# Question/Poll for Shards developers **URL:** \ **Category:** Radiant CMS\ **Created:** [November 8, 2007, 9:29pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/question-poll-for-shards-developers/119648 "2007-11-08T21:29:45Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 5\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![smc7000](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/s/ed655f/32.png) [@smc7000](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/smc7000)\ **Post date:** [November 8, 2007, 9:29pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/question-poll-for-shards-developers/119648/1 "2007-11-08T21:29:45Z")
Shards developers, I’m about to make a major change to the Shards extension’s API and I want a little feedback from those who are using it. This is not a breaking change, per se, but a behavioral one. Let me set it up for you. Right now, the views (especially new/edit) for the Admin::PageController are broken into a bajillion little pieces so that we can have many points of insertion into the template. This is great for flexibility, but results in a bunch of tiny files and the need to dig through them to find the proper region when you want to insert something. I’d like to dramatically reduce the number of partials that ship with the extension. The solution to this, which I have working, is to move the partials back into one (or a few) files and provide a way to specify defaults, but still allow overriding of the partials in the file system. Here’s an example of what I’m talking about. Normally, when you render a region, a line like this exists in the template: \<%= render\_region :my\_region %\> Via the ‘admin’ object, you would populate this region with partial names, which would be rendered from the file system in the order specified. If this region has default partials, as do the ones that come with Shards, they would instead be specified inline, where appropriate. Let’s say “my\_region” has default partials of “profile” and “sidebar”; this is how you would specify them (notice the removal of the =): \<% render\_region :my\_region do |my| %\> \<% my.profile do %\> … \<% end %\> \<% my.sidebar do %\> … \<% end %\> \<% end %\> This adds a bit of weight and noise to the templates, but significantly cuts down the number of partials. Regions that don’t have any default partials could still be rendered in the manner shown in the first example (with the =). Let me know how you feel about this change. Sean ---
**Author:** ![smc7000](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/s/ed655f/32.png) [@smc7000](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/smc7000)\ **Post date:** [November 9, 2007, 12:24am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/question-poll-for-shards-developers/119648/2 "2007-11-09T00:24:47Z")
I like it - looks clean. Will we need to make any changes in current plugins that use Shards? ---
**Author:** ![smc7000](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/s/ed655f/32.png) [@smc7000](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/smc7000)\ **Post date:** [November 9, 2007, 12:34am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/question-poll-for-shards-developers/119648/3 "2007-11-09T00:34:08Z")
Ryan, No, you shouldn’t have to make any changes to your extensions. Sean ---
**Author:** ![smc7000](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/s/ed655f/32.png) [@smc7000](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/smc7000)\ **Post date:** [November 9, 2007, 4:39am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/question-poll-for-shards-developers/119648/4 "2007-11-09T04:39:44Z")
why not implement a default\_content\_for() method that you use to display the radiant admin’s content and then provide methods to extension writters to use the basic rails content\_for() methods to override. What’s the rationale behind ‘render\_region’ ? Also, if possible give extension authors a choice. In the radiant ‘core’ you might define part of the page edit screen with default\_content\_for(“edit\_submit\_buttons”) Then, give extension authors the option of either creating a \_edit\_submit\_buttons partial OR putting a content\_for(“edit\_submit\_buttons”) into a general “\_edit\_defaults” partial… something like that… With a bajillion little files, it’s clear what I need to name my file and where to put it in order to override a particular one of those files, If the structure of these partials is going to change, it should be possible for an extension to take the same structure and specifically override parts with content\_for like blocks… just some ideas. ---
**Author:** ![smc7000](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/s/ed655f/32.png) [@smc7000](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/smc7000)\ **Post date:** [November 9, 2007, 2:37pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/question-poll-for-shards-developers/119648/5 "2007-11-09T14:37:42Z")
Jacob, At this point, I wasn’t looking to change the usage of the extension, only its internals. You can still override the partials named in the admin object, it’s just when they fail to render from the filesystem, they fall back to the inline version. The reason for using the region idea (which has been in there since shards was the facets branch) is that we want flexibility in the way that extension authors can manipulate the interface, without clobbering each other’s changes. Yes, it’s still possible, but if you play nice (i.e. not removing all partials from a region), you won’t normally break another extension. If you can provide a prototype of the alternative implementation you propose, I’d be glad to consider it. Sean P.S. I already committed the core changes to the extension and will finish updating the views today.