Since this came up in the pmdev wiki, I'll outline some design notes for a long-standing desire I've had for nodelets.

I'd rather that going to Other Users would just show you the nodelet contents (currently it shows you the source code for that nodelet if you are in pmdev and tells you "tough beans" otherwise). If you went to /bare/?node=Other+Users then you'd get just the nodelet content w/o any nodelets, headers, etc. If you want to see the source code for the node, then use displaytype=viewcode, which already works.

But some nodelets don't make any sense w/o a "current node" (that is not the nodelet itself). So I'd like the default display page for a nodelet to pretend, for the nodelet's sake, that some other node is $NODE. The "obvious" choice for that is the previous (non-nodelet) node viewed.

Then you could have a lot of nodelets (or even all nodelets) that you don't show but that you can quickly jump to if desired. So you don't have to show the moderation nodelet but when you want to consider a node, you click a link that takes you to the moderation nodelet with the node you were just on faked up as $NODE so that you can consider that node.

This type of thing is especially useful when browsing from tiny devices like a cell phone. But it also means you could greatly reduce the number of nodelets you have always up, making browsing the site faster for you.

Then the "/bare" version of pages could get a header that has a simple "nav" link that goes to a page with links to some common items including some nodelets and includes the refer node's ID in a CGI param such that those links show you the chosen nodelet but using that prior node as context. The "nav" page would even have a "search" box where you could type the name of any other nodelet to get that same effect.

The "nav" page could also include Free-Nodelet-style stuff so that you could customize it easily and powerfully. Perhaps even the "nav" link would just be a default that could be overridden with Free-Nodelet-style content.

On a nearly-unrelated note, we could also allow a Free-Nodelet-style insertion into the headers over subordinate nodes (replies when viewing a thread, nodes when viewing a section page or Nodes to Consider etc).

- tye        

In reply to Out-of-band nodelets by tye

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