July 2005 - Development - lists.drupal.org

[drupal-devel] [bug] Bootstrap patch fixes
by Dries 03 Jul '05

03 Jul '05

Issue status update for http://drupal.org/node/25600 Post a follow up: http://drupal.org/project/comments/add/25600 Project: Drupal Version: cvs Component: base system Category: bug reports Priority: critical Assigned to: chx Reported by: kubaZygmunt Updated by: Dries Status: patch update.php is broken too. chx: if you can't come up fixes within 24 hour, I'll have to rollback this patch for the time being. It's a bottleneck problem. Dries Previous comments: ------------------------------------------------------------------------ June 23, 2005 - 13:28 : kubaZygmunt Attachment: http://drupal.org/files/issues/bootstrap.diff (422 bytes) I've found that new cvs version doesn't get properly db_prefix. In bootstrap.inc (function _drupal_bootstrap($phase) ) I added another global variable $db_prefix, and then it goes . I don't know if my solution is good because on my local site I can't see any blocks and on my internet site I have some caching and I can't see anything :) ------------------------------------------------------------------------ June 23, 2005 - 14:45 : kubaZygmunt Above I've put my patch ------------------------------------------------------------------------ June 23, 2005 - 14:56 : Jaza Attachment: http://drupal.org/files/issues/db_prefix_global.patch (582 bytes) Also noticed this bug, when trying to install a fresh CVS snapshot. Attached is my patch against CVS HEAD (same as kubaZygmunt's, basically). ------------------------------------------------------------------------ June 23, 2005 - 15:10 : chx Yes, this is a bug, if you look at the bootstrap patch, there were versions when I thought variables in settings.php should be written as $GLOBALS['something'] but then introduced global $something . Forgot when that something is db_prefix . ------------------------------------------------------------------------ June 28, 2005 - 07:26 : Jaza Can this patch be applied to HEAD please? This is not something that should be left sitting around in the issues list. Chx has identified that it was a simple honest mistake on his part, and has indicated that the submitted patch(es) will fix the mistake. Until this patch is applied, anyone who tries to install HEAD using db prefixes will get a fatal error. It doesn't get much more critical than that :-p. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ June 30, 2005 - 16:56 : Bart Jansens Attachment: http://drupal.org/files/issues/20050630.bootstrap-prefix-update.patch (1.21 KB) There is another related problem, it is no longer possible to override variables in settings.php. And update.php no longer works. Updated patch attached. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ June 30, 2005 - 17:04 : chx Attachment: http://drupal.org/files/issues/20050630.bootstrap-patch.patch (2.92 KB) Oh, and XML-RPC client is broken too. I talked with walkah and we found it the best to move xmlrpc.inc to modules which use them. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ June 30, 2005 - 17:09 : chx Attachment: http://drupal.org/files/issues/20050630.1.bootstrap-patch.patch (3.34 KB) some more xml-rpc fixes. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ June 30, 2005 - 17:20 : Steven Making XML-RPC a conditional include was discussed a while ago, and decided against due to problems with the class persistency. Why is this now possible? ------------------------------------------------------------------------ June 30, 2005 - 19:36 : walkah basically - it's not. the problem is, well, the xmlrpc.inc is not very well written. It requires / depends on several global variables, etc. which leads to a fair bit of the scoping issues. If you look at what PEAR has done with this (since their XML-RPC module is based on the same original code)... you'll notice lots of $GLOBALS['...'] usage (see http://cvs.php.net/co.php/pear/XML_RPC/RPC.php) . Basically, I think we have 3 options: 1) keep banging on this old code to make it work. 2) switch libraries to either PEAR::XML-RPC or something like incutio's (http://scripts.incutio.com/xmlrpc/) 3) re-write our own custom xml-rpc library personally, I'd +1 #2 - since #1 is ugly, and #3 I personally don't have time for, and I'd rather see our developer resources going to more interesting things. that said, i know there are those with strong feelings against 3rd party libraries... but this needs to get fixed quickly. blogapi and drupal dist_auth are both currently broken in HEAD. (isn't there anyone else here that tests XML-RPC stuff??) ------------------------------------------------------------------------ June 30, 2005 - 19:38 : walkah just to follow up.. chx's patch in #7 only fixes XMLRPC servers... anything that uses XML-RPC client (i.e. drupal_auth or ping) will still be busted. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ June 30, 2005 - 19:48 : moshe weitzman the 'we shouldn't use 3rd party libraries' argument is hogwash. that was recenyly followed up with 'look where that got us recently' which is even more stupid. security problems happen in your own code, and in other people's code. we've had several security mistakes of our own, and those mistakes have persisted a long time. the benefit of 3rd party libraries is that you don't have to write them, debug them, document them, or maintain them. if someone here is willing to do all of this for XMLRPC then great. But thats extremely unlikely so we either have to drop the whole feature set or use a 3rd party library. as you can tell, i favor #2 as well - switching libraries so we can do conditional inclusion. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ June 30, 2005 - 20:01 : Dries #2 isn't GPL ------------------------------------------------------------------------ June 30, 2005 - 20:07 : Dries Looks like WordPress might be using that class though. Weird. I know Wordpress had a least two security issues with their XML-RPC library (and they aren't using Edd Dumbill's). There is no word about this at http://scripts.incutio.com/xmlrpc/ so it looks like it isn't maintained either (which renders the advantages of using third-party libraries moot-ish). ------------------------------------------------------------------------ June 30, 2005 - 20:17 : Dries The WP developers confirmed that they are using this library. Turns out there is a new website for it too: http://simon.incutio.com/archive/2005/05/23/ixr. WordPress' version lives at http://trac.wordpress.org/log/trunk/wp-includes/class-IXR.php. Some extra details at http://trac.wordpress.org/ticket/1400. Looking at the code, it doesn't appear to be PHP5 compliant. Plus, I'm not sure the license is compatible. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ June 30, 2005 - 20:21 : chx I will rewrite the Incutio XML-RPC library for our own usage in July, I know this for quite a long time. a) I intend to start with Incutio's XML-RPC b) I contacted the author already and he is fine with GPL'ing the result. c) the result will be quite a bit different from the original, 'cos I'll make it use procedural notation and overall, more Drupalish. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ June 30, 2005 - 20:31 : chx " From: Simon Willison To: Karoly Negyesi Subject: Re: IXR GPL? Date: 05/25/05 18:40 On 25 May 2005, at 17:35, Karoly Negyesi wrote: > I'd like to get rid of the current XML-RPC implementation in Drupal > and use > IXR instead. Yours seems much more transparent and up to date. > > I plan to rewrite it a bit so that it looses OOP, this enables us to > conditionally include. > > However, Drupal is GPL and I need IXR under GPL to work with. Hmm... since you'll be rewriting it a bit, how's about I just give you permission to use it and relicense it as GPL provided you stick a note that it was derived (with permission) from IXR in a comment at the top somewhere? I really hate software licensing - I just want people to be able to use my code! Thanks, Simon " ------------------------------------------------------------------------ July 2, 2005 - 21:45 : chx Dries, while the xmlrpc rewrite is under way please commit Bart's patch http://drupal.org/node/25600#comment-34362 ------------------------------------------------------------------------ July 3, 2005 - 00:14 : mathias I've tested out Bart's patch and it does indeed restore update.php and allow $conf overrides. Might be worth fixing this for now while we continue to work on a long term solution. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ July 3, 2005 - 11:36 : Dries I think error handling is broken too. On drupal.org, PHP warnings/errors show up on pages while they are configured only to show up in the logs. They no longer show up in logs; it looks like the call to set_error_handler() didn't "stick" ...

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[drupal-devel] [feature] Enable multiple block regions (not just "left" and "right" sidebars)
by Bèr Kessels 03 Jul '05

