Docs for articles (Drew)

Drew, you mailed me about access to the admin parts of mikespub.net.
Sorry for not coming back to you earlier, but in the mean time, I heard
that gregor gave you access to his test site too...

Anyway, it's still the same default user / pass as always - at least until
someone messes around with the site or something.

But what I wanted to say is that -besides the general overview that I've
included on the admin page- nothing is really *frozen* yet for articles.
Since the feature freeze of .8 didn't apply anymore, I went a bit further
than what I had in mind for its first public release for some parts, and
delayed other parts that would have been needed if .8 came out earlier.

So the overall idea of publication types, categories etc. shouldn't change
between now and Xaraya's first release, but here's a partial list of things
that might change :

1. all templates should be checked/improved by more design-oriented
   people
2. the overall navigation for users should be checked/commented on
   by more usability-oriented people, and adapted accordingly
3. more blocks to cover functionality from the old News / Sections / etc.
   modules it replaces
4. some functionality still missing in the module itself to cover all needs
   for those old modules [e.g. suggesting changes for weblinks]
5. permission wizard, or at least some better way to define permissions
   for articles / categories [and changing permission checks in the code :)]
6. the admin interface is subject to change depending on the possibilities
   that are being included in the code [including possible tie-in with
   categories administration, hook management, the publication process
   and ways to define how things are shown, ...]
7. the possibilities offered to other modules, or co-operation with other
   modules, is still very much in its infancy
8. the code itself of course, which is subject to violent reorganisations
   and little tweaks from time to time :)

Or in short, the articles module allows you to :
- submit and publish news articles, longer documents, faqs and other
stuff (web links, pictures, ...) via web forms
- put them into different categories and allow users to browse/search
through them
- use smilies, bbcode, wiki and/or some code for the content
- give each type of "article" its own look and feel via templates
- hook up comments, ratings, hitcount etc.
- use some blocks related to articles
- specify which items should appear on the "front page"

..and that's about all I can say for sure right now :-)

In general, http://mikespub.net/pn_800/ should reflect the latest
"visible" changes within a day or so of submitted code changes.
But some things, like the current DMOZ test for categories, may
not become part of the code any time soon either, if I'm not quite
happy with the result and/or how it's implemented for that test yet.

I hope that clarifies it a little bit for you, as to what you can safely
cover now, and what you should probably leave until later ?

Mike.