"Window" buttons for boxes

On Devel list, Kjartan suggested: "Wouldn't this be something for a theme? Themes can define how the block looks using the ->box function."

This is almost true but unfortunately we use theme->box for more than just blocks. it would be quite helpful if blocks could be outputted by theme->block and other generic boxes could continue to be outputted by theme->box. Thus, a theme could pretty up blocks but not all boxes (hope you are you still with me) if desired.

I do like Joe's suggestion, but only if it can be applied to blocks alone.

Copying Kjartan's reply here for posterity:

-------------------------
pesudo code

class mytheme {

function header() {
$this->box = 1;
theme_blocks();
$this->box = 0;
}

}

Same for footer().

Wouldn't that work ? :-)

I don't understand this feature request - blocks are just spaces for content. Putting an "edit" button on them makes no sense most of the time - you can't edit a login box. Likewise, having a "restore" icon on it would be very confusing.

If you want to be able to collapse/rollup blocks dynamically (a bit like MacOS windows), then this is a theme-specific thing.

What does a close button do? Get rid of the block, but only if it's configured for a user to be able to do that in the block preferences section (i.e. is set custom)? How do they bring it back? It doesn't seem sensible/intuitive/useful.

I'm going to CLOSE this feature request unless someone can enlighten me as to what it all means.

keep it open. it makes sense to me.

some blocks have more info, and thus we want user's to be able to 'maximize' the block. all that means is that you ae taken to a full size page with more info about whatever that block displaying.

the close button would only appear for custom blocks, as you suggest.

makes sense to me, too. buttons / "user actions" for blocks i'd like to see:

• collapse / expand, ie. toggle display of block content. very nice if you have 20 blocks at the right ...
• move up / down / left / right / whereever
• disable
• info / help. help for the user box would link to user_help(), etc.
• configure. eg. change number of rows to be displayed by statistics, "new users", etc.

I still disagree. If you want users to be able to hide/close/move blocks more easily, it'd make a lot more sense to provide a page specifically for this purpose. Having lots of icons cluttering the main display which you barely ever use is terrible UI design.

I'd envisage having a list of block titles (set in rectangles) in left/right columns. You'd click the block title rectangle to select it, and then have either JavaScript up/down/left/right buttons which moved the block, or have little links above/underneath each block to "move selected block here".

You'd also be able to configure the display for the selected block (via a module_block_configure($delta) hook, probably) to set up number of rows displayed, etc.

The only thing that should be broken out into the actual page is an expand/collapse button.

The ADC theme by Al implements this with some Javascript.