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2015-05-09, 08:29:53
Hi Bigin,
Indeed, as you said, the field names must be unique. That's why I think the script should prevent the end user to enter two identical names.
Maybe the easiest solution to the problems I commented would be not to allow end users to do these things:
1-Writing several identical field names within the same category, or with invalid characters.
2-Renaming an existing item to another existing item name within the same category. This would be the most important thing, as if this is allowed, the result is deleted data without warning the user and corruption of correct functioning of the script, as I commented in my previous post. I guess the only way to fix this malfunction would be to hand edit the XML files.
I think the end user shouldn't be allowed to do anything that could cause data deletion without a previous warning, or script malfunction. For the tests I've done, it is likely that what I said above would be sufficient to achieve this.
There are other things that could be improved, but they are not as important. For example, if the items have some kind of AutoNumber ID, the end user would not have to worry about writing different names for all items.
Besides, the "title" field admits long strings and special characters, and perhaps a long ID with special characters is not the best idea... (I don't know). If the AutoNumber ID of each item is shown in "All items" list, you can find it there if you want to access a particular item with PHP from the template.
Imagine a "Gallery" category with 100 items: pictures of dogs, cats and birds. What kind of titles the users are expected to write? Titles like "Bird singing", "My dog", "My dog on the couch", "My cat on the couch"... After 50 items, finding a unique name for each item will be quite tedious, and the users will be continually getting messages like these: "Item with entered 'My dog in the garden' name already exists", "Item with entered 'The dog in the garden' name already exists", "Item with entered 'My dog in the garden 2' name already exists"...
As I said, I think this is a very promising plugin with many possibilities, so I've been testing it a lot. For small websites with a fixed (or very slowly increasing) number of pages, and end users with few computer skills, GetSimple & Item Manager & Imagizer (or Image Resizer) is the best combination I know (although it wouldn't be a bad idea to merge Item Manager with I18N Special Pages!) It's in Beta version, so there are many things that can be improved (I could suggest a few) but I think the most important two are those I mentioned above.
Finally, a few more suggestions; less useful than those in my first post, but easier to implement, I think:
-The date should be stored in the XML files in a standard format that allows sorting. For example: Instead of 8 May 2015, something like 2015-05-08T23:21:01+00:00 (W3C standard).
-Selected category should be persistent when moving from one section to another ("view all", "add new" and "configure").
-Those Reload buttons with two different designs can be a little confusing. They give the impression of having different uses. I'd choose the gray one, with the text "Reload..."
-When you are editing an item, I think the drop-down list of categories should not be there. It is unrelated to the edition of a particular item. And the "Add new" button should not be highlighted.
That's enough for today!
Indeed, as you said, the field names must be unique. That's why I think the script should prevent the end user to enter two identical names.
Maybe the easiest solution to the problems I commented would be not to allow end users to do these things:
1-Writing several identical field names within the same category, or with invalid characters.
2-Renaming an existing item to another existing item name within the same category. This would be the most important thing, as if this is allowed, the result is deleted data without warning the user and corruption of correct functioning of the script, as I commented in my previous post. I guess the only way to fix this malfunction would be to hand edit the XML files.
I think the end user shouldn't be allowed to do anything that could cause data deletion without a previous warning, or script malfunction. For the tests I've done, it is likely that what I said above would be sufficient to achieve this.
There are other things that could be improved, but they are not as important. For example, if the items have some kind of AutoNumber ID, the end user would not have to worry about writing different names for all items.
Besides, the "title" field admits long strings and special characters, and perhaps a long ID with special characters is not the best idea... (I don't know). If the AutoNumber ID of each item is shown in "All items" list, you can find it there if you want to access a particular item with PHP from the template.
Imagine a "Gallery" category with 100 items: pictures of dogs, cats and birds. What kind of titles the users are expected to write? Titles like "Bird singing", "My dog", "My dog on the couch", "My cat on the couch"... After 50 items, finding a unique name for each item will be quite tedious, and the users will be continually getting messages like these: "Item with entered 'My dog in the garden' name already exists", "Item with entered 'The dog in the garden' name already exists", "Item with entered 'My dog in the garden 2' name already exists"...
As I said, I think this is a very promising plugin with many possibilities, so I've been testing it a lot. For small websites with a fixed (or very slowly increasing) number of pages, and end users with few computer skills, GetSimple & Item Manager & Imagizer (or Image Resizer) is the best combination I know (although it wouldn't be a bad idea to merge Item Manager with I18N Special Pages!) It's in Beta version, so there are many things that can be improved (I could suggest a few) but I think the most important two are those I mentioned above.
Finally, a few more suggestions; less useful than those in my first post, but easier to implement, I think:
-The date should be stored in the XML files in a standard format that allows sorting. For example: Instead of 8 May 2015, something like 2015-05-08T23:21:01+00:00 (W3C standard).
-Selected category should be persistent when moving from one section to another ("view all", "add new" and "configure").
-Those Reload buttons with two different designs can be a little confusing. They give the impression of having different uses. I'd choose the gray one, with the text "Reload..."
-When you are editing an item, I think the drop-down list of categories should not be there. It is unrelated to the edition of a particular item. And the "Add new" button should not be highlighted.
That's enough for today!