03 Jul '05

Issue status update for http://drupal.org/node/16216 Project: Drupal Version: cvs Component: base system Category: feature requests Priority: normal Assigned to: nedjo Reported by: paragkenia Updated by: Bèr Kessels Status: patch Nice approach! One thin i dislik though (read this as: I like the rest) is the configuration for a default region. 1) it adds clutter. 2) I cannot think of any theme that will not break when I statr putting lots of content other than ni the place the theme wants it to be. 3) This should really be up to the themer. A theme should provide the default region, not the administrator. Bèr Kessels Previous comments: ------------------------------------------------------------------------ January 26, 2005 - 11:27 : paragkenia I read the comparision discussion between *Drupal* and *Mambo*. In several messages it was outlined that Drupal can place blocks only in right and left and not flexible to put them on anywhere where one want. It will be great if this can be changed in upcoming versions. I am no pro at PHP, so don't know how much time this task will take, but I think it is very important. parag ------------------------------------------------------------------------ April 15, 2005 - 02:44 : nedjo This issue was apparently partially addressed in issue http://drupal.org/node/19694 [1]. [1] http://drupal.org/node/19694 ------------------------------------------------------------------------ April 17, 2005 - 01:24 : nedjo Attachment: http://drupal.org/files/issues/block-dynamic-regions.patch (8.17 KB) This much-requested functionality - to have the ability to place blocks in more than the two predefined regions - was partially addressed in issue http://drupal.org/node/19694. [2]. But "blocks" are still limited to the "left" and "right" sidebars (hard-coded in block.module). This patch is a first step designed to enable multiple (eventually, admin-definable) regions for blocks. I've moved the existing "left" and "right" block regions to a 'region' table (with ids of 0 and 1, as currently used in themes). Then all references to the regions are drawn dynamically from the table. This way, if further records are added, they will appear in the list of available regions for block placement. Doing this actually reduces some duplicated code, since it's no longer necessary to repeat code blocks for each of "left" and "right". As it stands, the patch doesn't add any new functionality--but I don't think it breaks anything either. New functionality would need (a) new regions defined, and (b) changes to themes. A simple first step might be, e.g., to add a "footer" region and then add a call in the footer generation to append any blocks assigned to the footer region there. I'm setting this to patch, but I'm aware that it needs some discussion and refining before it'll be ready to apply. [2] http://drupal.org/node/19694. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ April 17, 2005 - 02:05 : nedjo Attachment: http://drupal.org/files/issues/block_regions.png (5.65 KB) Here's a screenshot showing the block admin page, with drop-downs for region placement (the options are dynamically generated based on defined regions). ------------------------------------------------------------------------ April 17, 2005 - 03:57 : adrian The biggest problem with this is that you can have multiple themes, and each of these themes can have different regions available. Also, the method of defining which regions are available needs to be standardised. Some of the work that me and Vlado are working on for the install system would go towards solving that problem (ie: meta information for modules, themes and styles). This has been discussed to death, but the general consensus has been that we _want_ to do this, but we need to solve a few other problems properly first, the most pertinent being the interface issue. Chris (factoryjoe) recently did a whole mess of workflows for something related to this. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ April 17, 2005 - 05:09 : syscrusher The first paragraph of adrian [3]'s post is a point that occurred to me also, as I read this thread. One suggestion would be to separate the definition and configuration of blocks, on one hand, from the placement of those blocks, on the other hand. In other words, Drupal core provides a mechanism defining what blocks exist, which of these are on by default or off by default and user-selectable vs. which are forced on for all users, and the configuration (if applicable) of specialized blocks defined by particular modules. Each theme provides a standard hook function that returns an array of region names and help/description text, e.g., array('left'=>t('This vertical region is left of the main content area'), 'right'=>t('This vertical region is right of the main content area'), 'footer'=>t('The footer is below the left, right, and main content areas of the page')). The theme part of Drupal core (i.e., theme.module itself, not the individual themes) provides a standard UI that is displayed within config of *each theme* (but is one physical code base within theme.module) that allows the administrator to map blocks defined by Drupal core into regions defined by the theme, and storing that mapping as an theme-to-block_ID-to-region_ID (with weight) table in the database. From there, the actual page rendering is similar to what's being done now, but there is more of it. I guess what I'm trying to say is that the key to solving this problem is breaking it along its degrees of orthogonality, and there are three -- two in Drupal core and one in the individual theme. Scott [3] http://drupal.org//user/1517 ------------------------------------------------------------------------ April 17, 2005 - 08:14 : Dries Scott, is right. The theme should export its available regions. Then the administrator's task is to assign blocks to regions (not to setup regions). A theme could have configurable regions, but that internal to the theme. To me, the real challenge is the UI and the interaction design. Configuring blocks could easily become a real pain (while most themes continue to use 'left' and 'right'.) Of course, we can implement all the functionality, default everything to 'left' and 'right', and worry about the UI later. This should be fairly straightforward to implement and nedjo's patch looks like a first step in the right direction. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ April 17, 2005 - 22:09 : nedjo I agree with the suggested approach of themes registering their regions. I'd see this happening when a particular theme is activiated (or upgraded). Regions would be an array of names (e.g., 'left', 'right', 'footer'). New records would be created in the region table only for region names not previously registered. Some areas I'm not clear on, or that need further work: * Table naming Should a new table be 'region' or 'regions' (I've used 'region')? I don't see a convention among existing table names, some of which are singular and others plural. * Default values I've kept the existing '0' and '1' ids for regions (left and right, respectively), for backward compatibility. But this means we can't use autoincrement for the region id (rid), since autoincrements seem to begin with 1. Likely we should change to autogenerated ids. * Initial records Using the INSERT INTO statements as I've done for the initial region entries is probably counterproductive, since sooner or later they'll have to be dynamically generated. I was hoping this could be a preliminary patch, with the main work coming later, but likely we need to solve region registration by themes before this patch is applied. I don't have a good idea of how region registration by themes would be implemented (a hook on theme activation?), and invite suggestions or implementations. * Theme system changes Besides region registration, the other change I'm seeing that would be needed in the theme system is loading blocks by region name, rather than region id. This is because the ids currently used ('0' and '1') in theory might be diffferent on a particular install. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ April 17, 2005 - 22:18 : syscrusher Instead of having themes "register" their regions, why not just add a theme API hook called them_regions() that returns an associative array of $region_name=>t($region_helptext)? This would be in keeping with other similar API functions, such as those that return what permissions apply to a module or what node types are defined by a module. Most themes are going to define only a small number of regions (two being the typical case now, but I could see five or six in a complex theme), so returning a constant array will be faster than querying SQL to obtain an array of rows. There could be (optionally, at the discretion of whoever builds this thing) another API hook like theme_region_properties($region_name) that returns an associative array with detailed info for a given region, such as extended help text with recommended usage instructions for the region. Scott ------------------------------------------------------------------------ April 17, 2005 - 22:19 : syscrusher s/them_regions/theme_regions/g ------------------------------------------------------------------------ April 17, 2005 - 23:47 : adrian Because. The most common 'theme' is a phptemplate theme. And there needs to be a generic method for specifying the regions available, in a non hook_function format.. Themes get their names from the directory in which they are contained.. when copying the theme to another directory, there must be _no_ modifications necessary to allow normal usage. This is one of the tenets of the new template system I designed. You would need a standard way to define meta-information for themes, that does not need to be modified when copied to a new directory. We are working on this in the install system work, as you need a way external of Drupal to define the module dependencies and some other things. My approach would be to add a theme.dsc text file to the directory, which would allow you to specify meta-information. For instance : ---- regions: left, right, footer, center, mountie author: Johnny McAngstyPants ---- ------------------------------------------------------------------------ April 18, 2005 - 03:00 : syscrusher Adrian wrote: " Themes get their names from the directory in which they are contained.. when copying the theme to another directory, there must be _no_ modifications necessary to allow normal usage. This is one of the tenets of the new template system I designed. " A very good point. But region names don't have to be unique across different themes, so my hook function wouldn't have to be modified. The suggestion I made for the mapping metadata was three factors: theme ID or name, region ID or name, and block ID (plus one non-key weight value to order the blocks within a region, but this is not relevant here). I'm not familiar enough with PHP template to be able to respond to your comments on that one, so if you say it's not feasible to work with my schema, then I'll take your word for it. :-) Scott ------------------------------------------------------------------------ April 18, 2005 - 03:03 : syscrusher Oh, wait.....I see now what you mean! It's not the output of the function that is the problem, but the *name* of the function. Never mind. I concede your point. Scott ------------------------------------------------------------------------ April 18, 2005 - 08:44 : Jaza I'm probably jumping ahead a bit here... but something that this patch will have to eventually account for, is how to allow regions to be defined as inline. Allowing a theme to define a region's position as being anywhere on the edge of the page (i.e. top, left, right, bottom, corners, etc) is relatively easy. But what about having a region that's in the middle of a node's body, or somewhere else that's not the edge of the page? What I'm thinking of, is eventually allowing the custom region system to integrate with the CCK. Like I said, I admit that I'm jumping ahead into the future - the CCK still has a long way to go before it's ready. But ultimately, it would be cool if a theme could define a region as being after, say, the "rating" field in nodes of type "movie review". This would make the region (and the blocks in it) truly inline and in context with the actual content of the node. This would be a huge step forward compared to the current block system, which doesn't allow you to mix the presentation of blocks and nodes at all. In Drupal ATM, blocks and "the rest of the page" are totally separate, and really you have no choice but to display them as such. The result of this is that information in blocks that really should be displayed as part of a node, gets literally "pushed to the side", and always seems secondary to the actual content. Often the block has content that is just as important as the content of the node itself. Another option (of less merit, IMO - because of the extra maintenance work, and lack of enforced consistency) would be to have a region filter. You could then choose where to place an inline region on a per-node basis, by entering text such as [region:2] (example based on image_filter syntax) into the node body. Anyway, just thought I'd throw that idea into the open. I don't expect it will be implemented any time soon, but it's something to think about. Jeremy ------------------------------------------------------------------------ April 18, 2005 - 09:54 : stefan nagtegaal Attachment: http://drupal.org/files/issues/regions---possibility-1.png (1.29 KB) Imo the 'regions' are more than you guys name here.. FOr example I attached 2 screens which only shows you the regions.. What I think is that it should always be possible to have free names for the regions. No matter if i call - the region where my content appears in - 'content' or 'site items'.. See attached screens.. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ April 18, 2005 - 09:56 : stefan nagtegaal Attachment: http://drupal.org/files/issues/regions---possibility-2.png (1.39 KB) And the second... See these links: - http://drupal.org/files/issues/regions---possibility-1.png - http://drupal.org/files/issues/regions---possibility-2.png ------------------------------------------------------------------------ April 18, 2005 - 16:22 : nedjo Attachment: http://drupal.org/files/issues/block-dynamic-regions2.patch (13.39 KB) Here's a revised patch implementing some of the ideas so far. I've used the theme engine - rather than individual themes - to generate the list of available regions. I know this isn't ideal, but e.g. for xtemplate it's at present the only option--no logic is possible in the individual theme. region is changed to a varchar field from the current tinyint. I've roughed in several regions--really just for demo purposes. More thought and work would be needed to refine them (e.g., styling, etc.). But this maybe moves the conversation forward. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ April 18, 2005 - 22:26 : Dries This patch enables different regions to be used. That is a good thing. The next question is: should we take into account that different themes could assign blocks to different regions? Lots of problems would be solved if (i) there could only be one active theme on a website or (ii) if all themes would have a common set of regions. (This "let users select their own theme"-thing is a left-over from the early days, except for WAP stuff maybe.) ------------------------------------------------------------------------ April 18, 2005 - 22:37 : killes(a)www.drop.org Giving up multiple theme support would be a great thing. People could still select from multiple style sheets. WAP shoud not be a user preference setting, but automatically detected and redirected to a special site with a WAP theme. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ April 18, 2005 - 22:48 : adrian You would then lose the ability to make a special front page theme for use with the sections module, for instance. Also, currently styles exist in the same namespace as themes, and we would have to make more a distinction of styles vs templates (or themes), but I do think this could help simplify things. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ April 21, 2005 - 17:54 : nedjo Attachment: http://drupal.org/files/issues/block-dynamic-regions3.patch (15.69 KB) The main issue raised, if I'm understanding well: if a theme or theme engine is present that offers regions other than those available in the default theme, any blocks assigned to those regions will be invisible to most users. Here's a revised patch addressing the concern. I've added a test for each region to see whether it's also available in the current default theme. (Actually, I'm realizing as I write this, I've used the theme engine--so it would need to be updated to test first if an engine is being used.) In any case, any regions not available by default are starred, and a message text appears (only if necessary). If there's support for the approach, I'd be happy to finish the patch. Remaining work: * extend to work with non-engine themes * finalize base set of regions to implement * implement common region set in all core themes (for now I've only done xtemplate) * work on CSS display (how blocks in each region should look) This last point I'm not too confident on and would look for help/suggestions. Screenshot to come. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ April 21, 2005 - 17:56 : nedjo Attachment: http://drupal.org/files/issues/block_regions_message.png (12.34 KB) Screenshot showing starring of non-default regions plus message. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ April 21, 2005 - 18:19 : killes(a)www.drop.org I like that approach. +1 ------------------------------------------------------------------------ April 21, 2005 - 18:23 : resmini My two cents. If this has to be done (and it should), better get rid of spatial definitions for areas such as left, right, top, bottom, etc. Use semantic names related to content and let the theme take care of their positioning interely. Also note that there in an ongoing debate in IA trying to build up a standard naming convention for page regions in a way that is semantically (and logically) correct. Just for the sake of it, you can check http://www.stuffandnonsense.co.uk/archives/whats_in_a_name.html http://www.stuffandnonsense.co.uk/archives/whats_in_a_name_pt2.html with follow-ups, including Eric Meyer's. There are more substantial contributes in the AIfIA web site, but I can't seem to find them now. I'll post a link or an abstract if I manage to. -- vector at exea dot it ------------------------------------------------------------------------ April 21, 2005 - 19:15 : nedjo Good points, useful references. The default regions I'm thinking of are: 'banner' => t('banner'), 'left' => t('left sidebar'), 'right' => t('right sidebar'), 'body_top' => t('body top'), 'body_bottom' => t('body bottom'), 'footer' => t('footer') Perhaps "body" would be better as "content"? It would be easy enough to add in more regions, e.g., within the content (after title, after help, etc.) One issue is that many of these regions will already have rendered content. Should the blocks come before or after that other content? I've assumed after for banner and footer, while giving both options in body. In any case, refinements or suggestions would be great. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ April 21, 2005 - 19:56 : resmini Well, 'banner' => t('banner'), 'left' => t('left sidebar'), 'right' => t('right sidebar'), 'body_top' => t('body top'), 'body_bottom' => t('body bottom'), 'footer' => t('footer') The classic (as far as classic goes for something Web related) scheme comprises 5 spatial regions, much like stefan's http://drupal.org/files/issues/regions---possibility-1.png with a left area mirroring the one called 'blocks'. Call them top, left, center, right, bottom. Variants usually exclude one or more of these, layout-wise. If we talk content (semantic) instead, things get a bit more complicated, as these spatial regions normally include more than one content-area. The top, for example, could include ad banners and the site's header, or the main menu. But these merge seamlessly with CSS definitions, which are definitely something that should get properly standardized (most of the errors / inconsistencies I'm encountering with Drupal today are related to this), but this is out of scope in this thread. What I somewhat object to the definitions above is that it mixes the two approaches. 'banner' is not spatial, is content, as it is the distinction between body top and bottom. If 'banner' goes there, it is 'top', whatever that might be. I designed a couple of web sites which had headers/logos/banners at the bottom of the page, and I'm not exactly the wildest designer you'll probably meet. And if we include body_top and _bottom, we should also add 'navigation', or 'menu' and some other content-related semantic region (impressum, or company_data, or whatever). I suggest that either we go along 'top' => t('banner'), 'left' => t('left sidebar'), 'center' => t('body'), 'right' => t('right sidebar'), 'bottom' => t('footer') or we dedicate some time to detailing what could possibly fit there semantically, which is perfectly possible without limiting design freedom or whatever, since the vocabulary is not infinite, but not something you do out of the blue. Please note that I understand t('something') to be an example, since such a layout only defines regions on the page, not semantic regions. My main content could fit nicely in the bottom region. As for the names for the regions, they are not important, as much as they are coherent and enforced. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ April 21, 2005 - 22:16 : stefan nagtegaal Attachment: http://drupal.org/files/issues/regions-final.png (2.39 KB) Maybe something like this??? But, I have to say that I _really_ liked the solution to split the 'content'-region into the 'content' and 'beneath content'.. I love that! ------------------------------------------------------------------------ April 21, 2005 - 23:20 : resmini Stefan, yes. That's basically what you can build if you stick with spatial, and this layout can generate quite an amount of (sane) layout variations even if you interpret it strictly (suppose a default) as <div id="header"> </div> <div id="left-bar"> </div> <div id="content"> </div> <div id="right-bar"> </div> <div id="footer"> </div> What you can do with this is left basically to the theme designers and their use of CSS, CSS-P or tables (brrr), but this could be an easy and proper way to identify macro-regions in which more accurate positioning happens at a more specific level. I'm all in favour of subsequent identification of sub-areas (top and bottom in body), but I don't think it would be a good idea to mix the different approaches I mentioned in my previous post. A site with lots of things going on or which is not just blogging surely has the need to use its content area in a wiser manner than just putting there 'content', the number of modules doing precisely this is more than proof, but that falls more in a 'Drupal definitive guide to semantics', in which CSS selectors are used or suggested strategically for such a scope. >From this point of view and for the sake of this thread, any unique area / div (#name) could (should?) be a target for blocks, and this in my opinion (*) would be the perfect solution, but I do not know if and how this is even remotely possible in the current Drupal. (*) It's quite late, local time, and it was a looong working day. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ April 21, 2005 - 23:38 : resmini Attachment: http://drupal.org/files/issues/regions-final-variation.png (1.9 KB) Just to be clear, I add a variation of stefan's scheme that shows how this is *not* by any means positional, but spatial, or better relational. Use your CSS imagination to take out regions, reduce them to empty containers, enlarge them, make them taller, shorter, whatever. 5 regions, do what you like. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ April 21, 2005 - 23:44 : resmini Sorry, I forgot. And this is also why I'm not too keen on calling anything 'content'. If I enlarge my right region enough, why not put my content there? Shouldn't this be a theme-level concern? It's nothing serious, but if my center area is called 'center' (or something similar and more sexy), I won't confuse anybody. This is left, center, right: do with them what you prefer. Content in the bottom? Show me. If I call something 'content', I'm more than suggesting that content goes there, and only there. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ April 22, 2005 - 09:17 : stefan nagtegaal Resmini, maybe it is only me but I think that you are making a mistake in your way of thinking.. I get the feeling that you're mixing the 'regions' and 'divs'.. the 'regioins' should have meaningfull sentences, but the divs shouldn'thave.. As an example: $region_name => $content_body here we go: 'header' => $logo 'left sidebar' => theme('blocks', 'left') 'right sidebar' => theme('blocks', 'right') 'content' => $content 'footer' => $footer. So, $region_name does not have to be equal to the id or class of the divs.. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ April 22, 2005 - 10:27 : resmini Stefan, >So, $region_name does not have to be equal to the id or class of the divs.. Yes, absolutely. I probably didn't make myself very clear: what I'm trying to point out is that in 'header' => $logo 'left sidebar' => theme('blocks', 'left') 'right sidebar' => theme('blocks', 'right') 'content' => $content 'footer' => $footer. there is no reason at all to call 'content' the region that holds $content. nedjo asked in #24 'body_top' => t('body top'), 'body_bottom' => t('body bottom'), if /Perhaps "body" would be better as "content"?/ and all my reasoning is simply that no, that is not content, or it shouldn't be (or better: it may happen that main content is elsewhere). As a matter of fact, even the connotation 'sidebar' doesn't fit very well logically. To make it short: Today's method works, but has limits. Mambo, which paragkenia quotes at the beginning, handles more 'user regions' but in pure Mambo style conventions are so loose that they are hardly useful. If we define regions, as in nedjo's example, in my opinion these regions shouldn't imply informational layouting, only relational positioning (that is, where they stay in the browser viewport). I know it may look like overdesigning, but Drupal constantly enforces conventions and coding guidelines everywhere: this is one of the best aspects of the project and I think it should carry to the layout. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ April 22, 2005 - 10:32 : stefan nagtegaal While I think that 'body_*' is not as self explaining as 'content_*' I vote for using 'content_*'.. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ April 25, 2005 - 18:48 : chx Let's get back to the code. If my understanding is correct the big discussion is about how to name potiental rectangular areas _after_ this is commited. So, first get this committed. What's need to make that happen? ------------------------------------------------------------------------ April 25, 2005 - 19:56 : chx I spoke with Moshe, Steven, JonBob and the result is: keys shall be numbers, and themes shall define the values. We will make region zero and one required. There will be a define('REGION_CONTENT', 0) and a define('REGION_SIDEBAR', 1); so you can have readable code still. Either wait for me to code it or feel to do it yourself, just drop me a mail via the contact form if you are doing it. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ April 27, 2005 - 17:14 : nedjo Károly, it's great if you're willing to take on finishing this. I tried to summarize remaining work in update 20, above [4]. The numerical keys look fine to me. In terms of an initial default set of regions, one quirk is this: for now, so far as I can see (and assuming the approach I sketched in), available regions can be defined only in (a) theme engines and (b) individual themes that don't use an engine. So, for instance, an individual xtemplate based theme can't define its own custom regions; they need to be defined in the theme engine. (Unless and until the whole theme system should switch to the sort of configuration file adrian suggested above [5].) Which is to say that, under this approach, we'll be defining a set of regions for each engine, and then all themes using that engine should try to implement those regions. (Otherwise, if a site admin selects a region defined in the engine but not implemented in the default theme, the content won't appear.) Please let me know if there's anything in what I've done that isn't clear, or if you want to pass some or all of this back. Thanks! [4] http://www.drupal.org/node/16216#comment-27398 [5] http://www.drupal.org/node/16216#comment-27052 ------------------------------------------------------------------------ May 9, 2005 - 21:36 : chx I had a "short" discussion with the UI team leader ie. Ber Kessels. The outcoming is that we will change hook_block so that it uses callbacks a bit like menu system. Here's an example: <?php function module_block() { $items = array(); $items['module_header'] = array('callback' => 'mymodule_page', 'weight' => -50, 'region' => 'content' , 'cache' => TRUE, 'pages' => "node/*\n<front>"); return $items; } ?> Please note that we are allowing caching the themed output of each block independently. The theme system will execute hook_block as it does now and it'll execute the callbacks defined in module_block as well. Of course if the callback is cacheable and in the cache, it'll print it from cache. If it's themeable and not in the cache, it'll cache it before printing. Pages contains a string (could be PHP code!) which can be overriden in the block configuration screen. Callbacks defined in hook_menu will have lot less functionality after this, they will be used for non-themed pages mainly. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ May 9, 2005 - 21:45 : chx More explanation is requested for the example. module_header is the unqiue name of the block. pages define on which pages the block is visible. ('pages' in the block configuration screen.) Maybe I'll implement 'visibility' from the same screen as well. callback, weight are well known Drupal terms. cache is a boolean which defines whether given output is cacheable or not. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ May 9, 2005 - 21:47 : chx Ber, Dries, do not kill me! Ber chaired the usability meeting in Antwerp, that's all. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ May 9, 2005 - 21:52 : Bèr Kessels Attachment: http://drupal.org/files/issues/more_regions_principle.png (123.29 KB) attached is a schematic which might clarify this a little. And I would also like to comment on me being the UI leader: I do not consider myself any leader, no ofeence, though. Just to clarify that. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ May 9, 2005 - 23:42 : nedjo I am not opposed to the idea of changing the _block() hook to use callbacks (I have no opinion on it, not immediately grasping the need), but this seems quite distinct from the aim of enabling multiple and extensible regions. Why can't we just move ahead with the block generalization? I suggest: * quickly implement the proposed block region generalization, using only the two existing regions (i.e., implementing them in core themes) * later worry about: - adding further regions (the details of which are best done by those primarily responsible for the particular themes) - possible changes to the _block() hook. Wouldn't this make sense? Or am I missing some pressing reason for which the block generalization has to wait? ------------------------------------------------------------------------ May 10, 2005 - 02:28 : killes(a)www.drop.org "Or am I missing some pressing reason for which the block generalization has to wait?" I might be missing something too, but I thought Chx was just talking about the block generalization and proposing a way to code it. