[pmwiki-users] Cookbook recipes and organization

[John Rankin]

On Saturday, 16 April 2005 10:08 AM, Martin Fick <fick at fgm.com> wrote:
>> ... well, for me personally, it's a big sigh: I'll have to read that 
>> other recipe as well. Then I have to (somehow) infer from the surface 
>> descriptions which of the recipes is better suited. I'm forced to make a 
>> decision that I'm not ready for yet - and, frankly, I don't want to 
>> evaluate two recipes, I want a *solution*!
>
>
>  I have to agree with most of this.  I have been looking
>into forms and currently there are several solutions which
>all seem complicated, I have even tried some and still
>don't understand them well enough to figure out what I
>need.  Maybe this simply points to the fact that this is
>a new area, but it is confusing.

Leaving aside the big question about how to organise the
cookbook and choose among similar recipes (and I agree -- 
I often can't find my own recipes when I want to upload 
an update), perhaps those who have contributed forms 
recipes can help clarify their similarities and differences.

In my case, (Cookbook.WikiForms), I wanted something
simple but fairly powerful -- like PITS but (cough)
better. The aim was simplicity over functionality:

- create a wiki page called SomeGroup.FormTemplate
  (the name is configurable) that uses extended wiki
  markups to define the layout of a form

- and that's it; SomeGroup now uses a form for data
  entry and editing -- the pages display as standard
  wiki pages, with no special markup

It uses standard wiki

    :term:definition markup

to layout the resulting page -- :term: defines the
field names.

It's suited to cases where the administrator wants writers
to follow a defined layout for every page in a group, like
a projects register or an issues register or a movie
catalogue.

Because it uses :term:definition markup to structure the
resulting page, it's not suited to cases where you want
fine-grained control of page layout.

Hope this helps clarify; I am happy to answer questions,
although I'll be away from a computer for the weekend.



-- 
JR
--
John Rankin