Feature requests/ideas

  • Resolved PeterWillard

    (@peterwillard)


    7 years, 7 months ago

    Hello! I’ve come across your plugin just today and I am intrigued by its potential. I love the approach of making the user develop his/her own modules and the plugin only providing a framework for interacting with them.

    It took me a moment to get it to run but I’ve seen your answer in another thread that documentation is on its way, so that should be covered.

    In the FAQ you mention you discarded the idea of multiple areas for simplicity. I think that nesting modules would be very useful! For example one could develop layout modules and configure them via options. So for example a dual column block with definable widths for columns. Then you could nest content modules into each column. The content editor could build cool layouts this way.

    If we are talking about module types (layout, content) then it would be awesome to somehow categorise them as their number grew. The searchbar is cool but managing say 20+ modules would quickly become unwieldy. So categories or tags perhaps?

    One last idea – WPML integration. I tested it and two language versions of a page can have their own modules and content set up so that’s good. But say I compose a complex page with lots of modules and then make a duplicate of it to translate it. The WPML “duplicate” option and overriding with original page content don’t work – the module set and content aren’t transferred.

    Hope at least some of this made sense ??

Viewing 4 replies - 1 through 4 (of 4 total)
  • Plugin Author GDY

    (@grandy)

    Hey Peter,

    nice to hear you like it.

    Installation
    Thats a thing. But as already mentioned the Doc is on its way (its actually pretty much done). Also i am going to publish a utility plugin (gdymc module manager) that guides you through the plugin setup (and it has some cool functionalities afterwards).

    Multiple areas
    Well thats a big one. The plugin is actually based on a cms ive created a few years ago. In that cms it was possible to create multiple areas. So you could create areas in modules for things like placing a module with two columns and inside that this module again (for 4 columns of module areas). With that i already got some impression what is good about that and what not (An thats why i decided against it in this plugin).

    Here are some of the downsides:

    • GDYMC is hardly focused on great workflows so it have to be really easy. But to support multiple areas you have to find a way how to add them. The old cms had a drag and drop solution but it was a bit quirky. Iam a big fan of rock solid behavior and drag and drop isn’t. The focus flickered on hovering and so on …
    • Another thing is responsiveness … With nested areas you dont know how wide you columns are. If you nest 2 columns in a 2 columns area the inner one should break earlier than the outer one. This can probably tackled with flexbox but right now there is no good solution for this.
    • Also a focus of the plugin is to control the users so that they couldn’t make much mistakes. Nested areas have big potential to screw up contents. What if a user place a module inside a area that is to small. There would probably be some kind of restriction necessary that would add a whole lot of complexity for editors and programmers

    Conclusion: So as long as i haven’t found a great way to deliver this it isn’t happening. I think there are other plugins that allow you to work like this. Have a look at this one.

    Categories, Tags
    This one is probably coming in near future. I have multiple times thought about something like that. But categories or tags have to be placed in the module itself. So there have to be added a meta file ore something like this. I like that you basically just need a index.php for a module so meta/readme/headers are not the right solution in my opinion.

    I am probably allow the users to create folders on their own (drag and drop). Im just not sure i the folder system should be saved per installation (so all users on the site have the same structure) or per user. Per installation would easier supportwise …

    WPML duplicates
    All modules an contents are saved in postmeta so this seems not to be duplicated by WPML. They have a whole lot of addons and there may be one that allow to duplicate postmeta … But nevertheless you have to translate all modules on the new page if they are duplicated.

    Heres a dirty solution for now: Copy your page and save the id of your newly created page. Go to the frontend of your old page click on the pin icon in any module (batch editing). Click on the pin icon in the admin bar and select “select all modules” then click on the “actions” tab. There copy you id in “move or copy” and hit copy. All your modules and contents should be on your new page now ??

    Plugin Author GDY

    (@grandy)

    Hi Peter,

    so i’ve just read the whole topic again. Sorry if my post is a bit hard to read but my english isn’t perfect and it was early in the morning ??

    I tested the WPML thing and the duplicating of posts works totally fine for me. All modules and contents are duplicated correctly without any WPML addons installed.

    Because GDYMC completely uses the WordPress post meta api it should be compatible with most other plugins.

    Could you just check that again if there were any mistakes on your side?

    Thread Starter PeterWillard

    (@peterwillard)

    Hello Johannes!

    I am very sorry for the late response.

    I have set up a clean WordPress installation to check whether I was mucking something up and it seems I must have been – duplicating a page transfers the modules and their content as it is expected.

    I have identified a problem though. Right after duplicating a page with modules and content and then setting the duplicate to be translated independently, I can modify and save the content of both pages independently but when I delete a certain module on the original page – it disappears on the translation as well. This works the other way around too. When I then re-add the same modules on both of pages, save and try to delete them again – the deletion doesn’t occur from that point on.

    • This reply was modified 7 years, 7 months ago by PeterWillard.
    • This reply was modified 7 years, 7 months ago by PeterWillard.
    Plugin Author GDY

    (@grandy)

    Hey Peter,

    no Problem. This is definetively an existing bug in the system. Thanks for pointing that out!

    I could explain why this happens in detail but tl;dr its because the module id is duplicated with the post itself.

    The next version (0.8.6) is already finished and just waits for the documentation to go live. So the fix is coming as of version 0.8.7.

    I mark this topic as resolved because there shouldn’t be any further problems with WPML (And the other two points are more of a feedback thing). If you find something else just create a new topic or let me know here.

    • This reply was modified 7 years, 7 months ago by GDY.
Viewing 4 replies - 1 through 4 (of 4 total)
  • The topic ‘Feature requests/ideas’ is closed to new replies.