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ May 10, 2005 - 03:41 : factoryjoe I wanted to chime in with this discussion because it's an important one and has some really huge implications for Drupal moving forward. That said, I also have a day job pulling all my attention which means that the big ideas I have for this problem can't be put into a complete visual form for at least a week or more. In the meantime, I'd like to offer a few thoughts on the matter. * *Regions do not belong in themes.* Blocks were originally separate from themes for a reason. Themes should define the general look and feel of a site -- and to some extent a site's behavior. Layouts which define the spatial relationship between regions belong in some intermediary between style and content, which does not currently exist in Drupal. * I would propose that *layouts become a new kind of CCK tool.* By that I mean that they can be defined, shared and deployed very easily -- even as simply as tossing a directory of some .layout textfiles into a layouts/ directory. Note that this suggestion has nothing to do with the way CCK /might actually/ work right now; instead I'm suggesting how I would like it to work. I would like, for example, to create a CCK item like a "person" and ship it with a .layout file that carries all the semantic goodness needed to output that "person" to the screen in juicy, semantic markup... which anyone can come along and theme to their heart's content. * *Creating shareable layouts should be relatively painless.* Dashboard [6] sets the bar for easy hackability. It should be that easy to create layouts for Drupal... I can imagine creating an "iTunes layout" or an "Image Gallery" layout and so on... If we used something akin to PHPTal to develop the layouts, we could keep development fairly standard while making it possible for more folks to hack up cool and innovative layouts. * *Layouts should be extensible.. to a degree.* I see a huge problem with how this discussion has floated back and forth between semantic and spatial region naming. Because we talk about this problem in those terms, we fail to identify the real problem and opportunities presented to us. Here's the thing: when you predefine regions, you limit creativity and the ability of people to really use the system. On the other hand, when you make a system too flexibile, it quickly becomes unwieldy. In all the mockups presented above, both classes of problems would arise. Therefore we need to think about a way to stay flexibile while "taming the beast." * To that end, I suggest developing *self-contained layouts that are contextually-complete.* So for the example of the iTunes search layout... you would know before hand that you get a couple multiple select boxes that you can hook up to whatever taxonomies you want to progressively filter [nodes]. You could even change the .layout file, allowing you to theme it to your liking -- even though that would totally optional, given the layout's internal default styling. Once you've got your layout, you would go into a layout module UI [7], create a new layout [8], select the layout from a list [9] and then give it a path so you can access the layout... You would then walk through a wizard [10] that would help you populate that layout with all kinds of nice Drupally goodies... feeds, node listings, PHP code, etc. The power in this approach is multifold. For one, it snaps Drupal out of its block mentality and allows designers to really innovate with individual page designs. In fact, I've already thought out how I could reimplement Flickr using this system, combined with Drupal's native feeds, taxonomy and menu module, and I'd barely break a sweat... sort of. ;) But anyway, this is a very productive conversation to be having, but I really think that we should consider whether the old paradigm, as such, really pushes Drupal as far forward as we have the opportunity to go. [6] http://drupal.org/apple.com/macosx/theater/dashboard.html [7] http://photos4.flickr.com/6944826_90af237c99_o.png [8] http://www.factorycity.net/demos/civicspace/layout/new.html [9] http://www.factorycity.net/demos/civicspace/layout/new_layout.html [10] http://www.factorycity.net/demos/civicspace/layout/testing_add.html ------------------------------------------------------------------------ May 10, 2005 - 05:34 : chx While factoryjoe may be right, I could be right as well. Regions has definitely something to do with themes, after all it's the theme that renders the page, and it can only render regions that it knows of. So, instead of postponing this into the far future when someone comes out with a layout system, I code this now. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ May 10, 2005 - 06:22 : Dries The proposed 'weight', 'region' and 'pages' would be configurable, not? Are these just defaults? The 'callback' and 'cache' options are nice to have. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ May 10, 2005 - 06:25 : chx Yes, blocks can provide a default for everything on the block and and configuration screen. Of course, you can override these in the UI. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ May 10, 2005 - 10:02 : Bèr Kessels Dries: yes, the region, weight and pages will be configurable from an admin interface. What we tried to address here, is a method for developers to choose good defaults. Take for example "logo". that should be enabled by default in a regions called header, rendered on all pages, and have a very light weight. We should not force an admin to visit the blocks admin before she can see or use the logo. Chris: I do not know if you have ever tried typo3. Its concept is some form of builder system. I do not like thar, because far too complex. If we ever get sme kind of builder in core (if ever) it will require a lot of work, and even more usability research. So for now such a builder is far out of our reach. Lets aim at goals that are more realistic ;) So: it does belong in themes, its the best place that is still realistic. I do like your visions, Chris, but I hope you agree they are not realistic, yet. So, maybe you can think of a path towards your visions, ow we can reach such a builder-system, you describe? ------------------------------------------------------------------------ May 10, 2005 - 15:52 : factoryjoe My browser crashed before I was able to submit my followup to chx's comment... I have no problem with the current work going forward and am happy to see it happening. I know that my ideas are typically outlandlish and far off... That's the kind of design I enjoy doing! In any case, I see chx's solution being a means to an end; once we have abstracted the region code, it become much easier for me to get some help creating my vision. In the meantime, and as a demonstration of how I see this layout system working (to answer, I hope, Ber's concerns about clunkiness), I've created a workflow movie that shows off how fast you'd be able to add content to the system. Check it out: http://factorycity.net/demos/civicspace/layout/media/layout_workflow_v1.mov Feedback appreciated. And, if you want to try the demo out yourself (it's all hardcoded, like a "movie set" for my UI), go here: http://factorycity.net/demos/civicspace/layout/ ------------------------------------------------------------------------ May 12, 2005 - 17:45 : nedjo Attachment: http://drupal.org/files/issues/block-dynamic-regions4.patch (13.56 KB) "I might be missing something too, but I thought Chx was just talking about the block generalization and proposing a way to code it. " Well, if I can say so respectfully, I don't think so. Not so far as I can see identifying problems with my original patch, this interesting discussion is rather addressing the (useful, but logically subsequent) question "once we have multiple regions, how should we work with them?". It's perhaps demonstrating our propensity to try to do more rather than less with a given patch--to talk for a long time when a first step solution is already in place. So here is a (yes, interim!) small, focused, and tested patch to remove the hard-coded regions. I've stripped it down so it does nothing more than (a) make block regions declared by themes rather than hard-coded and (b) implement the existing left and right regions in existing core themes. Please, try it out, I think you'll like it. I'm of the (I'm hoping not scandalous) opinion that it can be applied right away, and so clear the way for further progress. In particular, this patch leaves the adding and configuring of additional regions to theme authors/maintainers, who are best qualified for the work. "I spoke with Moshe, Steven, JonBob and the result is: keys shall be numbers, and themes shall define the values. We will make region zero and one required. " The reason I moved from numbers to strings (e.g., "left") is that a theme author defining regions has no way of knowing what regions might have already been defined, and therefore what integers might have aleady been used. It's like module and theme names--we'd have to use random numbers to avoid conflicts, so we're better off with string names. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ May 12, 2005 - 19:17 : Bèr Kessels nedjo, I am not a fan of your solution for blocks that dissapear. It breaks the ability to allow more themes on a site. if important blocks dont show up, your site will simply break. I would rather suggest that every theme MUST have a region called 'default'. any blocks that want to go into a non-existing region, will be placed there. We must define a standard listy of suggested region names. to avoid a wildgrowth of names. I am not sure if i like the way you do function phptemplate_regions(). these regions should be defined in the templqtes, not the engine. Otherwise all phptemplate themes will still all have two regions. Note that i did not test your patch thouroughly, just applied and looked at. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ May 12, 2005 - 20:38 : nedjo Thanks for your comments. I think we're getting somewhere. "I am not a fan of your solution for blocks that dissapear. It breaks the ability to allow more themes on a site. if important blocks dont show up, your site will simply break. I would rather suggest that every theme MUST have a region called 'default'. any blocks that want to go into a non-existing region, will be placed there. " Good suggestion. Having a default region for blocks to show up sounds like a valuable backup. I'm thinking we might want to have a way to designate a given region as the default, rather than having to have one named 'default'. Thoughts? "We must define a standard listy of suggested region names. to avoid a wildgrowth of names. " Sure. But the patch doesn't prevent doing that--it enables it. "I am not sure if i like the way you do function phptemplate_regions(). these regions should be defined in the templqtes, not the engine. Otherwise all phptemplate themes will still all have two regions. " Oh, I wholeheartedly agree, and I've noted the issue above. But unless we substantially rewrite the engines, some region definition is needed in the engines, as they call blocks. Should we therefore define a base set in the engine, then call a hook from the engine to add any other regions from themes based on that engine? If so, where in the theme's files should such a hook be located? And a side note. Do let's make an effort to keep our comments friendly. Taking the time to note one or two things that do work or are done well as part of a review is I believe a valuable habit. It helps to confirm what is indeed accomplished. Beyond this, it helps to maintain the idea that we are collaborating on shared goals, rather than pushing individual and competing visions, and that contributions and work are appreciated, rather than being invitations to criticism. Thanks, Nedjo ------------------------------------------------------------------------ May 12, 2005 - 20:42 : chx I am implementing http://drupal.org/node/16216#comment-29282 but it takes time. regions again have names. default and sidebar regions are mandatory. This has little to do with nedjo's code much more with his idea -- I looked at the screenshot and said, OK this is great but... we'd like to have a lot more 'blocks' if this comes through, henceforth the above mentioned solution. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ May 12, 2005 - 21:39 : nedjo Okay, thanks for the clarification, I hadn't understood that you were taking a new approach rather than building on what I'd begun. Given that that's the case, staging as I'd suggested obviously won't work so I'm content to wait and see what you accomplish. I'd only suggest, don't feel like you need necessarily to do everything all at once. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ May 13, 2005 - 09:34 : Bèr Kessels Nedjo, sorry if the sound of my comment was hostile. it was never meant to be that way. I am busy, and thus did not want to comment all the things i liked about your patch, but chose to pick the much smaller amount of things I thought could use some improvement. I will try to keep in mind to be more friendly next times. Also, not all of us are as fluent in English as our native English speakers. I think its good to keep in mind that for a lot of us, communication in English is not as easy as it may seem. For me, it often requires a lot of concentration to get the subtleties right. I mean: I can type some English text, look up words in the dictionary, but to get small yet important subtleties in my texts is very hard, often. But, that all said: I liked your patch. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ June 10, 2005 - 12:08 : jakeg How far off is this from being officially released or at least usable? If its usable now, what files will I need to implement it? ------------------------------------------------------------------------ June 10, 2005 - 13:19 : Kobus Attachment: http://drupal.org/files/issues/regions---possibility-3.png (2.21 KB) To add to Stefan's suggestions with the two screenshots, I modified one of them a bit, and this is how I understand Jaza's post, and yes, I agree, this would be a wonderful feature! I can't wait! Imagine how good it would look if I had a theme that has a clear white background (not visible blocks) and then these seemingly random boxes on the page, as shown in the screenshot. Especially where I can place it anywhere around the node like Jaza said with a [region:2] block etc. I say again: I can't wait! Kobus ------------------------------------------------------------------------ June 10, 2005 - 14:59 : chx I need 3-4 hrs of peace to implement the callback based thing. That's a lot these days. Let's hope I'll get on it in the following days. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ June 18, 2005 - 23:32 : chx Here's an example again of how hook_block will look like: <?php function module_block() { $items = array(); $items['module_header'] = array('callback' => 'mymodule_function', 'callback arguments' => arg(1), 'weight' => -50, 'region' => 'content', 'cache' => TRUE, ''pages' => "node/*\n<front>"); return $items; } ?> Items are keyed by unique IDs. The template system will call module_invoke_all('block'), put the rendered HTML of the blocks into regions sorted by weight. The rendered HTML is cached if it is allowed. More keys will be introduced later, but now basically we just throw everything from block configure in here, and add callback, callback arguments, region. Node teasers or fullly rendered nodes are blocks, too. Almost everything is. So, here what happens when we are on taxonomy/term/1: taxonomy_render_nodes is called it calls block_set('node_view', $weight, $node, $teaser, $page); a few times, so a few node_view blocks will be on the page later the theme system is invoked. It will ask the block system to collect all blocks, dynamic and the static blocks as well. For all dynamic blocks we have a block defined in hook_block somewhere, like the definition above, with one exception: it will have a 'standalone' => FALSE pair, so it is not a standalone block which is automatically rendered but something that needs to explicitely requested. Also, we may define a 'suffix' => 'somefunction' pair which provides us with a cache ID suffix. Look at the code below: <?php function block_collect_blocks() { // get all block definitions $static_blocks = module_invoke_all('block'); // iterate of the dynamic blocks set on the page foreach (block_get() as $dynamic_block) { // get the block definition for the given dynamic block $static_block = $static_blocks[$dynamic_block['block']]; // merge the callback arguments from the dynamic and static. dynamic_block['callback arguments'] is always set though // may be empty if (isset($static_block['callback arguments'])) { $dynamic_block['callback arguments'] = array_merge($static_block['arguments'], $dynamic_block['callback arguments']); } // try to get a cache ID suffix $suffix = function_exists($static_block['suffix']) && call_user_func_array($static_block['suffix'], $dynamic_block['callback arguments']); // if the block is cacheable or the suffix function says that it is cacheable by setting a suffix if ($static_block['cache'] || $suffix) { // set cache ID $cid = 'block:'. $dynamic_block['block'] .':'. $suffix; // try to get the rendered HTML from cache if ($block_rendered = cache_get($cid)) { $return[$static_block['region'][$dynamic_block['weight']][] = $static_block_rendered; continue; } } // render the block $block_rendered = call_user_func_array($static_block['callback'], $dynamic_block['callback arguments']); // store the block for return $return[$static_block['region'][$dynamic_block['weight']][] = $static_block_rendered; if ($static_block['cache'] || $suffix) { // if cacheable, do it cache_set($cid, $static_block_rendered); } } foreach ($static_blocks as $key => $static_block) { // is this a stand alone block, like in Drupal 4.6? if ($static_block['standalone']) { // now, the above is repeated, save that we do not have a dynamic_block here $suffix = function_exists($static_block['suffix']) && call_user_func_array($static_block['suffix'], $static_block['callback arguments']); if ($static_block['cache'] || $suffix) { $cid = "block:$key:$suffix"; if ($block_rendered = cache_get($cid)) { $return[$static_block['region'][$static_block['weight']][] = $static_block_rendered; continue; } } $block_rendered = call_user_func_array($static_block['callback'], $static_block['callback arguments']); $return[$static_block['region']][$static_block['weight']][] = $static_block_rendered; if ($static_block['cache'] || $suffix) { cache_set($cid, $static_block_rendered); } } } } function block_set() { static $blocks; $args = func_get_args(); if (count($args)) { $callback = array_shift($args); $weight = array_shift($args); $blocks[] = array('block' => $function, 'weight' => $weight, 'callback arguments' => $args); } return $blocks; } function block_get() { return block_set(); } ?> When to expire the block cache? Never. If functions can call cache_clear all, they can be smart enough to cache_clear only those blocks that are changed by them. Some blocks won't be cacheable anyways, say there is little use in caching 'active forum topics' ------------------------------------------------------------------------ June 19, 2005 - 08:15 : Dries Frankly, I don't understand what you are trying to say. What is a 'dynamic', a 'static' and a 'standalone block'? What is the suffix for? What is the advantage of making node and taxonomy views blocks? If there is no big advantage, this is just bloat. All in all, it looks pretty complex to me. If we make Drupal more flexible _and_ more complex, people will get upset, and we end up being like Plone. Drupal's simplicity is something to foster, as it allows people to go in, and change stuff. The focus is to make Drupal simpler _and_ more flexible. I merely spent 10 minutes looking at this (reading your explanation twice, staring at the code), and the newly added complexity simply turns me off. Maybe that is because I don't understand what we are gaining. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ June 19, 2005 - 08:34 : Bèr Kessels * The first thing we gain, is, very slmple: more regions. But, how many? what regions? on what pages? in what location? bearing which name? For all these issues we need some callback system. To allow themers, administrators and module developers to give answers to all these questions. what we have now: sidebars, with only admin settings, is simply too limited: It takes serious hacking (~15 lines of code in your theme) to get a login block in your header! * The second thing we get for free: We are passing along chuncks of HTML, so why not cache them in a central place. Practice points out that our current cache is not used well. We leave it to developers to cache. And developers are lazy by nature. Just looks at all the places where caching should have been done, but is not. 9/10contribs have at least one of these places. You must actually see these issues separate. The new central blocks pulling system, and the caching. the latter is something that we get for free, a high level of advanced caching (how often has not been put forward Drupal seiously lacks better/advanced caching?). But we get it only for free if it is co-developed with the new regions blocks. And Last but not least, everything is a block, from a themer point of veiw. I know developers tend to think: I do the content, and do not care about where and how it turns up. That results in a content-centric system, what we have now. Everythng is built around aa single chunk of content. while, in fact content, is yet another block. Look at http://www.terminus1525.ca/index.php?l=en or http://www.franklinpennsylvania.us/ as it stands now, its up to the developer to concenate all the HTML in the center area, into a huge chunk of HTML. While in fact everyone can see that these are a lot of separate blocks. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ June 19, 2005 - 08:39 : Dries Ber: I was talking about chx's latest changes, not the block system in general. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ June 20, 2005 - 19:06 : nedjo I appreciate the update on directions being contemplated, although I find it confusing. Again, I'd caution, let's keep focused on the aim at hand, and on a staged solution. A bigger patch means greater complexity, more difficulty getting meaningful review, and greater delays in getting a priority change. We're currently in a position where we have two hard-coded regions for blocks, a major issue if nothing else than because it reflects poorly on Drupal's usability and versatility. Moving from here directly to something like "everything you see anywhere is a (nested) block in its own (nested) region" strikes me as a bigger step than we need to take. And in belated reply to Ber's note (#53 above [11]), thanks for the thoughtful comments, I didn't mean to single you out and acknowledge that language & cultural differences play a role, I feel we can all benefit from attention to communication. [11] http://www.drupal.org/node/16216#comment-29633 ------------------------------------------------------------------------ June 21, 2005 - 20:39 : Dries Even with the explanation in chx's sandbox, this is too complex for my likings. Here is a suggestion: let's drop the caching and the 'suffix'-stuff. Let's also drop the 'complete' and 'incomplete' stuff. Keep it _simple_, chx. IMO, you're creating a monster. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ June 22, 2005 - 21:47 : chx nedjo, take over. I am out. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ June 22, 2005 - 23:51 : djnz Quick and dirty solution? Let blocks be assignable to 9 locations - Top left, middle, right, middle left, middle right, bottom left, middle, right. The actual location of these areas within a theme is up to a theme designer, but the designer should include each of them - how about $sidebar['tl'], $sidebar['tm'], $sidebar['tr'] ... Backwards theme compatibility could easily be maintained by only creating the $sidebar array if the theme has set (eg in its template.php file for a PHPtemplate theme) a flag, otherwise generate $sidebar_left from the blocks set (in sequence) to top left, middle left, bottom left, top middle and middle middle (arbitrary break) with $sidebar_right the remainder. I appreciate I have no karma here and only superficial knowledge of the Drupal code, but sometimes the clarity of a view unclouded by too much information is useful ;) ------------------------------------------------------------------------ June 27, 2005 - 07:26 : nedjo Attachment: http://drupal.org/files/issues/regioning.patch (24.74 KB) " nedjo, take over. I am out. " Um, okay. I've given the question some more thought and come to the following conclusions: 1. If we take regions to be areas of the page that specific types of content are rendered into, and a regioning system to be a system to accomplish this, we already have a number of regions and different types of regioning systems. They include: (a) our current blocks system, and (b) the various drupal_set_[region]() functions, like drupal_set_comment(). (c) specialized hooks like our help system, which assembles content to be rendered into a region. 2. LIkely we should tease out regions from blocks. So attached is a next rough cut at regioning. Features: * Default region is defined in general admin settings page * Regions are defined in both engines and themes. A particular engine-based theme has the regions it defines plus the engine's default ones. * Content can be written to regions in two ways: through blocks or through drupal_set_content($region, $content) calls. Initial comments are welcome. I'll work on getting a more polished patch and also more explanation of the approach. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ June 27, 2005 - 07:43 : deekayen Disclaimer: I offer no code for this, so this is just a bunch of idealism I can't back up. djnz's comment makes sense if you want quick and dirty, but it seems to me the correct way to do things would be in terms of relatives. I would think doing it right the first time would be easier than redoing block location code twice. For example set a standard starting location; perhaps the start is 100% height/width conceptually. If you want to put something on the right, it would be the first block on the right of the starting block - let the theme manage widths. Then if you want another block on the right, or 10, just keep adding them relative to the others kind of like the current ordering of book pages or like adding more TD cells in a HTML table. Using this example under the current standard layout, the main block could be in the middle with with relative blocks on the left and right. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ June 28, 2005 - 11:26 : arnabdotorg It would be totally awesome to see multiple regions in Drupal 5, if not 4.7. This topic has been discussed several times before, noting them down for reference: http://drupal.org/node/2790 /[September 9th 2003]/ http://drupal.org/node/10653 http://drupal.org/node/13008 I also think it would be nice to have people implement multi-region themes; see what problems we encounter, and learn from it. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ June 28, 2005 - 13:28 : arnabdotorg Forgot to add, I've patched nedjo's final patch [12] to Drupal HEAD, it's up at http://arnab.drupaldevs.org/ [13]. [12] http://drupal.org/files/issues/regioning.patch [13] http://drupal.org/files/issues/regioning.patch ------------------------------------------------------------------------ June 28, 2005 - 17:57 : nedjo Attachment: http://drupal.org/files/issues/regioning2.patch (25.03 KB) Here's an improved version of the patch--several bug fixes, no new functionality. There are still a couple of loose ends (e.g., implementing the option of particular blocks not to be themed), and I haven't fully tested it. Further to my previous explanation, here is a summary of what the patch does. I'll mark as "new" the bits added in this week's iteration. Problem addressed: Currently, Drupal has two hard-coded regions into which block content is rendered: left and right. This situation severely limits the flexibility of content presentation. Aim: Enable multiple and extensible regions for blocks and other content. Approach: 1. Hard coded regions are removed from block.module. Instead, available regions are loaded dynamically. 2. Available regions are defined in themes (and, optionally, in modules). A theme or a theme engine defines its available regions through a themename_regions() function in themename.theme file or a enginename_regions() function in an enginename.engine file. New: engine-based themes can define their own regions in a .theme file. They will have all the engine's regions plus any they define. New: modules can define their own regions through a hook_regions() call. This should allow modules to define and use "inline" regions. For example, a module could define a region, then use a nodeapi() call to load content for that block and then insert it into a formatted box in $node->body. 3. New: the regions associated with a theme are loaded as part of the system_theme_data() call, and available regions are loaded through a system_region_list() function. 4. Previously stored as an integer, blocks' regions are changed to varchar, to enable storing of strings (e.g., 'left'). 5. A "default" region is defined (as a core setting), into which content will be rendered in the case that it's assigned to a region that's not available in the current theme. The options available for the default region are "core" regions, defined as all those available in all available themes. In the main block admin page, all regions not available in the current default theme are marked with an asterix, with an explanatory note. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ June 28, 2005 - 18:04 : nedjo Attachment: http://drupal.org/files/issues/showregions.module.txt (1.13 KB) Here's a sample module using the patch's regioning. When installed, it visually marks all available regions when you visit the page ?q=showregions. This is implemented using the proposed system_region_list() and drupal_set_content() functions. (I've attached a .txt extension to the module file since otherwise module files seem to get rewritten when uploaded.) ------------------------------------------------------------------------ July 2, 2005 - 22:15 : nedjo Attachment: http://drupal.org/files/issues/regioning3.patch (28.83 KB) Okay, this is now ready for review. To install after applying the patch, run update.php, since some database fields need to be created and updated (see function update_141() in the patched update.inc). In this final version, I've: * simplified the handling of content assigned to regions not available in the current theme, by loading such content directly in theme_blocks(), so that no custom handling is required in themes. * finished the coding for designating particular blocks (including custom ones) as not themed, so that it's possible simpy to inject content. This introduces a new 'themed' parameter of blocks. * made several variables configurable in the declaration of blocks by modules. As well as $block['content'] and $block['title'], you can now set $block['status'], $block['weight'], $block['region'], $block['themed'], $block['pages'], and $block['custom']. To see the behaviour, set any phptemplate-based theme, or chameleon, as the default theme. In the blocks configuration page, configure blocks to go to display in various regions. Note that, as chameleon has only two regions (left and right), all others are written to the default region (set in the main settings page, under general settings). I believe this iteration answers all major outstanding requests for functionality. It also, I hope, leaves the way open for the sort of caching and other block system enhancements chx was working on. I've taken this patch as far as I can. I'm committed to basic fixes before or after it's applied, if such are needed. But if what's wanted is another major rewrite, we'll need someone different to take it on. Reviews and comments, please!

