[pmwiki-devel] Is 'RightBar' the right name?

[Jon Haupt]

On 5/22/07, Stirling Westrup <sti at pooq.com> wrote:
> Jon Haupt wrote:
> > On 5/22/07, DaveG <pmwiki at solidgone.com> wrote:
> >> Use contextual naming. That is, name the sidebars based on the type of
> >> content they will contain (TOC, MainMenu, SubMenu, etc).
> >>
> >> ~ ~ Dave
> >
> > I agree with Dave.  I've been trying to move in the direction of more
> > semantic naming schemes like PrimaryNavigation and the like.  I think that
> > makes the most sense.
> >
> Maybe I just don't get it, but as a creator of the skin, I'm not about to
> dictate what semantic uses to put the sidebars to. The user will be free to
> put whatever content they want there. The same goes for the headers and footers.
>
> As far as I can see, I should be using layout names, and leave any semantic
> naming to the users.

All of what's said has been fine, but I thought I'd restate my point
because it seemed to get lost here.  I think that when you have
content labeled "sidebar" and "rightbar" it seems like it's supposed
to appear in a given place on the page, i.e. in a sidebar.  But if you
use semantic naming like PrimaryNavigation or whatever, then it
doesn't really matter where it gets placed - thus making it easier to
skin it.  So if you wanted to take the contents of SideBar and use CSS
to create tabbed navigation across the top, it isn't really a sidebar
anymore - but it's the same content, and it could make sense in either
spot.  You might argue that if you want it on top you should just
create a page called "PageTopMenu" or whatever, but to me it makes
more sense to have pages marked "Navigation" and the skin should
simply explain where to put the navigation pages, etc.

Anyhow, it's a different approach - you're worried about the layout
forcing content, and I'm worried about the content forcing layout.  I
don't think we should settle for either in the long run.

Jon