2008 at 6:57 AM, Hirotaka Ogawa
>  <hirotaka.ogawa at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>  >  Tim, I can't understand well what you exactly mean by "attaching" and
>  >  "embedding".  Why any assets, which are associated with an entry by
>  >  objectassets, cannot be treated as *embeded* assets?
>
>  Sorry I thought this was generally understood and discussed. Perhaps
>  it was on another MT list though.
>
>  So there is an asset object that can then be associated to one or more
>  objects via the objectasset class to make the association. Currently,
>  if I want to associate an asset with an entry (or page) I have to use
>  very specific markup (the form element with certain asset id tags) to
>  get MT to make the association. If I remove that markup from the body
>  of the entry or page the association is removed. So in order to
>  associate an asset to an entry or page I must embed specific markup
>  (regardless of what text editor) in my text. I had a need where the
>  asset needs to be associated to the entry, but it doesn't make sense
>  to embed it in the body. (Think of a presentation file, word doc or
>  some see also links.) What is missing is the functionality equivalent
>  of an email attachment. The ability to associate an asset to an entry
>  without having to embed specific markup and decided its layout in the
>  body of an entry or post.
>
>  I looked into implementing such functionality as a plugin; however,
>  the MT::Entry save method will remove any asset association it cannot
>  find in the text or text_more columns upon saving. This makes creating
>  an asset association of any other type not possible. I can create it,
>  but as soon as the entry is saved MT will delete the association
>  because it can't find it as a form tag. The patch I sent would change
>  that by marking an association if it was created by the markup in the
>  body of an entry and only remove those if they are no long present in
>  those fields. If an association were created outside of that context
>  without the embedded flag up then it would remain for the other system
>  (plugin) to handle.
>
>  So embedding means the association is created by specific markup in
>  the text or text more columns. Attachment means a specific association
>  is created like attaching a file to an email message. Its sent and
>  part of the message, but it doesn't appear in the message itself.

Make sense.  In other words, you'd like to classify the associations
into two different classes.

I wonder if we don't need another classes of the associations.  I
cannot imagine now.  But, instead of adding 'embeded' flag, we can
facilitate the class_type mechanism provided by MT::Object in order to
classify things, or can just add 'asset_type' field which indicates
that its association is attached, embeded, or something else.

Anyway, I can agree with your proposal.

>
>
>
>  <tim/>
>
>  --
>  Timothy Appnel
>  Appnel Solutions
>  http://appnel.com/
>



-- 
Hirotaka Ogawa makes no sense.
http://as-is.net/blog/