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[drupal-devel] [bug] Bootstrap patch fixes
by mathias 03 Jul '05

03 Jul '05

Issue status update for http://drupal.org/node/25600 Project: Drupal Version: cvs Component: base system Category: bug reports Priority: critical Assigned to: chx Reported by: kubaZygmunt Updated by: mathias Status: patch I've tested out Bart's patch and it does indeed restore update.php and allow $conf overrides. Might be worth fixing this for now while we continue to work on a long term solution. mathias Previous comments: ------------------------------------------------------------------------ June 23, 2005 - 05:28 : kubaZygmunt Attachment: http://drupal.org/files/issues/bootstrap.diff (422 bytes) I've found that new cvs version doesn't get properly db_prefix. In bootstrap.inc (function _drupal_bootstrap($phase) ) I added another global variable $db_prefix, and then it goes . I don't know if my solution is good because on my local site I can't see any blocks and on my internet site I have some caching and I can't see anything :) ------------------------------------------------------------------------ June 23, 2005 - 06:45 : kubaZygmunt Above I've put my patch ------------------------------------------------------------------------ June 23, 2005 - 06:56 : Jaza Attachment: http://drupal.org/files/issues/db_prefix_global.patch (582 bytes) Also noticed this bug, when trying to install a fresh CVS snapshot. Attached is my patch against CVS HEAD (same as kubaZygmunt's, basically). ------------------------------------------------------------------------ June 23, 2005 - 07:10 : chx Yes, this is a bug, if you look at the bootstrap patch, there were versions when I thought variables in settings.php should be written as $GLOBALS['something'] but then introduced global $something . Forgot when that something is db_prefix . ------------------------------------------------------------------------ June 27, 2005 - 23:26 : Jaza Can this patch be applied to HEAD please? This is not something that should be left sitting around in the issues list. Chx has identified that it was a simple honest mistake on his part, and has indicated that the submitted patch(es) will fix the mistake. Until this patch is applied, anyone who tries to install HEAD using db prefixes will get a fatal error. It doesn't get much more critical than that :-p. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ June 30, 2005 - 08:56 : Bart Jansens Attachment: http://drupal.org/files/issues/20050630.bootstrap-prefix-update.patch (1.21 KB) There is another related problem, it is no longer possible to override variables in settings.php. And update.php no longer works. Updated patch attached. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ June 30, 2005 - 09:04 : chx Attachment: http://drupal.org/files/issues/20050630.bootstrap-patch.patch (2.92 KB) Oh, and XML-RPC client is broken too. I talked with walkah and we found it the best to move xmlrpc.inc to modules which use them. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ June 30, 2005 - 09:09 : chx Attachment: http://drupal.org/files/issues/20050630.1.bootstrap-patch.patch (3.34 KB) some more xml-rpc fixes. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ June 30, 2005 - 09:20 : Steven Making XML-RPC a conditional include was discussed a while ago, and decided against due to problems with the class persistency. Why is this now possible? ------------------------------------------------------------------------ June 30, 2005 - 11:36 : walkah basically - it's not. the problem is, well, the xmlrpc.inc is not very well written. It requires / depends on several global variables, etc. which leads to a fair bit of the scoping issues. If you look at what PEAR has done with this (since their XML-RPC module is based on the same original code)... you'll notice lots of $GLOBALS['...'] usage (see http://cvs.php.net/co.php/pear/XML_RPC/RPC.php) . Basically, I think we have 3 options: 1) keep banging on this old code to make it work. 2) switch libraries to either PEAR::XML-RPC or something like incutio's (http://scripts.incutio.com/xmlrpc/) 3) re-write our own custom xml-rpc library personally, I'd +1 #2 - since #1 is ugly, and #3 I personally don't have time for, and I'd rather see our developer resources going to more interesting things. that said, i know there are those with strong feelings against 3rd party libraries... but this needs to get fixed quickly. blogapi and drupal dist_auth are both currently broken in HEAD. (isn't there anyone else here that tests XML-RPC stuff??) ------------------------------------------------------------------------ June 30, 2005 - 11:38 : walkah just to follow up.. chx's patch in #7 only fixes XMLRPC servers... anything that uses XML-RPC client (i.e. drupal_auth or ping) will still be busted. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ June 30, 2005 - 11:48 : moshe weitzman the 'we shouldn't use 3rd party libraries' argument is hogwash. that was recenyly followed up with 'look where that got us recently' which is even more stupid. security problems happen in your own code, and in other people's code. we've had several security mistakes of our own, and those mistakes have persisted a long time. the benefit of 3rd party libraries is that you don't have to write them, debug them, document them, or maintain them. if someone here is willing to do all of this for XMLRPC then great. But thats extremely unlikely so we either have to drop the whole feature set or use a 3rd party library. as you can tell, i favor #2 as well - switching libraries so we can do conditional inclusion. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ June 30, 2005 - 12:01 : Dries #2 isn't GPL ------------------------------------------------------------------------ June 30, 2005 - 12:07 : Dries Looks like WordPress might be using that class though. Weird. I know Wordpress had a least two security issues with their XML-RPC library (and they aren't using Edd Dumbill's). There is no word about this at http://scripts.incutio.com/xmlrpc/ so it looks like it isn't maintained either (which renders the advantages of using third-party libraries moot-ish). ------------------------------------------------------------------------ June 30, 2005 - 12:17 : Dries The WP developers confirmed that they are using this library. Turns out there is a new website for it too: http://simon.incutio.com/archive/2005/05/23/ixr. WordPress' version lives at http://trac.wordpress.org/log/trunk/wp-includes/class-IXR.php. Some extra details at http://trac.wordpress.org/ticket/1400. Looking at the code, it doesn't appear to be PHP5 compliant. Plus, I'm not sure the license is compatible. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ June 30, 2005 - 12:21 : chx I will rewrite the Incutio XML-RPC library for our own usage in July, I know this for quite a long time. a) I intend to start with Incutio's XML-RPC b) I contacted the author already and he is fine with GPL'ing the result. c) the result will be quite a bit different from the original, 'cos I'll make it use procedural notation and overall, more Drupalish. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ June 30, 2005 - 12:31 : chx " From: Simon Willison To: Karoly Negyesi Subject: Re: IXR GPL? Date: 05/25/05 18:40 On 25 May 2005, at 17:35, Karoly Negyesi wrote: > I'd like to get rid of the current XML-RPC implementation in Drupal > and use > IXR instead. Yours seems much more transparent and up to date. > > I plan to rewrite it a bit so that it looses OOP, this enables us to > conditionally include. > > However, Drupal is GPL and I need IXR under GPL to work with. Hmm... since you'll be rewriting it a bit, how's about I just give you permission to use it and relicense it as GPL provided you stick a note that it was derived (with permission) from IXR in a comment at the top somewhere? I really hate software licensing - I just want people to be able to use my code! Thanks, Simon " ------------------------------------------------------------------------ July 2, 2005 - 13:45 : chx Dries, while the xmlrpc rewrite is under way please commit Bart's patch http://drupal.org/node/25600#comment-34362

1 0

[drupal-devel] file attachment storage
by David Norman 03 Jul '05

03 Jul '05

I'm just tossing this up for discussion, but is it of any concern for scaling that all attachments get dropped in the same directory? Might it be better for them to be divided up by module so book attachments get filed into a book subdirectory of the files directory?

6 11

[drupal-devel] [feature] Enable multiple block regions (not just "left" and "right" sidebars)
by nedjo 02 Jul '05

