Hello,
One of the things I love about Perch is I don't have to go to the control panel to get things done. Examples:
- Perch templates define the content schema - I don't need to do that via the control panel
- perch_content_create() allows me to create a region with some default options
A part of me wishes I could achieve more from the code editor without having to log into the control panel.
Although Collections is a big selling point of Runway, you have to create a Collection via a control panel. It would be nice if we can create Collections and set some default options (template, item URL, sort by, sort order, etc) from a file e.g. /perch/config/collections.php.
Another big feature in Runway is Routing, yet you also have to add them via the control panel. Not sure how feasible this would be, but if given the option, I would prefer to register routes from the master page templates:
Or from a single file:
Why?
Managing these settings/options from the codebase would enable us to version control them.
This would also make working in teams with other developers smoother. I end up having to add these settings locally and on staging to make them accessible to other developers. Developers still have to copy those to their local environments (of course they will miss something) or at least download the database from staging (it can overwrite what they were working on).
When it comes to routes, it would be a lot easier to add multiple URL patterns in one go to a file instead of adding one, save it, add another, save, etc. A client site has now ~50 URL patterns.
These are just thoughts. Perhaps others don't agree with me. Perhaps it's not practical to change the current implementation. Or perhaps this is already addressed in v4?