[development] Code freeze reminder

[Jeff Eaton]

On Jun 21, 2007, at 12:08 PM, Earl Miles wrote:

> Now fivestar comes along and adds 'fivestar_voting_widget'. I have  
> to search the module's documentation to find that?
>
> This is the real problem I'm trying to address here. Modules name  
> this stuff and it's very difficult to find. This is especially true  
> of FAPI which has lots of little widgets and gears and each form  
> names things differently and figuring out what you want to tweak is  
> simply difficult.

That's actually one of the primary reasons I advocate using Drupal  
rendering systems. We face the same problems when rendering a form --  
how can my themed form include fields that other modules altered in?  
I don't know what they are!

Right now, the node theming problem is the all-or-nothing approach.  
You print out $content, or you abandon it and start slinging around  
individual node properties yourself. It's essential that themers be  
able to say, 'Pull this piece out -- I know it's there. And this  
piece, too. Stick those over here in a span. Now, print everything  
else that's left over in this div.'

Drupal's rendering system -- in addition to capturing lots of rich  
metadata, etc -- gives us that for free. Render $node['content'] in  
one div, $node['info'] in another, and $node['comments'] in a  
third... or just pull out $node['links'], then printing all of $node  
to pick up whatever is left over.

--Jeff