[ZPT] METAL: attributes as slots

Wed, 12 Sep 2001 00:20:57 +0200 (CEST)

Chris Withers writes:
 > How's this for a possible extension to METAL:
Good - almost perfect!

 > In master_template:
 > <html metal:define-marco="page">
 > <html>
 > <head>
 > <link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" href="/stylesheet.css"
 >       tal:replace="structure here/css_inline_or_link">
 > 
 > </head>
 > <body bgcolor="#ffffff" link="#000099" alink="#000099" vlink="#000099"
 >       metal:define-attribute-slot="bgcolor"
 >       metal:define-slot="body">
 > Dummy body
 > </body>
 > </html>
 > 
 > In a_page:
 > <html metal_use-macro="here/master_template/page">
 > <body metal:fill-attribute-slot="bgcolor string:#ccccff"
 >       metal:fill-slot="page">
 > My real body
 > </body>
 > </html>
 > 
 > What do other people think?
You need to specify how the "fill-attribute-slot" and "fill-slot"
interact.

Your example suggests that you first do "fill-slot" and
then *IN THE RESULT* "fill-attribute-slot" which is not
completely intuitive.

I personally would prefer an alternative solution:

  Allow to override and extend a set of definitions in
  a "define-slot" by that in the "fill-slot" (and similarly
  for "define-macro" and "use-macro").

We need parameters (placeholder, slots) for different things
than element, for example for attributes, too.
I imagine to have something like this:

  <XXX metal:define-macro="MMM" ...
     tal:define="a ...;
                 b ...;
		 ...
		 "
    ....
  >

  ......

  <XXX metal:use-macro="MMM" ...
    tal:define="a ,,,;
                c ,,,;
		,,,;"
  >

I feel, it would be good, if the definitions of the "use-macro"
were effectively appended to the definition list of the
"define-macro". This way, the "use" could override and
extend the definitions provided by the macro definition.

Dieter