I would like to discuss a possible new approach for the settings of this module (branch 6.x-2.x)
To ensure maximal flexibility current alpha2 release has three textfields for setting up the replacement rules for default subjects, which seems a little awkward and certainly aimed just for advanced users. IMO an average user easily gets confused and overwhelmed with that many possibilities/combinations.
For the first alphas it was ok. Algorithm (and proof of concept) got tested for token support and default legacy behavior as well. But I'm considering a simplified version for it.
Considerations:
-- Non-repetitive prefix/suffix only aim stripping algorithm around [comment-parent-title] (-raw and sanitized as well)
-- therefore if [comment-parent-title-raw] is not used into the "Default subject" (middle fragment) both prefix/suffix make no sense (and nevertheless they work as being concatenated to the middle part as $prefix.$between.$suffix), i.e. too much settings for nothing
-- there is only one use case which makes sense for having prefix/suffix in separated textfields, and that is when a user might want to have a "repetitive" prefix/suffix.
For example, someone wants to have subjects like "My topic", "Re: My topic", "Re: Re: My topic", for this case the pattern "Re: [comment-parent-title-raw]" should be set in the "Default subject" textfield and leave empty non-repetitive prefix/suffix textfields. This case use to be undesired.
Another (rare) example, wanting subjects like "My topic", "Re: My topic by UserA", "Re: Re: My topic by UserB", this case is the same as above but using non-repetitive suffix as well, resulting in the (intentional) repetitive "Re:" prefix but stripping the unwanted "by [comment-author-name-raw]" suffix to leave only the author name of the current comment. Same as above example, it seems to me that repetitive prefix/suffix use to be undesired and the user should be discourage about using them.
Proposal:
-- leave only ONE textfield to enter the patter for default subjects
-- (possibly) add a checkbox to choose whether the stripping algorithm should be applied around [comment-parent-title-raw] (selected by default)
Resulting:
-- for any pattern requiring non-repetitive prefix/suffix there will be only one textfield to fill (and a checkmark to leave checked)
-- the stripping algorithm will assume that everything before/after [comment-parent-title-raw] is a non-repetitive prefix/suffix
-- if it is in fact desired repetitive patterns (like "Re: Re: My topic") it would be enough with disabling the stripping algorithm unchecking the checkmark (some content type might desire this behavior)
-- mixing repetitive with non-repetitive behavior will be no longer available (e.g. "Re: Re: My topic by UserB")
-- since the algorithm should work even for [comment-parent-title] and [comment-parent-title-raw] (besides the HTML entities issue) there will be restricted that both of them can't co-exist (using both of them in the same pattern makes nonsense at all)
How do the 6.x-2.0-alpha2 users pronounce about this?
| Comment | File | Size | Author |
|---|---|---|---|
| #1 | current_UI_settings.jpg | 17.67 KB | arhak |
| #1 | proposed_UI_settings.jpg | 12.49 KB | arhak |
Comments
Comment #1
arhak commentedsome screenshots to compare
Comment #2
arhak commentedthis got into 6.x-2.0-alpha4
Comment #3
arhak commented