[drupal-devel] [feature] Allow different content marker types

Sat Jan 29 21:39:24 UTC 2005

 Project:      Drupal
 Version:      cvs
 Component:    base system
 Category:     feature requests
 Priority:     normal
 Assigned to:  Goba
 Reported by:  Goba
 Updated by:   Goba
 Status:       patch

Updated is not unread. Also there could be 'read' marks. Your email client has marks for read and unread messages doesn't it? Drupal will allow this too. If we rename 'content' to 'unread', then the unread marker would be able to signify that something is changed (while it was already read) and that it was read (which is odd for an unread mark you must admit :).

Goba

Previous comments:
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January 26, 2005 - 22:47 : Goba

Attachment: http://drupal.org/files/issues/Drupal-allow-different-markers.patch (4.21 KB)

This simple and straightforward patch adds the ability to define different types of markers (while retaining the old default behaviour of the new and required markers to look the same). Someone with enough time on his hands might be able to partition the new marker to a real new marker and a changed marker (since node_is_new() returns TRUE even if nodes changed, and not only when they are new). This is the base on which the new patch can be worked though.

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January 27, 2005 - 07:19 : Dries

Being able to differentiate between 'updated' and 'new' would be a plus.  (Basecamp does it for example, and it has been suggested repeatedly by Kika/Kristjan.)

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January 27, 2005 - 08:45 : stefan nagtegaal

First of all, i like the patch..
Another usability improvement wou be to have a little helptext at the bottom of the form which tell you something like:
<?php
return t("The fields with a '%marker' are required to fill in.", array('%marker' => theme('mark', 'required')));
?>

Under the tables of tracker, node, comment, and whereever items/users or whatever may be marked as new, i expect:
<?php
return t("The fields with a '%marker' are new.", array('%marker' => theme('mark', 'new')));
return t("The fields with a '%marker' are updated.", array('%marker' => theme('mark', 'updated')));
?>

What do ou guys think?

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January 27, 2005 - 12:41 : Goba

Stefan, markers are not necesserily inline. At one of my sites, we use a right floated block element to indicate that something is new. So this kind of help text will not work... The marker however can contain some help in itself in a title="" attribute, so that those hovering over it with their mouse can get an idea on what it is.

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January 27, 2005 - 13:57 : Dries

Committed to HEAD.

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January 27, 2005 - 18:40 : Goba

Attachment: http://drupal.org/files/issues/Drupal-differentiate-content-markers.patch (6.48 KB)

Suprise :) In real incremental patching sense, here is a patch to introduce the different new and updated makers. It operates with passing on the info to theme('mark'), and then letting it decide on what to do with it. This also enables people to do 'read' markers, if so desired (displaying different icons for read, uread and updated content).

Renamed the 'new' marker to 'content', so that it is not misleading, and introduced some constants, to help along the way. 'node' might be a better name instead of 'content', but it is just a search and replace in the patch, so Dries can fix it up, if needed. Also introduced the unkown maker for anonymous users. The practice before was that by setting the last view time to time(), markers are always displayed as 'read' for anonymous users. But with the different icons possibility in mind, it is important to distinguish the case when we cannot decide on whether a content is new/updated or not, because we have no data. This is why the unkown marker is introduced.

I admit I have not tested the patch, but it should work well, theoretically. Kept the original interface behaviour, which does not expose much from the power of the markers, but preserves the currently expected output.

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January 27, 2005 - 18:52 : Goba

Attachment: http://drupal.org/files/issues/Drupal-differentiate-content-markers2.patch (7.29 KB)

Wups, forgot to adjust one usage of node_is_new(). Plus renamed it to node_marker(), since it is not anymore only about checking on whether it is new or not...

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January 27, 2005 - 19:57 : Anonymous

Shouldn't 'MARKER_UNKOWN' be 'MARKER_UNKNOWN'?  Why do we need an "unknown" possibility anyway?  Wouldn't we just omit markers for anonymous users?

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January 27, 2005 - 22:55 : Goba

Markers are only important for logged in users, yes. We need to somehow omit the markers. We can check for the user in theme_mark(), but we need to check for the user in node_marker() anyway, since otherwise we would do an unnecessery database lookup for each marker. So we can return MARKER_READ in node_marker() and omit the marker regardless of the $marker if the $type is 'new' and the user is not logged in. So we need to check for the user in the theme function too...

BTW the terminology I introduced seems to be inconsitent: node_marker() vs. theme_mark(). It might be desireable to rename the theme function, or use MARK_ constants and node_mark(). Pick the way.

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January 29, 2005 - 18:37 : Goba

Attachment: http://drupal.org/files/issues/Drupal-differentiate-content-markers3.patch (7.42 KB)

Since noone hinted on a way to pick, I needed to decide myself :) Gone is the unkown marker, and now it is the theme's task to not display content markers for anonymous users (while still keeping the required marker for them). The contants and functions were renamed to use 'mark' instead of 'marker' in line with the existing theme_mark() function. Still the same functionality, but with less code compared with the previous patch.

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January 29, 2005 - 21:52 : andremolnar

I think it might be helpful if you expanded the phpdocs for the constant definitions to describe when, where, how they are used. Right now the text only says 'Markers used to designate content.' 

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January 29, 2005 - 22:02 : Goba

Attachment: http://drupal.org/files/issues/Drupal-differentiate-content-markers4.patch (7.53 KB)

Updated patch, which links to theme_mark() and node_mark(). Otherwise I think the names of the constants really tell everything.

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January 29, 2005 - 22:14 : tangent

I find the new "content" state to be less meaningful than the old "new" state. The word "new" is an adjective while "content" is a noun which, to me, applies to everything.

Perhaps "unread" would be a more appropriate state since that is the content that the marker identifies.

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View: http://drupal.org/node/16253
Edit: http://drupal.org/project/comments/add/16253