Problem/Motivation

The machine names generated by views would benefit from being easier to remember their purpose.

block_1
block_2

vs

block_active_forum_topics
block_new_forum_topics

Proposed resolution

Generate the new display's machine name from the display_title prefixed by the display type, then suffixed by an incremental number if necessary.

This patterns is used for fields and blocks and likely a few other things, it would be nice to apply it to views displays as well.

Remaining tasks

User interface changes

n/a

API changes

Follow-up from #2020387-64: Convert "Active forum topics" block to a View.

CommentFileSizeAuthor
#23 2269711-21-reroll.patch2.31 KBjoelpittet
#21 2269711-21.patch2.35 KBjoelpittet
#10 interdiff.txt3.3 KBjoelpittet
#10 2269711-views-display-auto-nice-machine-names-10.patch7.07 KBjoelpittet
#7 2269711-views-display-auto-nice-machine-names-7.patch5.74 KBjoelpittet
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Comments

sun’s picture

sun
Primary language German
Location Karlsruhe
CreditAttribution: sun commented
Issue tags: +DX (Developer Experience), +Usability

+1 — Especially because these IDs sometimes need to be referenced in other code and also appear in the UI.

tim.plunkett’s picture

tim.plunkett
he/him
Primary language English
Location Philadelphia
CreditAttribution: tim.plunkett commented
Status: Needs review » Active

As someone who always changes these machine names before saving anyway, this might save me some time, and sure won't hurt, so +1

There's no patch yet.

dawehner’s picture

dawehner
Primary language German
CreditAttribution: dawehner commented

What about enforcing that the ID gets prefixed with the display plugin name?

sun’s picture

sun
Primary language German
Location Karlsruhe
CreditAttribution: sun commented

If that means "block_" for block displays, "page_" for page(?) displays, and "feed_" for feed displays, +1

dawehner’s picture

dawehner
Primary language German
CreditAttribution: dawehner commented

The current UI does not really use the same pattern as other machine names, because the adding UI is totally different from the EDIT UI, so we have to ensure that we don't accidentally change the ID..

joelpittet’s picture

joelpittet
Primary language English
Location Vancouver
CreditAttribution: joelpittet commented
Assigned: Unassigned » joelpittet

Cool glad to see you guys are in favour of the idea. I'm sure you are busy with tons of other issues so I'll assign this to myself, and stab at this for a few and see if I get anywhere. If I'm nowhere in a couple hours I'll unassign and run away:)

joelpittet’s picture

joelpittet
Primary language English
Location Vancouver
CreditAttribution: joelpittet commented
Assigned: joelpittet » Unassigned
Status: Active » Needs review
FileSize
2269711-views-display-auto-nice-machine-names-7.patch5.74 KB

Well I made some headway but ran into a few snags and just learning my way around some form api/views.

I moved a #type=>machine_name field to the views admin title ui and added exists() method to DisplayPluginBase.

Maybe someone can point me in the right direction or take a stab at it themselves?

Status: Needs review » Needs work

The last submitted patch, 7: 2269711-views-display-auto-nice-machine-names-7.patch, failed testing.

dawehner’s picture

dawehner
Primary language German
CreditAttribution: dawehner commented 
--- a/core/modules/views/lib/Drupal/views/Plugin/views/display/DisplayPluginBase.php
+++ b/core/modules/views/lib/Drupal/views/Plugin/views/display/DisplayPluginBase.php

You certainly forgot to adapt submitOptionsForm

joelpittet’s picture

joelpittet
Primary language English
Location Vancouver
CreditAttribution: joelpittet commented
Status: Needs work » Needs review
Related issues: +#2020387: Convert "Active forum topics" block to a View
FileSize
2269711-views-display-auto-nice-machine-names-10.patch7.07 KB
interdiff.txt3.3 KB

Thanks at @dawehner, that was quite obvious when I look in the right spot, I appreciate the pointer!

So now a questions:

  • Is there a way to tell if a View has just been created ($view->isNew()?) but not saved so that I can let the display name freely generate a machine name from the admin title?
  • Would it be ok if I moved the machine name with the display title permanently instead of being in the "other/advanced" pile in the UI?
  • Do I need some trick to get the machine_name JS for mirroring the label text to fire?
  • Can the default be 'page' and 'block', instead of 'page_1' and 'block_1'?

Sorry, I'm much better at fixing twig templates, preprocess and attributes...

dawehner’s picture

dawehner
Primary language German
CreditAttribution: dawehner commented

I don't have time for a review now, but -1 to not use the page_1 by default.

Status: Needs review » Needs work

The last submitted patch, 10: 2269711-views-display-auto-nice-machine-names-10.patch, failed testing.

tim.plunkett’s picture

tim.plunkett
he/him
Primary language English
Location Philadelphia
CreditAttribution: tim.plunkett commented 
+++ b/core/modules/views/lib/Drupal/views/Plugin/views/display/DisplayPluginBase.php
@@ -1407,6 +1408,23 @@ public function buildOptionsForm(&$form, &$form_state) {
+            'source' => array('display_title'),

This should be array('options', 'display_title')

That's not clear from looking at this class, but in actuality the whole method is originally called in \Drupal\views_ui\Form\Ajax\Display::buildForm like this: $executable->display_handler->buildOptionsForm($form['options'], $form_state);

This will eventually be improved by #2065485: Document that PluginFormInterface should use #process to solve nesting issues

Also, +1 for starting with page_1.

dawehner’s picture

dawehner
Primary language German
CreditAttribution: dawehner commented

Also, +1 for starting with page_1.

High five!

joelpittet’s picture

joelpittet
Primary language English
Location Vancouver
CreditAttribution: joelpittet commented
Version: 8.0.x-dev » 8.1.x-dev
dawehner’s picture

dawehner
Primary language German
CreditAttribution: dawehner as a volunteer and at Tag1 Consulting commented

Even one year later, Ideally I would still love to be able to remove the machine name feature from the UI at least.
Its just not clear how much you can destroy when you rename a display ID, just think about CSS but also references to that display in code etc.

Version: 8.1.x-dev » 8.2.x-dev

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joelpittet’s picture

joelpittet
Primary language English
Location Vancouver
CreditAttribution: joelpittet commented

@dawehner I kind of see your point for removing it form edit, though you may have made a typo shortly after creating it, in which case you may want to fix the typo (seems to happen lots to me and my colleagues). From UX I'd put a warning though instead,

"When renaming make sure references in CSS, blocks or in other parts of code are updated accordingly, generally recommended to avoid renaming after creating this display"

I think creating semantic names on creation should be encouraged.

joelpittet’s picture

joelpittet
Primary language English
Location Vancouver
CreditAttribution: joelpittet commented
Status: Needs work » Needs review
FileSize
2269711-21.patch2.35 KB

Ok, removed the UI changes to the DisplayPluginBase because I don't want it to look easier to change the display_id and leave it in the admin to @dawehner's point.

This change is only in the wizard. There looks like there is a bug in machine-name.js that this introduces but it still works. Just initializes as [Object object], yet still replaces as you type which is likely because I tried default the display titles.

Status: Needs review » Needs work

The last submitted patch, 21: 2269711-21.patch, failed testing.

joelpittet’s picture

joelpittet
Primary language English
Location Vancouver
CreditAttribution: joelpittet commented
Status: Needs work » Needs review
FileSize
2269711-21-reroll.patch2.31 KB

Reroll

Status: Needs review » Needs work

The last submitted patch, 23: 2269711-21-reroll.patch, failed testing.

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