[pmwiki-users] Blogger Update and Request for Brainstorming

[DaveG]

-- Update --
Just wanted to provide a quick update on where Blogger is (ref 
Cookbook/Blogger). Things are pretty much done at this point. Right now 
I'm working to make sure the skinning process is smooth -- so you can 
switch from one skin to another, and have the various elements work 
together.

Anyway, the whole reason for Bloggers existence is so I can move away 
from Drupal which powers a few of my sites. In that vein, check out 
http://test.davidgilbert.org/ -- this is a PmWiki based version of the 
Drupal site at http://davidgilbert.org/. The two are pretty much 
functionally equivalent, although the Blogger version does have a few 
additional features (like pagination, which I could never work out in 
Drupal).

-- Brainstorm --
The one big thing remaining, and the reason Blogger is still in 'alpha' 
is the data structure. I'm not convinced the current approach is right, 
and think there's a better approach out there. Right now I'm storing all 
page data as PmForms fields, including the page content. This works 
fine, but has two shortcomings:
1] There's no smooth way to alter existing pages into the Blogger format 
-- copy and paste is the way. I can't work out a way to feed existing 
page content into a PmForm textarea (same problem as the 'alternate [a]' 
approach below).

2] If someone decides to stop using Blogger, they will need to redefine 
a markup (easy to do) to ensure pages are visible. Not a significant 
problem, but there nonetheless.

Alternate [a]: It seems to me that storing the content as a normal 
standalone page, with a linked 'data' page is a better approach. The 
link could be soft (naming or group convention), or with a physical 
link. The problem is that I can't get this to work with PmForms. For 
instance, trying to make the content appear as a field by encapsulating 
it in (:..:..:) from pageHeaders/footers, and then using a form, doesn't 
work. It seems like content in headers/footers is not recognized by PmForms.

Other thoughts using PmWiki core code welcomed.

  ~ ~ Dave