Mambo News

Bugs and Containers

This week, I've been bug fixing as people spotted problems with the beta of Mambo 4.6. Actually, there has not been much so far. And quite a few people seem to be very pleased with what they're finding, which is nice. Carlos is busy finishing off the language handling so that we can put out a public RC version prior to going live. We'd have gone straight to RC only Carlos thought that was unfair, as the language stuff wasn't really quite ready.

With not too many bugs to fix, I've also been working on creating the Mambo Containers system. The basis of this is very simple. It is planned to replace Sections and Categories with just one kind of thing. But instead of being restricted to only two levels, you will be able to have whatever number of levels is needed. Sometimes that might be less than two, other times more than two.

The containers don't have much functionality on their own. They are just anchors for content. The aim is to provide them in a way that can be used by all kinds of content, not just the articles that are handled by the content component. In fact, we're intending to rename what is presently called “content” as “articles” since there are so many other possible kinds of content, such as file repositories or image galleries.

So all a container really does is to have a name and a description. It has a flag to say whether it is published, a number to control the ordering, and that is about it! Actually, there are a few other bits and pieces, such as some metadata, an icon and a trash indicator. Then there is the stuff to give it all structure – which container is within which other container.

All the code is aimed at delivering an admin interface, because the containers don't provide any user functionality directly, only through other components. But much of the logic is in a class file that is stored on the user side of the code so as to be easily available to other components.

If you've got any thoughts about how content should be organised in Mambo, now is the time to shout! Any ideas for developing the container structure stand a chance of being incorporated in the design at present. Once it is fully developed, changes can still be made, but it is harder. Please let me know your thoughts!

-counterpoint
 

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