On 04/18/2011 09:49 AM, Vincent Massol wrote:
> Hi Marius,
>
> On Apr 18, 2011, at 8:38 AM, Marius Dumitru Florea wrote:
>
>> On 04/18/2011 09:14 AM, Vincent Massol wrote:
>>>
>>> On Apr 18, 2011, at 7:27 AM, Marius Dumitru Florea wrote:
>>>
>>>> On 04/17/2011 11:02 PM, Vincent Massol wrote:
>>>>> Hi Marius,
>>>>>
>>>>> On Apr 13, 2011, at 4:37 PM, Marius Dumitru Florea wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>>> Hi devs,
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Do we have a specification for what a tag is inside XWiki? On
>>>>>> http://extensions.xwiki.org/xwiki/bin/view/Extension/Tag+Application
>>>>>> tags are defined as keywords but no constraints are specified.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> I'd like to enforce this two constraints on tags:
>>>>>> * tags can't have leading and trailing white space characters
>>>>>
>>>>
>>>>> I'm not sure if you mean using space as a separator or not here. If space 
>>>>> is used as a separator then it should be allowed to use quotes (such as: 
>>>>> "<space>*tagvalue<space>*").
>>>>
>>>> Since some users want to be able to use space inside a tag, only leading
>>>> and trailing space will be removed. For instance:
>>>>
>>>> "  Word of mouth , foo   " ->   2 tags "Word of mouth" and "foo"
>>>
>>
>>> How do I enter leading spaces if I want? I'd like to be able to enter *any* 
>>> character in any part of the tag name.
>>
>> I need valid use cases. I know it's nice to be able to do everything but
>> it's not worth to implement the quotes and the escaping character if no
>> one will ever used them in real life. How many tags did you see with
>> leading or trailing spaces? How many containing a comma?
>

> Well we can say the exact same thing for document names... Consistency is 
> good. Should we do the same and forbid document names with leading/trailing 
> spaces? (it's been asked before I think, although I'm tempted to say no to 
> this, except in UI which could trim spaces).

IMO tags are different. Page names are closer to free text.

>
>> Tags are 99% keywords and IMO it's best to establish some simple rules:
>>
>> * no leading or trailing spaces
>> * no comma inside
>>
>> rather than implementing something that is useful in 1% of the cases.
>>
>> Now, I didn't started this thread to re-implement or re-design the tags
>> UI.
>

> It's not about UI but you *did* start the thread about starting a spec for 
> tags and specs cannot be imprecise, they need 100% conciseness.
>
> I'm fine if we decide we'll never need to enter trailing/leading spaces nor 
> use the separator but it has to be brought to the table and discussed, 
> otherwise this spec will just be a joke.

I agree.

>
> BTW you haven't defined what the separator is. Is the separator the one 
> defined in the Tag class property? If so it can be anything and there needs 
> to be a way to enter it IMO. Imagine I choose space as the separator and I 
> want to enter "word of mouth". I should be allowed to, either by using quotes 
> or by escaping.

I see your point. I thought the separator was fixed because the UI says 
"Comma separated tags". I just tested and it seems pipe character | is 
also used as separator. If I enter "foo|bar,end" the UI displays 2 tags 
but the value of the XWiki.TagClass object is "foo|bar|end" (so actually 
I entered 3 tags).

IMO the fact that you can change the separator is an implementation 
detail. We now use a Static List to store the list of tags but this can 
change. The way we store the tags shouldn't influence the way we define 
tags. The separator is *not* part of the tags specification because we 
could have an UI that allows you to input tags only one by one and we 
could store tags in separate fields.

So IMO the specification should only say:

* tags' case is used only for display
* tags don't have leading or trailing spaces

And in our implementation, *because* we input and store tags using a 
single field, we can define a separator and a way to escape that 
separator. I prefer comma as separator and backslash as escaping.

>
>> I just wanted to fix the current way of inputting tags which is not
>> consistent:
>>
>> * regarding leading and trailing spaces:
>> "  foo, bar" ->  "  foo" and "bar"
>>
>> * regarding case:
>> "foo,bar,fOo" ->  removing "fOo" removes "foo" also.
>

> Fixing is a different topic. This is not what you asked. You asked for a 
> spec. Once we have defined it, then you can restrict yourself to implementing 
> only part of it if you don't have time/will to implement it fully. My point 
> is that the spec has to be known and since you started the spec thread we 
> might as well brainstorm on it, no?

Sure. Let's see what others have to say about this.

Thanks,
Marius

>
> Thanks
> -Vincent
>
>> Thanks,
>> Marius
>>
>>>
>>> Some questions:
>>> * Can the user uses quotes to enter any character, for ex " word ". 
>>> Alternatively the space could be escaped with a char, for ex \
>>> * How can the user use quotes, is there an escape char, for ex: my tag with 
>>> a \"
>>> * Same question for entering the tag separator character. For ex if comma 
>>> is the separator, can I enter: tag with \, in the name
>>>
>>> Thanks
>>> -Vincent
>>>
>>>>>> * tags' case is saved but case is ignored when comparing two tags (once
>>>>>> you defined a tag "news" you can't define a new tag "News"; the existing
>>>>>> tag is reused; tag's case is used only for display)
>>>>>
>>>>
>>>>> If we don't consider case I'm not sure we should use display using the 
>>>>> first tag entered. For example someone entered "http". Someone else wants 
>>>>> to add HTTP. Should we display http or HTTP?
>>>>> I'm fine with displaying http provided the UI allows to renamed the tag 
>>>>> case.
>>>>
>>>> If you click on the tag you go to Main.Tags page where you have an
>>>> option to rename the tag (that is specified in the query string).
>>>>
>>>> Thanks,
>>>> Marius
>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> Otherwise ok for me.
>>>>>
>>>>>> Optionally, we could enforce that tags can't contain white spaces.
>>>>>
>>>>> See above.
>>>>>
>>>>> Thanks
>>>>> -Vincent
>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>> WDYT?
>>>>>>
>>>>>> If no one is against it then I'd like to change the UI to apply these
>>>>>> constraints.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Thanks,
>>>>>> Marius
> _______________________________________________
> devs mailing list
> [email protected]
> http://lists.xwiki.org/mailman/listinfo/devs
_______________________________________________
devs mailing list
[email protected]
http://lists.xwiki.org/mailman/listinfo/devs

Reply via email to