[pmwiki-users] Great pagelist question...

[Dominique Faure]

On 8/30/06, Patrick R. Michaud <pmichaud at pobox.com> wrote:
> On Wed, Aug 30, 2006 at 01:41:45PM -0400, Neil Herber wrote:
> > At 2006-08-30  12:11 PM -0500, Patrick R. Michaud is rumored to have said:
> > >Having a separate {$:...} accessor for content-based properties
> > >avoids the conflict altogether:
> > >
> > >    {$Name} -> XYZ              {$:Name} -> Patrick Michaud
> > >    {$Group} -> Group           {$:Group} -> PmWiki Enthusiasts
> > >    {$Title} -> XYZ             {$:Title} -> Benevolent Dictator
> >
> > All Hail the Benevolent Dictator!
> >
> > Please be so benevolent as to *NOT* use the colon as the
> > distinguishing mark in this case. It is almost as invisible as the
> > leading space used to denote preformatted text.
>
> Point noted.  I chose the colon because it's mnemonic -- it
> mentally attaches to the colon in the markup that separates
> the property name from its value, as well as the colons that
> make up definition lists (from which values can be grabbed).
>
> I also don't expect the {$:var} notation to be used all that
> frequently, so it's not too important if the colon is not there.
>
> I briefly considered {$=var}, since we can think of Property:
> markup as assigning values (=) to property names, but then when
> the {$=var} markup appears in a pagelist template we get things
> like {=$=Description} and the ='s get lost and/or confusing.
>
> > I suspect many heads will be scratched due to a missing colon.  How
> > about something more visible such as:
> > $$Title
> > $_Title
> > or anything else that has a bit of width.
>
> I don't like the $$, because that actually conflates another meaning
> in PHP.  $_Title to me looks like an ordinary page variable --
> the underscore is commonly a valid character in variable names.
> It might be made to work.
>
> We could potentially usurp the tilde from Cookbook.HttpVariables,
> so that we end up with {$~var}.  Then our non-displaying "set a
> property" lines in markup could look like:
>
>     ~Name: Patrick Michaud
>     ~Title: Markup Usurper
>
> which sets values for the "Name" and "Title" properties but doesn't
> display them, and gives us our mnemonic connection.
>
> But if we get to that sort of markup, then I think that what we're
> building looks less-and-less like a core feature and much more like
> a recipe.
>
> At any rate, I'm open for suggestions, but at the moment {$:var}
> remains my favorite, because it's a natural fit to the "Property:"
> markup.
>
> Pm
>

What about doubling the colon to hide them:

Name:: Dominique Faure
Title:: Visible Variable Hunter

Dom