[wp-hackers] Idea: Widgets as custom post types

[Mike Schinkel]

On Mar 2, 2010, at 3:43 PM, Michael Pretty wrote:
> Heck, lets go ahead and put the terms tables into the posts table.  No reason we can't turn the entire database into a nodal system.  :)
> 
> 3 tables:
> objects
> objects_to_objects_map
> object_meta

Funny, I suggested as much back on the 14th:  

http://groups.google.com/group/wp-hackers/msg/5b94903c68ae1ec1

On Mar 2, 2010, at 3:53 PM, Otto wrote:
> Changing Links into Posts does not make sense to me. 

Debate it with Matt. 

> If Links needs to be expanded, then I'd support that. Why can't links
> be tagged? It wouldn't be hard to add "link-tag" to the taxonomies.
> Much better solution than shifting a link to a post. How do you
> display a link as a post? Best I can think of would be a redirect. ;)

Think in terms of a directory of links.  A link can have a recent screenshot of the link, a description of the link, a title for the link, a category in which fits, a set of tags about the link, custom fields about the link (i.e. address maybe?) and more.  With custom post types the need for links go away so all link functionality should be rolled in for use by custom post types.

> Widgets should be made more generic, yes. But most likely they should
> be given their *own* table. Why? Because it's difficult to imagine a
> solid case for representing a single widget as a whole post page as
> well. 

Difficult for you to imagine maybe, but not for me and I'll bet not for many others.

A widget page would show what the widget is capable of, show screenshots of it in use, and be linked to taxonomy of types of widgets.  So I have to disagree with you again, widgets in the posts table makes a lot of sense.  

-Mike