Descriptive Terminology = "Semantic Intuitiveness"? (was: MODScripts?)

Good insight Adam! I like the consistency theme, too.

Don’t stop now Adam. Please!

You’re on a roll... keep it coming.

If I talk too much I might be expeted to do some work

I couldn’t resist adding one more thing to the list though

I’ve got to go pick up a Pizza but when I get back maybe I’ll pick up my rant.

LOL

Cool... great insights and suggestions.

lolo, looks like TP4 is going to be a rebuilt of the "manager"

Finally somebody caught on to what I was trying to get at with my splurge of posts a few weeks back! I’m 1000% with you all on this!!! Yahoo!

Looks like this thread needs to be organized somewhat. Wayyyyy too many ideas and thoughts are going on here!

As for the naming convention I really would love to see some kind of psudo industry standard happening here.
portlet .... errr sounds like porklet to me
As for the other names .... errrr ... I really would like to see a "one off" name for each that is very descriptive and short -- hopefully one word, no mixes or anything longer than ... 1234567(8) letters. Reason being is that somebody will come up with an acronym anyway and just confuse everybody. Sheeet, I couldn’t get it across to myself that TV stood for "template variable" I keep thinking television.

I was thinking that maybe we should work backwards on the naming convention.
A.) what does each actually do?
B.) what does it diferientiate it from the other ones?
C.) how do they relate to the end user?
D.) will the end user even need to worry about them?
-- C/D.) -- what is the end user? who are they? bloogers or programmers?
E.) come up with a name for each that is understood at wide range of usr levels, ie my sister to a seasoned programer!

lolo, loved the comment about the mambots in the article

Carsten’s on the right track and some of this was already done. Here’s the new thread about general usability fixes that are so important to our marketing efforts. (Despite having insanely great power and flexibility, there no reason we can’t hide a lot of MODx/Tatto’s power behind a really usable and simple interface.)

Quote from: Carsten at Aug 10, 2005, 02:16 AM

I was thinking that maybe we should work backwards on the naming convention.
A.) what does each actually do?
B.) what does it diferientiate it from the other ones?
C.) how do they relate to the end user?
D.) will the end user even need to worry about them?
-- C/D.) -- what is the end user?  who are they?  bloogers or programmers?
E.) come up with a name for each that is understood at wide range of usr levels, ie my sister to a seasoned programer!

Adam also suggested "unifying" the naming structure. While I really would love to do this, I’m having a hard time balancing clear semantics  and cutesy/potentially-confusing names. Jason suggested going with "standard" terminology, which I also really like.

Perhaps we use consistent names for like items (see below) and direct,  somewhat generic descriptions in other places? One thing though is we can’t be too generic, like using "code" for snippet, as that stands to be confusing to the developers, but probably not to end users. It’s a balancing act!

On that basis, here’s a synopsis of some of the earlier stuff and some things not yet touched upon:

Manager
Where you control content and configuration of the entire software install.
Control Panel, Control Center, Admin Center, Admin Panel, Manager ...

Documents
It’s a website... I agree with what Adam said elsewhere. You don’t typically think of building an HTML document, you’re building a Web Page. The page may serve no other purpose than to serve up a Word Doc, but it’s still coming from a page .
Pages, Content

Templates
The centerpiece of MODx around which most things associated with pages revolve. The central gatekeeper almost with the exception of special applications. There needs to be a simple and direct way for people to quickly create different types of content, like a shopping cart products page, a blog, etc. Do we need sub-templates, or content templates, or content settings?
Templates, Page Templates ...

Snippets
Blocks of code containing logic that can change dynamically based on many things.
CodeBlocks, CodeTags, ActiveScripts, TemplateScripts, CodeBit, PHPBit

Chunks
Blocks of static information that cannot contain logic.
StaticBlocks, TextBlocks, HTMLBlocks, TemplateBit

Template Variables (TVs)
Variables that are currently linked to templates to define custom or specialized types of data or data-entry zones in all pages using those templates.
Custom Fields, Custom Variables, Page Variables, Custom Content, Content

Placeholders
Non-defined resources (as opposed to chunks) that are generated on the fly by code to represent various pieces of data.
I personally think it’s pretty appropriately named

Plugins
Alter or extend the way the core system behaves across the board.
Plugins, EventBit

Modules
External programs that bring outside functionality into Tattoo.
ExtensionBit, PackageBit, Module, Applications, Packages ...

Packages
Groups of plugins, chunks, snippets, pages and DB resources that become a Module once installed. Needs a package installer/un-installer.
Packages, Extensions, PackageBit, ExtensionBit,  ... Is this even needed at all with Modules (IOW, does it really matter if it’s third-party SW being integrated or a from-scratch module like the SMF binding)?

Did I miss anything here?

Update (Yes): Widgets
Small pieces of code that take a piece of text or data and changes into another form. For example, Rich Text Editors, pop-up list input boxes, display grids and more.
Widgets, Display Controls, Display Formatter ...

I think we should throw in Custom Content or maybe just Content as an optional name for TVs.

I’ll also say that we need to be careful with Plugins and Modules. In my mind a plugin and a module is really the same thing. To me our plugins are more like event handlers than actual plugins. I think that this could get confusing for developers.

I like what Ryan said about not being too generic. I think that the problem with the original names is that they tried to be so non-techie that they lost their meaning. I think that HTML (or something with HTML in the name) would have made much more sense than Chunk. Let’s face it, anybody trying to set up their own site is going to know what HTML is. Chunk is so generic that it holds no real meaning whatsoever. You migt as well name them thing 1 and thing 2

However, the chunks can also contain references to other chunks, references to snippets and placeholders... so that’s not totally an apt description either... :/

err, ok!

Need to split this thread! I’m going to have a hell of time trying to remember all of the important details and which "term" to comment on.

@document -- I like the term content. This is if all I’m inputting is information.
@ templates -- errr that’s easy enough.
@ plugin -- works for me
@ module -- sounds like from the description that "3rd party plugin" might work. a module is a plugin but from a 3rd party.

@ chunk -- I still don’t get it. The above has helped a bit but ... still missing the basic understanding.