Re: tiles/blocks

On 16/04/14 15:58, Dylan Jay wrote:
> On 14 Apr 2014, at 4:34 pm, Guido Stevens <[email protected]>
> wrote:
>
>>
>> As a designer I want to define a coherent vocabulary of page
>> layouts and block widgets in order to support a consistent user
>> experience.
>>
>> As a developer I want to dynamically combine multiple information
>> streams in order to render a context-sensitive personalized user
>> interface.
>>
>> As a user I want to select and prioritize information sources and
>> presentation in order to maximize my effectivity and minimize
>> information overload.
>>
>> Does that clarify?
>
> Getting closer but still confused :)

Let's try some more :-)

> as you point out one source of confusion is the word 'tiles'. I've
> been using it to refer to plugin functionality a user can insert into
> a page, but that includes square shaped html such as inline text such
> as something that renders the last updated date and time.
> plone.app.tiles allows for this but the word tile was chosen at a
> time where deco and grids was how this was going to be implemented...
> which I'm not sure is certain anymore. Limi's original word is widget
> which is perhaps better. There might be a better one. What you seem
> to want is the widget + grid type idea where the html generated is
> always in square blocks. is that right?

Yes, well not square but rectangular. An html element display:block.

> It's clear the developer creates these widgets. Whats not clear is
> how you need the relationship between designer/themer, admin of a
> site and editor of a page to work. to clarify, I define

> - the Themer to the person who uses diazo and creates some tinymce
> styles to be used with diazo. This is done normally once in advance.

No TinyMCE involved in my use case.

> - the Admin is the person who comes in to set site policies such as
> deciding what goes on the home page (should that able to be changed
> by theme. The themer can sometimes constrain them).

> - the editor as the person who changes content. Maybe not have access
> to change all parts of the content including home pages.

>
> It looks to me like you want something that the admin (rather than
> the themer) to be able to create a layout with some kind of

No, I want *the system* to select and fill a layout grid at runtime. 
Based on coded logic of course.

> constraints and the layout to be grid based. Something like a landing
> page that has certain slots in it in fixed positions where the

Something where every page can behave that way.

> positions are determined by the admin? Like collective.portletpage
> except the layout can be rearranged by the admin instead of the

Layout rearranged by logic. Not static positions but possibly rearranged 
per request.

> themer? Can the editor insert multiple widgets into any slot? Can the
> admin constrain the set of widget the editor can use? I think if you
> can work out what contraints is giving the editing via the layout,

Constraints part of coded logic.

> that would help. the collective.tinymcetiles product I was working
> with assumes the editor has complete control over layout, which
> doesn't seem to be the problem you have.

You're framing all of this as editing. For me, it's not about editing. 
It's about having a grid/tile based rendering system with maximal 
runtime flexibility.

Specifically, I'm aiming for layouts configured by code acting on an 
API, not by a human editor acting on a GUI.

Of course having such a grid renderer would also support the deco goals 
of having editable tile based layouts. But my core use case is not about 
"editable". Just about the tile based layouts.

Where our efforts intersect is in the need to have a good set of tiles 
and a good infrastructure for integrating tiled blocks. How these tiles 
are rendered does not involve TinyMCE in my strategy.

:*CUE
-- 
     Guido Stevens  |  +31.43.3618933  |  http://cosent.nl

     s o c i a l   k n o w l e d g e   t e c h n o l o g y


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