# My notes/ideas on Page editor extensions

**URL:** <https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/my-notes-ideas-on-page-editor-extensions/84789>\
**Category:** Radiant CMS\
**Created:** [February 7, 2007, 6:38pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/my-notes-ideas-on-page-editor-extensions/84789 "2007-02-07T18:38:53Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 8\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![igotimac](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/i/85f322/32.png) [@igotimac](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/igotimac)\
**Post date:** [February 7, 2007, 6:38pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/my-notes-ideas-on-page-editor-extensions/84789/1 "2007-02-07T18:38:53Z")

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I really mean to write this for myself. But if I write it here then  
maybe it will be of use to someone else as well.

I’ve been working on moving the additions I made to Corex into  
extensions for Mental. I’ve added a lot of functionality (and plan to  
add more). To the page edit screen.

I have an idea from an interface perspective.

Imagine a set of tabs aligned vertically along one of the side of this  
page edit screen. The main tab contains the existing Page edit screen.  
Extensions could add tabs to this page edit screen.

For instance, there might be a tab for using a particular WYSIWYG editor

For instance, there might be a tab to manage comments on the Page being  
edited. (as in the case of a blog post) This tab might only appear for  
certain page types.

I my case:

There will be a tab to manage all of the Page Attributes of a page:  
A Page can have a number of named attributes. There are different types  
of attributes such as UploadedFileAttribute, and different tags for  
referring to them (i.e. \<r:image attribute=“logo”/\> would output an  
image tag referencing the file that was uploaded as the “logo”  
attribute)

There will be a tab for managing which parts of a page are layout  
oriented. (contain multiple radius tags) And which parts of a page are  
content oriented. (These parts are the parts that a client of an already  
setup CMS would be interested in) Also in this tab, you can manage an  
attribute called “Inherits from Page”, in which you can select any page  
as the parent page. (Not parent as in site hierarchy, but parent as in  
template) If a particular tag does not resolve on a particular page.  
(i.e. there is an \<r:content part=“header”/\> but there is no “header”  
page part) Then the processor should look for and use a page part from  
the “parent” page if it is available. Inherits from page supports 2 new  
page types (Selectable from the normal page edit interface).  
TemplatePage and ContentFromTemplatePage. A shortcut will be made for  
creating new ContentFromTemplatePages based on an existing TemplatePage.  
The new page will have only the page parts that were marked as “content  
oriented” on the TemplatePage it inherits from.

There will be a tab simply for editing those page parts that have been  
marked as content oriented. This tab would be displayed in place of  
regular editor tab for TemplagePage typed pages.

This means I intend to submit a ticket with the changes to core to  
support an ability for extensions to add these page-editor tabs… if I  
ever get around to it…

If anybody else is interested in helping me develop (the code or the  
interface) for these half-coded ideas, let me know and I’ll send you my  
hacked up version of Corex.

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**Author:** ![igotimac](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/i/85f322/32.png) [@igotimac](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/igotimac)\
**Post date:** [February 7, 2007, 11:58pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/my-notes-ideas-on-page-editor-extensions/84789/2 "2007-02-07T23:58:58Z")

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> page edit screen. The main tab contains the existing Page  
> edit screen.  
> Extensions could add tabs to this page edit screen.

I think from a usability point of view, you’d typically not want your  
extra options hidden away in an extra tab.

For instance, on articles on my site, there’s an extra exposed ‘Author’  
field, as the site contains contributions from a wide variety of people

- the author field should have the same level of visibility as ‘Title’  
does. I’ve got other fields for selecting the thumbnail image to  
represent the article, which needs to be grouped with the images and  
‘related comics’ section, as the thumbnail could come from either  
source.

I think the first step needs to be breaking down the existing parts of  
the edit page into partials so that the actual edit page itself contains  
barely anything except a list of includes. From that point, you could do  
a lot of editing of the interface without getting out of step with any  
additions to the core features.

Dan.

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**Author:** ![igotimac](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/i/85f322/32.png) [@igotimac](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/igotimac)\
**Post date:** [February 8, 2007, 12:06am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/my-notes-ideas-on-page-editor-extensions/84789/3 "2007-02-08T00:06:59Z")

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Daniel S. wrote:

> I think the first step needs to be breaking down the existing parts of  
> the edit page into partials so that the actual edit page itself contains  
> barely anything except a list of includes. From that point, you could do  
> a lot of editing of the interface without getting out of step with any  
> additions to the core features.

Can you make a pass at that?

–  
John L.  
[http://wiseheartdesign.com](http://wiseheartdesign.com)

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**Author:** ![igotimac](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/i/85f322/32.png) [@igotimac](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/igotimac)\
**Post date:** [February 8, 2007, 12:13am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/my-notes-ideas-on-page-editor-extensions/84789/4 "2007-02-08T00:13:00Z")

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> Can you make a pass at that?  
> Doing so now - it’s pretty much just what I did in my admin\_parts  
> extension.

Dan.

