#5515 - Make more visible hidden functionality

By PDStig
Added 30th Dec 2023, 2:03 PM
11 views

Identifier	#5515
Issue type	Feature request or suggestion
Title	Make more visible hidden functionality
Status	Closed (no changes needed)
Handling member	Deleted
Addon	General / Uncategorised
Description	I believe the hidden functionality of Composr should be made more visible to users, and that we should follow the philosophy of "if it can be configured, then it should be an editable field somewhere". A) Obscure options page Under "Configuration", add a new page that lists off, and allows configuration of, all the hidden values controlling hidden functionality. Perhaps add a function or a hook somewhere that contains a list of arrays ['hidden_value', 'description', 'data_type', 'default_value']. That way, the page can be built off of this without creating full config hooks for every one of them (especially since in general, hidden values are always available regardless of the installed addons). b) URL parameters page In the dropdown that contains items such as showing edit links for templates, add a new option for URL Parameter Builder or something. This pulls up an interface (in a new window?) taking into account the current URL and its parameters. It then has a form which contains all the available URL parameters (such as keep parameters) and allows the user to specify which ones they want (defaults auto-update according to what was originally in the URL). Again, have some list of arrays to build this form: ['parameter', 'description', 'data_type']. Then, with a generate button, a new URL will be generated with those parameters (or we can simply redirect to it).
Steps to reproduce
Additional information	We decided on only improved documentation. See comments.
Funded?	No

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By Guest posted 24th Mar 2024, 3:04 PM

I think this is too much cognitive load on people who likely don't ever need the functionality. The most important principle should typically be "don't overwhelm the user who is following the default path" followed by "don't put extra burden on developers unless it is really justified and someone would be willing to pay for it".

Most of these options are truly obscure, added for some very specific problem in a hurry. They are documented if people want them, having a UI in front is worse than starting from the documentation for unsupported features - it kind of is instead giving people enough rope to hang themselves with. If they all have to be supported instead, that's an unreasonable developer burden that nobody is going to pay for.

By Guest posted 25th Mar 2024, 1:00 PM

That makes sense. Perhaps a compromise is a dedicated tutorial page which lists off the available values and a short description of what they are (if we don't already have that... I think we do).

By Guest posted 27th Mar 2024, 9:39 AM

It's in the Codebook. It could be split out if you think important. Probably makes sense too actually, given the list has grown.

By Guest posted 27th Mar 2024, 9:53 AM

I can do that. I'll give the documentation a review and think this through, then close this and create a new issue for pulling the values out into another document.

By Guest posted 27th Apr 2024, 9:10 PM

I think the documentation itself is fine but perhaps we need a test for this... scan for all uses of get_value / set_value in the code and make sure they are referenced on that doc page (with ability to add exclusions by regex pattern or exact match).

By Guest posted 22nd Jul 2024, 5:37 PM

__specsettings_documented_test_set already does this.

By Guest posted 22nd Jul 2024, 5:42 PM

__specsettings_documented*

#5515 - Make more visible hidden functionality

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