Ed Johnson wrote on 29 Oct 2009 15:26
I just started to look closer at Brunhilda's Album Template and quickly realized that this site could end up being a bit of work of an admin to maintain.
Since each album is its own autonumbered category, the albums have to be pre-populated by an admin. That got me thinking that it would be really useful if we had a [[module NewCategory parameters]] that has similar characteristics as [[module NewPage parameters]]. Since the functionality is already working in Site Manager, maybe it wouldn't be too tough to port it to a module.
At this point, the only useful parameters I can think of are:
- autonumber = true/false (default=false)
- permissions = ??? (not sure how the syntax should look - currently there are 4 user levels and 8 permission categories to consider)
There are still issues that keep this complicated enough that an admin will have to stay on top of things.
The thumbnail pages are in category album:, i.e album:album01.
Then each image is on its own page in category album01: and autonumbered, i.e album01:1.
So, for each album on the site, the admin needs to create a page in category album: and then create a category associated with that new page that has autonumbering enabled and appropriate permissions set.
If we could have a companion module to NewCategory called ListCategories there might be a way to automatically create the navigation once a user creates a new category. Maybe there is a creative way ListPages could be used so we don't add to the dev team's workload.
For experienced Wikidot users who don't mind being very "hands on" with their site, this is OK, but for novice users I can see that setting up and maintaining a site based on this template might be challenging.
-Ed
No it doesn't. There is nothing to maintain, since everything is already done. I imagined this site as a site of 10 albums for someone who doesn't have a clue about Wikidot. So, you have 10 albums where you can put your pictures and that's it. Of course, someone who has notion of Wikidot syntax easily can make more albums, or maybe I could have made more than 10 of them, I don't know. I started first at ciruela, then started to make instructions for making albums and realized that it is too much for a non Wikidot person, therefore I decided to create 10 albums. The only thing that an owner of the album site has to do is to upload his pictures and write explanations for them. He can also delete the picture or the whole picture page, too.
It would be good to be able to create the new category all at once. As far as permissions, actually, you need two levels: one that is the owner of the album and can put pictures, write descriptions etc. And the other is simple member, who can only comment the pictures or the whole album and nothing more.
If slaughterhouses had glass walls, everyone would be vegan. - Paul McCartney
I understand your thinking now after reading your explanation, but I wasn't clear that was your intent in the beginning. I think this template is a great way to showcase images that include descriptions - I just wish there was an easier way to maintain it so the site can grow dynamically without a lot of extra administrative work.
Since my first post, I've been wondering if we couldn't implement something similar to what this forum uses by integrating parenting into the albums. My head hurts right now… I have to think about this some more later. :)
-Ed
Community Admin
Hmmm… Looks like CSI broke something on this forum.
Community Admin
Hm… CSI? What's this? The only CSI I know is the one with Grissom and Horatio… :D (Criminal Scene Investigation)
If slaughterhouses had glass walls, everyone would be vegan. - Paul McCartney
Cross-Site Includes
See the changelog post. It was just partially implemented today and documented here.
Maybe Grissom can come out of retirement to investigate!
-Ed
Community Admin
Wow! I have to update myself… I had no idea about this… :D
If slaughterhouses had glass walls, everyone would be vegan. - Paul McCartney
Short term memory loss? :) You commented on the documentation page back on 24 September:
http://blog.wikidot.com/design:10/noredirect/true/comments/show#post-592513
I can't give you too much grief. I can barely remember what I had for dinner last night!
I am playing around with a cloned version of the photo template tonight and may have a scheme worked out that gives you the simple functionality you designed and me the flexibility to add albums without an admin making placeholders for them first. Stay tuned…
-Ed
Community Admin
buahahahaa… Oh, Ed… I can guarantee you that at that time I didn't have a clue what all of you were talking about. I probably thought it was about ListPages module since it was also mentioned there.. And yes, I do forget a lot… This was NOT the first time, nor the first forum where people remember better than myself what I said or wrote in the past… :P
This would be fantastic, because then the number of albums wouldn't be limited. This was my first idea, but with my miniature knowledge I couldn't make it real…
If slaughterhouses had glass walls, everyone would be vegan. - Paul McCartney