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**Author:** ![igotimac](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/i/85f322/32.png) [@igotimac](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/igotimac)\
**Post date:** [February 8, 2007, 1:15am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/my-notes-ideas-on-page-editor-extensions/84789/5 "2007-02-08T01:15:05Z")

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> Can you make a pass at that?  
> Checked in. I’ve made the extended\_metadata partial accept and array of  
> other partials to include, and I’m not sure if I should split up the  
> layout/type/status settings into three separate partials or not.

Also thinking about a possible interface for extensions to use:

admin.page\_edit\_parts.remove ‘Name’

admin.page\_edit\_parts.add ‘Name’, ‘partial\_name’, optionss

with options:  
:after =\> ‘other\_Name’  
:before =\> ‘other\_Name’  
:within =\> ‘other\_Name’ (to get passed into the  
extension as :locals =\> { ‘partials’ =\> [‘partial\_name’]=)  
:locals =\> {hash of ‘locals’ to be passed to partial}  
:pages =\> [array of page types to render for]

Or, alternatively, the page\_edit\_pages array could by stored against the  
Page type, allowing subtypes to manipulate it.

We might need to figure out where to put the hooks for letting a page  
get to the extra params that get passed in - the @page.attributes =  
params[:page] call will be able to deal with the simple additions, but  
might fall over for more complex ones - I guess we’ll cross that bridge  
when we come to it…

Dan.

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**Author:** ![igotimac](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/i/85f322/32.png) [@igotimac](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/igotimac)\
**Post date:** [February 8, 2007, 2:03am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/my-notes-ideas-on-page-editor-extensions/84789/6 "2007-02-08T02:03:15Z")

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Daniel S. wrote:

> > I think the first step needs to be breaking down the existing parts of  
> > the edit page into partials so that the actual edit page itself contains  
> > barely anything except a list of includes. From that point, you could do  
> > a lot of editing of the interface without getting out of step with any  
> > additions to the core features.

> Can you make a pass at that?

Oh yeah. Liking this one. I’ve actually been thinking about this a lot  
lately.

Just so you know John I have an app that needs to store meta tag stuff  
like keyword, description, and some other custom fields with each page  
– much like Dan does. I suspect this is a _common_ need (except  
different folks will need different fields).

Is there any way we can not only make it easy to customize the page edit  
template but standardize a way to add basic fields (I’m defining a  
“basic” field here as any one-to-one relationship to a page)? A  
standard could then allow for things like having your up-and-coming  
import/export feature ([http://dev.radiantcms.org/radiant/ticket/301](http://dev.radiantcms.org/radiant/ticket/301))  
auto-recognize and import or export these custom fields.

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![igotimac](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/i/85f322/32.png) [@igotimac](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/igotimac)\
**Post date:** [February 8, 2007, 2:18am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/my-notes-ideas-on-page-editor-extensions/84789/7 "2007-02-08T02:18:09Z")

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> Just so you know John I have an app that needs to store meta  
> tag stuff  
> like keyword, description, and some other custom fields with  
> each page  
> – much like Dan does. I suspect this is a _common_ need (except  
> different folks will need different fields).

The way I do thinks is have an extension with a custom table  
(groggy\_article\_metadatas), all I need in my page is:

class GroggyArticlePage \< Page

has\_one :groggy\_article\_metadata, :foreign\_key =\> ‘page\_id’  
validates\_associated :groggy\_article\_metadata

delegate :article\_type, :article\_type=,  
:author, :author=,  
:feature, :feature=,  
:to =\> :metadata

def metadata  
self.groggy\_article\_metadata ||= build\_groggy\_article\_metadata  
end

def after\_save  
metadata.save  
end

end

class GroggyArticleMetadata \< ActiveRecord::Base  
belongs\_to :page  
end

(I’m not sure that the after\_save is needed - that might have been  
paranioa).

Then, in my page/edit page, I can just pick up whether the page is a  
GroggyArticlePage and add the normal rails helpers for input.

There might be some call for a ‘metadata’ helper, so that it could be  
reduced to just:

class GroggyArticlePage \< Page  
metadata :groggy\_article\_metadata, :article\_type, :author, :feature  
end

(though you could probably even inspect the metadata class to get those  
delegate properties without specifying them).

Dan.

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**Author:** ![igotimac](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/i/85f322/32.png) [@igotimac](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/igotimac)\
**Post date:** [February 8, 2007, 4:23am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/my-notes-ideas-on-page-editor-extensions/84789/8 "2007-02-08T04:23:18Z")

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> extension as :locals =\> { ‘partials’ =\> [‘partial\_name’]=)  
> :locals =\> {hash of ‘locals’ to be passed to partial}  
> :pages =\> [array of page types to render for]

My admin\_parts extension  
([http://soxbox.no-ip.org/radiant/svn/extensions/admin\_parts](http://soxbox.no-ip.org/radiant/svn/extensions/admin_parts)) now  
implements that interface (with the exception of the :pages option for  
now). (anybody that may have been using my admin\_parts extension in the  
past for some reason, you’ll want to pin to version 121 of my  
repository).

My part\_attachments extension has also been updated to make use of the  
new admin\_parts.

Any comments welcome.

Dan.