« MT Plugin System Of My Dreams | Main | Gaming Group (Domain) Name »
January 08, 2003
New MT Plugin Idea: Interface Plugins
I don't know where all these ideas are coming from, but they just keep coming and I need to get them down on paper (so to speak). Maybe it's all the medicine I'm taking for my cold.
As things are now, Movable Type plugins can only effect Template output by defining new Tempalte Tags and Global Filters. But what about other parts of MT? What if Kevin wanted to write a nice elegant way for users of his ExtraFields plugin/hack to create and edit their Extra Fields? What if Brad wanted to create a user-friendly interface for people write Macros for his MTMacros Plugin?
The answer: Interface Plugins.
Just like the way Template Tags work, programmers could be given an API with which they could add or modify any part of the MT Interface that they so desired. These plugins (heck, why not all plugins? More fun ideas for my Plugin Manager) could be enabled on a Blog by Blog basis, and in the case of Entry Interface Plugins, on a Category by Category basis.
If you have a PhotoBlog, you could create a new New/Edit Entry Interface with the visible names of the fields renamed to something more appropriate for your blog (that's assuming you are using those fields in a way in which they were not originally intended, e.g. Exceprt is actually used to store a Thumbnail URL). You could also change the Preview Entry Interface to reflect those new field uses.
Or maybe you generate a number of similar looking entries (like all my plugins) and want to create a more 'Fill In The Blanks' form-style New/Edit Entry Interface. Right now, I do that with Brad's MTMacros Plugin, but sometimes I go more than a few days between plugin releases and I can't remember the exact structure of the Macros I created (okay, so I can be a little lazy, sue me). I would love to be able to construct a New/Edit Entry Interface that has basic text boxes for plugin name, plugin description, plugin example, plugin tag, and so on.
I realize this is a massive change from the way MT works right now. But I think it would be a great feature to have. And being the glutton for punishment that I can be, I imagine it would be a lot of fun to implement as well.
Any thoughts?
Posted by rayners at January 8, 2003 03:18 PM
Trackback Pings
TrackBack URL for this entry:
http://mt.rayners.org/mt-tb.cgi/122
Listed below are links to weblogs that reference New MT Plugin Idea: Interface Plugins:
» Plugin thoughts from kadyellebee
I weighed in on David's newest plugin brainstorm posts. He has some great ideas, and I'm glad to be a [Read More]
Tracked on January 8, 2003 06:13 PM
Comments
There's a certain amount of customization you can do already, by editing the .tmpl files in the mt/tmpl/cms/ directory of your installation. Each screen in the Movable Type UI has its own .tmpl file, and you can change the formatting in there completely if you so wish.
The only one I've really messed about with so far has been the login screen (login.tmpl), where I added an "anonymous login" button, which logs you in as a user called "anonymous", which has resticted posting rights on just one blog.
You can customize the new/edit entry page by modifying edit_entry.tmpl. It would be trivial, for example, to change the text displayed above each entry field. The only problem here is that that would then apply to all blogs in that installation. You'd either have to produce some client-side javascript, ot mess about with the guts of the MT code to make changes on a per-blog basis.
Posted by: Martin Sutherland at January 8, 2003 07:40 PM
interesting idea, but i'm not sure that i understand it at all...
Posted by: hiltrud at May 23, 2003 06:30 PM
just the answer i searched for. thanx a lot. MFG, Schreiber
Posted by: Büro Schreiber at July 21, 2003 03:09 PM
I've thought about this a lot. In fact, Girlie and Brenna and me were talking about something along this lines as Girlie was writing up the "feature request list" for the request forum last week. I think that the reason this makes sense to me would be that some people could really use some additional "modules" or "interface plugins", while they would be of no use to some other people. Take for example an expanded author system. For TheRedKitchen, I could totally use a way to easily control the author menu more, as well as have space for a profile (as opposed to currently having over 50 templates so that each page is separate), and enhancement for author templates. But for a normal blog, this wouldn't be so useful. So adding all of that functionality for everyone might not be the best route. I'm sure I could think of more examples of this ;)
Anyhow, this reminded me of a post I answered quite a while ago, where I wrote quite a lot in response to someone wishing for addons similar to what you are describing. Maybe it will help you brainstorm more to read that post, and check out the mentioned Coranto program for how they implement this.
I'd definately be interested in helping/betatesting/organzing any efforts you make on this idea :) Obviously, I don't code perl, but I still am very interested!! :)
Posted by: kristine at January 8, 2003 04:06 PM