[pmwiki-users] Background image

Patrick R. Michaud pmichaud at pobox.com
Sun Mar 18 13:52:47 CDT 2007


On Sun, Mar 18, 2007 at 10:53:57AM -0700, Dr Fred C wrote:
> SteP wrote:
> > See also http://www.pmwiki.org/wiki/Cookbook/BackgroundImages
> >   
> Thanks.  From reading the two reply's to my question, it appears getting 
> a simple background image displayed in a page section is but yet another 
> "kludge fix in config" solution for what should be a rather simple wiki 
> markup process.  This seems especially true given that there are 
> background wiki markups that work for tables and cells.
> 
> Venting -- Sure it's nice to have skins (& CSSs) for site development.  
> It's analogous to how a home developer how comes in and puts up a huge 
> development with every house being basically the same theme, all the way 
> into having every interior wall in every house be white, or blue, or 
> whatever general theme is used.  [...]

I understand the vent, but for the sites I run I generally don't
want wiki authors to be able to arbitrarily change the theme of my
pages.  I want them to be able to adjust things, yes, but generally
within certain broad parameters that I set.

Your analogy is that the wiki administrator is the home developer,
and the authors are the tenants.  That's reasonable.  In most of
my sites, however, the analogy would be that I'm the homeowner
(or perhaps I rent out office space), and I don't want the 
guests (authors) to be able to arbitrarily change the wallpaper
just whenever they feel like it.

As PmWikiPhilosophy #2 states, PmWiki isn't trying to completely
replace HTML (or CSS), it's just trying to make certain common
operations simpler.  Complex things are indeed possible, but sometimes
they take some extra configuration (which you term a "kludge",
but I see as following the principle of "simple things should be
simple, while complex things possible").

But in the final analysis, it comes down to a question of markup.
It's one thing to say "there should be a way to change the background
image of sections", but it would really help to see some markup
proposals.

FWIW, I propose that "url(...)" automatically convert its contents
into a link and escape them.  Then 
%background-image:url(Attach:xyz.png)% would just work.  

I also propose that this initially be a recipe and not part of the core,
unless there's a huge demand for it.

Pm



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