[wp-testers] Gallery CSS/xHTML

[Spencer Lavery]

Matt Mullenweg wrote:

>Spencer Lavery wrote:
>> Instead of forcing each image to be wrapped in a DL, add some new WP
>> template tags for targeting the gallery specifically inside the loop,
>> for example:

>I think Andy already articulated the point really well, but it might
>also help to take a step back and think of shortcodes like little magic
>expansions.

The patch is half-way there. Does it remove the inline styles on the
<br>, and the <br> itself? I find it odd that WordPress is assuming
themers won't know how to clear elements properly. I know a key part
of WordPress recently is making everything work for users with no
knowledge of design/code whatsoever, but I always thought that valid
code was a fundamental element of WordPress, and injecting CSS also
seems like rather a backward step.

>The most popular shortcode we've done thus far is a youtube one, which
>is like [youtube http://youtube.com/?v=aoeuaoue]. This gets expanded,
>just like the gallery shortcode, into a magic snippet on display. A
>blogger can easily move it around their post, copy and paste it, and
>modify its arguments. In the [youtube] case there's just a single
>argument, but others might have more complex ones, like the gallery
>shortcode.

I wasn't aware of the shortcode. The shortode looks excellent and can
certainly do most of the things I would need it to. Though the choice
of using a DL as the default HTML element is questionable - it's no
way a Definition List semantically - it's barely even a list. It
actually a series of images, in the same way that a series of words
make up a paragraph. I would stick to vanilla formatting (A and IMG
tags only) inside of one div with the .gallery class. Themers will be
able to target and control the elements easily enough with that
formatting.

>Hardcoding the magic expansions into the theme would be really
>inflexible for both the blogger and themer. This combines the best of
>blogger ease-of-use with theme control, as they can override any aspect
>already.

I guess I just disagree with this notion fundamentally. The themer
should have more control over how things appear than the blogger,
because if the blogger was competent enough to make those decisions,
they wouldn't need to use anybody elses themes. I'm sure at the very
beginning of WP the devs thought to themselves "should we really let
users control how posts are formatted in HTML?" time has shown the
right choice. Forcing and restricting the HTML by placing it within
core pages (I have a similar gripe wp_list_cats etc.) is a step
backwards in my opinion - you should be trying to move the project
forward with a goal of completely separating the following elements:

php
formatting (x/html)
presentation (css)

Themers/users should have complete control over formatting and
presentation, never needing to touch the php (except the hooks in the
themes, and loops if they so wish). Most of the WP templating system
allows this, but elements such a wp_list_cats don't. I assumed that
this was old code waiting to be revised, but to introduce new code
using this same, old method isn't where I thought WP was trying to go.

I'm still part of the group that only wants/needs the WP admin area to
act as a front-end for the database, not the blog itself.