02 Jul '05

Issue status update for http://drupal.org/node/16216 Project: Drupal Version: cvs -Component: block.module +Component: base system Category: feature requests Priority: normal -Assigned to: Anonymous +Assigned to: nedjo Reported by: paragkenia Updated by: nedjo Status: patch Attachment: http://drupal.org/files/issues/regioning3.patch (28.83 KB) Okay, this is now ready for review. To install after applying the patch, run update.php, since some database fields need to be created and updated (see function update_141() in the patched update.inc). In this final version, I've: * simplified the handling of content assigned to regions not available in the current theme, by loading such content directly in theme_blocks(), so that no custom handling is required in themes. * finished the coding for designating particular blocks (including custom ones) as not themed, so that it's possible simpy to inject content. This introduces a new 'themed' parameter of blocks. * made several variables configurable in the declaration of blocks by modules. As well as $block['content'] and $block['title'], you can now set $block['status'], $block['weight'], $block['region'], $block['themed'], $block['pages'], and $block['custom']. To see the behaviour, set any phptemplate-based theme, or chameleon, as the default theme. In the blocks configuration page, configure blocks to go to display in various regions. Note that, as chameleon has only two regions (left and right), all others are written to the default region (set in the main settings page, under general settings). I believe this iteration answers all major outstanding requests for functionality. It also, I hope, leaves the way open for the sort of caching and other block system enhancements chx was working on. I've taken this patch as far as I can. I'm committed to basic fixes before or after it's applied, if such are needed. But if what's wanted is another major rewrite, we'll need someone different to take it on. Reviews and comments, please! nedjo Previous comments: ------------------------------------------------------------------------ January 26, 2005 - 06:27 : paragkenia I read the comparision discussion between *Drupal* and *Mambo*. In several messages it was outlined that Drupal can place blocks only in right and left and not flexible to put them on anywhere where one want. It will be great if this can be changed in upcoming versions. I am no pro at PHP, so don't know how much time this task will take, but I think it is very important. parag ------------------------------------------------------------------------ April 14, 2005 - 21:44 : nedjo This issue was apparently partially addressed in issue http://drupal.org/node/19694 [1]. [1] http://drupal.org/node/19694 ------------------------------------------------------------------------ April 16, 2005 - 20:24 : nedjo Attachment: http://drupal.org/files/issues/block-dynamic-regions.patch (8.17 KB) This much-requested functionality - to have the ability to place blocks in more than the two predefined regions - was partially addressed in issue http://drupal.org/node/19694. [2]. But "blocks" are still limited to the "left" and "right" sidebars (hard-coded in block.module). This patch is a first step designed to enable multiple (eventually, admin-definable) regions for blocks. I've moved the existing "left" and "right" block regions to a 'region' table (with ids of 0 and 1, as currently used in themes). Then all references to the regions are drawn dynamically from the table. This way, if further records are added, they will appear in the list of available regions for block placement. Doing this actually reduces some duplicated code, since it's no longer necessary to repeat code blocks for each of "left" and "right". As it stands, the patch doesn't add any new functionality--but I don't think it breaks anything either. New functionality would need (a) new regions defined, and (b) changes to themes. A simple first step might be, e.g., to add a "footer" region and then add a call in the footer generation to append any blocks assigned to the footer region there. I'm setting this to patch, but I'm aware that it needs some discussion and refining before it'll be ready to apply. [2] http://drupal.org/node/19694. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ April 16, 2005 - 21:05 : nedjo Attachment: http://drupal.org/files/issues/block_regions.png (5.65 KB) Here's a screenshot showing the block admin page, with drop-downs for region placement (the options are dynamically generated based on defined regions). ------------------------------------------------------------------------ April 16, 2005 - 22:57 : adrian The biggest problem with this is that you can have multiple themes, and each of these themes can have different regions available. Also, the method of defining which regions are available needs to be standardised. Some of the work that me and Vlado are working on for the install system would go towards solving that problem (ie: meta information for modules, themes and styles). This has been discussed to death, but the general consensus has been that we _want_ to do this, but we need to solve a few other problems properly first, the most pertinent being the interface issue. Chris (factoryjoe) recently did a whole mess of workflows for something related to this. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ April 17, 2005 - 00:09 : syscrusher The first paragraph of adrian [3]'s post is a point that occurred to me also, as I read this thread. One suggestion would be to separate the definition and configuration of blocks, on one hand, from the placement of those blocks, on the other hand. In other words, Drupal core provides a mechanism defining what blocks exist, which of these are on by default or off by default and user-selectable vs. which are forced on for all users, and the configuration (if applicable) of specialized blocks defined by particular modules. Each theme provides a standard hook function that returns an array of region names and help/description text, e.g., array('left'=>t('This vertical region is left of the main content area'), 'right'=>t('This vertical region is right of the main content area'), 'footer'=>t('The footer is below the left, right, and main content areas of the page')). The theme part of Drupal core (i.e., theme.module itself, not the individual themes) provides a standard UI that is displayed within config of *each theme* (but is one physical code base within theme.module) that allows the administrator to map blocks defined by Drupal core into regions defined by the theme, and storing that mapping as an theme-to-block_ID-to-region_ID (with weight) table in the database. From there, the actual page rendering is similar to what's being done now, but there is more of it. I guess what I'm trying to say is that the key to solving this problem is breaking it along its degrees of orthogonality, and there are three -- two in Drupal core and one in the individual theme. Scott [3] http://drupal.org//user/1517 ------------------------------------------------------------------------ April 17, 2005 - 03:14 : Dries Scott, is right. The theme should export its available regions. Then the administrator's task is to assign blocks to regions (not to setup regions). A theme could have configurable regions, but that internal to the theme. To me, the real challenge is the UI and the interaction design. Configuring blocks could easily become a real pain (while most themes continue to use 'left' and 'right'.) Of course, we can implement all the functionality, default everything to 'left' and 'right', and worry about the UI later. This should be fairly straightforward to implement and nedjo's patch looks like a first step in the right direction. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ April 17, 2005 - 17:09 : nedjo I agree with the suggested approach of themes registering their regions. I'd see this happening when a particular theme is activiated (or upgraded). Regions would be an array of names (e.g., 'left', 'right', 'footer'). New records would be created in the region table only for region names not previously registered. Some areas I'm not clear on, or that need further work: * Table naming Should a new table be 'region' or 'regions' (I've used 'region')? I don't see a convention among existing table names, some of which are singular and others plural. * Default values I've kept the existing '0' and '1' ids for regions (left and right, respectively), for backward compatibility. But this means we can't use autoincrement for the region id (rid), since autoincrements seem to begin with 1. Likely we should change to autogenerated ids. * Initial records Using the INSERT INTO statements as I've done for the initial region entries is probably counterproductive, since sooner or later they'll have to be dynamically generated. I was hoping this could be a preliminary patch, with the main work coming later, but likely we need to solve region registration by themes before this patch is applied. I don't have a good idea of how region registration by themes would be implemented (a hook on theme activation?), and invite suggestions or implementations. * Theme system changes Besides region registration, the other change I'm seeing that would be needed in the theme system is loading blocks by region name, rather than region id. This is because the ids currently used ('0' and '1') in theory might be diffferent on a particular install. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ April 17, 2005 - 17:18 : syscrusher Instead of having themes "register" their regions, why not just add a theme API hook called them_regions() that returns an associative array of $region_name=>t($region_helptext)? This would be in keeping with other similar API functions, such as those that return what permissions apply to a module or what node types are defined by a module. Most themes are going to define only a small number of regions (two being the typical case now, but I could see five or six in a complex theme), so returning a constant array will be faster than querying SQL to obtain an array of rows. There could be (optionally, at the discretion of whoever builds this thing) another API hook like theme_region_properties($region_name) that returns an associative array with detailed info for a given region, such as extended help text with recommended usage instructions for the region. Scott ------------------------------------------------------------------------ April 17, 2005 - 17:19 : syscrusher s/them_regions/theme_regions/g ------------------------------------------------------------------------ April 17, 2005 - 18:47 : adrian Because. The most common 'theme' is a phptemplate theme. And there needs to be a generic method for specifying the regions available, in a non hook_function format.. Themes get their names from the directory in which they are contained.. when copying the theme to another directory, there must be _no_ modifications necessary to allow normal usage. This is one of the tenets of the new template system I designed. You would need a standard way to define meta-information for themes, that does not need to be modified when copied to a new directory. We are working on this in the install system work, as you need a way external of Drupal to define the module dependencies and some other things. My approach would be to add a theme.dsc text file to the directory, which would allow you to specify meta-information. For instance : ---- regions: left, right, footer, center, mountie author: Johnny McAngstyPants ---- ------------------------------------------------------------------------ April 17, 2005 - 22:00 : syscrusher Adrian wrote: " Themes get their names from the directory in which they are contained.. when copying the theme to another directory, there must be _no_ modifications necessary to allow normal usage. This is one of the tenets of the new template system I designed. " A very good point. But region names don't have to be unique across different themes, so my hook function wouldn't have to be modified. The suggestion I made for the mapping metadata was three factors: theme ID or name, region ID or name, and block ID (plus one non-key weight value to order the blocks within a region, but this is not relevant here). I'm not familiar enough with PHP template to be able to respond to your comments on that one, so if you say it's not feasible to work with my schema, then I'll take your word for it. :-) Scott ------------------------------------------------------------------------ April 17, 2005 - 22:03 : syscrusher Oh, wait.....I see now what you mean! It's not the output of the function that is the problem, but the *name* of the function. Never mind. I concede your point. Scott ------------------------------------------------------------------------ April 18, 2005 - 03:44 : Jaza I'm probably jumping ahead a bit here... but something that this patch will have to eventually account for, is how to allow regions to be defined as inline. Allowing a theme to define a region's position as being anywhere on the edge of the page (i.e. top, left, right, bottom, corners, etc) is relatively easy. But what about having a region that's in the middle of a node's body, or somewhere else that's not the edge of the page? What I'm thinking of, is eventually allowing the custom region system to integrate with the CCK. Like I said, I admit that I'm jumping ahead into the future - the CCK still has a long way to go before it's ready. But ultimately, it would be cool if a theme could define a region as being after, say, the "rating" field in nodes of type "movie review". This would make the region (and the blocks in it) truly inline and in context with the actual content of the node. This would be a huge step forward compared to the current block system, which doesn't allow you to mix the presentation of blocks and nodes at all. In Drupal ATM, blocks and "the rest of the page" are totally separate, and really you have no choice but to display them as such. The result of this is that information in blocks that really should be displayed as part of a node, gets literally "pushed to the side", and always seems secondary to the actual content. Often the block has content that is just as important as the content of the node itself. Another option (of less merit, IMO - because of the extra maintenance work, and lack of enforced consistency) would be to have a region filter. You could then choose where to place an inline region on a per-node basis, by entering text such as [region:2] (example based on image_filter syntax) into the node body. Anyway, just thought I'd throw that idea into the open. I don't expect it will be implemented any time soon, but it's something to think about. Jeremy ------------------------------------------------------------------------ April 18, 2005 - 04:54 : stefan nagtegaal Attachment: http://drupal.org/files/issues/regions---possibility-1.png (1.29 KB) Imo the 'regions' are more than you guys name here.. FOr example I attached 2 screens which only shows you the regions.. What I think is that it should always be possible to have free names for the regions. No matter if i call - the region where my content appears in - 'content' or 'site items'.. See attached screens.. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ April 18, 2005 - 04:56 : stefan nagtegaal Attachment: http://drupal.org/files/issues/regions---possibility-2.png (1.39 KB) And the second... See these links: - http://drupal.org/files/issues/regions---possibility-1.png - http://drupal.org/files/issues/regions---possibility-2.png ------------------------------------------------------------------------ April 18, 2005 - 11:22 : nedjo Attachment: http://drupal.org/files/issues/block-dynamic-regions2.patch (13.39 KB) Here's a revised patch implementing some of the ideas so far. I've used the theme engine - rather than individual themes - to generate the list of available regions. I know this isn't ideal, but e.g. for xtemplate it's at present the only option--no logic is possible in the individual theme. region is changed to a varchar field from the current tinyint. I've roughed in several regions--really just for demo purposes. More thought and work would be needed to refine them (e.g., styling, etc.). But this maybe moves the conversation forward. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ April 18, 2005 - 17:26 : Dries This patch enables different regions to be used. That is a good thing. The next question is: should we take into account that different themes could assign blocks to different regions? Lots of problems would be solved if (i) there could only be one active theme on a website or (ii) if all themes would have a common set of regions. (This "let users select their own theme"-thing is a left-over from the early days, except for WAP stuff maybe.) ------------------------------------------------------------------------ April 18, 2005 - 17:37 : killes(a)www.drop.org Giving up multiple theme support would be a great thing. People could still select from multiple style sheets. WAP shoud not be a user preference setting, but automatically detected and redirected to a special site with a WAP theme. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ April 18, 2005 - 17:48 : adrian You would then lose the ability to make a special front page theme for use with the sections module, for instance. Also, currently styles exist in the same namespace as themes, and we would have to make more a distinction of styles vs templates (or themes), but I do think this could help simplify things. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ April 21, 2005 - 12:54 : nedjo Attachment: http://drupal.org/files/issues/block-dynamic-regions3.patch (15.69 KB) The main issue raised, if I'm understanding well: if a theme or theme engine is present that offers regions other than those available in the default theme, any blocks assigned to those regions will be invisible to most users. Here's a revised patch addressing the concern. I've added a test for each region to see whether it's also available in the current default theme. (Actually, I'm realizing as I write this, I've used the theme engine--so it would need to be updated to test first if an engine is being used.) In any case, any regions not available by default are starred, and a message text appears (only if necessary). If there's support for the approach, I'd be happy to finish the patch. Remaining work: * extend to work with non-engine themes * finalize base set of regions to implement * implement common region set in all core themes (for now I've only done xtemplate) * work on CSS display (how blocks in each region should look) This last point I'm not too confident on and would look for help/suggestions. Screenshot to come. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ April 21, 2005 - 12:56 : nedjo Attachment: http://drupal.org/files/issues/block_regions_message.png (12.34 KB) Screenshot showing starring of non-default regions plus message. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ April 21, 2005 - 13:19 : killes(a)www.drop.org I like that approach. +1 ------------------------------------------------------------------------ April 21, 2005 - 13:23 : resmini My two cents. If this has to be done (and it should), better get rid of spatial definitions for areas such as left, right, top, bottom, etc. Use semantic names related to content and let the theme take care of their positioning interely. Also note that there in an ongoing debate in IA trying to build up a standard naming convention for page regions in a way that is semantically (and logically) correct. Just for the sake of it, you can check http://www.stuffandnonsense.co.uk/archives/whats_in_a_name.html http://www.stuffandnonsense.co.uk/archives/whats_in_a_name_pt2.html with follow-ups, including Eric Meyer's. There are more substantial contributes in the AIfIA web site, but I can't seem to find them now. I'll post a link or an abstract if I manage to. -- vector at exea dot it ------------------------------------------------------------------------ April 21, 2005 - 14:15 : nedjo Good points, useful references. The default regions I'm thinking of are: 'banner' => t('banner'), 'left' => t('left sidebar'), 'right' => t('right sidebar'), 'body_top' => t('body top'), 'body_bottom' => t('body bottom'), 'footer' => t('footer') Perhaps "body" would be better as "content"? It would be easy enough to add in more regions, e.g., within the content (after title, after help, etc.) One issue is that many of these regions will already have rendered content. Should the blocks come before or after that other content? I've assumed after for banner and footer, while giving both options in body. In any case, refinements or suggestions would be great. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ April 21, 2005 - 14:56 : resmini Well, 'banner' => t('banner'), 'left' => t('left sidebar'), 'right' => t('right sidebar'), 'body_top' => t('body top'), 'body_bottom' => t('body bottom'), 'footer' => t('footer') The classic (as far as classic goes for something Web related) scheme comprises 5 spatial regions, much like stefan's http://drupal.org/files/issues/regions---possibility-1.png with a left area mirroring the one called 'blocks'. Call them top, left, center, right, bottom. Variants usually exclude one or more of these, layout-wise. If we talk content (semantic) instead, things get a bit more complicated, as these spatial regions normally include more than one content-area. The top, for example, could include ad banners and the site's header, or the main menu. But these merge seamlessly with CSS definitions, which are definitely something that should get properly standardized (most of the errors / inconsistencies I'm encountering with Drupal today are related to this), but this is out of scope in this thread. What I somewhat object to the definitions above is that it mixes the two approaches. 'banner' is not spatial, is content, as it is the distinction between body top and bottom. If 'banner' goes there, it is 'top', whatever that might be. I designed a couple of web sites which had headers/logos/banners at the bottom of the page, and I'm not exactly the wildest designer you'll probably meet. And if we include body_top and _bottom, we should also add 'navigation', or 'menu' and some other content-related semantic region (impressum, or company_data, or whatever). I suggest that either we go along 'top' => t('banner'), 'left' => t('left sidebar'), 'center' => t('body'), 'right' => t('right sidebar'), 'bottom' => t('footer') or we dedicate some time to detailing what could possibly fit there semantically, which is perfectly possible without limiting design freedom or whatever, since the vocabulary is not infinite, but not something you do out of the blue. Please note that I understand t('something') to be an example, since such a layout only defines regions on the page, not semantic regions. My main content could fit nicely in the bottom region. As for the names for the regions, they are not important, as much as they are coherent and enforced. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ April 21, 2005 - 17:16 : stefan nagtegaal Attachment: http://drupal.org/files/issues/regions-final.png (2.39 KB) Maybe something like this??? But, I have to say that I _really_ liked the solution to split the 'content'-region into the 'content' and 'beneath content'.. I love that! ------------------------------------------------------------------------ April 21, 2005 - 18:20 : resmini Stefan, yes. That's basically what you can build if you stick with spatial, and this layout can generate quite an amount of (sane) layout variations even if you interpret it strictly (suppose a default) as <div id="header"> </div> <div id="left-bar"> </div> <div id="content"> </div> <div id="right-bar"> </div> <div id="footer"> </div> What you can do with this is left basically to the theme designers and their use of CSS, CSS-P or tables (brrr), but this could be an easy and proper way to identify macro-regions in which more accurate positioning happens at a more specific level. I'm all in favour of subsequent identification of sub-areas (top and bottom in body), but I don't think it would be a good idea to mix the different approaches I mentioned in my previous post. A site with lots of things going on or which is not just blogging surely has the need to use its content area in a wiser manner than just putting there 'content', the number of modules doing precisely this is more than proof, but that falls more in a 'Drupal definitive guide to semantics', in which CSS selectors are used or suggested strategically for such a scope. >From this point of view and for the sake of this thread, any unique area / div (#name) could (should?) be a target for blocks, and this in my opinion (*) would be the perfect solution, but I do not know if and how this is even remotely possible in the current Drupal. (*) It's quite late, local time, and it was a looong working day. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ April 21, 2005 - 18:38 : resmini Attachment: http://drupal.org/files/issues/regions-final-variation.png (1.9 KB) Just to be clear, I add a variation of stefan's scheme that shows how this is *not* by any means positional, but spatial, or better relational. Use your CSS imagination to take out regions, reduce them to empty containers, enlarge them, make them taller, shorter, whatever. 5 regions, do what you like. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ April 21, 2005 - 18:44 : resmini Sorry, I forgot. And this is also why I'm not too keen on calling anything 'content'. If I enlarge my right region enough, why not put my content there? Shouldn't this be a theme-level concern? It's nothing serious, but if my center area is called 'center' (or something similar and more sexy), I won't confuse anybody. This is left, center, right: do with them what you prefer. Content in the bottom? Show me. If I call something 'content', I'm more than suggesting that content goes there, and only there. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ April 22, 2005 - 04:17 : stefan nagtegaal Resmini, maybe it is only me but I think that you are making a mistake in your way of thinking.. I get the feeling that you're mixing the 'regions' and 'divs'.. the 'regioins' should have meaningfull sentences, but the divs shouldn'thave.. As an example: $region_name => $content_body here we go: 'header' => $logo 'left sidebar' => theme('blocks', 'left') 'right sidebar' => theme('blocks', 'right') 'content' => $content 'footer' => $footer. So, $region_name does not have to be equal to the id or class of the divs.. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ April 22, 2005 - 05:27 : resmini Stefan, >So, $region_name does not have to be equal to the id or class of the divs.. Yes, absolutely. I probably didn't make myself very clear: what I'm trying to point out is that in 'header' => $logo 'left sidebar' => theme('blocks', 'left') 'right sidebar' => theme('blocks', 'right') 'content' => $content 'footer' => $footer. there is no reason at all to call 'content' the region that holds $content. nedjo asked in #24 'body_top' => t('body top'), 'body_bottom' => t('body bottom'), if /Perhaps "body" would be better as "content"?/ and all my reasoning is simply that no, that is not content, or it shouldn't be (or better: it may happen that main content is elsewhere). As a matter of fact, even the connotation 'sidebar' doesn't fit very well logically. To make it short: Today's method works, but has limits. Mambo, which paragkenia quotes at the beginning, handles more 'user regions' but in pure Mambo style conventions are so loose that they are hardly useful. If we define regions, as in nedjo's example, in my opinion these regions shouldn't imply informational layouting, only relational positioning (that is, where they stay in the browser viewport). I know it may look like overdesigning, but Drupal constantly enforces conventions and coding guidelines everywhere: this is one of the best aspects of the project and I think it should carry to the layout. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ April 22, 2005 - 05:32 : stefan nagtegaal While I think that 'body_*' is not as self explaining as 'content_*' I vote for using 'content_*'.. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ April 25, 2005 - 13:48 : chx Let's get back to the code. If my understanding is correct the big discussion is about how to name potiental rectangular areas _after_ this is commited. So, first get this committed. What's need to make that happen? ------------------------------------------------------------------------ April 25, 2005 - 14:56 : chx I spoke with Moshe, Steven, JonBob and the result is: keys shall be numbers, and themes shall define the values. We will make region zero and one required. There will be a define('REGION_CONTENT', 0) and a define('REGION_SIDEBAR', 1); so you can have readable code still. Either wait for me to code it or feel to do it yourself, just drop me a mail via the contact form if you are doing it. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ April 27, 2005 - 12:14 : nedjo Károly, it's great if you're willing to take on finishing this. I tried to summarize remaining work in update 20, above [4]. The numerical keys look fine to me. In terms of an initial default set of regions, one quirk is this: for now, so far as I can see (and assuming the approach I sketched in), available regions can be defined only in (a) theme engines and (b) individual themes that don't use an engine. So, for instance, an individual xtemplate based theme can't define its own custom regions; they need to be defined in the theme engine. (Unless and until the whole theme system should switch to the sort of configuration file adrian suggested above [5].) Which is to say that, under this approach, we'll be defining a set of regions for each engine, and then all themes using that engine should try to implement those regions. (Otherwise, if a site admin selects a region defined in the engine but not implemented in the default theme, the content won't appear.) Please let me know if there's anything in what I've done that isn't clear, or if you want to pass some or all of this back. Thanks! [4] http://www.drupal.org/node/16216#comment-27398 [5] http://www.drupal.org/node/16216#comment-27052 ------------------------------------------------------------------------ May 9, 2005 - 16:36 : chx I had a "short" discussion with the UI team leader ie. Ber Kessels. The outcoming is that we will change hook_block so that it uses callbacks a bit like menu system. Here's an example: <?php function module_block() { $items = array(); $items['module_header'] = array('callback' => 'mymodule_page', 'weight' => -50, 'region' => 'content' , 'cache' => TRUE, 'pages' => "node/*\n<front>"); return $items; } ?> Please note that we are allowing caching the themed output of each block independently. The theme system will execute hook_block as it does now and it'll execute the callbacks defined in module_block as well. Of course if the callback is cacheable and in the cache, it'll print it from cache. If it's themeable and not in the cache, it'll cache it before printing. Pages contains a string (could be PHP code!) which can be overriden in the block configuration screen. Callbacks defined in hook_menu will have lot less functionality after this, they will be used for non-themed pages mainly. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ May 9, 2005 - 16:45 : chx More explanation is requested for the example. module_header is the unqiue name of the block. pages define on which pages the block is visible. ('pages' in the block configuration screen.) Maybe I'll implement 'visibility' from the same screen as well. callback, weight are well known Drupal terms. cache is a boolean which defines whether given output is cacheable or not. