Blocks and block administration enhancements

registered · Site Admin Joined: Jun 04, 2004 Posts: 6437

Several enhancements have been made to the blocks administration function over the years. These include group security (i.e. only this group sees this block), graphic icons to replace the edit, delete, up / down position functions, and AJAX functions for sorting blocks. But there are many opportunities for improving block functionality, including flexibility in controlling the display of blocks. Instead of just left, right, center up, center down, we should be able to display blocks by module, date range (e.g. only display this block during the holidays), user / group (in addition to registered, anonymous and administrator) and in which position these should appear. Some tweaks have been written along these lines and I haven't had a chance to review them all, but what I've seen seems more limited than I am imagining.

What other ideas do you have for improving blocks functionality and administration?

Sells PC To Pay For Divorce Joined: Posts: 5661

ok let me be the first,usualy others follow then... killing me

im sure it requires some technique but it can fun if you can give a block some weight and set a level of transparency to it..
So in that way you can determine the level of importance.....the eyecatcher..

and how about a block preview ?
If you create a block there isnt a preview ...
would be nice....
could be done with ajax.

Posted: Tue Dec 12, 2006 5:17 am

Preview is a nice idea! What do you mean by transparency?

Posted: Tue Dec 12, 2006 5:30 am

ah i had a feeling you were gonna ask that...
ok....i mean that people can set a transparency level like we have in photoshop.
so if the content of a block (or whole block) is more transparant it people will be focused on other things on the site.
im not sure if thats possible....

but this is just a funny idea,the preview was the serious one.

Posted: Tue Dec 12, 2006 5:41 am

Interesting. It might be possible. It reminded me of another enhancement that one of the theme designers, Lorkan, added to some of their themes: collapsible blocks. That would also help focus people, but not as well as transparency.

Posted: Tue Dec 12, 2006 6:25 am

well here you have it....a few ideas with all the other ideas you already have.....it will keep you busy for the next 6 months... Laughing

Posted: Tue Dec 12, 2006 7:08 am

wow ... ajax ... cool

Speaking of block functionality ... in my new distro all the commented code for right-side blocks has been removed from all the xmodule/index.php files. What's up with that?

My blocks wish list would include some part of NSN_Center_Blocks, for example the CenterBlock 1 that configures for the home page. I'd like to see Center_Blocks configured for xmodule/index.php too.

That ought to tack on another week or two. Wink

Posted: Tue Dec 12, 2006 12:11 pm

Funny...

Worker Joined: Apr 26, 2005 Posts: 114

I'd say start out with the administration of the blocks. That would be a nice feature for bigger sites with many different modules and blocks. Display blocks per module is one of my favourites. I also would like to see a similar feature to the NSNCenter blocks to make it possible to have more than one block in one row.

Maybe an option to display the title of block or not? Personally i like to remove them from the center blocks display.

An option to expand/contract each right/left block perhaps? Cookie based so that the settings are saved for each module view.

Get rid of all formatting in the block code, use CSS classes instead.

Posted: Tue Dec 12, 2006 5:12 pm

Expanding / Collapsing blocks has already been done.

I would certainly like to see more 'placement' options such as setting three normal blocks side by side as a center block and yes I know this has been done before too but it never seemed to work properly.

What would be nice is a compliant scrolling block (of any description) Smile

registered · Posted: Thu Dec 14, 2006 6:21 am

Personally, what I envision would require a complete re-design of the existing templating system. I would like to see a flexible "layout" system made up of "containers", placed wherever the admin wants to place them, and then assign blocks and modules to the containers to "fill" them with HTML.

I know this sounds way "out there", but I am thinking more in terms of assigning objects to layout containers such that it may not matter what the object is, nor what the layout, but all of it is controlled via the admin as he/she is "laying out" his/her site.

Don't ask he how to do it... It is merely a "dream". Smile

Posted: Thu Dec 14, 2006 9:48 am

Not a dream, other CMS like E107 already do that I believe Smile