[development] input formats

[Jeremy Epstein]

On 10/26/06, zis <zis at beiruter.com> wrote:
> There currently is no way of assigning input formats to node types..
>
> It shouldn't be too difficult to implement. Each content type
> configuration page can have a section with a filter selection and
> weighting..
>
> and there would be a overall site default that could be overridden by
> the content type specific filters...

I like the idea in principle. However, we'd have to be careful when
implementing this, for a number of reasons:

1. The filter system is currently independent of the node system -
filters can be applied to any text (e.g. comment text, block text,
static text), not just to node text. We want to keep it this way. So a
'tie input formats to node types' feature would have to be developed
with this in mind - it should apply only to the use of the filter
system by the node system, and it should not break the use of the
filter system by other systems.

2. The filter administration screens are already a well-known
usability bottleneck in Drupal. Users are already confused as to the
difference between an input format and a filter, the way in which
filters can be tied to multiple input formats, and the way in which
filters can be configured differently per input format. We don't want
to make this usability bottleneck even worse, by adding yet another
layer of association and configuration.

If possible, this should be developed as a contrib module first, and
then considered for addition into core at a later stage. Not sure how
easy it would be to implement this without hacking core at all,
though.

Have you written any code or produced any design mockups yet, and if
so, can you post a link to them?

Cheers,
Jaza.