[drupal-devel] Idea - move help text out of code into database

[Kobus Myburgh]

Hi,

I am not sure how MUCH easier it will be to maintain. Let me put it this way - after having done a complete translation of Drupal in the last few weeks, I only got to work with POEDIT, and that was very easy. I am assuming you refer to searching for translatable strings within a module which would be easier to find? I am not sure how it will make it easier to store that in the database?

It will definately, in my opinion, not make it easier to translate. I believe this to be as simple as it gets. I might be proven wrong though - all I am saying here is that it is not difficult at all to translate for me.

The user experience level item you've mentioned. This might be a good thing, but it will also entail that different definitions of help should be defined for the site (different help for novice users than for advanced users...) and I am not sure how much more work this would be - maybe worth an evaluation?

One concern I have here is whether it will affect speed. I can't vouch to do benchmark testing as I don't have the utilities for it, but maybe that could be evaluated too?

Kobus


>>> puregin at puregin.org 5/13/2005 7:56:57 AM >>>
     I'm going to re-float here on both lists the idea of having each
module's help texts provided within the Drupal database, as opposed to
being hardcoded in.

     Advantages: the help text documentation would be
        - easier to maintain
        - easier to translate
        - easy to tailor to user's experience level and preferences
           (tag each helptext with a 'User experience level" vocabulary
            and select the text according to the user's preferences)

     I think it would make the code easier to maintain also.

     Code review and documentation review could occur
independently.

     Comments?

     Djun