[pmwiki-devel] Is 'RightBar' the right name?

[Patrick R. Michaud]

On Wed, May 23, 2007 at 08:25:49AM -0500, Jon Haupt wrote:
> On 5/23/07, Patrick R. Michaud <pmichaud at pobox.com> wrote:
> >On Wed, May 23, 2007 at 08:44:03AM +0100, Hans wrote:
> >> One thing we could argue about is, that SideBar should have been named
> >> LeftBar. 
> >
> >I didn't use "LeftBar" because I wanted to preserve the
> >possibility that it could go on either side.  See, for example,
> >"lean skin" and "light skin".
>
> And I'm only suggesting that SideBar could also be a top bar, or a
> middle bar, or a popup navigation, and as such the name is lacking in
> some ways.  The skin template doesn't *need* to use location-based
> names--indeed, I argue that it would make more sense not to.  It's
> just that our current system favors it.

I should also note that the "side" in "SideBar" wasn't necessarily
intended to indicate location.  In publishing, a "sidebar" is a panel
that provides extra information about the main article.  

Semantically speaking, there would be nothing wrong with having
a sidebar appear somewhere other than the left or right side of a page.
Popups, middle panels, etc. would all make reasonable sense.

Pm