#18449 closed defect (bug) (fixed)
List Table Factory Needs to be Pluggable
Reported by: |
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Owned by: |
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Milestone: | 6.1 | Priority: | normal |
Severity: | normal | Version: | 3.1 |
Component: | Administration | Keywords: | has-patch needs-dev-note |
Focuses: | Cc: |
Description
Better design planning should have been considered for http://core.trac.wordpress.org/browser/trunk/wp-admin/includes/list-table.php
function _get_list_table() is identical to an object factory pattern, which would make more sense as a static member of WP_List_Table. In other words...
$wp_list_table = _get_list_table('WP_Terms_List_Table');
... which looks simple, is actually confusing because it would be more intuitive if written as ...
$wp_list_table = WP_List_Table::factory('Terms');
Further, the factory hasn't offered any extensibility. Locking edit-tags.php against WP_Terms_List_Table makes it unusable for custom taxonomies that need a custom UI. Despite all of the great API improvements for taxonomies, this case still necessitates duplicating the entire category editing UI within a plugin just to tweak a table column or a link path.
Please adjust the ticket Type and Component as necessary. It could be a taxonomy design flaw or an administration enhancement, depending how you look at it.
Attachments (2)
Change History (43)
#2
@
12 years ago
- Milestone changed from Awaiting Review to Future Release
Somewhere in Space this may all be happening right now.
@
8 years ago
Adding a filter to _get_list_table() to allow developers to return an object of their own class in place of core classes
#10
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8 years ago
- Keywords has-patch added
I recently ran into a situation where I needed to make some extensive customizations to the WP_Media_List_Table
class and the filters it provided was not enough. So I'm hoping I can bring life back to this ticket with a patch that would help us all out.
It adds the filter 'pre_get_list_table'
to _get_list_table()
. It allows a developer to check what class was requested, and return an object of a different class if needed.
#11
@
8 years ago
- Milestone changed from Future Release to 4.4
- Owner set to wonderboymusic
- Status changed from new to assigned
I've ripped apart List Tables the past 2-3 releases. I think they are downright usable now.
This ticket was mentioned in Slack in #core by sergey. View the logs.
8 years ago
#14
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8 years ago
The 'pre_get_list_table'
filter should probably be 'wp_list_table_class'
, for consistency with 'wp_admin_bar_class'
.
#15
@
8 years ago
- Milestone changed from 4.4 to Future Release
I have severe reservations about this endorsement now - I still consider WP_Screen
, the random functions that interact with it, and WP_List_Table
to be super weird
This ticket was mentioned in Slack in #core by sergey. View the logs.
6 years ago
#17
@
6 years ago
- Milestone changed from Future Release to 4.9
In 18449.2.diff:
- add the filter following @SergeyBiryukov's advice above
- removes
@access private
from all the list table classes (ref #24938, labeled dupe of this ticket)
After six years I think the opportunity for someone to take ownership of the list table API has passed and WordPress is stuck with what's in there already.
Changing the API & breaking backward compatibility in any substantive way will break too many plugins.
I think the future release has come so am putting on the milestone to encourage discussion.
#18
@
6 years ago
- Milestone changed from 4.9 to Future Release
Discussion doesn't seem to be happening and 4.9-beta3 is in a few hours, so I'm punting.
This ticket was mentioned in Slack in #core-php by sergey. View the logs.
5 years ago
This ticket was mentioned in Slack in #core by peterwilsoncc. View the logs.
14 months ago
#22
@
14 months ago
- Owner wonderboymusic deleted
I can not foresee a contributor brave enough to change the API of WP_List_Table
. Nor can I imagine the extraordinarily brave committer deciding that changing the API is a good opportunity to maintain their SVN skills.
https://wpdirectory.net/search/01FZY3TDNVDGYZ0PX5131BF11H
I'll spend a few days deciding if 6.0 is the future release in which this gets done. YOLO.
This ticket was mentioned in PR #3091 on WordPress/wordpress-develop by peterwilsoncc.
10 months ago
#23
#24
follow-up:
↓ 31
@
10 months ago
- Milestone changed from Future Release to 6.1
I've refreshed the patch in the linked pull request.
- new filter per @SergeyBiryukov's suggestion above
- removes the
private
access from all the list tables to reflect reality
About half the plugins in the most popular list include the extends WP_List_Table. The chance of the API being substantially changed in a backward incompatible manner is basically zero.
This ticket was mentioned in Slack in #core by audrasjb. View the logs.
9 months ago
#27
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9 months ago
- Keywords commit added
This ticket was mentioned during today's bug scrub.
It looks pretty straightforward @peterwilsoncc I can't see any reason for not shipping your patch :)
Marking for commit
.
#28
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9 months ago
I've made a change to the PR since the commit keyword was added: @costdev suggested putting an is_string()
check on the class name, so I've done that.
The filter is named wp_list_table_class_name
.
Is everyone still good for a commit?
#31
in reply to:
↑ 24
@
9 months ago
Replying to peterwilsoncc:
About half the plugins in the most popular list include the extends WP_List_Table. The chance of the API being substantially changed in a backward incompatible manner is basically zero.
Just wanted to chime in with support for and agreement with this statement.
I did add one inline comment on the PR with a question. But I don't consider it a blocker for committing this.
peterwilsoncc commented on PR #3091:
9 months ago
#32
@desrosj @costdev @SergeyBiryukov Should _get_list_table()
have the private delegation removed while making these changes?
With the new filter, it appears WordPress is encouraging developers to use it so it seem odd to maintain it as a private API.
9 months ago
#33
@peterwilsoncc I'm inclined to agree. Certainly it's plugin usage suggests it's also already used publicly, including by some very widely-used plugins.
This ticket was mentioned in Slack in #core by audrasjb. View the logs.
8 months ago
#35
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8 months ago
- Keywords changes-requested added; commit removed
This ticket was discussed during today's bug scrub, and looking at the discussion in the above PR, I tend to agree with removing the private
delegation as well.
#36
@
8 months ago
- Keywords changes-requested removed
I've updated the PR to merge in trunk and remove the private delegation from _get_list_table()
.
peterwilsoncc commented on PR #3091:
8 months ago
#38
Merged in https://core.trac.wordpress.org/changeset/54378 / 09d9a3d7ba97552f822d8ab33cf76722c82fa85c
#40
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8 months ago
As shared via slack, here's my suggestion for the miscellaneous developer focused changes dev note.
Administration
List tables are no longer considered private to WordPress Core and can now be freely used by themes and plugins. The private delegation has been removed from the_get_list_table()
function andWP_List_Table
and related classes. See #18449.
WP_List_Table
is used 17,505 times in the plugin repo so I don't think a full dev note explaining their use is needed.
_get_list_table() used to be get_list_table(), and it had a filter to allow for switching out tables.
When we pulled out XHR bits and made the entire API private near the end of 3.1, we renamed it to the current, private version.
When someone finally takes ownership of and rewrites the list table API, I think this would indeed be a good approach.