[pmwiki-users] [pmwiki-devel] recipe configuration screens: best practice?

The Editor editor at fast.st
Fri Nov 24 10:55:55 CST 2006


On 11/24/06, ben at interdependentweb.com <ben at interdependentweb.com> wrote:
> Hello again, folks.  Development of DataQuery is going slower than I
> had hoped.  Since I'm not forging ahead anyway, I thought I'd take the
> opportunity to get some feedback...
>
> Configuration of queries is looking complex enough that if it were
> done through a variable in the config.php, the array would be at least
> 3 dimensions deep, which is intimidating for novice admins.  So I'm
> thinking of making a configuration screen for each query at
> DataQuery.QueryName ... since DataQuery.DataQuery is already the
> status screen, admins could just make the whole DataQuery group
> require an admin password to lock it down.
>
> My question is how to best save the configuration info in a wiki page.
>  I'm thinking of having a custom edit form that saves each field
> separately in a wiki page, rather than lumping all the fields together
> into the text= field.  That would make them easier for me to access
> within the recipe, since I'd just have to ReadPage($pagename) into an
> array and maybe do a little processing to restore the dimensions of
> the array to their proper depth.  The downside is that the history
> feature wouldn't work -- you couldn't restore previous revisions of
> the query.
>
> So... is it better to go down the path of ZAPdata and save all the
> info as page text variables within the text= field?  Or is there a
> better way I should consider?
>
> Thanks in advance!  --Ben S.


Just a thought Ben, but  as ZAP is (now) designed to be quite modular,
and it already has all kinds of forms processing capabilities built
in--would it be of any merit to make a ZAPdbase module--that adds the
new fields and functions you are working on, and puts them right into
the ZAP forms processing engine?

I have no burden one way or the other personally--as I've got a "no
database" policy for myself--at least for now....  : )  BUT, if I
wanted (simple) database functionality, plugging into ZAP would be the
way I would go. (Of course).  I've thought about doing this several
times--and even looking into it enough to conclude it wouldn't be that
complex.  But then again, I don't know enough about what you are doing
to know whether or not this is an option.

Is it worth exploring?

Cheers,
Caveman




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