Joel R Posted January 18, 2015 Share Posted January 18, 2015 This is a suggestion that I passionately support, since I think it offers a lot of positive ramifications that can spread through the entire IPS community and Marketplace. My suggestion is for IPS developers to offer additional packs of templates for customers to be sold in the marketplace. For example: Additional IP.Pages templates and blocks Additional IP.Blog templates and blocks Additional IP.Gallery templates By selling them through the marketplace, you don't feature bloat the core; it can provide another source of revenue while leaving the support for the forums; and most importantly, it can help pave the way for third-party developers to build upon your efforts and continue to unleash the full creativity of IPS 4. One of the biggest selling points of IPS, and how you market some of your products, is customization. This is one of the reasons why I was attracted to some of your products, like IP.Content and IP.Blogs. Unfortunately, it was a rude awakening. I soon realized that it wasn't very easy building custom pages in IP.Content, and IP.Blog skins weren't updated or released for years in the Marketplace. I still fervently believe that IPS offers the greatest potential, and I'm waiting on when it can start fulfilling those possibilities. (Be beautiful, IPS 4. Pink sparkles and all.) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TracyIsland Posted January 19, 2015 Share Posted January 19, 2015 I should "Like This" but that does not do the suggestion justice.Click 'Absolutely Brilliant.' Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dylan Riggs Posted January 19, 2015 Share Posted January 19, 2015 I suggested that designers/themers also do this some time ago, yeah it pretty much went on deaf ears. What I wanted to provide are themes/templates that are pretty much site ready, aka a unique front page designed and ready to go out of the box.The issue is that IPS didn't provide an easy way for us to do this outside of uploading blocks 1 by 1 and then having the user copy.paste the template code for the page they needed to setup, it just wasn't intuitive. I hope the new Pages really allows developers to export/import databases, pages and blocks. It just was too much clicking to get a desired result in 3.4.xI have like 3-4 themes collecting dust on my computer that I never released to the marketplace because it was too much hassle in support (due to lack of users being able to successfully setup the front page) so I canned them. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
wimg Posted January 19, 2015 Share Posted January 19, 2015 Dylan, it is like the notification for the bug report application on the right hand side:You can do all this and more with IP.Content, it is easy to do... - along those lines, anyway. Yeah. Great to know. Please provide a detailed description, plenty of examples, etc. I understand doing development, but I really am a user when it comes to the ICS, and specifically to IP.Content.It is much easier to create content with - deities forbid - joomla, drupal or wordpress, than it is with IP.Content. I honestly do not need the hassle, of creating the tools I need first before I can even use it, although I probably will have to figure out how to do all this beyond simple templating fairly soon. Been looking at this for too long already, and too much invested in ICS content, even though it now sits in forums where it doesn't really belong.Kind regards, Wim Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dylan Riggs Posted January 20, 2015 Share Posted January 20, 2015 Wimg, what I'm saying is.. I agree with everyone. As a developer myself, it's not user friendly and I've suggested this, the point is... it was so difficult for anyone to release packs like this and make it easy for a normal user with not much experience to set it up too.It's easy to create certian blocks that do certain things and then simply skin it how you want it to look. It's getting it setup on another person's site and making it match and fit their own site that's more difficult. It doesn't have rhythm in a sense like all joomla/drupal/wordpress sites do.Hope that makes sense Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Joel R Posted January 20, 2015 Author Share Posted January 20, 2015 Well, individual blocks and page templates are two very different things. So I can definitely understand the difficulty in trying to create a cohesive page with both of those. In the end, I managed to more or less figure it out myself (which made me really proud as a non-technical person!). But my page's code is a total mess, and my blocks are lined up in a very ugly manner. I think the drag-and-drop style of IP.Pages will dramatically make it easier for users to create pages, but we do need more individual blocks, page templates, and perhaps even prebuilt pages that can offer both. And probably better documentation on how to use IP.Content / IP.Pages. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bfarber Posted January 20, 2015 Share Posted January 20, 2015 Pages allows you to export and import databases, so it will be easier for developers to create pre-packaged databases in 4 and share them with the community. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Joel R Posted January 21, 2015 Author Share Posted January 21, 2015 When you say export and import databases, do you just mean the 'template' for the databases (like custom fields) or the data inside as well? Also, if you can import and export CSV files (like from Excel), this just ... blew my mind. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bfarber Posted January 21, 2015 Share Posted January 21, 2015 The database configuration, field definitions, categories and templates. They're not CSV files (I'm not talking about the data). I'm talking about developers creating databases and sharing them (here's a links database, here's a bug tracker database, etc). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dylan Riggs Posted January 23, 2015 Share Posted January 23, 2015 @bfarber Are blocks going to be more organized than 3.4? What I mean by this is, in 3.4.x, all you had was a block list with all the blocks you created... since I do a lot of IP.Content work, I have like 60-70+ blocks on my dev site and it's just a mess as far as finding what block went to what theme or page, or what have you. Is it possible to categorize these in more of like a tree format? Like based upon the pages the blocks are displayed at so it's easy to find. Or an easier way to filter between the blocks?Right now, you pretty much go by memory and previewing the blocks...and yeah, you tend to forget what you worked on some 6+months ago on what the block name was, but you recall what page it was on and you just had multiple versions of said block...It's hard to explain, really. I just think how it being in a list format and is a pain in the behind and hope it's been reworked to be user friendly for those who have more than 5 blocks on their site. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TracyIsland Posted January 23, 2015 Share Posted January 23, 2015 I have the same issue and all the blocks we have drives a certain developer slightly bonkers.If no other solution is offered, then I would offer this as a bandaid, which I implemented. It is time consuming and tedious but it helps. In the description field for the block, add your notes of what/where this block is used, and any other notes.I do like your idea. As it is, we have about 20 categories.I also suggested a while back to have a left side bar with all the categories so that you could click on a given category and have all the blocks appear. As it is right now, after you updated a block, the long list of categories and blocks rescrolls back to the top of the page and I have to zip wheel back down again, over and over and over.- Brian@adonismale really sorry about adding the reply here ... I don't think it has anything to do with your original topic Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Joel R Posted January 25, 2015 Author Share Posted January 25, 2015 I have the same issue and all the blocks we have drives a certain developer slightly bonkers.If no other solution is offered, then I would offer this as a bandaid, which I implemented. It is time consuming and tedious but it helps. In the description field for the block, add your notes of what/where this block is used, and any other notes.I do like your idea. As it is, we have about 20 categories.I also suggested a while back to have a left side bar with all the categories so that you could click on a given category and have all the blocks appear. As it is right now, after you updated a block, the long list of categories and blocks rescrolls back to the top of the page and I have to zip wheel back down again, over and over and over.- Brian@adonismale really sorry about adding the reply here ... I don't think it has anything to do with your original topicThat's actually a good suggestion, in and of itself. I also have a total mess of blocks, and I do exactly what you do by adding where the block is used in the description. (Ooooh, brilliant suggestion: have IPS 4 automatically detect where the block is being used!). I take it a step further by creating a category for EACH page. In any case, I'm staring morosely at the IP.Gallery and the IP.Blog index pages, and I'm just itching for different layouts. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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