[pmwiki-users] New Hierarchical Groups Recipe...

[The Editor]

On 2/1/07, Patrick R. Michaud <pmichaud at pobox.com> wrote:
> On Wed, Jan 31, 2007 at 12:28:31PM -0500, The Editor wrote:
> > On 1/31/07, Hans <design5 at softflow.co.uk> wrote:
> > > Wednesday, January 31, 2007, 3:08:27 PM, The wrote:
> > > > A quick announcement that I just released the Hierarchical Groups
> > > > recipe I've been working on.
> > >
> > > > See:  http://www.pmwiki.org/wiki/Cookbook/Hg
> > >
> > > Could that be please be put on a page named
> > > Cookbook.HierarchicalGroups
> > > instead of the cryptic abbreviation "Hg"?
> >
> > I went ahead and created the page and did a temporary include from Hg.
> >  I didn't use the full name as I was under the impression Pm would one
> > day create his own Hg system.  But if he gives the go ahead, I'll
> > delete Hg, and just use the one HierarchicalGroups page.
>
> I'm not quite sure how to respond here.  I don't have any issue
> with a recipe using the page "Cookbook.HierarchicalGroups", as I
> don't have any plans for occupying that page myself.  If/when PmWiki
> gets a hierarchical capability, it'll likely be bunded as part of
> the core and documented in a PmWiki.* page.  (Whether it's enabled
> or disabled by default is a question to be decided much later.)
>
> But what does concern me a bit here is that people not find themselves
> being misled as to what the recipe does and does not do.  It's been
> my experience that when people think of "hierarchical groups",
> what they're really expecting is to be able to write urls like:
>
>    http://www.example.com/wiki/Kingdom/Main
>    http://www.example.com/wiki/Kingdom/Animal/Main
>    http://www.example.com/wiki/Kingdom/Animal/Canine/Main
>    http://www.example.com/wiki/Kingdom/Plant/Main
>
> As far as I can tell, this recipe doesn't really achieve this
> goal (yet?), so calling it "hierarchical groups" feels a bit
> like false advertising or something.

Yes, I recognize that most people are looking for a system whereby
there is no longer a group/name distinction, only pages--which are
both members of a higher group, and parent to child pages.  And this
recipe does not do that in any way. I simply offered it as an interim
solution while we wait for Pm's solution which will no doubt prove far
superior.  But we do have something at least for now that does have
MANY useful purposes.

Of course I should note the problem may be that what we've been
calling hierarchical "groups" should in fact, perhaps be called
hierarchical pages or something. As there will no longer be group/name
distinctions, just pages organized into a hierarchy.  As this recipe,
retains the distinctions between groups and names, and makes just the
groups hierarchical--perhaps it's not so misnamed after all.  :)

> The recipe page also makes the claim:
>
>    This recipe adds hierarchical groups functionality to
>    your website. The following items are included: group headers,
>    group footers, group sidebars, group attributes, config files,
>    styles sheets.  They basically work in the way, and in the
>    order you would expect, including all default settings.
>
> I'm not sure that I agree that it works as most people expect.
> If I'm wrong in this, I'd love to have people re-clarify their
> expectations and contrast them with what's in the existing
> PmWiki.HierarchicalGroups pages, because I think it's a feature
> that many people want.

What I meant to say in these line is that things like groupheaders,
footers, sidebars, etc work about like you expect.  Attributes go
through the normal cascade.  Config files work as usual (farm, field,
page, group), css (skin, local, group, page)--with the exception that
the groups in each are hierarchical of course.  If one of these things
is not in the order most would expect or like, I will be happy to
change it...

On this other hand, if this is misleading in that people will read it
and assume it creates Hierarchical Pages as Pm expressed concern about
above, it should be rewritten.  Hg does not create hierarchical pages
as most people expect, admittedly.  Perhaps someone can suggest a way
to rewrite this paragraph to say more accurately what it was intended
to say without leading people to read more into it than was meant.
Help sincerely welcome!

> Perhaps we just need a different name for the type of
> grouping that is being performed here.  Or perhaps
> we've traditionally misnamed hierarchical groups, and
> its name needs to change.

Yes, but names mean only what a community understands them to
mean--regardless of how accurate/inaccurate the actual words might be.
And we should work around people's expectations.  My suggestion would
be we keep this recipe at Hg, someone write up a recipe page at
Cookbook/HierchicalGroups, explain what this recipe does, maybe
mention the subpage recipe, maybe something about farms, put links to
PmWiki.HierarchicalGroups etc., and make that an information center
for the subject.  That way if someone is wanting Hierarchical Groups,
they can understand the issues, and clearly understand what Hg does
and does not do.  And then if they want it, they can follow the link
to it.

There is a simlar recipe page comparing various forms recipes.
Something like that.

> I'm not saying anything needs to change, yet; I just know that
> I'm concerned that many people will come looking to this recipe
> to provide features of hierarchies that just aren't there (yet?).

No plan to create true hierarchical pages as I have no idea how to do it.

> (And I fear that systems that promise more than they can deliver
> can really kill a product or community.)

Happy to follow your suggestions Pm.  Do the above thoughts make sense?

Cheers,
Dan