[wp-trac] [WordPress Trac] #9674: Better support for custom post types

[WordPress Trac]

#9674: Better support for custom post types
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 Reporter:  wnorris                 |        Owner:  ryan    
     Type:  task (blessed)          |       Status:  reopened
 Priority:  normal                  |    Milestone:  3.0     
Component:  Administration          |      Version:  2.9     
 Severity:  normal                  |   Resolution:          
 Keywords:  has-patch tested early  |  
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Comment(by mikeschinkel):

 '''''@janeforshort: Mike, I think you misunderstood what I was trying to
 say. What developers call post types is different from what users call
 post types, and your assertion that the two aren't really different isn't
 correct (at least based on the conversations about post types I've had
 with users and developers and the features they request around them).'''''

 Sorry, wasn't trying to say they were the same just making an argument
 that they may be similar enough that people could learn the difference.  I
 think whatever terminology you use there will be user training involved
 and thus, weighing the potential confusion created by spawning a new term,
 I was arguing to maintain the term "post type."

 '''''@janeforshort: Just try teaching a new user about Pages and you'll
 see what I mean ("Go to the page, no, the Page, not the screen,"
 etc).'''''

 Funny you should bring that up! Back in Feb 2009 I have a very
 successful^(Footnote 1)^  "Launch your site Wordpress in 3 hours" event at
 my meetup group and we taught ~58 people how to use Wordpress in 3 hours.
 What's more I'm preparing a training course which I'll be delivering Jan
 5-7 and I'll be explaining explain those things yet again. :)

 So yes it can be a chore, but at least it's a chose with which I'm
 familiar. :) That said I think I've come up with some pretty good ways to
 explain it that most people I teach seem to understand right out of the
 gate.

 BTW, we'll get to meet face-to-face sometime between Jan 8-10 while you
 are here in Atlanta for Wordcamp.  :)

 '''''@janeforshort: The end result of this discussion isn't something I'm
 overly passionate about,'''''

 I guess you could label me relatively passionate about getting this one
 right (whatever "right" is. :)

 '''''@janeforshort: I just think it's important to think about how we use
 common words with multiple uses in describing functions, especially if it
 will make it harder to clarify them in the future.'''''

 Agreed.

 '''''@janeforshort: If I could get rid of the Pages label and call them
 static posts or something, I'd do it in a New York minute, but it's a
 little late in the game to suggest such a thing.'''''

 A "New York minute";  you sure about that one?  (consider the origin of
 the phrase! ;)  But seriously, explaining Pages and Posts isn't that hard
 once you find the things that resonate with people. It took me quite a
 while to find what works but finally here's how I explain it:

   ''"Pages" are those static things that are always there like the
 "Products", "Services" and "About" pages on a website.  "Posts" have a
 time/date component to them and are a lot like a news story. A "Post" by
 definition will have a date/time on which it's published and it "ages"
 from that day forward. Website owners continuously update "Pages" as their
 websites evolve but it's bad form to modify a "Post" unless to append an
 explicitly noted "Update" section or to explicitly link to newer related
 articles.  After all, you wouldn't want to quote and link to an article on
 CNN.com and go back later to find that the story had changed, would you?
 The same should apply to your blog Posts. So that's the difference between
 Pages and Posts.''

 With that explanation I've literally never had someone tell me they
 continue to be confused.  Try it maybe?


 '''''@janeforshort: This discussion is simply raising the issue so we can
 be sure we are using the least ambiguous and/or potentially confusing
 language possible. I could put up a poll on the dev blog if people really
 think it will help, but to be honest, I think custom post types would be
 so misunderstood by the common user without pages of explanation, and in
 contrast are already so accepted by the advanced developers, that it would
 be difficult to get a meaningful set of results.

 Maybe, but what if the poll were worded like so?

   ''We are considering adding more CMS-like functionality into Wordpress.
 By "CMS-like" we mean providing functionality site owners could use to
 build more advanced sites. Rather than have sites be just a collection of
 blog posts and static content pages instead we want to be able to have
 collections of things like "products", "real estate listings", "events",
 "recipes", "businesses", "cars", "software", "motherboards", "camera",
 "venues", and more.  Problem is we are not sure what generic term we
 should call these things as compared to what we have already, i.e. "Posts"
 and "Pages" so that it will cause the least confusion among users.''

   ''So here are the terms we've thrown around, in alpha order ; we'd like
 you to vote for the term you think most clearly describes to you the kind
 of thing that could be used as a container for information about products,
 real estate listings, events, recipes, businesses, cars, software,
 motherboards, cameras, venues, etc. If you have ideas beyond the ones
 we've had, please let us know those too:''

  * Content
  * Container
  * Content Items
  * Content Types
  * Custom Post Types
  * Entity Types
  * Generic Types
  * Items
  * Objects
  * Post Types
  * Records
  * Things
  * OTHER? __________

   '''''Note''': If "Post Type" or "Custom Post Type" are not confusing to
 you we'd prefer to use them as those terms are currently already baked
 into the Wordpress program source code and changing them making actually
 cause confusion rather than help the situation.
 ''

 Of course you could leave the note off if you don't want to bias the
 sample but I'd prefer it because not changing the term has the significant
 benefit of not creating two names for the same thing.

 Anyway, that's my view. Unless you want to further discuss I'll go back to
 working on my post types plugin now. :)

 -Mike Schinkel

 Footnote 1:  http://www.meetup.com/atlantawebmarketers/calendar/9711037/
 (See the positive comments! :)

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Ticket URL: <http://core.trac.wordpress.org/ticket/9674#comment:79>
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