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ May 9, 2005 - 16:47 : chx Ber, Dries, do not kill me! Ber chaired the usability meeting in Antwerp, that's all. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ May 9, 2005 - 16:52 : Bèr Kessels Attachment: http://drupal.org/files/issues/more_regions_principle.png (123.29 KB) attached is a schematic which might clarify this a little. And I would also like to comment on me being the UI leader: I do not consider myself any leader, no ofeence, though. Just to clarify that. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ May 9, 2005 - 18:42 : nedjo I am not opposed to the idea of changing the _block() hook to use callbacks (I have no opinion on it, not immediately grasping the need), but this seems quite distinct from the aim of enabling multiple and extensible regions. Why can't we just move ahead with the block generalization? I suggest: * quickly implement the proposed block region generalization, using only the two existing regions (i.e., implementing them in core themes) * later worry about: - adding further regions (the details of which are best done by those primarily responsible for the particular themes) - possible changes to the _block() hook. Wouldn't this make sense? Or am I missing some pressing reason for which the block generalization has to wait? ------------------------------------------------------------------------ May 9, 2005 - 21:28 : killes(a)www.drop.org "Or am I missing some pressing reason for which the block generalization has to wait?" I might be missing something too, but I thought Chx was just talking about the block generalization and proposing a way to code it. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ May 9, 2005 - 22:41 : factoryjoe I wanted to chime in with this discussion because it's an important one and has some really huge implications for Drupal moving forward. That said, I also have a day job pulling all my attention which means that the big ideas I have for this problem can't be put into a complete visual form for at least a week or more. In the meantime, I'd like to offer a few thoughts on the matter. * *Regions do not belong in themes.* Blocks were originally separate from themes for a reason. Themes should define the general look and feel of a site -- and to some extent a site's behavior. Layouts which define the spatial relationship between regions belong in some intermediary between style and content, which does not currently exist in Drupal. * I would propose that *layouts become a new kind of CCK tool.* By that I mean that they can be defined, shared and deployed very easily -- even as simply as tossing a directory of some .layout textfiles into a layouts/ directory. Note that this suggestion has nothing to do with the way CCK /might actually/ work right now; instead I'm suggesting how I would like it to work. I would like, for example, to create a CCK item like a "person" and ship it with a .layout file that carries all the semantic goodness needed to output that "person" to the screen in juicy, semantic markup... which anyone can come along and theme to their heart's content. * *Creating shareable layouts should be relatively painless.* Dashboard [6] sets the bar for easy hackability. It should be that easy to create layouts for Drupal... I can imagine creating an "iTunes layout" or an "Image Gallery" layout and so on... If we used something akin to PHPTal to develop the layouts, we could keep development fairly standard while making it possible for more folks to hack up cool and innovative layouts. * *Layouts should be extensible.. to a degree.* I see a huge problem with how this discussion has floated back and forth between semantic and spatial region naming. Because we talk about this problem in those terms, we fail to identify the real problem and opportunities presented to us. Here's the thing: when you predefine regions, you limit creativity and the ability of people to really use the system. On the other hand, when you make a system too flexibile, it quickly becomes unwieldy. In all the mockups presented above, both classes of problems would arise. Therefore we need to think about a way to stay flexibile while "taming the beast." * To that end, I suggest developing *self-contained layouts that are contextually-complete.* So for the example of the iTunes search layout... you would know before hand that you get a couple multiple select boxes that you can hook up to whatever taxonomies you want to progressively filter [nodes]. You could even change the .layout file, allowing you to theme it to your liking -- even though that would totally optional, given the layout's internal default styling. Once you've got your layout, you would go into a layout module UI [7], create a new layout [8], select the layout from a list [9] and then give it a path so you can access the layout... You would then walk through a wizard [10] that would help you populate that layout with all kinds of nice Drupally goodies... feeds, node listings, PHP code, etc. The power in this approach is multifold. For one, it snaps Drupal out of its block mentality and allows designers to really innovate with individual page designs. In fact, I've already thought out how I could reimplement Flickr using this system, combined with Drupal's native feeds, taxonomy and menu module, and I'd barely break a sweat... sort of. ;) But anyway, this is a very productive conversation to be having, but I really think that we should consider whether the old paradigm, as such, really pushes Drupal as far forward as we have the opportunity to go. [6] http://drupal.org/apple.com/macosx/theater/dashboard.html [7] http://photos4.flickr.com/6944826_90af237c99_o.png [8] http://www.factorycity.net/demos/civicspace/layout/new.html [9] http://www.factorycity.net/demos/civicspace/layout/new_layout.html [10] http://www.factorycity.net/demos/civicspace/layout/testing_add.html ------------------------------------------------------------------------ May 10, 2005 - 00:34 : chx While factoryjoe may be right, I could be right as well. Regions has definitely something to do with themes, after all it's the theme that renders the page, and it can only render regions that it knows of. So, instead of postponing this into the far future when someone comes out with a layout system, I code this now. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ May 10, 2005 - 01:22 : Dries The proposed 'weight', 'region' and 'pages' would be configurable, not? Are these just defaults? The 'callback' and 'cache' options are nice to have. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ May 10, 2005 - 01:25 : chx Yes, blocks can provide a default for everything on the block and and configuration screen. Of course, you can override these in the UI. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ May 10, 2005 - 05:02 : Bèr Kessels Dries: yes, the region, weight and pages will be configurable from an admin interface. What we tried to address here, is a method for developers to choose good defaults. Take for example "logo". that should be enabled by default in a regions called header, rendered on all pages, and have a very light weight. We should not force an admin to visit the blocks admin before she can see or use the logo. Chris: I do not know if you have ever tried typo3. Its concept is some form of builder system. I do not like thar, because far too complex. If we ever get sme kind of builder in core (if ever) it will require a lot of work, and even more usability research. So for now such a builder is far out of our reach. Lets aim at goals that are more realistic ;) So: it does belong in themes, its the best place that is still realistic. I do like your visions, Chris, but I hope you agree they are not realistic, yet. So, maybe you can think of a path towards your visions, ow we can reach such a builder-system, you describe? ------------------------------------------------------------------------ May 10, 2005 - 10:52 : factoryjoe My browser crashed before I was able to submit my followup to chx's comment... I have no problem with the current work going forward and am happy to see it happening. I know that my ideas are typically outlandlish and far off... That's the kind of design I enjoy doing! In any case, I see chx's solution being a means to an end; once we have abstracted the region code, it become much easier for me to get some help creating my vision. In the meantime, and as a demonstration of how I see this layout system working (to answer, I hope, Ber's concerns about clunkiness), I've created a workflow movie that shows off how fast you'd be able to add content to the system. Check it out: http://factorycity.net/demos/civicspace/layout/media/layout_workflow_v1.mov Feedback appreciated. And, if you want to try the demo out yourself (it's all hardcoded, like a "movie set" for my UI), go here: http://factorycity.net/demos/civicspace/layout/ ------------------------------------------------------------------------ May 12, 2005 - 12:45 : nedjo Attachment: http://drupal.org/files/issues/block-dynamic-regions4.patch (13.56 KB) "I might be missing something too, but I thought Chx was just talking about the block generalization and proposing a way to code it. " Well, if I can say so respectfully, I don't think so. Not so far as I can see identifying problems with my original patch, this interesting discussion is rather addressing the (useful, but logically subsequent) question "once we have multiple regions, how should we work with them?". It's perhaps demonstrating our propensity to try to do more rather than less with a given patch--to talk for a long time when a first step solution is already in place. So here is a (yes, interim!) small, focused, and tested patch to remove the hard-coded regions. I've stripped it down so it does nothing more than (a) make block regions declared by themes rather than hard-coded and (b) implement the existing left and right regions in existing core themes. Please, try it out, I think you'll like it. I'm of the (I'm hoping not scandalous) opinion that it can be applied right away, and so clear the way for further progress. In particular, this patch leaves the adding and configuring of additional regions to theme authors/maintainers, who are best qualified for the work. "I spoke with Moshe, Steven, JonBob and the result is: keys shall be numbers, and themes shall define the values. We will make region zero and one required. " The reason I moved from numbers to strings (e.g., "left") is that a theme author defining regions has no way of knowing what regions might have already been defined, and therefore what integers might have aleady been used. It's like module and theme names--we'd have to use random numbers to avoid conflicts, so we're better off with string names. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ May 12, 2005 - 14:17 : Bèr Kessels nedjo, I am not a fan of your solution for blocks that dissapear. It breaks the ability to allow more themes on a site. if important blocks dont show up, your site will simply break. I would rather suggest that every theme MUST have a region called 'default'. any blocks that want to go into a non-existing region, will be placed there. We must define a standard listy of suggested region names. to avoid a wildgrowth of names. I am not sure if i like the way you do function phptemplate_regions(). these regions should be defined in the templqtes, not the engine. Otherwise all phptemplate themes will still all have two regions. Note that i did not test your patch thouroughly, just applied and looked at. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ May 12, 2005 - 15:38 : nedjo Thanks for your comments. I think we're getting somewhere. "I am not a fan of your solution for blocks that dissapear. It breaks the ability to allow more themes on a site. if important blocks dont show up, your site will simply break. I would rather suggest that every theme MUST have a region called 'default'. any blocks that want to go into a non-existing region, will be placed there. " Good suggestion. Having a default region for blocks to show up sounds like a valuable backup. I'm thinking we might want to have a way to designate a given region as the default, rather than having to have one named 'default'. Thoughts? "We must define a standard listy of suggested region names. to avoid a wildgrowth of names. " Sure. But the patch doesn't prevent doing that--it enables it. "I am not sure if i like the way you do function phptemplate_regions(). these regions should be defined in the templqtes, not the engine. Otherwise all phptemplate themes will still all have two regions. " Oh, I wholeheartedly agree, and I've noted the issue above. But unless we substantially rewrite the engines, some region definition is needed in the engines, as they call blocks. Should we therefore define a base set in the engine, then call a hook from the engine to add any other regions from themes based on that engine? If so, where in the theme's files should such a hook be located? And a side note. Do let's make an effort to keep our comments friendly. Taking the time to note one or two things that do work or are done well as part of a review is I believe a valuable habit. It helps to confirm what is indeed accomplished. Beyond this, it helps to maintain the idea that we are collaborating on shared goals, rather than pushing individual and competing visions, and that contributions and work are appreciated, rather than being invitations to criticism. Thanks, Nedjo ------------------------------------------------------------------------ May 12, 2005 - 15:42 : chx I am implementing http://drupal.org/node/16216#comment-29282 but it takes time. regions again have names. default and sidebar regions are mandatory. This has little to do with nedjo's code much more with his idea -- I looked at the screenshot and said, OK this is great but... we'd like to have a lot more 'blocks' if this comes through, henceforth the above mentioned solution. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ May 12, 2005 - 16:39 : nedjo Okay, thanks for the clarification, I hadn't understood that you were taking a new approach rather than building on what I'd begun. Given that that's the case, staging as I'd suggested obviously won't work so I'm content to wait and see what you accomplish. I'd only suggest, don't feel like you need necessarily to do everything all at once. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ May 13, 2005 - 04:34 : Bèr Kessels Nedjo, sorry if the sound of my comment was hostile. it was never meant to be that way. I am busy, and thus did not want to comment all the things i liked about your patch, but chose to pick the much smaller amount of things I thought could use some improvement. I will try to keep in mind to be more friendly next times. Also, not all of us are as fluent in English as our native English speakers. I think its good to keep in mind that for a lot of us, communication in English is not as easy as it may seem. For me, it often requires a lot of concentration to get the subtleties right. I mean: I can type some English text, look up words in the dictionary, but to get small yet important subtleties in my texts is very hard, often. But, that all said: I liked your patch. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ June 10, 2005 - 07:08 : jakeg How far off is this from being officially released or at least usable? If its usable now, what files will I need to implement it? ------------------------------------------------------------------------ June 10, 2005 - 08:19 : Kobus Attachment: http://drupal.org/files/issues/regions---possibility-3.png (2.21 KB) To add to Stefan's suggestions with the two screenshots, I modified one of them a bit, and this is how I understand Jaza's post, and yes, I agree, this would be a wonderful feature! I can't wait! Imagine how good it would look if I had a theme that has a clear white background (not visible blocks) and then these seemingly random boxes on the page, as shown in the screenshot. Especially where I can place it anywhere around the node like Jaza said with a [region:2] block etc. I say again: I can't wait! Kobus ------------------------------------------------------------------------ June 10, 2005 - 09:59 : chx I need 3-4 hrs of peace to implement the callback based thing. That's a lot these days. Let's hope I'll get on it in the following days. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ June 18, 2005 - 18:32 : chx Here's an example again of how hook_block will look like: <?php function module_block() { $items = array(); $items['module_header'] = array('callback' => 'mymodule_function', 'callback arguments' => arg(1), 'weight' => -50, 'region' => 'content', 'cache' => TRUE, ''pages' => "node/*\n<front>"); return $items; } ?> Items are keyed by unique IDs. The template system will call module_invoke_all('block'), put the rendered HTML of the blocks into regions sorted by weight. The rendered HTML is cached if it is allowed. More keys will be introduced later, but now basically we just throw everything from block configure in here, and add callback, callback arguments, region. Node teasers or fullly rendered nodes are blocks, too. Almost everything is. So, here what happens when we are on taxonomy/term/1: taxonomy_render_nodes is called it calls block_set('node_view', $weight, $node, $teaser, $page); a few times, so a few node_view blocks will be on the page later the theme system is invoked. It will ask the block system to collect all blocks, dynamic and the static blocks as well. For all dynamic blocks we have a block defined in hook_block somewhere, like the definition above, with one exception: it will have a 'standalone' => FALSE pair, so it is not a standalone block which is automatically rendered but something that needs to explicitely requested. Also, we may define a 'suffix' => 'somefunction' pair which provides us with a cache ID suffix. Look at the code below: <?php function block_collect_blocks() { // get all block definitions $static_blocks = module_invoke_all('block'); // iterate of the dynamic blocks set on the page foreach (block_get() as $dynamic_block) { // get the block definition for the given dynamic block $static_block = $static_blocks[$dynamic_block['block']]; // merge the callback arguments from the dynamic and static. dynamic_block['callback arguments'] is always set though // may be empty if (isset($static_block['callback arguments'])) { $dynamic_block['callback arguments'] = array_merge($static_block['arguments'], $dynamic_block['callback arguments']); } // try to get a cache ID suffix $suffix = function_exists($static_block['suffix']) && call_user_func_array($static_block['suffix'], $dynamic_block['callback arguments']); // if the block is cacheable or the suffix function says that it is cacheable by setting a suffix if ($static_block['cache'] || $suffix) { // set cache ID $cid = 'block:'. $dynamic_block['block'] .':'. $suffix; // try to get the rendered HTML from cache if ($block_rendered = cache_get($cid)) { $return[$static_block['region'][$dynamic_block['weight']][] = $static_block_rendered; continue; } } // render the block $block_rendered = call_user_func_array($static_block['callback'], $dynamic_block['callback arguments']); // store the block for return $return[$static_block['region'][$dynamic_block['weight']][] = $static_block_rendered; if ($static_block['cache'] || $suffix) { // if cacheable, do it cache_set($cid, $static_block_rendered); } } foreach ($static_blocks as $key => $static_block) { // is this a stand alone block, like in Drupal 4.6? if ($static_block['standalone']) { // now, the above is repeated, save that we do not have a dynamic_block here $suffix = function_exists($static_block['suffix']) && call_user_func_array($static_block['suffix'], $static_block['callback arguments']); if ($static_block['cache'] || $suffix) { $cid = "block:$key:$suffix"; if ($block_rendered = cache_get($cid)) { $return[$static_block['region'][$static_block['weight']][] = $static_block_rendered; continue; } } $block_rendered = call_user_func_array($static_block['callback'], $static_block['callback arguments']); $return[$static_block['region']][$static_block['weight']][] = $static_block_rendered; if ($static_block['cache'] || $suffix) { cache_set($cid, $static_block_rendered); } } } } function block_set() { static $blocks; $args = func_get_args(); if (count($args)) { $callback = array_shift($args); $weight = array_shift($args); $blocks[] = array('block' => $function, 'weight' => $weight, 'callback arguments' => $args); } return $blocks; } function block_get() { return block_set(); } ?> When to expire the block cache? Never. If functions can call cache_clear all, they can be smart enough to cache_clear only those blocks that are changed by them. Some blocks won't be cacheable anyways, say there is little use in caching 'active forum topics' ------------------------------------------------------------------------ June 19, 2005 - 03:15 : Dries Frankly, I don't understand what you are trying to say. What is a 'dynamic', a 'static' and a 'standalone block'? What is the suffix for? What is the advantage of making node and taxonomy views blocks? If there is no big advantage, this is just bloat. All in all, it looks pretty complex to me. If we make Drupal more flexible _and_ more complex, people will get upset, and we end up being like Plone. Drupal's simplicity is something to foster, as it allows people to go in, and change stuff. The focus is to make Drupal simpler _and_ more flexible. I merely spent 10 minutes looking at this (reading your explanation twice, staring at the code), and the newly added complexity simply turns me off. Maybe that is because I don't understand what we are gaining. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ June 19, 2005 - 03:34 : Bèr Kessels * The first thing we gain, is, very slmple: more regions. But, how many? what regions? on what pages? in what location? bearing which name? For all these issues we need some callback system. To allow themers, administrators and module developers to give answers to all these questions. what we have now: sidebars, with only admin settings, is simply too limited: It takes serious hacking (~15 lines of code in your theme) to get a login block in your header! * The second thing we get for free: We are passing along chuncks of HTML, so why not cache them in a central place. Practice points out that our current cache is not used well. We leave it to developers to cache. And developers are lazy by nature. Just looks at all the places where caching should have been done, but is not. 9/10contribs have at least one of these places. You must actually see these issues separate. The new central blocks pulling system, and the caching. the latter is something that we get for free, a high level of advanced caching (how often has not been put forward Drupal seiously lacks better/advanced caching?). But we get it only for free if it is co-developed with the new regions blocks. And Last but not least, everything is a block, from a themer point of veiw. I know developers tend to think: I do the content, and do not care about where and how it turns up. That results in a content-centric system, what we have now. Everythng is built around aa single chunk of content. while, in fact content, is yet another block. Look at http://www.terminus1525.ca/index.php?l=en or http://www.franklinpennsylvania.us/ as it stands now, its up to the developer to concenate all the HTML in the center area, into a huge chunk of HTML. While in fact everyone can see that these are a lot of separate blocks. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ June 19, 2005 - 03:39 : Dries Ber: I was talking about chx's latest changes, not the block system in general. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ June 20, 2005 - 14:06 : nedjo I appreciate the update on directions being contemplated, although I find it confusing. Again, I'd caution, let's keep focused on the aim at hand, and on a staged solution. A bigger patch means greater complexity, more difficulty getting meaningful review, and greater delays in getting a priority change. We're currently in a position where we have two hard-coded regions for blocks, a major issue if nothing else than because it reflects poorly on Drupal's usability and versatility. Moving from here directly to something like "everything you see anywhere is a (nested) block in its own (nested) region" strikes me as a bigger step than we need to take. And in belated reply to Ber's note (#53 above [11]), thanks for the thoughtful comments, I didn't mean to single you out and acknowledge that language & cultural differences play a role, I feel we can all benefit from attention to communication. [11] http://www.drupal.org/node/16216#comment-29633 ------------------------------------------------------------------------ June 21, 2005 - 15:39 : Dries Even with the explanation in chx's sandbox, this is too complex for my likings. Here is a suggestion: let's drop the caching and the 'suffix'-stuff. Let's also drop the 'complete' and 'incomplete' stuff. Keep it _simple_, chx. IMO, you're creating a monster. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ June 22, 2005 - 16:47 : chx nedjo, take over. I am out. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ June 22, 2005 - 18:51 : djnz Quick and dirty solution? Let blocks be assignable to 9 locations - Top left, middle, right, middle left, middle right, bottom left, middle, right. The actual location of these areas within a theme is up to a theme designer, but the designer should include each of them - how about $sidebar['tl'], $sidebar['tm'], $sidebar['tr'] ... Backwards theme compatibility could easily be maintained by only creating the $sidebar array if the theme has set (eg in its template.php file for a PHPtemplate theme) a flag, otherwise generate $sidebar_left from the blocks set (in sequence) to top left, middle left, bottom left, top middle and middle middle (arbitrary break) with $sidebar_right the remainder. I appreciate I have no karma here and only superficial knowledge of the Drupal code, but sometimes the clarity of a view unclouded by too much information is useful ;) ------------------------------------------------------------------------ June 27, 2005 - 02:26 : nedjo Attachment: http://drupal.org/files/issues/regioning.patch (24.74 KB) " nedjo, take over. I am out. " Um, okay. I've given the question some more thought and come to the following conclusions: 1. If we take regions to be areas of the page that specific types of content are rendered into, and a regioning system to be a system to accomplish this, we already have a number of regions and different types of regioning systems. They include: (a) our current blocks system, and (b) the various drupal_set_[region]() functions, like drupal_set_comment(). (c) specialized hooks like our help system, which assembles content to be rendered into a region. 2. LIkely we should tease out regions from blocks. So attached is a next rough cut at regioning. Features: * Default region is defined in general admin settings page * Regions are defined in both engines and themes. A particular engine-based theme has the regions it defines plus the engine's default ones. * Content can be written to regions in two ways: through blocks or through drupal_set_content($region, $content) calls. Initial comments are welcome. I'll work on getting a more polished patch and also more explanation of the approach. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ June 27, 2005 - 02:43 : deekayen Disclaimer: I offer no code for this, so this is just a bunch of idealism I can't back up. djnz's comment makes sense if you want quick and dirty, but it seems to me the correct way to do things would be in terms of relatives. I would think doing it right the first time would be easier than redoing block location code twice. For example set a standard starting location; perhaps the start is 100% height/width conceptually. If you want to put something on the right, it would be the first block on the right of the starting block - let the theme manage widths. Then if you want another block on the right, or 10, just keep adding them relative to the others kind of like the current ordering of book pages or like adding more TD cells in a HTML table. Using this example under the current standard layout, the main block could be in the middle with with relative blocks on the left and right. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ June 28, 2005 - 06:26 : arnabdotorg It would be totally awesome to see multiple regions in Drupal 5, if not 4.7. This topic has been discussed several times before, noting them down for reference: http://drupal.org/node/2790 /[September 9th 2003]/ http://drupal.org/node/10653 http://drupal.org/node/13008 I also think it would be nice to have people implement multi-region themes; see what problems we encounter, and learn from it. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ June 28, 2005 - 08:28 : arnabdotorg Forgot to add, I've patched nedjo's final patch [12] to Drupal HEAD, it's up at http://arnab.drupaldevs.org/ [13]. [12] http://drupal.org/files/issues/regioning.patch [13] http://drupal.org/files/issues/regioning.patch ------------------------------------------------------------------------ June 28, 2005 - 12:57 : nedjo Attachment: http://drupal.org/files/issues/regioning2.patch (25.03 KB) Here's an improved version of the patch--several bug fixes, no new functionality. There are still a couple of loose ends (e.g., implementing the option of particular blocks not to be themed), and I haven't fully tested it. Further to my previous explanation, here is a summary of what the patch does. I'll mark as "new" the bits added in this week's iteration. Problem addressed: Currently, Drupal has two hard-coded regions into which block content is rendered: left and right. This situation severely limits the flexibility of content presentation. Aim: Enable multiple and extensible regions for blocks and other content. Approach: 1. Hard coded regions are removed from block.module. Instead, available regions are loaded dynamically. 2. Available regions are defined in themes (and, optionally, in modules). A theme or a theme engine defines its available regions through a themename_regions() function in themename.theme file or a enginename_regions() function in an enginename.engine file. New: engine-based themes can define their own regions in a .theme file. They will have all the engine's regions plus any they define. New: modules can define their own regions through a hook_regions() call. This should allow modules to define and use "inline" regions. For example, a module could define a region, then use a nodeapi() call to load content for that block and then insert it into a formatted box in $node->body. 3. New: the regions associated with a theme are loaded as part of the system_theme_data() call, and available regions are loaded through a system_region_list() function. 4. Previously stored as an integer, blocks' regions are changed to varchar, to enable storing of strings (e.g., 'left'). 5. A "default" region is defined (as a core setting), into which content will be rendered in the case that it's assigned to a region that's not available in the current theme. The options available for the default region are "core" regions, defined as all those available in all available themes. In the main block admin page, all regions not available in the current default theme are marked with an asterix, with an explanatory note. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ June 28, 2005 - 13:04 : nedjo Attachment: http://drupal.org/files/issues/showregions.module.txt (1.13 KB) Here's a sample module using the patch's regioning. When installed, it visually marks all available regions when you visit the page ?q=showregions. This is implemented using the proposed system_region_list() and drupal_set_content() functions. (I've attached a .txt extension to the module file since otherwise module files seem to get rewritten when uploaded.)

