Bulletproof: Adding colorset designer's credits

[yellowled]

Somewhere in the saltmines at http://s9y-bulletproof.com, your trusty Bulletproof development team is working on yet another new version of the kindly appreciated template framework for Serendipity.

The last release added a new feature called "user colorsets", which made it very easy to supply new, shiny colorsets for BP by adding some fancy images and a new CSS file. We'd love to be able to give credit to people doing colorsets, i.e. let them include a link to their site. Unfortunately, all three of us have yet to master PHP, so we need coder help once more (at least we guess we need it since we're unable to come up with a solution on our own ).

Is there any way to for example include a text file in the colorset zipfile, read this, and put it's content into a variable we can use in smarty templates? Something like, say, a file called COLORSETNAME_info.txt looking like this:

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Colorset name: Dull
Author: Yellowled
URI: http://yellowled.de

Read this file with some PHP magic (of course minding Grandma's performance pennies! ), put these lines into variables, access them from the index.tpl ... I know I'm asking a lot here, and I have absolutely no idea if it is possible at all. Is it? Other ideas/suggestion?

YL

[garvinhicking]

Hi!

That would mean a large performance impact and a possible security issue because colorset designers could then easily inject any HTML they want.

I don't think this should be done, the benefits are much less than the drawbacks. Plus, I think swamping the credit/footer line isn't the way to go:

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Content copyright by Garvin Hicking, Bulletproof framework by bulletproof Team, Colorset by YellowLED based on a design by IncredibleGuy powered by Serendipity.

...

Regards,
Garvin

[yellowled]

That would mean a large performance impact

God, I love reading that sentence!

and a possible security issue because colorset designers could then easily inject any HTML they want.

Whereas this is a severe thing nobody had thought of yet.

I don't think this should be done, the benefits are much less than the drawbacks. Plus, I think swamping the credit/footer line isn't the way to go:

Yeah, well, I guess we'll have to come up with a different way to honor colorset contributors. However, this will probably keep some people from doing colorsets at all. Anyway, if somebody desperately wants to have a backlink, he/she will simply have to do a template based on BP.

Thanks, Garvin.

YL

[garvinhicking]

Hi!

Yeah, well, I guess we'll have to come up with a different way to honor colorset contributors. However, this will probably keep some people from doing colorsets at all. Anyway, if somebody desperately wants to have a backlink, he/she will simply have to do a template based on BP.

I'd vote for simply including an "AUTHORS.html" file, listing the achievements, names and links for everybody. Then add a link to that file in the copyright section of the blog. When contributing a colorset, simply add the person to that authors file.

If backlinks are the way to go, people are surely allowed to propgata their own bundled BP version, as long as licensing matches...

Regards,
Garvin

[yellowled]

I'd vote for simply including an "AUTHORS.html" file, listing the achievements, names and links for everybody. Then add a link to that file in the copyright section of the blog. When contributing a colorset, simply add the person to that authors file.

I don't think that would be much better than a static page or something on s9y-bulletproof.com holding a list of contributors ... but that's just not the same like a backlink from every blog using your colorset, I guess.

Personally, I don't care about this, but some potential colorset authors have indicated otherwise. Well, never mind.

YL

[garvinhicking]

Hi!

But that page would be on the person's blog page, so it should receive backlinks (albeit from the AUTHORS.html and not from that persons whole blog pages).

Regards,
Garvin

[Don Chambers]

IncredibleGuy here... just want to say I think there is nothing wrong with all those credits!!!

I think the idea was to provide something like a template's info.txt file and load the info much as it is now loaded for each template listed in "manage styles". Does that also have a security risk?

But I DO think the credits could become so lengthy that it would be like watching the end of a movie. Not sure I like the alternative of an authors.html file, although I see how it would provide backlinks.

We could completely replace "template by bulletproof development team" and replace that with a colorset author name/link. The button would still exist - and that might even be something we turn into a non-graphic link.

If we cannot come up with something better, then we should probably forget it.

[garvinhicking]

Hi!

I think the idea was to provide something like a template's info.txt file and load the info much as it is now loaded for each template listed in "manage styles". Does that also have a security risk?

Ah, if that's the intention, that shouldn't be a problem. Only exposing this link to the admin is no technical issue -- but does it really make sense there? Because it will have no backlink effect...

Regards,
Garvin

[carl_galloway]

When the user selects the colorset the info from the info.txt could be loaded into the database alongside the colorset name, then index.tpl could check to see if this exists when formatting the page. There would be no security risk then.

[Don Chambers]

Sorry - did not mean only display it in the admin/backend... I meant retrieving the info from a text file much as is done now for templates.

If the file/author info exists, we could replace "template by" with "colorset by" including a link to that author, unless your concern is that someone would use what is supposed to be their website link with malicious code.

[garvinhicking]

Hi!

info.txt is not queried on the frontend, so we have no mean to read that.

Reading that file and parsing it every time a template is displayed would mean a huge impact, this was what I was talking about.

Regards,
Garvin

[carl_galloway]

That's why I suggested adding it to the database at the same time as the colorset is selected by the admin.

Then the file is only read once, and the colorset author link is pulled from the database along with all the other template config stuff.

[garvinhicking]

Hi!

That's why I suggested adding it to the database at the same time as the colorset is selected by the admin.

This could be done, but coding that is not trivial. I can't do it until march, I suppose.

Regards,
Garvin