Talk:OBX proposals

Use a large icon-free obx to replace Status_box?

Looking at the two activity boxes in Kuku, it seems the Status_box version is unavoidably more attractive than the obx version, simply because it has less "excess ink" not conveying information. But having box-based extensibility would be nice. And we still need a work-around for the argument passing problems. So maybe Status_box could be made into a large icon-free obx? Eg,

{olpcboxtop for activity|name=Kuku}
{obx activity overview
|activity = Kuku
|icon     = Kuku.png
|status   = In Development/XO Testing
|version  = 0.1
|base     = 0.1
|source   = ...
|l10n     = ...
|contributors = ...
}
... other obxes could go here ...
{olpcboxbottom}

Just two ideas here:

• obx_activity_overview (or whatever one calls it) is a modified Status_box which generates an obx-like div (but one without the icon concept).
• olpcboxtop_for_activity calls olpcboxtop, setting the box color and header, as the test version does explicitly.

So the above code would look exactly like the current Status_box version (well, slightly wider), but when something runs afoul of mediawiki's argument passing, one could simply drop that line from obx_activity_overview, and add a separate obx for it then. Incremental just-in-time ugliness.

Another alternative might be

{olpcboxtop for activity|name=Kuku}
{obx box top}
{obx activity icon|Kuku.png}
{obx activity status|In Development/XO Testing}
{obx activity version|0.1}
{obx activity base|0.1}
{obx activity source|name=Kuku|...}
{obx activity l10n|...}
{obx activity contributors|...}
{obx box bottom}
{olpcboxbottom}

where the obx_activity_foo are basically just <tr><td><b>{1}</b></td><td>{2}</td></tr>. This makes things a little uglier and less flexible up front, in order to buy more graceful degredation (ie, one is never forced to bail out to a true obx).

Hmm, and actually, we still haven't used the "|more=}" dont close the box! concept.

So those two might be combined as

{olpcboxtop for activity|name=Kuku}
{obx activity overview
|activity = Kuku
|icon     = Kuku.png
|status   = In Development/XO Testing
|version  = 0.1
|base     = 0.1
|there is more=}
{obx activity contributors|...}
{obx box bottom}
{olpcboxbottom}

Or perhaps even better, as

{olpcbox for activity
|name     = Kuku
|icon     = Kuku.png
...
|there are more entries=}
{obx activity contributors|...}
{obx box bottom}
{olpcboxbottom}

and also

{olpcbox for activity
|name     = Kuku
|icon     = Kuku.png
...
|there are more boxes=}
... more boxes here...
{olpcboxbottom}

and often

{olpcbox for activity
|name     = Kuku
|icon     = Kuku.png
...
} <!-- all done, no more boxes, no quoting problems to work around -->

But... While implementation should be easy, I'm not sure it's worth the user complexity cost. Ie, adding a box may require adding a "there are more boxes" argument.

Sigh. So much pain because mediawiki was poorly designed. MitchellNCharity 02:11, 9 August 2007 (EDT)