Alex Wayne wrote:
I whipped up a quick extension today that some might find useful. I
searched around a little and didn't come with any solutions that I was
happy with, form a functional or aesthetic standpoint.
Nice work.
It adds a "Settings" tab that provides a nice looking interface to
configuration settings. You can easily rebrand your admin with a title
and subtitle, set default page parts and publishing status, all with the
settings that Radiant supports already.
If you're an extension developer and you want to store some settings in
the Radiant::Config model, those settings will show up on this tab
automatically.
One caution, here. The SnS extension does use Radiant::Config so this
should give you access to those settings. However, the extension has
it's own interface: StylesNScripts::Config which also offers validations
(makes sure you don't use invalid path names for your css files, say).
This won't cause any problems if you're careful about how you set things
but I could see an extension having even more going on (like needing to
spawn other methods when setting a value).
I guess my point here is to know what you're setting and how that
application/extension will handle your twiddling.
This is a general solution for any configuration settings, but most
sites probably won't need it, since many of this is set it and forget
it. However, one thing I would like to integrated in radiant core
somewhere is a more specific preference pane. A page designed to set
all the config options with a more specific and UI, rather than just a
list of variables.
Is that something you think belongs in Radiant core or not?
I've brought this point up as something I think core needs. And I think
it is something that I think John is planning to release in the near
term. So I'm with you 100%
Where I'd approach it differently is in two areas:
* I think Radiant needs a place to store settings (both for its own
settings and for extension settings). This way the content lives
in one area of the admin panel and settings are located
elsewhere. For example, today, content goes in tabs and many of
Radiant's settings have their own UI space (users, and extensions)
* Just like extensions let you add tabs, Radiant should let you plug
into the settings area. That way extension developers can write
their own validations, create their ideal UI and also keep users
away from the actual db storage.
But of course, that's a much bigger task and really belongs as a core thing.
-Chris
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