Dave wrote:
On 2/22/07, Allen Gilliland <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
Dave wrote:
I would add that the only thing that kind of sucks about that is that
expecting most users to understand content types is a bit of a stretch
in my mind. So the benefit of the current solution where we just lookup
the content type based on the file extension used in the "link" value of
the template is that it keeps things simple for users.
Having to see a field marked "Content Type" with a value of "text/css"
on the template editing form for a css template may cause more problems
than it will solve. If people start to hack at it without knowing what
they are doing then they can break things.
That's true and so we'll have to be careful how we expose it in the
UI. For example we might want a combobox with options like:
Web page (text/html)
CSS file (text/css)
Custom...
Where custom leads to popup that allows a custom content-type. That
could even be hidden away in an advanced settings area similar to
those on the edit-entry page.
yep, those both sound like good ways to deal with it.
So we may want to ask how often we think people need to create custom
templates where they need to set a custom content type which can't be
accomplished by using a file extension?
Content-type is the standard and "right thing" to do here. You can't
rely of file extensions in general and I've got specific problems with
them. I'm creating pages that generate feeds so I need
application/xml+rss and application/xml+atom. And I need
application/json for JSON. My ISP controlled server is not setup to
map .atom, .rss or .json so file extensions are useless to me and I
think that's a pretty common situation for bloggers.
gotcha. i agree that content types are the right thing to do, i just
want to make sure we are thinking about the right way to introduce them.
in the past i think we have all been guilty ( me included :/ ) of just
dumping features into the app without developing good UX around them and
i think that Roller is mature enough now that we really need to be
better about that kind of stuff. there are still lots of good features
to be added to Roller, but one of the things i know i want to focus on
in the 4.x series (and hopefully others do to) is to really refine what
we have now and make it as complete and mature as possible, and a lot of
that will mean focusing on UX.
-- Allen
- Dave
