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+User preference storage
+
+Last modified: 2011-02-06
+Status: Long-term plans / partially implemented
+
+
+up = SQL: users_prefs
+Preference old storage method Current storage method Can be changed at
+- Interface language Browser or cookie: l10n Browser/up/cookie Perl: Link in main menu (explicit)
+- Main skin SQL: users.skin up: skin Perl: Users' profile (explicit)
+- Additional CSS SQL: users.customcss up: customcss Perl: Users' profile (explicit)
+- NSFW toggle SQL: users.show_nsfw up: show_nsfw Perl: Users' profile (explicit)
+- List is private SQL: users.show_list up: hide_list Perl: Users' profile (explicit)
+- Notify on announce SQL: users.notify_announce up: notify_announce Perl: Users' notifications page (explicit)
+- Notify on DB edit SQL: users.notify_dbedit up: notify_nodbedit Perl: Users' notifications page (explicit)
+- Tag spoil level Cookie: tagspoil Cookie: tagspoil JS: VN pages, Tag pages, VN filter settings (all implicit)
+- Tag VN page cat - Cookie: tagcat JS: VN pages (implicit)
+- Producer page view Cookie: prodrelexpand Cookie: prodrelexpand JS: Producer pages (implicit)
+- VN filters - up: filter_vn JS: VN filter settings (explicit)
+- Release filters - up: filter_release JS: Release filter settings (explicit)
+
+
+What do we want?
+- Ideally, all preferences are saved explicitly. That is, the user can
+ indicate whether the change of a preference is temporary or should be saved
+ as the new default.
+- Ideally, all preferences are stored on the server. This makes it easy to
+ convert the preference data on VNDB updates, without having to provide
+ backwards compatibility with old data. It also scales better than cookies.
+- Preferably, you don't have to have an account to set or change preferences.
+ In the case of the interface language it's quite important that users don't
+ have to be logged in. For other preferences it's not very important, but I
+ don't really like the idea of forcing people to create an account.
+- Preferably, the user can change each preference at the place where it makes
+ most sense:
+ - Default NSFW flag should be set when encountering an NSFW image
+ - Skin and custom CSS settings should be somewhere in the global page
+ layout (like the language setting currently is)
+ - The "my list is private" setting should be set when viewing your
+ wish/vote/VN list.
+ Although... this one might be okay on the profile page.
+ - Most other preferences already are at sensible locations
+ In particular, I don't like the idea of grouping all preferences on a
+ single "settings" or "profile" page. This is likely to become a mess (see
+ AniDB for a nice example), and users might not know something is available
+ as a preference (like how most users don't know VNDB has skins).
+- Don't store everything in separate columns of the users table. Most users
+ don't actually change their preferences from the defaults, so only saving
+ the non-default settings will save a significant amount of space. Bloating
+ the users table with information that is only ever accessed by the user
+ itself is also a bad idea - this table is used in a lot of joins and can be
+ browsed on with the user list.
+
+
+Concrete ideas:
+- (done)
+ User preferences can be stored in a separate table:
+ -- incomplete list of preference keys
+ CREATE prefs_key AS ENUM ('l10n', 'skin', 'customcss', 'show_nsfw',
+ 'hide_list', 'notify_nodbedit', 'notify_announce');
+ CREATE TABLE users_prefs (
+ uid integer NOT NULL REFERENCES users (id) ON DELETE CASCADE,
+ key prefs_key NOT NULL,
+ value varchar NOT NULL,
+ PRIMARY KEY(uid, key)
+ );
+ This doesn't store the data in a properly normalized fashion, but is likely
+ easier to work with anyway.
+- (done)
+ Accessing the prefs table from Perl:
+ - authCheck() loads all of the users' preferences in a hash
+ - authPref($key) returns the value of the preference (from the hash)
+ - authPref($key, $val) sets the preference (in hash and DB)
+- (done)
+ Keep the interface language setting as-is for anonymous visitors.
+ For logged-in users:
+ - Store the users' preferred language in the database instead of cookie.
+ - Contrary to the cookie: do not automatically remove the db preference
+ even if it's the same as what the browser requests. This is to ensure
+ that a user gets the same language even when switching PCs.
+ - When a user logs in and the l10n cookie is set, copy its value into the
+ DB and remove the cookie.
+ - Similar with logging out: copy l10n setting to cookie (but keep the DB)
+ "What language to use" checking order: database, cookie, browser
+- (done - except some JS'ed preferences)
+ All other preferences can be moved to the users_prefs table. It is a lot of
+ work to correctly save and handle all preferences for anonymous visitors,
+ so let's stick with logged-in users for now to keep things simple.
+- (done - at least the abstraction)
+ Some preferences need to be read and modified in Javascript.
+ Reading:
+ Add global JS variable using inline <script> to the bottom of the page,
+ before loading the global JS file, and store the required preferences in
+ there for the JS code to read.
+ Since some preferences are specific to some pages, add an option to
+ htmlFooter() to indicate which preferences need to be added.
+ Writing:
+ AJAX call to some .xml page. This will kind-of force the input method to
+ be explicit, since with AJAX you need some kind UI interaction to
+ indicate when the save is successful. Implicit saving is an especially
+ bad idea with this approach since that might make a lot of AJAX calls.
+- Make implicit preference saving explicit:
+ - On producer pages, add a link 'Save as default' to the left of the
+ expand/collapse link when the user is logged in AND the current view is
+ different from the default.
+ - On VN pages: same for the spoiler level
+ - On Tag pages: same for spoiler level
+ - On VN filter settings: same for spoiler level
+ I'm not sure I like this idea... unless I can figure out a good abstraction
+ to nicely add those links with a single line of code.
+- Remove "Don't hide NSFW" checkbox from profile page and add similar "Save
+ as default" links to the VN page. Close to the "show/hide NSFW" at the
+ screenshots and "Flagged as NSFW" note at the VN image.
+- Add a "settings" icon to the user menu title box thing, and have it show a
+ CSS'ed window when clicked with settings for the skin and custom CSS.
+ Optionally with Javascripted previewing of the settings.
+