[Sputnik-list] blueprint

[Yuri Takhteyev]

>  I personnally don't like the appearance of the default Sputnik
>  template, but I must admit it works very well, both in show mode and
>  edit mode. I still use it for my configuration pages. However as a
>  basis for custom templates it's maybe too complicated, it took me some
>  time to understand how everything works.

Can you be more specific?  I don't consider myself much of a designer,
so I promise to not take visual appearance comments personally!

In regards to the difficulty of figuring it out, what would have made
it easier?  E.g., would it help to divide the templates between
different pages, e.g., keep all the "advanced" stuff (RSS, edit UI,
etc.) in a different node.  Or is it a matter of figuring out how
Cosmo templates work?  Would the new documentation
(http://sputnik.freewisdom.org/cosmo/) have helped ?

>  On the navigation bar subject, I made changes to my sputnik copy to
>  have a flat navigation bar with all sub-sections displayed all the
>  time. I think it's more common, and easier to use. This allows quicker

This makes sense for a vertical navigation bar.  I'll add a config
variable for this: this one is actually quite easy.  I assume that
making the menu display vertically wasn't hard, right?

>  navigation, and with a cascaded menu with javascript to close by
>  defaults sections other than the current one it doesn't take much more
>  space. On my website I don't have many sections/subsections yet, so I

>  navigation data). I can share the code (it may take some time for me
>  to setup a clean install to make a diff though).

If at some later point you decide to upgrade, then send me the new diff.

>  About navbar-less sites, I think that a wiki with a sufficiently dense
>  network of internal links maybe very usable even without a navigation
>  bar. Also optionnal may mean hidden by default, but still accessible
>  with a client-side script.

Or, simpler, there could be a flag to turn it on or off.  The issue is
the following: if you install a wiki and it has a menu bar, and you
don't want one, you would presumably ask: "How do I get rid of it?"
and find the solution if it exists and is documented.  If you install
a wiki that doesn't seem to have a menu bar and you decide you want
one, you might just assume that there is no support for that and give
up.  No?

 - yuri