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[drupal-devel] [bug] Bootstrap patch fixes
by chx 02 Jul '05

02 Jul '05

Issue status update for http://drupal.org/node/25600 Project: Drupal Version: cvs Component: base system Category: bug reports Priority: critical Assigned to: chx Reported by: kubaZygmunt Updated by: chx Status: patch Dries, while the xmlrpc rewrite is under way please commit Bart's patch http://drupal.org/node/25600#comment-34362 chx Previous comments: ------------------------------------------------------------------------ June 23, 2005 - 13:28 : kubaZygmunt Attachment: http://drupal.org/files/issues/bootstrap.diff (422 bytes) I've found that new cvs version doesn't get properly db_prefix. In bootstrap.inc (function _drupal_bootstrap($phase) ) I added another global variable $db_prefix, and then it goes . I don't know if my solution is good because on my local site I can't see any blocks and on my internet site I have some caching and I can't see anything :) ------------------------------------------------------------------------ June 23, 2005 - 14:45 : kubaZygmunt Above I've put my patch ------------------------------------------------------------------------ June 23, 2005 - 14:56 : Jaza Attachment: http://drupal.org/files/issues/db_prefix_global.patch (582 bytes) Also noticed this bug, when trying to install a fresh CVS snapshot. Attached is my patch against CVS HEAD (same as kubaZygmunt's, basically). ------------------------------------------------------------------------ June 23, 2005 - 15:10 : chx Yes, this is a bug, if you look at the bootstrap patch, there were versions when I thought variables in settings.php should be written as $GLOBALS['something'] but then introduced global $something . Forgot when that something is db_prefix . ------------------------------------------------------------------------ June 28, 2005 - 07:26 : Jaza Can this patch be applied to HEAD please? This is not something that should be left sitting around in the issues list. Chx has identified that it was a simple honest mistake on his part, and has indicated that the submitted patch(es) will fix the mistake. Until this patch is applied, anyone who tries to install HEAD using db prefixes will get a fatal error. It doesn't get much more critical than that :-p. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ June 30, 2005 - 16:56 : Bart Jansens Attachment: http://drupal.org/files/issues/20050630.bootstrap-prefix-update.patch (1.21 KB) There is another related problem, it is no longer possible to override variables in settings.php. And update.php no longer works. Updated patch attached. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ June 30, 2005 - 17:04 : chx Attachment: http://drupal.org/files/issues/20050630.bootstrap-patch.patch (2.92 KB) Oh, and XML-RPC client is broken too. I talked with walkah and we found it the best to move xmlrpc.inc to modules which use them. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ June 30, 2005 - 17:09 : chx Attachment: http://drupal.org/files/issues/20050630.1.bootstrap-patch.patch (3.34 KB) some more xml-rpc fixes. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ June 30, 2005 - 17:20 : Steven Making XML-RPC a conditional include was discussed a while ago, and decided against due to problems with the class persistency. Why is this now possible? ------------------------------------------------------------------------ June 30, 2005 - 19:36 : walkah basically - it's not. the problem is, well, the xmlrpc.inc is not very well written. It requires / depends on several global variables, etc. which leads to a fair bit of the scoping issues. If you look at what PEAR has done with this (since their XML-RPC module is based on the same original code)... you'll notice lots of $GLOBALS['...'] usage (see http://cvs.php.net/co.php/pear/XML_RPC/RPC.php) . Basically, I think we have 3 options: 1) keep banging on this old code to make it work. 2) switch libraries to either PEAR::XML-RPC or something like incutio's (http://scripts.incutio.com/xmlrpc/) 3) re-write our own custom xml-rpc library personally, I'd +1 #2 - since #1 is ugly, and #3 I personally don't have time for, and I'd rather see our developer resources going to more interesting things. that said, i know there are those with strong feelings against 3rd party libraries... but this needs to get fixed quickly. blogapi and drupal dist_auth are both currently broken in HEAD. (isn't there anyone else here that tests XML-RPC stuff??) ------------------------------------------------------------------------ June 30, 2005 - 19:38 : walkah just to follow up.. chx's patch in #7 only fixes XMLRPC servers... anything that uses XML-RPC client (i.e. drupal_auth or ping) will still be busted. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ June 30, 2005 - 19:48 : moshe weitzman the 'we shouldn't use 3rd party libraries' argument is hogwash. that was recenyly followed up with 'look where that got us recently' which is even more stupid. security problems happen in your own code, and in other people's code. we've had several security mistakes of our own, and those mistakes have persisted a long time. the benefit of 3rd party libraries is that you don't have to write them, debug them, document them, or maintain them. if someone here is willing to do all of this for XMLRPC then great. But thats extremely unlikely so we either have to drop the whole feature set or use a 3rd party library. as you can tell, i favor #2 as well - switching libraries so we can do conditional inclusion. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ June 30, 2005 - 20:01 : Dries #2 isn't GPL ------------------------------------------------------------------------ June 30, 2005 - 20:07 : Dries Looks like WordPress might be using that class though. Weird. I know Wordpress had a least two security issues with their XML-RPC library (and they aren't using Edd Dumbill's). There is no word about this at http://scripts.incutio.com/xmlrpc/ so it looks like it isn't maintained either (which renders the advantages of using third-party libraries moot-ish). ------------------------------------------------------------------------ June 30, 2005 - 20:17 : Dries The WP developers confirmed that they are using this library. Turns out there is a new website for it too: http://simon.incutio.com/archive/2005/05/23/ixr. WordPress' version lives at http://trac.wordpress.org/log/trunk/wp-includes/class-IXR.php. Some extra details at http://trac.wordpress.org/ticket/1400. Looking at the code, it doesn't appear to be PHP5 compliant. Plus, I'm not sure the license is compatible. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ June 30, 2005 - 20:21 : chx I will rewrite the Incutio XML-RPC library for our own usage in July, I know this for quite a long time. a) I intend to start with Incutio's XML-RPC b) I contacted the author already and he is fine with GPL'ing the result. c) the result will be quite a bit different from the original, 'cos I'll make it use procedural notation and overall, more Drupalish. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ June 30, 2005 - 20:31 : chx " From: Simon Willison To: Karoly Negyesi Subject: Re: IXR GPL? Date: 05/25/05 18:40 On 25 May 2005, at 17:35, Karoly Negyesi wrote: > I'd like to get rid of the current XML-RPC implementation in Drupal > and use > IXR instead. Yours seems much more transparent and up to date. > > I plan to rewrite it a bit so that it looses OOP, this enables us to > conditionally include. > > However, Drupal is GPL and I need IXR under GPL to work with. Hmm... since you'll be rewriting it a bit, how's about I just give you permission to use it and relicense it as GPL provided you stick a note that it was derived (with permission) from IXR in a comment at the top somewhere? I really hate software licensing - I just want people to be able to use my code! Thanks, Simon "

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[drupal-devel] [feature] Enable customizing of "Title" field on node forms
by hanoii 02 Jul '05

02 Jul '05

Issue status update for http://drupal.org/node/10056 Project: Drupal Version: cvs Component: node system Category: feature requests Priority: normal Assigned to: Anonymous Reported by: Anonymous Updated by: hanoii Status: patch I posted too soon the thing before... :) I did further patches because of the validation keep telling that I have tu put a "title". I was happy with the previous patch, not so much with this one, but I let you know what I did... on the node.module, node_validate() function I move the title validation block just after the <?php // Do node-type-specific validation checks. node_invoke($node, 'validate'); node_invoke_nodeapi($node, 'validate'); ?> and added another parameter to the form_set_error() <?php // Validate the title field. if (isset($node->title)) { if (trim($node->title) == '') { form_set_error('title', t('You have to specify a title.'), TRUE); } } ?> then, on the form_set_error function in common.inc I did the following: <?php /** * File an error against the form element with the specified name. */ function form_set_error($name, $message, $checkexistance = FALSE ) { if ( !$checkexistance || $checkexistance && !isset($GLOBALS['form'][$name]) ) { $GLOBALS['form'][$name] = $message; drupal_set_message($message, 'error'); } } ?> So now, if any previous title error was added, and the $checkexistance flag is TRUE, no error will be added to the message queue. The moving place of the validation block was to let the modules validate first than the node module. Errrr.. I don't like it, but again, it worked :) a.= hanoii Previous comments: ------------------------------------------------------------------------ August 14, 2004 - 15:17 : Anonymous Attachment: http://drupal.org/files/issues/node.set-title-field.patch (2.02 KB) The default "title" field in a node object is useful but not always appropriate. For some node types it would be preferable to rename the field for display to users (e.g., from "title" to "name" for a record of an organization or business), while in others the title might be best drawn from a combination of other fields (e.g., first_name and last_name fields, for a record of an individual). This patch enables two new alternatives for node titles: renamingThe title field can be renamed, e.g., from "title" to "name". substutingOther fields can be substituted for the title field. The functionality is implemented through a new proposed node hook, _title_field($op). There are two possible values for $op: "action" (either "rename" or "substitute") and "names" (a list of field names to be used in the title field). Sample uses: [?PHP function example_title_field($node, $op) { switch ($op) { case 'action': $return = 'rename'; break; case 'names': $return = array('Name'); } return $return; } ?] In this case, since the requested action is "rename", the title field would be labelled "Name" (instead of "Title") in node add and edit forms for nodes of type "example". [?PHP function example_title_field($node, $op) { switch ($op) { case 'action': $return = 'substitute'; break; case 'names': $return = array('first_name', 'last_name'); } return $return; } ?] In this case, no "Title" field would be displayed in node add or node edit forms of node type "example". Instead, the fields "first_name" and "last_name" would be concatenated to form a title. Implementing this patch would significantly increase the flexibility of the node system, making it feasible to store information of many types not currently supported because they don't have a "title" attribute. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ August 15, 2004 - 13:39 : Dries This is best accomplished through the existing nodeapi hook, using a separate module. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ August 15, 2004 - 20:02 : nedjo Thanks for the suggestion. I did look for a way to accomplish this through _nodeapi (and other existing hooks), but couldn't see how. The "title" field is hard-coded into node.module. The _nodeapi hook allows various types of manipulations, but not, so far as I could see, changes to elements that have been generated by, e.g., form_textfield() calls. Are there possibilities I'm missing? Other approaches? Any specific suggestions as to means we could use to change the hard-coded "title" field? ------------------------------------------------------------------------ August 19, 2004 - 15:27 : nedjo Attachment: http://drupal.org/files/issues/node.set-title-field_0.patch (741 bytes) Drawing on Dries's suggestion, I've substantially revised this patch to enable node title field customization with only three additional lines of code in node.module. In place of the existing line in function node_form() <?php $output .= form_textfield(t('Title'), 'title', $edit->title, 60, 128, NULL, NULL, TRUE); ?> the patch substitutes a the following: <?php $title = variable_get('node_titlefield_'. $edit->type, 'Title'); if(!($title == 'none')) { $output .= form_textfield(t($title), 'title', $edit->title, 60, 128, NULL, NULL, TRUE); } ?> With this change in place, node modules will be able to override the standard node title label by setting a variable, node_titlefield_nodetype, where nodetype is the type of node. This could be done, e.g., in a _settings hook, so that the first time settings were accessed the module would set the variable: <?php if (variable_get('node_titlefield_example', '') == '') { // since none is already set, set this variable variable_set('node_titlefield_example', 'Name'); drupal_set_message('Example module initialization completed.'); } ?> The special value 'none' would suppress the title field altogether in node forms, used as follows: <?php if (variable_get('node_titlefield_example', '') == '') { // since none is already set, set this variable variable_set('node_titlefield_example', 'none'); drupal_set_message('Example module initialization completed.'); } ?> In this case, a _validate hook would be used to set the title field value. Assuming a module where a first name-last name combination was to be used for a title: <?php function example_validate(&$node) { if(!(isset($node->title))) { $node->title = $node->first_name . ' ' . node->last_name; } } ?> In short, this three-line addition to the node.module would significantly increase the flexibility of the node system by removing the hard-coded 'Title' field in node add and edit forms and instead enabling custom labelling or concatenation of the field from other sources. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ August 19, 2004 - 15:50 : moshe weitzman I like this functionality. But the implementation still seems unclean. I would prefer to simply remove the 'title' form field from node_form() and require that modules present this field in whatever way they please. in some cases, they will use a hidden form field because no customer interaction is required. This causes a break with backward compatibility, but cleanliness is facored over compatibilityness (when you must choose). I'm moving this back to 'Active', since I don't think this patch is committable as is. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ August 27, 2004 - 20:46 : nedjo Attachment: http://drupal.org/files/issues/node.set-title-field_1.patch (830 bytes) Thanks for looking at this. The suggestion - dropping the title field altogether and leaving this for module authors - has the advantage of simplicity. However, this change would imply significant new work as it would would require all or nearly all existing modules - core and contributed - be modified. While I think enabling title field customization is important for Drupal as a whole, and while this is a change I need for two modules I'm working on, I'm not immediately convinced that the benefits of this change justify this cost. Also, in most cases, the present title field works fine, so keeping it as a default option would I feel be desirable. Hence the following patch. In place of my (poorly conceived) initial hook proposals, above, this patch introduces a single very straightforward new node hook, _title_field. By setting this hook to return FALSE, node modules authors will suppress the default title field, and be free therefore to substitute what they wish or need. Returning TRUE, or not using the hook, will result in the default title field being used. Sample usage: <?php function example_title_field() { return FALSE; } ?> This is, I feel, a much better solution than the previous two I suggested--proof, if it's true, that the Drupal issue system works! ------------------------------------------------------------------------ September 6, 2004 - 12:50 : nedjo Are there any objections to or issues raised by this small patch (introducing a new hook to make the title field optional in node forms)? If not, can it be applied? ------------------------------------------------------------------------ September 7, 2004 - 10:46 : Anonymous I think I agree with Moshe's opinion that this should be accomplished by having node modules display the title field. In any event, this is a new feature and shouldn't go in during the feature freeze for 4.5. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ September 7, 2004 - 10:58 : ccourtne +1 for just moving the title field to be a responsibility of the implementing module instead of node_form. There is already to some extent "hook overload", in addition there may be several modules which don't want to even display a title module. Why add that only fixes some of the problems just to have to remove it later when you make a fix that address the whole problem. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ September 7, 2004 - 18:09 : nedjo Attachment: http://drupal.org/files/issues/node.remove-title-field.patch (636 bytes) Thanks for comments. As per feedback, the attached patch removes the title field from node forms, leaving this instead to node modules. Understood that possible approval of this patch this will need to wait until code unfrozen. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ October 24, 2004 - 09:06 : moshe weitzman please patch all core node modules as well. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ November 27, 2004 - 22:00 : nedjo Attachment: http://drupal.org/files/issues/node-move-form-title-field.patch (4.29 KB) Good point Moshe. This patch of node.module plus all core node modules simply moves the title field out of node.module and into the node modules, enabling (if desired) customization of the title field by a module. Patches to contributed modules will in most cases be as simple as adding the line <?php $output = form_textfield(t('Subject'), 'title', $node->title, 60, 128, NULL, NULL, TRUE); ?> at the beginning of a typename_form() function (and, if necessary changing an existing $output = to $output .=). In the attached patch, I've customized the title field for only one of the node types, calling the title of a forum topic the "Subject". We could consider calling the title of a blog a "Subject" or "Topic" as well. I feel this is a good solution (thanks for the feedback and discussion) and, for minimal work (minor updates to contributed modules), will have the significant benefit of enabling flexibility in content types beyond those that have "title" attributes. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ November 28, 2004 - 14:45 : nedjo Ability to customize title as provided in this patch was requested here [1]: "When adding/editing, the 'title' field is manditory, which is fine. Except that its label is hardcoded to 'title'. A custom node modelling, say, a 'Company' would much rather this field be presented to the user as 'Company Name'. " [1] http://drupal.org/node/13596 ------------------------------------------------------------------------ March 4, 2005 - 00:44 : nedjo Here's another patch that's sat for months without being either applied or turned down, although there was expressed support and, after several iterations, it addressed all issues that had been raised. The point is to remove the hard-coded "Title" field - inapprioriate for many node types, e.g., companies - from node forms, instead allowing node modules to treat this as appropriate (e.g., a "Subject", "Name" or "Topic", or nothing at all). Are there problems with this approach that were not raised? Is there a reason this wasn't accepted? ------------------------------------------------------------------------ March 4, 2005 - 00:54 : Steven nedjo: if you read the backlog you can see that this feature was delayed for after the 4.6 release. "I've customized the title field for only one of the node types, calling the title of a forum topic the "Subject". " This is really inconsistent, as what you call the title of a blog, story or forum node is purely subjective. "Subject" "Topic" and "Title" are pretty much interchageable and any subtle differences will surely be eroded by translation. The only thing I can agree on so far is naming a polls' title "Question". ------------------------------------------------------------------------ March 4, 2005 - 02:15 : nedjo Thanks for the note. I'm not sure what you mean by the "backlog". Where would I find this? I agree that a "Question" field would make sense for polls. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ March 4, 2005 - 11:12 : JonBob Actually UnConeD, it was postponed until after the 4.5 release, not 4.6, and looks like everyone forgot about it when the release happened. And no, Nedjo, I don't take this as proof that Drupal needs more bureaucracy. :-) Marking this active again; I'm sure the patch will have to be updated once the code branches. We had rolled this function into the needs for CCK, but in our discussions split it off again. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ April 3, 2005 - 02:28 : chx Attachment: http://drupal.org/files/issues/node-move-form-title-field_0.patch (4.59 KB) The patch applies to ucrrent HEAD with some offset. I have rerolled it so it applies cleanly. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ May 20, 2005 - 07:09 : chx Patch still applies (yes, with some offset, but applies). ANd yes, we need this very badly. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ May 20, 2005 - 07:18 : Thox I'd benefit greatly from having a feature like this. The example already given is one of the cases I need it: I'd like the title field to be a concatenation of two fields: "First name" and "Last name". ------------------------------------------------------------------------ May 24, 2005 - 00:39 : gsperk I wonder if someone could help me with the following problem. After applying the patch I made the output for 'title' in my own_node.module this: $output .= form_hidden('title', $node->firstname . ' ' . $node->surname); When the form is first submitted I get the error 'You have to specify a title'. When I submit again the firstname/surname variables are obviously in $node, and the form submits with the desired title. So, I suppose my question is, how can get the values for firstname and surname into $node without submitting twice? (If it's not obvious I can confirm that I dont have much experience with this kind of stuff. Any suggestions would be a big help.) ------------------------------------------------------------------------ May 25, 2005 - 01:23 : Steven To make this patch work you also need to move the title validation out of node.module and into the node modules. I don't think this is that much of a problem, it is code that is not going to be touched much. Also, in light of the upcoming CCK it makes sense to do it like this. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ July 2, 2005 - 14:02 : hanoii Nice thread. I have come up with a slightly different approach I think that would need less patching/updating of other modules. Drupal 4.6.2 node.module:1275 <?php // Get the node-specific bits. // We can't use node_invoke() because $param must be passed by reference. $function = node_get_module_name($edit) .'_form'; $param = array(); if (function_exists($function)) { $form .= $function($edit, $param, $title); } ?> Notice the $title param on the hook_form invoke. This was what I added. As that hook is called like this an not with the node_invoke() I can define on my custom node module, or patch any module I need to modify the title description with the following hook: <?php function budget_form(&$node, &$params, &$title) { ?> and modify the $title argument there, as it is by reference, It will me modified on node.module. Then again on node.module:1319 I added/changed the following: <?php if ( ! $title ) { $title = t('Title') ; } $output .= form_textfield($title, 'title', $edit->title, 60, 128, NULL, NULL, TRUE); ?> So, if the module modify the title var, it uses that, if not, it uses the default one. Worked for me so far, nice to post on drupal. Greetings, a.=

