in reply to Re^2: Nodelets on the left?
in thread Nodelets on the left?

It's not just a workaround, it's a solution.

Considering how powerful CSS styling is for configuring one's view of PerlMonks, I really don't see why pmdev should implement changes such as this. (The same could be said for Node ids by node titles, but someone went and implemented it without really giving much thought to the wider ramifications.) If anything, pmdev should probably be looking at ways of enhancing PerlMonks' stylability and scriptability.

We're building the house of the future together.

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Re^4: Nodelets on the left?
by demerphq (Chancellor) on Nov 07, 2006 at 11:35 UTC

    I applied that patch and I bothered to consider tha ramifications. Please outline how you would have accomplished the behaviour of that patch without changing PM internal code.

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    $world=~s/war/peace/g

[reply]

      Two solutions were offered which required no changes to PM code.

      If there were no other way to accomplish it, or if those ways were kludgy, then I could see making PM code changes, at least if (as in this case) there were significant demand for it. What I'm concerned about is the proliferation of configuration variables. I think it would be nice if we could actually reduce the number of configuration variables, in favor of style/script based solutions, but maybe I'm being too idealistic.

      We're building the house of the future together.
[reply]

        Hrm. Well lets put it this way. Im not a CSS or Javascript guru, and i dont want to have to be one for PM to be a nice site to use and i dont think our users should have to be one either. If that means we have a few extra config vars so what?

        ---
        $world=~s/war/peace/g

[reply]
        Besides, do we really want hundreds of different Javascript and/or CSS tweaks floating around in free nodelets? [And if we do then maybe another nodelet should be created for these.] That would certainly make it harder for the pmdevs to test against.

        And if someone tweaks e.g. ikegami's code (to make it work with IE) then how do we make sure everyone updates their copy in their respective free nodelet? We might as well have a display tweaks repository and let people check off on the ones they want. Which of course in effect makes them setting changes anyway.

        I'm inclined to say if it's something several people will potentially use then it should be added in (assuming it doesn't require a massive rewrite). And in this case, maybe nodelets on the left should even be the default for anoynmmous monks since then they too would benefit from a reduction in code wrapping issues.

        Anyway, thanks for listening to me rambling on.

        Update: I think all of the browser compatiblity issues and how we still do not have a good IE solution underscores why this would be better implemented as a setting (where modifying the DOM would not be necessary).

        Update2: Or perhaps patience is in order as we do have a working code snippet now! :-)

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Re^4: Nodelets on the left?
by Argel (Prior) on Nov 08, 2006 at 23:08 UTC
    It's not just a workaround, it's a solution.

    Errr, given that I mentioned "different browsers" and no one has posted code that works with Internet Explorer yet perhaps you could explain to me how this is a solution? It's a great workaround (thanks again ikegami) but it shouldn't be the last word on this subject.

    Update: We do have some IE code now thanks to pKai in Re^4: Free Nodelet Hack: Nodelets on the left. However, the freenodelet has to be the last nodelet so this is still a workaround.

    Update2: Looks like we do have code that works with both browsers now.

[reply]

In Section Perl Monks Discussion