[pmwiki-devel] PmWiki request

[Hans]

Tuesday, December 12, 2006, 11:34:31 AM, The wrote:

> Recently had an idea for tying zap's conditionals in PmWiki's far more
> powerful conditional system.  It would also decrease the learning
> curve as it would use more familiar syntax.

> Basically the idea is to use things like

> (:input hidden ifexists "parameter|action":) // exists must first be defined

You know, seeing conditionals inside (:input :) markup makes me cringe.
I know you try to create shorter syntax for ZAP.
But you go against what people learned and know in PmWiki.
You seem to have hijacked PmWiki's (:input:) markup
and made something quite different out of it.

To me any (:input ... :) should be only used to create form elements.
Conditions as to when a form element shall be added to HTML output
should stay out of the markup, as it is already possible with
(:if ... :) markup. Manipulating any page variable used inside (:input
:) should also stay outside of the markup.

I think it is okay to add features to existing PmWiki markup, in order
to make it perhaps more powerful or user friendly. But doing so one
needs to be careful to preserve the features and functionality already
there, and not rewrite the whole syntax. Otherwise it feels like
putting a pig's skin onto a sheep.

Right now I would not know if PmWiki's (:input:) form markup still
works when installing ZAP, or is replaced or partial replaced.
And I see a lot of unfamiliar syntax not very intuitive to me from
what I learned so far in PmWiki. Which makes me wonder how ZAP
integrates into Pmwiki, and makes me extremely wary about it.


Hans