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[drupal-devel] [feature] Enable customizing of "Title" field on node forms
by hanoii 02 Jul '05

02 Jul '05

Issue status update for http://drupal.org/node/10056 Project: Drupal Version: cvs Component: node system Category: feature requests Priority: normal Assigned to: Anonymous Reported by: Anonymous Updated by: hanoii Status: patch Nice thread. I have come up with a slightly different approach I think that would need less patching/updating of other modules. Drupal 4.6.2 node.module:1275 <?php // Get the node-specific bits. // We can't use node_invoke() because $param must be passed by reference. $function = node_get_module_name($edit) .'_form'; $param = array(); if (function_exists($function)) { $form .= $function($edit, $param, $title); } ?> Notice the $title param on the hook_form invoke. This was what I added. As that hook is called like this an not with the node_invoke() I can define on my custom node module, or patch any module I need to modify the title description with the following hook: <?php function budget_form(&$node, &$params, &$title) { ?> and modify the $title argument there, as it is by reference, It will me modified on node.module. Then again on node.module:1319 I added/changed the following: <?php if ( ! $title ) { $title = t('Title') ; } $output .= form_textfield($title, 'title', $edit->title, 60, 128, NULL, NULL, TRUE); ?> So, if the module modify the title var, it uses that, if not, it uses the default one. Worked for me so far, nice to post on drupal. Greetings, a.= hanoii Previous comments: ------------------------------------------------------------------------ August 14, 2004 - 15:17 : Anonymous Attachment: http://drupal.org/files/issues/node.set-title-field.patch (2.02 KB) The default "title" field in a node object is useful but not always appropriate. For some node types it would be preferable to rename the field for display to users (e.g., from "title" to "name" for a record of an organization or business), while in others the title might be best drawn from a combination of other fields (e.g., first_name and last_name fields, for a record of an individual). This patch enables two new alternatives for node titles: renamingThe title field can be renamed, e.g., from "title" to "name". substutingOther fields can be substituted for the title field. The functionality is implemented through a new proposed node hook, _title_field($op). There are two possible values for $op: "action" (either "rename" or "substitute") and "names" (a list of field names to be used in the title field). Sample uses: [?PHP function example_title_field($node, $op) { switch ($op) { case 'action': $return = 'rename'; break; case 'names': $return = array('Name'); } return $return; } ?] In this case, since the requested action is "rename", the title field would be labelled "Name" (instead of "Title") in node add and edit forms for nodes of type "example". [?PHP function example_title_field($node, $op) { switch ($op) { case 'action': $return = 'substitute'; break; case 'names': $return = array('first_name', 'last_name'); } return $return; } ?] In this case, no "Title" field would be displayed in node add or node edit forms of node type "example". Instead, the fields "first_name" and "last_name" would be concatenated to form a title. Implementing this patch would significantly increase the flexibility of the node system, making it feasible to store information of many types not currently supported because they don't have a "title" attribute. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ August 15, 2004 - 13:39 : Dries This is best accomplished through the existing nodeapi hook, using a separate module. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ August 15, 2004 - 20:02 : nedjo Thanks for the suggestion. I did look for a way to accomplish this through _nodeapi (and other existing hooks), but couldn't see how. The "title" field is hard-coded into node.module. The _nodeapi hook allows various types of manipulations, but not, so far as I could see, changes to elements that have been generated by, e.g., form_textfield() calls. Are there possibilities I'm missing? Other approaches? Any specific suggestions as to means we could use to change the hard-coded "title" field? ------------------------------------------------------------------------ August 19, 2004 - 15:27 : nedjo Attachment: http://drupal.org/files/issues/node.set-title-field_0.patch (741 bytes) Drawing on Dries's suggestion, I've substantially revised this patch to enable node title field customization with only three additional lines of code in node.module. In place of the existing line in function node_form() <?php $output .= form_textfield(t('Title'), 'title', $edit->title, 60, 128, NULL, NULL, TRUE); ?> the patch substitutes a the following: <?php $title = variable_get('node_titlefield_'. $edit->type, 'Title'); if(!($title == 'none')) { $output .= form_textfield(t($title), 'title', $edit->title, 60, 128, NULL, NULL, TRUE); } ?> With this change in place, node modules will be able to override the standard node title label by setting a variable, node_titlefield_nodetype, where nodetype is the type of node. This could be done, e.g., in a _settings hook, so that the first time settings were accessed the module would set the variable: <?php if (variable_get('node_titlefield_example', '') == '') { // since none is already set, set this variable variable_set('node_titlefield_example', 'Name'); drupal_set_message('Example module initialization completed.'); } ?> The special value 'none' would suppress the title field altogether in node forms, used as follows: <?php if (variable_get('node_titlefield_example', '') == '') { // since none is already set, set this variable variable_set('node_titlefield_example', 'none'); drupal_set_message('Example module initialization completed.'); } ?> In this case, a _validate hook would be used to set the title field value. Assuming a module where a first name-last name combination was to be used for a title: <?php function example_validate(&$node) { if(!(isset($node->title))) { $node->title = $node->first_name . ' ' . node->last_name; } } ?> In short, this three-line addition to the node.module would significantly increase the flexibility of the node system by removing the hard-coded 'Title' field in node add and edit forms and instead enabling custom labelling or concatenation of the field from other sources. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ August 19, 2004 - 15:50 : moshe weitzman I like this functionality. But the implementation still seems unclean. I would prefer to simply remove the 'title' form field from node_form() and require that modules present this field in whatever way they please. in some cases, they will use a hidden form field because no customer interaction is required. This causes a break with backward compatibility, but cleanliness is facored over compatibilityness (when you must choose). I'm moving this back to 'Active', since I don't think this patch is committable as is. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ August 27, 2004 - 20:46 : nedjo Attachment: http://drupal.org/files/issues/node.set-title-field_1.patch (830 bytes) Thanks for looking at this. The suggestion - dropping the title field altogether and leaving this for module authors - has the advantage of simplicity. However, this change would imply significant new work as it would would require all or nearly all existing modules - core and contributed - be modified. While I think enabling title field customization is important for Drupal as a whole, and while this is a change I need for two modules I'm working on, I'm not immediately convinced that the benefits of this change justify this cost. Also, in most cases, the present title field works fine, so keeping it as a default option would I feel be desirable. Hence the following patch. In place of my (poorly conceived) initial hook proposals, above, this patch introduces a single very straightforward new node hook, _title_field. By setting this hook to return FALSE, node modules authors will suppress the default title field, and be free therefore to substitute what they wish or need. Returning TRUE, or not using the hook, will result in the default title field being used. Sample usage: <?php function example_title_field() { return FALSE; } ?> This is, I feel, a much better solution than the previous two I suggested--proof, if it's true, that the Drupal issue system works! ------------------------------------------------------------------------ September 6, 2004 - 12:50 : nedjo Are there any objections to or issues raised by this small patch (introducing a new hook to make the title field optional in node forms)? If not, can it be applied? ------------------------------------------------------------------------ September 7, 2004 - 10:46 : Anonymous I think I agree with Moshe's opinion that this should be accomplished by having node modules display the title field. In any event, this is a new feature and shouldn't go in during the feature freeze for 4.5. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ September 7, 2004 - 10:58 : ccourtne +1 for just moving the title field to be a responsibility of the implementing module instead of node_form. There is already to some extent "hook overload", in addition there may be several modules which don't want to even display a title module. Why add that only fixes some of the problems just to have to remove it later when you make a fix that address the whole problem. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ September 7, 2004 - 18:09 : nedjo Attachment: http://drupal.org/files/issues/node.remove-title-field.patch (636 bytes) Thanks for comments. As per feedback, the attached patch removes the title field from node forms, leaving this instead to node modules. Understood that possible approval of this patch this will need to wait until code unfrozen. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ October 24, 2004 - 09:06 : moshe weitzman please patch all core node modules as well. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ November 27, 2004 - 22:00 : nedjo Attachment: http://drupal.org/files/issues/node-move-form-title-field.patch (4.29 KB) Good point Moshe. This patch of node.module plus all core node modules simply moves the title field out of node.module and into the node modules, enabling (if desired) customization of the title field by a module. Patches to contributed modules will in most cases be as simple as adding the line <?php $output = form_textfield(t('Subject'), 'title', $node->title, 60, 128, NULL, NULL, TRUE); ?> at the beginning of a typename_form() function (and, if necessary changing an existing $output = to $output .=). In the attached patch, I've customized the title field for only one of the node types, calling the title of a forum topic the "Subject". We could consider calling the title of a blog a "Subject" or "Topic" as well. I feel this is a good solution (thanks for the feedback and discussion) and, for minimal work (minor updates to contributed modules), will have the significant benefit of enabling flexibility in content types beyond those that have "title" attributes. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ November 28, 2004 - 14:45 : nedjo Ability to customize title as provided in this patch was requested here [1]: "When adding/editing, the 'title' field is manditory, which is fine. Except that its label is hardcoded to 'title'. A custom node modelling, say, a 'Company' would much rather this field be presented to the user as 'Company Name'. " [1] http://drupal.org/node/13596 ------------------------------------------------------------------------ March 4, 2005 - 00:44 : nedjo Here's another patch that's sat for months without being either applied or turned down, although there was expressed support and, after several iterations, it addressed all issues that had been raised. The point is to remove the hard-coded "Title" field - inapprioriate for many node types, e.g., companies - from node forms, instead allowing node modules to treat this as appropriate (e.g., a "Subject", "Name" or "Topic", or nothing at all). Are there problems with this approach that were not raised? Is there a reason this wasn't accepted? ------------------------------------------------------------------------ March 4, 2005 - 00:54 : Steven nedjo: if you read the backlog you can see that this feature was delayed for after the 4.6 release. "I've customized the title field for only one of the node types, calling the title of a forum topic the "Subject". " This is really inconsistent, as what you call the title of a blog, story or forum node is purely subjective. "Subject" "Topic" and "Title" are pretty much interchageable and any subtle differences will surely be eroded by translation. The only thing I can agree on so far is naming a polls' title "Question". ------------------------------------------------------------------------ March 4, 2005 - 02:15 : nedjo Thanks for the note. I'm not sure what you mean by the "backlog". Where would I find this? I agree that a "Question" field would make sense for polls. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ March 4, 2005 - 11:12 : JonBob Actually UnConeD, it was postponed until after the 4.5 release, not 4.6, and looks like everyone forgot about it when the release happened. And no, Nedjo, I don't take this as proof that Drupal needs more bureaucracy. :-) Marking this active again; I'm sure the patch will have to be updated once the code branches. We had rolled this function into the needs for CCK, but in our discussions split it off again. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ April 3, 2005 - 02:28 : chx Attachment: http://drupal.org/files/issues/node-move-form-title-field_0.patch (4.59 KB) The patch applies to ucrrent HEAD with some offset. I have rerolled it so it applies cleanly. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ May 20, 2005 - 07:09 : chx Patch still applies (yes, with some offset, but applies). ANd yes, we need this very badly. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ May 20, 2005 - 07:18 : Thox I'd benefit greatly from having a feature like this. The example already given is one of the cases I need it: I'd like the title field to be a concatenation of two fields: "First name" and "Last name". ------------------------------------------------------------------------ May 24, 2005 - 00:39 : gsperk I wonder if someone could help me with the following problem. After applying the patch I made the output for 'title' in my own_node.module this: $output .= form_hidden('title', $node->firstname . ' ' . $node->surname); When the form is first submitted I get the error 'You have to specify a title'. When I submit again the firstname/surname variables are obviously in $node, and the form submits with the desired title. So, I suppose my question is, how can get the values for firstname and surname into $node without submitting twice? (If it's not obvious I can confirm that I dont have much experience with this kind of stuff. Any suggestions would be a big help.) ------------------------------------------------------------------------ May 25, 2005 - 01:23 : Steven To make this patch work you also need to move the title validation out of node.module and into the node modules. I don't think this is that much of a problem, it is code that is not going to be touched much. Also, in light of the upcoming CCK it makes sense to do it like this.

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[drupal-devel] [bug] Block region selection in Drupal 4.6.2 is buggy
by Goba 02 Jul '05

02 Jul '05

Issue status update for http://drupal.org/node/26233 Project: Drupal Version: 4.6.2 Component: block.module Category: bug reports Priority: normal Assigned to: Anonymous Reported by: Goba Updated by: Goba Status: patch Attachment: http://drupal.org/files/issues/Drupal.block-selection-fix.patch (824 bytes) Block module has a IN('%s') SQL portion when selecting block regions, while block regions are numbers, so passing on multiple regions (as it is with the 'all' region parameter by default) results in IN('0, 1') and this is incorrect to match integers. Correct form is IN(0, 1). Spotted while upgrading to Drupal 4.6.2. This might be a problem in HEAD too, since this seems to be related to the multiple block regions patch. Goba

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[drupal-devel] [bug] array-merge() error thrown (issue when rolling back node revisions)
by Dries 02 Jul '05

02 Jul '05

Issue status update for http://drupal.org/node/16140 Project: Drupal Version: cvs Component: menu system Category: bug reports Priority: normal Assigned to: Anonymous Reported by: lyk0s(a)drupal.org Updated by: Dries Status: patch I think we can avoid having to do the array_merge() in this case. Would be nice if you could a slightly cleaner solution. It might be possible. Dries Previous comments: ------------------------------------------------------------------------ January 25, 2005 - 05:25 : lyk0s(a)drupal.org warning: array_merge() [function.array-merge]: Argument #1 is not an array in /Web/cybertrib.com/..../includes/menu.inc on line 349. (I am using PHP 5 :) ------------------------------------------------------------------------ June 30, 2005 - 15:43 : townxelliot Attachment: http://drupal.org/files/issues/menu.inc_2.patch (596 bytes) As far as I can tell, this bug is still not fixed in the latest (as of today) CVS version. I've attached a patch for it (diff -Nur, as I couldn't work out what the preferred patch format for Drupal is). I found the error occurred when running under PHP 5 and attempting to rollback to a previous revision of a node.

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