Hanna Code suggestions

[Peter Knight]

I'd like to see better Hanna Code management and I think 4 things could greatly assist.

1 - Tags

to be able to tag a piece of Hanna Code in the same manner as we tag templates. We could then see the list of Hanna Codes arranged in the same format as templates. IE broken down by tag.

 

2 - Usage

On the Hanna Code list i'd also like to see a column called Pages (and Templates?) telling me how many pages and templates use my Hanna Code. Again, similar to the Templates layout.

 

3 - Filter / Find

The Find page has a tab called Filters for searching by template, field etc etc. In fact, I can filter by almost anything except Hanna Codes.

 

4 - Descriptions

To be able to add a plain text description to a Hanna Code. I try to name my HCs in a helpful way such as 

Get-Video

Get-Investor-News

etc

Sometimes I have several variations of the above and I'd like an at-a-glance way to distinguish them without having to click into the HC or at least be able to see the description once I've clicked in.

Anyone else feel the same or do I use HC more than most?

[Macrura]

1 - Tags

to be able to tag a piece of Hanna Code in the same manner as we tag templates. We could then see the list of Hanna Codes arranged in the same format as templates. IE broken down by tag.

@Peter - how many hanna codes do you usually use on the average site? My usage has been maybe 4-5 hanna codes on a site, or maybe as many as 10 on a really complex/large site;  I do think maybe tags could help here on this page in terms of organizing them, but also i don't expect my clients to be interacting with the hanna codes list so this would be more of an admin convenience.

 2 - Usage

On the Hanna Code list i'd also like to see a column called Pages (and Templates?) telling me how many pages and templates use my Hanna Code. Again, similar to the Templates layout.

sounds trickier than the templates, b/c the hanna codes are used randomly within text areas, or text fields - and are processed at runtime to the output; not that it would be impossible, but it might be a process that needs to run to collect all of that data and could take a lot of processing depending on the # of pages in the site.. I do agree some module to get a "hanna code report" than could generate and be able to process something like 50-100 pages at a time before generating the entire report; this could be very useful, because we might want to see where a particular one is being used;

3 - Filter / Find

The Find page has a tab called Filters for searching by template, field etc etc. In fact, I can filter by almost anything except Hanna Codes.

personally I always try and come up with solutions that avoid hanna codes if at all possible and are equally easy and potentially more elegant, and as such i never have more than a handful of hanna codes per site;  Perhaps some of your hanna codes could be replaced with other solutions? they are always sort of a risk being that they are inserted into RTE, so not as bulletproof as something like a validated text input..

4 - Descriptions

To be able to add a plain text description to a Hanna Code. I try to name my HCs in a helpful way such as 

Get-Video

Get-Investor-News

etc

Sometimes I have several variations of the above and I'd like an at-a-glance way to distinguish them without having to click into the HC or at least be able to see the description once I've clicked in.

I always provide complete documentation for all hanna codes including the code itself that can be copied and then usage instructions, using my docs and docs tab system, as well as often inline using the Markup Textareas, so from the end user perspective, they can use any available hanna code right on the page (or also input with the helper module);

but i do think that having a description field would be handy, especially if you come back to a project after some time, you could see more easily what each one does, at a glance..

[Peter Knight]

@Peter - how many hanna codes do you usually use on the average site? 

Anyhere between 5-10. I have a site in progress though and the client (who is relatively good at HTML) will be using HC a lot more than normal for various reasons.

I suspect they'll start off with about 20 HCs and maybe even end up with double that amount.

You've raised some good points. I do think that at least Tags and Descriptions are genuinely needed.

One of ProcessWire's great features (to me) is scalability. Even if you don't have a requirement for a massive site, I know the scalability is there.

Would be nice for HCs to avail of same.

[LostKobrakai]

I've already posted this in the Hanna Code support forum, but I'll add it here, too. I'd really like to see description, because together with the "only be able to see the list of hanna codes" permission it would make for a good and easy to set up way for clients to look-up the available hanna codes. Without the description it may be still hard to recognize the codes for less experienced users.